/
He Shujün and Mystic are approaching their destination──The dormitory. Along the way, Mystic asks, a little put off, “isn’t it… too quiet?”
Obviously, the school would contain students from other grades. Even if the secondary six students are cramming hard, why would the remaining students be completely silent?
He Shujün, though, merely gives Mystic a mysterious smile and says, “that is because, this is just that. A school exclusively… for secondary six students.”
Mystic seems surprised, saying, “all in one place?”
“Yeah. To nurture an atmosphere, I think?” He Shujün shrugs and says, “well, when the entire society has gone to the dogs, including the parents and teachers and students, do you think the Education Department would fare any better?”
Mystic shakes her head and mutters, “there is a mood. The society is uneasy.”
“Well, I might not call it ‘uneasy.’ I’d just go and call it insane,” says He Shujün.
She doesn’t think it’s right to call it uneasy, but there’s an argument to be made that, the madness may have simply amplified the strongest emotions around, whatever they are.
They walk past the empty, abandoned classrooms, sports courts, and the canteen, the tuck shops, the medical centre… There’s not a single person anywhere.
Mystic then asks the obvious question, “if they’ve assembled all the secondary six students here to study, then why would the classrooms be abandoned, with dust settled on the books inside and the students nowhere to be found?”
He Shujün says, “we’re about to find the students right now.”
“In the dormitories?” Mystic looks confused, muttering, “not in the classrooms? They’re… studying in their dormitories?”
“To save time.”
Mystic looks speechless.
The heavy layer of dust means no student has set foot inside for a long time, months on end. They’re currently on the crisp of summer, but even if they add the half a month of holiday from the Chinese New Year…
The only explanation, is that since the second and last semester of the academic year began, the secondary six students have abandoned their classrooms altogether, to simply have lessons in their rooms?
Mystic mutters, “they’re crazy.”
“They sure are,” He Shujün replies, “no one would do these if not completely insane.”
Mystic seems hesitant to agree, but she nods in the end. He Shujün’s ‘these’ in her reply didn’t only refer to studying in the dormitories. There is something deeper to it.
What would it be?
Mystic both wants to know, and thinks she shouldn’t try to know.
If something like this were to happen to her daughter, she would be devastated.
But the madness spreading through humanity, seems to have already become some sort of… principle. An excuse.
Mystic thinks she can’t possibly accept her daughter going through this right now, but it was all permitted because of the madness.
Because of the unreasonable, inexplicable insanity.
If a madmen does normal things, then they’re not a madmen, are they?
But… it’s still not right.
Mystic tries to find her moral footing.
Here, she can’t help but realise that, when the madness spread through the Earth for real, humans have completely succumbed and adapted.
They are now in front of the dormitories, silent.
There are five buildings in the dormitory area. Two boy’s, two girl’s. The first floor of each student dormitory houses the teachers, and everything upstairs are the students’ rooms.
He Shujün says, “because they don’t have many students here, they are able to arrange one room for each student. They’ve also renovated the rooms and refurbished it to be comfortable.”
Mystic nods, then asks, “what about the last building?”
“That’s where the parents live.”
Mystic is astonished, but then, these are students and people who don’t even want to waste the time traveling from the dormitory to the classrooms. It seems downright normal to have the parents simply living with the students.”
Then He Shujün explains, “each floor of the dormitory has an activity centre, which are now acting as the students’ actual classrooms. When self-study periods come around, they return to their dormitories to study.
Each room is fitted with surveillance cameras, and the teachers patrol the corridors nonstop and look inside rooms to make sure the students are properly studying.”
Mystic then asks, as expected, “then what if… they’re not studying?”
He Shujün almost reflexively shuts her mouth as she can feel something clogging her voice. The emotions are threatening to explode in her chest. It’s agony.
An agony she can’t identify the source of.
She knows what the scene looks like when they enter the dormitory, but she still can’t remember what it was outside the Tower.
Is it more tragic and depressing, to know, or not know, the truth?
Right now, He ShujĂźn thinks, she wants to.
Those who know wishes they don’t;
Those who don’t wishes they do.
Humans. Contradictory. Laughably farcical.
With an almost elegiac mood overtaking her, He Shujün says, “you’ll know when we enter.”