Twenty-six tables were lined tidily. There was a figure seated behind each table studiously scrubbing away. Middle-aged or younger invigilators patrolled the examination hall with stern expressions on their faces. Whenever someone rose their head even the slightest bit, they would be showered lovingly with a collection of stares from the invigilators. â˘
The examination room was stuffy. The scorching sun shone in the room, bathing the row of students inside as they rose their head uncomfortably. Under the scary gazes of the teachers though, they lowered their heads back again.
Amongst the students was a person; she sat unmovingly. Z L T
Her display of self-discipline in sitting still and unmoving had some of the teachers even looking over at her more than normal. A middle-aged lady walked over and silently looked over. When she saw the empty examination script, she frowned.
Her Mathematics paperâfrom the multiple choice questions all the way to the endâwas completely blank.
Their school was ranked number one in their province, so they shouldnât be seeing such a student! No matter how poor her studies was, she should at least write her name on her script!
She moved her finger, wanting to just collect her script and get the student out of the examination hall⌠after all, itâs already been half an hour, she canât pa.s.s the paper even if she was a genius.
And on top of that, the script this time was⌠hah. Z L T
Just as she raised her hand, the studentâs right hand suddenly moved and scratched a few lines and circles across the blank s.p.a.ce provided for the last question. After repeatedly writing those symbols, she drew a few lines between the numbers and wrote a few strange characters above.
The invigilating teacher paused. Such a strange scene was the no-brainer for the invigilator, it was prevalent despite repeated prohibitionâcheating. The teacher walked a round around the student; the student had her head lowered. Her black hair was down on her shoulders, her ears revealed; she wasnât wearing any earpiece. Both her hands were on the table, the s.p.a.ce under her table was empty too. She was wearing the simplest short-sleeved shirt and jeans; the teacher found no trace.
In such a short span of time, the teacher saw the candidate wrote a few symbols beneath the numbers before writing an answer down in the blank.
The answers werenât given out so the invigilating teacher didnât know if her answer was correct. But since this student started doing the questions, there was nothing more for her to say. After looking at her a while more, the invigilator slowly walked away.
If the invigilator were to turn around to spare the student another glanceâjust one glanceâsheâd definitely be floored to the extent her eyeb.a.l.l.s popped.
The student only paused for a short moment. After which, the candidate immediately turned her gaze to the questions before her, scribbling away madly.
She only spared each question a single glance before jotting down the answers without further hesitation, and that lasted all the way till the end of the paper. She gave only the answer even for the open-ended problem solving questions,
After finishing, she placed her pen down, no longer looking at the script anymore, and turned to look outside.
The sun shone brightly, the greenery vibrant; the mountains, water, clouds, sky, none of them changed. Z L T
The Blue Planet* didnât change; its masters changed.
* čć = Blue Planet (literally translated into Blue Planet); referring to the Earth Z L T
These astonishingly able beings with their ridiculously low culture yet incredibly sharp instinct, strong defense and heavy damage, and acute, violent intelligence wereâŚ. so difficult to get along with yet so easily hoodwinked and⌠so adorable!
It was unlike here, where she discovered her masterâbodyâwasnât someone easily deceived. And just as she was learning how to walk, sheâs dragged along to sprint; the moment she sat, she had to learn how to hold this ancient writing device, and then stare blankly into the sheet of paper filled with alien symbols.â˘
The Blue Planetâs civilisation seemed to have went through a considerable change, launching itself down a route similarâyet not quite the sameâto her home-planetâs.
Judging from the surrounding mammals walking with both their feet on the ground, this planet was still in the mid-late stage of its industrial civilisation; there were some budding signs of technological revolution. The evolution of the livings beings and development of civilisation was going to take a detour.
What was she seeking while taking this detour? Z L T
Sigh.
While she had time, she carefully extracted some of the memories of this body and roughly figured out that the process she was going through now was something termed as an examination in the beginning of the term, and it was going to be for ranking, streamingâŚ
What were they? She understood ranking⌠but streaming⌠was this racism? If that was the case than according to statues of evaluation, the standard the civilisation seemed to be lower than she thoughtâŚ
There were four subjects tested in this examination in the beginning of the term, namely Mathematics, Language, English, Science, and they were tested in this order as well. Mathematics was termed something else back in her home-planet; though the expression and symbols were different, it was⌠shockingly simple once she understood what the symbols meant.
The bell rang; it was time to hand in the script. Z L T
When she saw the others going forward to submit their papers, she blindly followed suit. After which, she carefully watched as the people sitting around her left this closed-off placeâapparently termed as a cla.s.sroomâwith four surrounding walls, and quietly wondered what she should doâŚ
âMo Mo! Whatâre you doing sitting and stoning? Câmon letâs go lunch! And tidy our dorms laterâŚâ a girl ran over, her ponytail bobbing behind her. She pulled her up, âgoodness, donât blank out, itâs not like you donât know the examinations in the beginning of the term in First High are known to be demonically hard, and the Science paper especially⌠this Math paperâs definitely trying to scare us to pull up our socks before school starts.â
Mo Mo⌠is probably my name right, she quietly slinked into the memory garage in her head with the name Mo Mo, and immediately found countless memories regarding the name Mo Mo.
Xuan Mo was this fifteen year-old femaleâs name. Z L T
With these information in hand, she would be able to quietly live among the humans and await her next hibernation, and await the next individual who⌠like her came here.
âMo Mo, I realised youâre s.p.a.cing out a lot since morning, câmon girl, you gotta stay awake! The Language and English paper tomorrowâs our stronger subjects! Weâll be fine as long as we donât fail those!â
Xuan Mo looked at the girl pulling her along; this girl, name Tian Jin Jin was a someone she grew up with, âchildhood friendâ. She was a very⌠happy-go-lucky*? âŚhuman.â˘
* 沥ĺżć˛Ąčş = (idiom) happy-go-lucky/senseless/simple-minded; if you break the four words apart, they directly translate into âno heart no lungsâ
She was a little dubious about the happy-go-lucky description Xuan Mo had for her friend. She had the impulse to x-ray Tian Jin Jin to see if she really lacked these two vital organs*.
* wordplay; see footnote on the term âhappy-go-luckyâ above Z L T
But never mind that, itâs not like she could give her lungs and heart even if she managed to see. Z L T
She followed Tian Jin Jin and they headed over to another place that was filed with lots of humans. All the people there had a metal board with dents in their hands, it seemed like they were getting food⌠a consumption commodity of meager energy yet high waste output.
âThey say the food in First High is good; it does look good!â Tian Xin Xin looked around in excitement, skipping over to get two plates and handed one to Xuan Mo. âHere, whatâd you want to eat? Letâs queue up!â
Xuan Mo was at loss. Just as she figured out what these beings were doing, she had to do what they were doing. Did that mean that she had to learn how to use utensils after using how to write?
As expectedâŚ
She stared at Tian Jin Jin using chopstick silently. Xuan Mo first grabbed her pair of chopsticks, not moving. After which, she turned around in a false pretense of surveying the surroundings; while she observed, she caught the knack to wielding her chopsticks before she clipped the wooden stalks properly.
âHurry eat! The foodâs gonna get cold!â
d.a.m.nit, she still had to learn how to chew her food! Z L T
The body did not actually belong to the original owner, rather, it was made from the remaining materials left in the nutrition pods, so the memories were only extracted from the original owner by a mental transmission device. So⌠Xuan Mo was very worried that her chewing may differ from other peopleâs motion because of the different efficiency and frequency.
Hence, she could only observe how the people around her consumed their food, such as how many times they chewed their food before swallowing itâŚ
How tiring!
Though she was extremely spirited, she could not withstand such exhaustion either. Xuan Mo very quickly realised, after which, that not everyone was consuming food. And so, she followed sit and pushed the plate aside after eating a few bites and looked away.
âYouâre not eating again?â Tian Jin Jin rolled her eyes, âYour figureâs already good enough! Youâre pretty enough, so stop starving yourself! But hm⌠why do I feel like youâve somehow changed?â
Xuan Mo glanced at her.
âYou got a lot prettier⌠your figureâs became⌠woah, when did you get so hot? I didnât see you over the holidays at all, did you went off to exercise?â
Xuan Mo was very puzzled. She didnât know what hot meantâthat word didnât sound like a good oneâ yet Tian Jin Jin said it with such admiration.
âIâm not eating either then? Exactly how did you exercise, teach me!â Tian Jin Jin pushed her plate aside.
ââŚâ Xuan Mo could tell Tian Jin Jinâs calorie intake was insufficient with just a single glance. She opened her mouth, but suddenly realised that she wasnât able to reach the frequency to p.r.o.nounce the words from her home-planet with her current body. However, she didnât know how to speak the dialect from this place either.
At that, she stood, helpless, and wanted to go out to look around. Sheâd been dragged over to this school when sheâd just awoken today, so she has yet to get the chance to properly see this world.â˘
Just as she reached the exit, a group of people entered. The person in the lead was a male that was about her age.
Xuan Mo moved aside to let them pa.s.s. Though her soul was light, her body was heavy so she was still unaccustomed to the disparity. Therefore when she moved, her steps were still a little unsteady. At that, the youth in the lead leaning against the gla.s.s door to the canteen squinted at her actions.
Xuan Mo had all the memories the original Xuan Mo owned. However, no matter how strong her mental spirit was, it was too dangerous for her accommodate all of Xuan Moâs memories at one go. Therefore for Marshal-grade mental power wielder like her, they had the ability to automatically save someone elseâs mental data into another opened region in their heads; itâs a like a computer, where the C drive is your own system disk, while other peopleâs items are placed accordingly elsewhere as well, and requires time to be retrieved.
The retrieval of such data wasnât something that can be done immediately and at oneâs will either, one will need relevant information to trigger the memories, else this certain piece of memory will remain in existence unknowingly for a long time.
For example when Tian Jin Jin mentioned money, Xuan Mo recalled that there was a pile of small change in a shoe box under a bed in one of the roomsâŚ
When she saw the youth, even more information, of which were much more important that money, flooded her head.
Memories from when she was young, when she was sniffing, punished to stand, crying, laughing, being mischievousâŚ
Whatâs more was that this retrieval was only of the memories, Xuan Mo would not inherit any of the original ownerâs emotions, else she could have experienced how widely different this place was from her home-planetâit was liberal, free of data and numbers, and love existed.
Despite so, that youth walked past her without even a glance at her. Behind him were a few Blue Planet males and females whom she presumed were seen as relatively good-looking on this planet.
Xuan Mo, having come from a society where hierarchy didnât exist, probably would never know what princelings* were if she hadnât came to the Blue Planet.
* 太ĺĺ = Princelings/Partyâs Crown Princes; referring to the descendants of prominent and influential senior communist officials in the Peopleâs Republic of China.
After the group of them walked off, Xuan Mo turned to exit. Z L T
âMo Mo! Where are you going!â After throwing away her food, Tian Jin Jin caught up with her. Z L T
âWalking around.â After having so many of her memories triggered, Xuan Mo now possessed the ability to utilise a part of her language ability, and it wasnât very stiff when she said it.
Tian Jin Jin paused for a moment before suddenly saying: âI just realised this is your first time talking today!â Z L T
Insensitive⌠another new word.
âAre you very stressed?â THMYO IS HOSTED @ ZHANLAN TL
âHonestly, itâs already pretty decent to even enter this school, and your grades are better than mine on top of that. Though me we not be able to enter Cla.s.s One but it wonât be a problem for us to get into the normal cla.s.ses. Even if we did get into Cla.s.s Thirteen very unluckily, the faculty is still going strongâŚâ
And so, the afternoon pa.s.sed with a certain someone nagging away and another certain false human studying away, guilty.
After lunch was language lesson.
Xuan Mo cupped her forehead with a hand; she was struggling. Z L T
One required emotions to learn a language, itâs not that Xuan Mo didnât have any of that, itâs just that she didnât have the emotions the Blue Planet inhabitants had, neither did she posses the same thought process.
After triggering her memories continuously, she has finally reached the stage where she would face no problem looking at the scriptâshe recognised every single word, but when they were chained together⌠she recognised them no more.
Lotus pond⌠thatâs a part of the scenery, what could a scenery entrust* (ji tuo)? What entrust (ji tuo) mean? Was mailing (you ji) and checking in (tuo yun) a new form of logistic chain? â˘
* ĺŻć = ji tuo; to entrust, éŽĺŻ = you ji; to mail (often letters), ćčż = tuo yun; to check in/consign; the 2nd word of éŽĺŻ and 1st word of ćčż makes up ĺŻć
GoodnessâŚ
She really wanted to groan. Z L T
After barely sc.r.a.ping through the multiple choice questions and filling in the blanks, Xuan Mo finished reading the remaining questions in earnest, all the while completely befuddled. There were two pa.s.sages, of which one was written in cla.s.sical proseâwhich she of course didnât get one bit. As for the essay question, letâs not even go there seriously⌠it was something on disappearing existence. Though this topic had her being reminded of her old friends that had once ruled this Blue Planet, the teacher marking this obviously wonât like seeing an introductory essay on the lives of dinosaurs under this profound topic.
Sigh. She placed her pen down, rubbed her temples and looked out, continuing to observe the world.
The language paper was collected, and with that, the examinations for the day ended.
As expected, Tian Jin Jin dashed over in a flurry: âAlmost forgot we had to tidy our dorms after walking around with you in the afternoon, letâs hurry go! Iâm almost done tidying, but youâre not, and youâre still disappearing on me!â
Xuan Mo let herself being dragged as they weaved through the bustling crowd of people. She smiled bitterly. This la.s.s mustâve been terribly un.o.bservant to not realise that the previous Xuan Mo was running off to suicide rather than simply disappearing on her! Though she took advantage of this loophole with the previous Xuan Moâs death, suicide was, no matter which era or civilisation, was not something to take light of.
Thinking of the suicide, she immediately retrieved another memories; she saw a chilly youth with a mocking laugh in her head.