lerbook Chapter 179 The Hunchback of Notre Dame and the High-Score Blocker
Chapter 179 The Hunchback of Notre Dame and the High-Score Blocker
The playground of the First Experimental Middle School, which was originally covered with an expensive plastic track, now looks like a huge morgue, or rather, a place where a group of zombies are coming back to life.
The mechanical female voice broadcast was still playing on a loop, with a very strange frequency that made one's teeth ache, like scratching a blackboard with fingernails.
The students who had been crowding around the bread truck grabbing fried chicken stopped in their tracks, dropping the chicken pieces they were holding and covering them in dust.
They were like puppets held up by invisible strings, their necks twisting stiffly, all turning in the same direction—the clock tower at the top of the administration building.
The chubby little boy still had his mouth half open, and the ketchup at the corner of his mouth looked particularly glaring.
The light in his eyes was fading rapidly, replaced by a deathly gray turbidity. The layers of fat that originally belonged to human vitality were now trembling slightly, as if something was moving wildly beneath the skin.
"Boss, something's not right." Guan Shan was still holding the megaphone, but he didn't dare to shout anymore.
Because those students started moving.
It wasn't the kind of youthful, energetic running, but rather a synchronized, uniform stride.
Thousands of sneakers landed simultaneously, making a chilling "thump, thump, thump" sound.
They had no expression, no conversation, and even their breathing rhythm had been assimilated.
"That's definitely not right." Wang Minyu shoved the stainless steel tea mug into Guan Shan's arms, rummaged through the pile of colorful packaging bags and pulled out a bottle of strong liquor, then took out a lighter. "This is 'swarm consciousness.' That broadcast is the queen bee's command; it's summoning worker bees back to the hive to protect her."
"Protect the king? Protect that clock tower?" Pierre shoved the unfinished fried chicken boxes back into the car, grabbed a boning knife, wiped it on his apron, and said, "Need me to give these brats a physical massage?"
"If you dare to hurt one of them, tomorrow's headline will be 'Perverted chef massacres campus,' and our pharmacy can just close down." Wang Minyu unscrewed the cap of the liquor, took a big gulp, and sprayed a cloud of liquor mist into the megaphone in Guan Shan's hand, then lit a lighter.
call--!
A fire dragon exploded in mid-air; the brief heat and the crackling sound of burning alcohol caused the students in the front row to instinctively take a step back.
The biological instinct for self-preservation is even more important than the control of that fungus.
"Guan Shan, you're the meat shield, responsible for clearing the way. Remember, just push, don't fight, don't use brute force." Wang Minyu poured the remaining liquor onto his collar and cuffs. "Pierre, bring out that 'stinky tofu concentrate' you ruined. We need to wake these kids up. Since the aroma isn't working, let's use biological weapons."
Pierre, looking pained, pulled a sealed glass bottle from the bottom of the toolbox.
The bottle contained a dark green liquid; even before opening the cap, the color alone was enough to make one's stomach churn.
"Boss, this is the sauce I'm planning to use for my 'Desperate Foie Gras'..."
"Enough talk, just throw it!"
The three formed a strange assault formation.
Guan Shan walked at the front like a bulldozer, using his bear-like physique to force a gap through the dense wall of people.
Although the students were under control, their physical condition was still that of minors. With a push from Guan Shan's two powerful arms, they fell to either side like dominoes.
Pierre followed on the flank, and as soon as he opened the glass bottle in his hand, a stench strong enough to kill a fly instantly exploded in the air.
The flavor was extremely overpowering, a mixture of fermented beans, expired seafood, and some indescribable sewer smell.
The students, who had been expressionless, finally reacted to the smell.
The chubby boy vomited.
Vomiting is contagious, especially in high-pressure and enclosed environments.
Once one person starts vomiting, a chain reaction of physiological responses will occur.
The "swarm" of bees, which had been as solid as a rock just moments before, was instantly disrupted by the rising and falling sounds of gagging.
"That's right." Wang Minyu stepped on the vomit on the ground, his steps quick. "Only disgust can break that false sense of sublimity."
They rushed across the playground and arrived at the administration building.
But the condition of this building is worse than that of the playground.
Two rows of students in red and white school uniforms stood at the entrance of the building. They were the "Olympiad Class" of the First Experimental Middle School, also known as the "seed players".
If the students outside are only mildly infected, these people are practically in intensive care.
Their skin was deathly pale, almost transparent, and the black veins on their necks had spread to their cheeks, forming bizarre geometric symbols.
They weren't holding books; instead, each of them held a sharpened pencil, its tip gleaming coldly.
"These people... are not easy to mess with." Guan Shan stopped and looked at the row of pencils.
There was no hesitation in the eyes of these top students; if anyone dared to approach, they would definitely pounce without hesitation.
"Their logic has been locked down." Su Qing's voice came through Wang Minyu's earpiece, accompanied by the clatter of keyboard keys. "Zero just analyzed the magnetic field there; the administration building is enveloped by a high-frequency signal. In their minds, you are not human, but 'noise that interferes with learning.' Their instruction to deal with noise is—to clear it."
"Purge me? When I was doing the '53' practice test, they were still wearing open-crotch pants." Wang Minyu sneered, pulling out the withered leaf of the "Purple Abyss Fern" from Zhang Yucai's office that he hadn't had time to throw away yet.
He crushed the withered leaves, mixed them with the remaining liquid from the bottle of liquor, rubbed them in his hands, and then suddenly threw them in front of the group of top students.
"Listen up!" Wang Minyu roared, his voice even colder and more authoritative than the female voice on the radio, "I'm from the Provincial Admissions Office! The college entrance exam syllabus has changed this year! Chinese, math, and English are no longer tested; instead, we'll test farming and pig raising! All formulas are invalid! All vocabulary is invalid!"
That statement was like a nuclear bomb.
For these top students who treat exams like their lifeblood, this is worse than killing them.
The students, who had been as still as statues, suddenly showed cracks on their faces.
That was an expression of illogical collapse. The fungal instruction in their brains was "to clear the noise for the exam," but now that the "exam content" had changed, the instruction had become a logical paradox.
The boy standing at the very front, wearing thick glasses, dropped his pencil on the ground with a thud.
He clutched his head and squatted down in anguish: "Not taking the exam? What am I going to do with the last 500 digits of pi that I memorized...? Farming? I'm not going to farm..."
The defenses collapsed.
"Let's go!" Wang Minyu took the opportunity to slip past the boy and rushed into the lobby of the administration building.
The elevator has stopped working; a bright red cross is displayed on the screen.
Wang Minyu looked up at the stairwell.
The walls there were covered with black, mold-like mycelium.
These mycelia are not chaotic, but rather, like an integrated circuit board, they have an extremely regular orientation, all converging towards the clock tower at the top.
"This isn't a school, it's clearly a computer lab." Wang Minyu ran his hand across the wall, feeling a wet, sticky sensation on his fingertips, along with a faint static charge. "These mycelia are transmitting data. The computing power of thousands of students' brains is all being drained up here."
"Boss, is this staircase safe to walk on?" Guan Shan looked at the wriggling fungal carpet and felt a little itchy on the soles of his feet.
"You have to go, even if you can't. Tighten your shoelaces." Wang Minyu took out three unopened bottles of medical alcohol from his bag and handed them to the other two. "Sprinkle it on these black lines. Alcohol can dehydrate, and this stuff is most afraid of drying out."
The three of them ran wildly down the stairs.
With each floor you go up, the feeling of oppression intensifies.
The air became viscous, like some kind of gel, and felt heavy when inhaled.
The buzzing in my ears grew louder and louder, no longer the female voice on the radio, but a cacophony of countless people whispering at the same time.
That was the anxiety in the hearts of countless students.
"I don't want to disappoint my parents..."
"If I don't get first place again, I'll die..."
"Why am I so stupid...?"
"So tired...I want to sleep..."
These sounds burrowed into my ears like flies.
Guan Shan's face began to turn pale, cold sweat beaded on his forehead, and his steps slowed: "Boss, I think I heard my mother scolding me... saying that I'm so big but all I've grown is muscle and no brains..."
"That's an illusion!" Wang Minyu slapped Guan Shan on the back of the head with a clever touch, directly vibrating his auditory nerve. "Your mother only complains about how much you eat! Wake up!"
Guan Shan shuddered, and his eyes regained their clarity.
Finally, they reached the top floor.
A heavy iron gate leads to the clock tower.
But the door was now completely deformed.
Countless thick, black mycelia squeezed out from the cracks in the door, twisting the door frame.
The door panel was covered with a thick layer of fleshy membrane, on which even grew several half-open eyes, coldly staring at the three uninvited guests.
"The door's locked." Pierre kicked it, and the membrane just trembled, but the rebound made his foot go numb. "This thing's tougher than cowhide."
"This isn't a lock, it's 'connective tissue'." Wang Minyu stepped forward and took out the silver needle pouch he always carried from his pocket.
He pulled out his longest needle and gestured with it on the membrane.
"Zero, find me the 'ganglion' of this thing."
In the earpiece, Zero's voice became somewhat choppy: "Too much interference... Calculating... Upper left, three inches below the third eye. That's the energy convergence point."
Wang Minyu flicked his wrist.
The silver needle transformed into a streak of cold light, precisely piercing the spot.
"squeak--!!!"
A piercing scream came from the door; it wasn't the sound of metal, but the cry of a living being in agony.
The membrane contracted violently, and the tightly closed iron door made a clicking sound, automatically opening a crack.
A wave of heat, a mixture of the smells of ink, mold, and a certain sweet, fishy odor, rushed in from the crack in the door.
"Come in." Wang Minyu pushed open the door.
The interior of the clock tower is very large. The original huge bronze bell is still there, but it has been encased by something enormous.
It was a fleshy ball with a diameter of three meters, suspended in mid-air.
Its surface is covered with grooves, making it look like a giant human brain, but its color is a disgusting grayish-purple.
Countless fiber-optic-like mycelia hang down from it, connecting to the floor, walls, and even penetrating the roof, reaching towards the sky.
And directly below that "brain" sat a person.
Zhang Yucai.
He sat cross-legged on a pile of discarded exam papers, his body covered in black tubes.
His eyes rolled back, and he was rapidly reciting something at an inhuman pace.
The enormous "brain" was pulsating rhythmically as he chanted.
Thump. Thump. Thump.
With each heartbeat, the air in the entire school seemed to freeze a little more.
"Welcome to 'Changxiang City's Number One Brain'." Wang Minyu looked at the monster and a grotesque smile appeared on his lips. "If this thing were used for hot pot, it could probably turn everyone in the city into idiots."