Volume 12: Former Boss Reduced To A Garlic-Peeling Little Sister
Exchange
Chen Meihan
People are curious by nature. Sometimes, the more you’re told not to do something, the more curious you become.
Hearing her say that, the players’1 expressions came to life. They understood there had to be something on the second floor—either a ghost or a key clue.
Having said what needed to be said, Director Liu waved a hand at them. “The textbooks are on the table. Come get them yourselves. One per person, don’t take extra. Go back and plan your lessons well. Your office is room 207 on the second floor. There are ten desks inside, so you can divide them amongst yourselves. You can work there normally.”
At this, she repeated herself once more. “Remember, whether or not you can stay depends on how much the students like you.” Finally, she offered some encouragement. “Do a good job, kids.”
Everyone went to get their textbooks, and then the group dispersed.
Most chose to check out the office environment first; if they were late, they’d be stuck with whatever desks were left over. Shen Maomao didn’t have much preference; based on her experience over the past few years, the rooms and seats in the game no longer had any correlation with the probability of death. The chances of something happening in any given room were exactly the same.
She used the phrase “no longer” because back when she first entered the game, there was a layer of superstition to the issue of seating. In recent years, however, that superstition had become completely useless. A data emperor2 on the forums had analyzed it and come to the conclusion above.
The game had quietly evolved again. Besides the probability issue, the vividness of the NPCs had also changed without the players’ knowledge. These days, it was rare to see stiff, green-faced, tusked NPCs in the game. Take this Director Liu, for example—she had a well-developed persona and personality, and she didn’t look much different from a real person.
Over the past few years, Shen Maomao had grown increasingly curious about what this game truly was.
It could easily decide the life or death of others, erase all traces of a person’s existence, and it was constantly updating and upgrading itself.
Shen Maomao had once asked Puck if he knew what the game was. She was surprised to find that Puck was aware of his own existence within the game, but he couldn’t explain what the game was and was unable to help her.
For her, Puck was more of a spiritual anchor. The moment she saw him, she would think of Lou Jingmo, which kept her from losing the motivation to keep fighting.
“Xiao Lou? Why are you spacing out all of a sudden?” Dingdang waved a hand in front of her face. “Aren’t we going to go grab a desk? They’ve already taken all the good ones inside!”
Shen Maomao snapped back to reality and took a sharp step back. “Sorry,” she repeated. “I don’t like people getting too close to me.”
Dingdang blinked. “Ah! I’m sorry, I forgot!”
“It’s fine. Weren’t you worried about getting a desk? Go on.” Shen Maomao rubbed her temples3, which were throbbing faintly. Lately, she found herself zoning out at the slightest lapse in attention. If nothing happened, it would take her a while to come back to her senses, but if someone got close to her like this, she would wake up instantly. Because of that, she had never flipped the car4 over it.
Dingdang shot her a wronged look and said in a charmingly petulant voice, “What’s the point of rushing now? I bet the only spots left are by the door.”
“It’s fine,” Shen Maomao said. “They’re all the same. Let’s just go.”
The two entered the office, one after the other. It was just as Dingdang had said; the only two desks left were right by the entrance.
The moment they walked in, the office, which had been buzzing with intense discussion, fell silent. It was as if the two of them were some kind of flood and fierce beast5. Every single person was staring at them.
Shen Maomao ignored their gazes, placed the Chinese language book in her hand on the outermost desk, and gestured for Dingdang to take the one further in.
Dingdang didn’t refuse. She pulled out the chair and sat down, resting her left cheek on her hand as she watched her. “So where are we going next? Director Liu kept saying we have to win the students’ favor to stay, but what if ‘staying’ is meant literally? Should we do the opposite and deliberately make the kids hate us?”
Shen Maomao glanced at her. “Your instance6 isn’t that complicated,” she said flatly.
Dingdang was speechless.
Besides the desks and chairs, the office also had two computers. Other than that, Director Liu had only given them a book and a lesson plan notebook. They would have to procure everything else themselves.
Shen Maomao used her fingerprint to unlock her phone and checked her account balance, only to find there wasn’t a single cent.
She locked the phone again and said to Dingdang, “Check your balance.”
Dingdang immediately opened every app on her phone that could hold money. After a frantic search, she finally exclaimed in shock, “What the hell? Are they trying to screw us over?”
The other players seemed to understand what was happening. One by one, they took out their phones, and a grave expression appeared on all their faces.
Shen Maomao scanned the room and grasped the situation. “Let’s go. Downstairs first.” Before leaving, she didn’t forget to remind Dingdang to grab her lesson plan and book.
Dingdang did as she was told, and they left together.
The other players didn’t follow. Dingdang couldn’t help but ask, “How did you know they would try to mess with our books?”
“A heart that guards against others is indispensable7,” Shen Maomao said.
“Have you ever been betrayed before?” Dingdang asked curiously.
“No,” Shen Maomao answered faintly.
After losing Lou Jingmo, she no longer trusted anyone. How could there be betrayal when no trust had been given in the first place?
Dingdang kicked a small pebble on the ground. “Are all big bosses as cool as you?”
“I’m not a big boss.”
“I don’t believe you,” Dingdang said. “You’re pretty famous on the forums.”
“Am I?”
Dingdang found it impossible to continue the conversation. Luckily, they had already reached the supermarket outside the school, so the awkward chat could end.
The supermarket had three floors and was fully stocked with everything from daily necessities to fruits and vegetables. An old man with his eyes closed was sitting behind the checkout counter, waving a cattail leaf fan8. There wasn’t a single other employee in the store.
The two walked up to the counter. “Excuse me,” Shen Maomao asked, “how are things sold here?”
The old man’s eyes fluttered open. The moment she saw them, Dingdang gasped and stumbled back a step.
This person had no pupils at all.
The old man’s voice was incredibly hoarse. He let out a chuckle, paying no mind to her fear, and instead looked at Shen Maomao with great interest. “We don’t sell things here. We only trade, item for item.”
“How do we trade?” Shen Maomao asked.
“With things from your own body, of course,” the old man said.
Shen Maomao took out her phone. “Will this work?”
The old man shook his head. “No. It must be something you have on your body. Just give me one thing, and you can pick and take whatever you want from here. If you can’t carry it all this time, you can come back again later…”
Previous games had never left players short on cash. From the moment she realized everyone’s phones were empty but they still had to get their own supplies, she knew that the items in this instance would have to be obtained through other means. She just hadn’t expected it to be like this.
Dingdang peeked out from behind her. “Is hair okay?” she asked.
The old man choked for a second. “Er… that… I guess so. But only one of you can trade hair with me.”
“Then she’ll do it.”
“She’ll use her hair.”
The two spoke in unison9.
“That’s not my problem,” the old man said. “You two decide. Better be quick about it. If the next person thinks of using their hair, then neither of you will be able to.”
Dingdang said quickly, “You do it, big boss! I’ll use something else! I’m counting on you to carry me!”
“It doesn’t matter,” Shen Maomao said. “It won’t affect anything.”
“Then I’ll be honest,” Dingdang said. “I think being bald is really ugly, so you should do it.”
Since she’d put it that way, Shen Maomao didn’t stand on ceremony. She traded her hair with the shopkeeper and became a freshly minted bald head10.
Dingdang thought for a long time before trading the hearing11 in her left ear for the right to take items.
After the trade, she not only lost her hearing but her entire left ear vanished, which looked a little strange.
She checked her reflection in a store mirror, pouting unhappily. She took off her hair tie12 and let her hair down to cover the spot. Only then was she satisfied enough to look away and start picking out supplies with Shen Maomao.
A little while later, the two came downstairs with their things and heard the sound of other players trying to haggle13 with the shopkeeper.
A few players heard the noise and turned around. When they saw Shen Maomao’s bald head, their eyes lit up, and they turned back to the shopkeeper. “We want to trade our hair, too!”
The shopkeeper waved his cattail leaf fan unhurriedly. “Nope. First come, first served. The hair and the left ear have already been traded. You’d better think of something else.”
The players erupted in an uproar. Shen Maomao and Dingdang carried their things out through another door, ignoring whatever they might say.
They brought their purchases back to their dormitory room, locked the door, and then went for a walk around the teaching building.
Shen Maomao studied the school’s layout and environment. The more she looked, the more familiar it seemed, but she couldn’t remember where she had seen it before.
Dingdang saw her frowning, wearing a “this instance is so hard” expression, and couldn’t help but feel a little uncertain herself. “What is it, big boss? Should I prepare myself for something?”
Shen Maomao shook her head. “It’s nothing.”
The two of them checked every unlocked classroom on the second floor but found nothing, so they returned to their room and started preparing their lesson plans.
Regardless of whether Director Liu was friend or foe, writing the lesson plans was a good lead. Shen Maomao had studied literature, so writing this kind of thing wasn’t difficult for her. Besides, their phones had internet access, so they could look up references online.
Compared to her indifference, Dingdang was a bit distressed. “How am I supposed to write this…? I can play a stringed instrument, but asking me to write a lesson plan is just too much! How do you even write a lesson plan for music class? Can I just rip one off the internet?”
Shen Maomao flipped through the Chinese language book, not even looking up as she said, “I’d advise you not to.”
Dingdang sighed in defeat. She had no choice but to harden her scalp14 and start writing.
The two wrote from afternoon until dusk. When the sky turned a dim yellow, Shen Maomao closed her book. “Time to eat,” she said.
The cafeteria wouldn’t open until tomorrow. Teachers ate for free, and Director Liu had said they could have all three of their daily meals at the school then, but today they had to fend for themselves.
There were a few small eateries15 near the school, but they had no money, and no one knew if they’d have to trade something else to eat there. So, they decided to keep plucking wool from a single sheep16 and went back to the general store owner to get a water kettle and a pile of instant noodles.
The shopkeeper’s eyes were closed when they went in and still closed when they left. He didn’t seem to care at all what they took.
Dingdang had been a little nervous that morning, as she’d never done something like taking things without paying before. But now, having done it once, she could walk out with someone else’s property without batting an eye.
That evening, the two filled a kettle from the water dispenser in the dormitory hallway, boiled the water, and then ate their own instant noodles for dinner.
By the time they finished cleaning up, the sky was completely dark.
Noisy chatter came from the room next door, but their side was exceptionally quiet, and they had already turned off the lights.
During the day, sunlight couldn’t reach this dormitory building, and at night, the moonlight couldn’t get in either. The moment the lights were off, the only brightness came from outside the window; the room was so dark you could stretch out a hand and not see five fingers17.
The darkness made Dingdang a little panicked, and she felt an urge to talk to Shen Maomao.
“Xiao Lou?” she called out. “Are you asleep?”
Shen Maomao wasn’t asleep. She hadn’t even closed her eyes.
She used to think Lou Jingmo was a god for being able to go through an entire instance without sleeping, but now she, too, seemed to have gotten used to staying up all night and occasionally catching up on sleep during the day. Lou Jingmo was right: the instances were more dangerous at night. It was better to save sleep for the relatively safer daytime.
But even though she was awake, she had no desire to reply to Dingdang.
It wasn’t that she disliked her, but simply that she was “too lazy to talk.”
She was different from Lou Jingmo. Lou Jingmo was genuinely high and cold18, uninterested in dealing with strangers. She, on the other hand, couldn’t muster up interest in anything. When she wasn’t in an instance, she would often sit in one spot all day, barely moving or speaking.
Gradually, she lost the desire to talk at all.
After waiting for a while without a response, Dingdang turned over in the darkness and muttered to herself, “How did she fall asleep so fast…?”
A few moments later, Shen Maomao heard Dingdang’s even, heavy breathing.
A whistling night wind swept in, seeping through the cracks in the window and bringing with it a bone-chilling cold.
Besides the wind, there seemed to be a faint sound from upstairs, like someone running around barefoot, their steps making the floorboards thump, thump, thump.
“Hee hee…”
“Hahahaha…”
The sound of a child’s laughter came from the doorway before quickly running off. It seemed particularly unsettling amidst the sound of the wind, which was like the cries of ghosts and the howls of wolves19.
Shen Maomao kept her attention on the sounds outside. Before long, the laughter disappeared. The child hadn’t entered any of the rooms but had just been running wild in the hall.
At six the next morning, Shen Maomao woke the still-sleeping Dingdang and told her to get up and wash her face.
Dingdang was so tired she could barely open her eyes, but after a few soft mumbles, she got up.
After they finished getting ready, they had another cup of instant noodles with hot water. As they were leaving, they happened to see the other female players coming out of their room.
Dingdang was startled by them but managed to keep her composure.
The two groups passed each other without any interaction. The moment they were out of the dormitory, she couldn’t wait to ask Shen Maomao, “Did you see that, big boss?”
“Yeah,” Shen Maomao nodded.
The other women must have traded their left eye, right eye, right ear, and nose, respectively, for the right to use the store’s items. Those parts were now completely gone, which made for a terrifying sight.
Dingdang rubbed her arms. “Won’t they scare the kids to tears teaching like that?”
Shen Maomao didn’t respond, but she felt it was connected to the first death in the game.
There was a meeting at seven in the morning in the third-floor conference room. When they arrived, the room was already open, and Director Liu was sitting inside. She showed no curiosity about Shen Maomao’s hair, instead asking with a smile, “Did you sleep well last night?”
Dingdang smiled back and played along. “Thanks to your care, Director, we slept very well.”
Director Liu pulled a few sheets from a stack of papers in front of her and handed them over. “This is the class schedule for the semester. Take a look. Today’s meeting is mainly for you second grade group teachers. The principal will be here in a bit to talk about our school’s requirements for teachers. You don’t need to be too nervous.”
Shen Maomao looked down at the schedule in her hand. First period, she had class in second grade, class one. Second period was in second grade, class two. Dingdang’s music class was always the first period in the afternoon.
Chinese language class was held every day, sometimes twice a day for the same class. Music class was less frequent, with only four classes in total for the four sections. Wednesday was a day off, which meant Dingdang had plenty of time to look for information.
However, Shen Maomao wasn’t about to pin all her hopes on the little time Dingdang had.
Before long, everyone had arrived. Only then did the most important figure, the principal, leisurely push open the door. He spouted a bunch of official nonsense, drawing one big pancake20 after another, and didn’t let them go until seven-forty. He told them to go prepare for class and mentioned that teachers from other grades would be coming to observe.
The group returned to the office. The first period for both class one and class three was Chinese. The other Chinese teacher was one of the male players.
From the outside, it was impossible to tell what the three male players had traded. Their hands and feet seemed fine; perhaps they had exchanged their internal organs.
Dingdang watched Shen Maomao’s leg jiggle nervously. “Big boss, do you think your personality can win over the kids? What should I do…? I’m so nervous.”
“Write your lesson plan,” Shen Maomao said flatly.
Dingdang fell silent. Right, never mind.
With five minutes left before class, Shen Maomao and the male Chinese teacher stood up at the same time and left the office.
The four second-grade classrooms were in the same area. Classes three and four were further down the hall, so the man had to walk past her.
Shen Maomao stood at the door of class one, peering through the window. Inside sat rows of little radish heads21, the classroom as noisy as a wet market.
Before she could pull the door open, the male teacher spoke from a short distance behind her. “You’re Xiao Lou from the forums?”
Shen Maomao turned and glanced at him. She didn’t confirm it, but she didn’t deny it either.
The man looked at her bald head, then at the bulging pocket of her jacket. “Seeing is believing,” he said. “A gaming master indeed.”
Shen Maomao stared at him silently, her expression asking: Do you have any other fucking business with me?
The man wasn’t offended. Instead, he waved a hand at her. “Please, go in, Teacher Lou. I’m off to my class as well.”
Shen Maomao looked away and paid him no more mind, turning to pull open the door to second grade, class one.
The moment she entered, the classroom fell silent for an instant, then erupted in a roar of “Hahahaha!” laughter. One little boy even clutched his stomach and started rolling on the floor. “Hahahaha!” he shouted. “The new teacher is a monk! A baldy!”
Shen Maomao placed her Chinese language book on the teacher’s desk22 and quietly watched them make a scene.
Three minutes later, the school bell rang.
She picked up the teaching pointer23 from the chalk tray and tapped it lightly against the multimedia computer’s casing. “Quiet.”
The bear children24 below continued their racket, loud enough to tear the roof off, wildly mocking her hair.
Shen Maomao pulled the electric razor she’d swiped from the department store out of her jacket pocket and switched it on. The bzzzzzz of the vibration sounded just like electric clippers at a barbershop. She looked at the bear children with a deadpan expression. “From now on,” she said, “anyone who makes another sound, I will shave their head, too. Then I’ll report them to the grade director and have them stand at the flag-raising ceremony25 with a sign that says ‘I am a baldy’ to be laughed at by the entire school.”
The children were all stunned, shocked that she could be so vicious.
A few little girls covered their heads with one hand and their mouths with the other, terrified that Shen Maomao would charge down and shave their hair off.
Shen Maomao walked down from the lectern, razor in hand, and stepped up to the bear child still rolling on the floor. “Do you want your head shaved?”
The little boy shot up with a jolt, sniffled, and burst into a loud wail. “Waaaaah! I don’t wanna be a monk!”
“Then stop crying,” Shen Maomao said. “Get back to your seat. Immediately.”
The boy scrambled back to his desk, covering his mouth to stifle his sobs.
Shen Maomao used a tissue she’d prepared to have him blow his nose, then returned to the lectern. She switched off the razor, scanned the room, and used her adult presence to intimidate the little devils. Only then did she speak. “Let me introduce myself. My surname is Lou. I am your new Chinese teacher and your acting head teacher.”
The little radish heads sat up straight, their eyes glued to the electric razor, terrified she might suddenly snap and start shaving heads.
Shen Maomao picked up the student roster from the multimedia console. “Now, I’m going to do roll call26. When I call your name, please stand up and say ‘Here.’ You may sit only after I say ‘Please be seated.’ Understood?”
The little radish heads drew out their response in a long chorus: “Un-der-stooooood—”
She looked down at the list to begin. The very first name made her pause. It took a few seconds before she could read the three words out loud. “Chen Meihan…”
“Here!” a crisp voice called out from below.
Shen Maomao looked up. The girl who stood up had a familiar face, and she was grinning at her, baring her teeth in a brilliant smile.
In that instant, long-sealed memories flooded to the surface. It was only at this very moment that she could finally be certain—this instance was a repeatable one she had once cleared with Lou Jingmo and Ren Yue. It was in this very instance that Ren Yue had backstabbed her, revealing her true colors. And it was also in this instance that she had received her first card, Faye27.
And the adorable, innocent-looking little girl before her was the final boss of that instance—Chen Meihan.
✨ Unlock Early Access to Chapters! ✨
Choose your perfect membership at bamboopandatl.net:
📚 Full Access ($4.99)
• Advanced chapters of ALL ongoing novels
• Access to complete finished novels
• Ad-free reading experience
📖 Single Novel Access ($1.49)
• Advanced chapters of ONE specific novel
• Ad-free reading for chosen novel
PayPal is the only current payment option!