The Teacher and the Student (2)

When Yin Mei went to the school the next day, it was mostly empty of students - after all, the school year had yet to start. Most of the students were visiting their parents or other places for vacation, while very few remained in the dorms.

The quiet school grounds would soon be lively again though, once the entrance exams came around.

In the faculty room, Yin Mei was not the only teacher who had come today.

Today, the teachers would be reviewing this year's entrance exam. The topics and material for the entrance exam would change each year, but it mostly always consisted of a written exam, a practical exam, and ability test, and an interview.

Although each student had written their ability on the application form (which they needed to fill out and be passed before even being able to take the entrance exam), it was nothing like seeing the ability fo themselves.

It wasn't like they would fail just for having a weak ability, but they certainly would have a much higher chance of passing if they had a strong ability.

Mei Wen's coworkers all greeted her in a friendly manner when she entered. Mei Wen, in general, had a very pleasant personality, and a pretty appearance. To top it off, she was a direct descendant of one of the major families. As a result, she was well liked by the faculty. Even so, Qin Shuang had managed to get her kicked out.

Yin Mei really had to admire his capabilities. As expected of the kid that she raised and the former Vampire King!

Even though she said this, in actuality, she hadn't been with the children for all that long - only a few years. So in fact, it had more to do with his own capabilities, rather than how good of a teacher Yin Mei was.

Even so, it was true that Yin Mei had a lasting impact on Qin Shuang.

"What are you guys talking about now?" Yin Mei asked as she sat down on the table with the group, looking at all the holographic screens floating above the table.

It had, of course, this year's written exam questions on it. She could spot some history questions that were Mei Wen's work, all asking about very obscure events. Of course, there was no multiple choice here, only short answer and essay questions.

But, at the same time, humans were now smarter. As a result, though this would be a hellish, impossible to finish test by her original world's standards, this was a... still hellish test by this world's standards. Just not impossible to finish, only hard to finish.

"We were currently picking favorites out of this year's applicants," a young man with glasses said, with a bemused expression on his face. Those glasses weren't the result of bad eyesight - it was, rather, a terminal that connected to the internet, displaying screens on the small glass lenses.

For those who wore glasses, commonly it was those type, while more rare where a special type of lense that restrained abilities related to the eyes.

Yin Mei rolled her eyes. As expected of these guys, they weren't actually working, but picking favorites.

She, of course, immediately selected Qin Shuang and Song Hua as her favorites.

"These two?" A fellow female teacher with dark ocean blue hair furrowed her brow, not quite understanding why Yin Mei had chosen like she had. One was the well known weak son of the Qin family, pampered and only recently recovered from a severe illness, while the other was an unknown commoner boy.

"I'll even bet on them," Yin Mei said with such natural confidence that the other teachers couldn't help but look at each other. Yin Mei didn't need money, but it would definitely be satisfying seeing the expressions on their faces if she won.

But none of the teachers dared bet with Mei Wen. They had already experienced being sucked dry by this vampire before. They all huddled together, whispering to each other about these two people that Mei Wen had picked out, trying to see just what was so special about them.

Mei Wen's eye for things was undeniable, so they trusted her judgement - they just couldn't see what made these two stand out themselves.

Only after a while did the teachers get back on topic, editing and looking over the written exam. Yin Mei only made a few half hearted suggestions.

At the end of the day, the teachers wrapped up before all going to a bar to wind down and relax. Some began telling old stories of their glory days, back when they were still members of the Brigade - about half of the Black Cross Academy teachers were former Brigade members, and many of them had been assigned dangerous missions on other worlds.

For those who were assigned missions on Earth, they would probably not have any real stories to tell, only protecting important personages, or acting as spies in foreign nations. On the other hand, those who went to foreign worlds would encounter all sorts of mutated beasts and monsters, making for very interesting stories.

Mei Wen was one of those who had been assigned a mission on another planet, and had lost her leg to something like a sand worm - a very, very giant worm with a mouth full of teeth that liked to bury itself in the sand and ambush anyone nearby.

It was only late at night before everyone dispersed.

"Hey, why do you really favorite those two kids?" Alexei, the teacher with the glasses, asked before they parted, one hand supporting the blue haired woman, who was partially passed out at this point.

She wouldn't even wake up with a hangover though. Such was the constitution of these new, evolved humans. In fact, normal alcohol couldn't even make them drunk - the alcohol served these days was a special synthesized version that was much stronger.

Yin Mei paused, tilting her head. "Your family isn't even on good terms with the Qin family. Everyone knows that. Yet you actually choose its youngest son as your favorite applicant?" Alexei continued, shaking his head, clearly thinking there was more to this than meets the eye.

"That stupid rivalry?" A flash of annoyance went by Yin Mei's face, surprising Alexei. He had always thought that Mei Wen was always very supportive of her family, and also disliked the Qin family. But right now, it didn't seem like she felt that way? Yin Mei scoffed before speaking again. "What my family thinks doesn't particularly matter. And those two kids... why I favor them shouldn't matter much either, right?" She tilted her head, and Alexei shook his. He was simply curious, but it seemed that Mei Wen was unwilling to explain.

In the end he sighed. "If you don't want to say so, then that's fine." He waved a hand, dragging the blue haired teacher along with him as he left.

The next few days passed by quickly, as the teachers finalized the plans for the entrance exams. Yin Mei felt satisfied, in an evil sort of way, when she looked at the end result. Of course, she knew that the male and female lead and the villain would all pass with flying colors, but this sort of entrance exam, that seemed designed to induce suffering, really made her want to laugh manically.

She would definitely enjoy watching those kids suffer through this.

The day of the entrance exam quickly came. K didn't ask for Mei Wen to leak her any details of the exam, only feeling more relieved knowing that her younger brother would have a supporter on the judger's panel. That being said, if K's younger brother failed terribly, there was nothing Mei Wen or Yin Mei would have been able to do - Yin Mei had stated so very clearly, but even so, K was still relieved to have a friend of hers being one of her brother's graders.

The teachers all gathered in a meeting room, several screens showing the applicants as they arrived at the school, going to the assigned rooms for their scheduled written exam. The blue haired teacher, Hai Lan, nudged Yin Mei. "Look. The boy from the Qin family has shown up." She said, pointing at one of the many floating screens as she moved away from the meeting room entrance to take her seat at the round table.

Yin Mei looked up at the screen that Hai Lan pointed at, and saw a young boy with red eyes arriving in an expensive flying car, drawing the attention of the other applicants. He was older than the Qin Shuang from her memories, but still looked eerily similar, even though it was Qin Lan's body. His expression was cold, indifferent, and seemingly bored.

Yin Mei thought that he should show some interest in this future that he had worked so hard to create, but that wasn't so. Instead, he had a sort of gloomy aura around him, that naturally pushed people away.

Yin Mei couldn't recall - had Qin Shuang always been like this? The boy that she faintly remembered was an adorable child with a gaze full of life and admiration. A pure kid who was hopelessly attached to her.

She couldn't describe the emotions she felt, seeing him now after so long. After she had abandoned him.

She frowned deeply, before smoothing her expression out and joining Hai Lan and Alexei at their place at the table.

"You will have three hours to complete the written exam. It starts now." Several voices echoed through the room at once, and Yin Mei could see the strict exam proctors from the screens dressed in all white as they spoke from the front of the multiple exam rooms.

"Haha, looks like Rong Zhu got stuck with proctor duty," Hai Lan said, her eyes on a screen showing a man with slicked back brown hair and sharp black eyes.

Both the proctors and the judges changed every year. Mei Wen had been a proctor the last year, and the year before that, had not been a member of the teachers that issued the practical exam. In that year, the practical exam had been a very fun game of hide and seek, with the teachers being the seekers. Of course, just because an applicant was found wouldn't mean automatic failure; it was also acknowledged that this exam would favor some and not others. As a result, a variety of different aspects were tested during this time, instead of just whether or not the applicant could be found.

This year, the teachers who had been handling the practical exam had been keeping it hush hush, always walking around with smug and amused expressions even though Yin Mei knew exactly what the practical exam was this time.

"Oh, I see the other boy you said you liked," Hai Lan whispered to Yin Mei, keeping her voice quite as the teachers all concentrated on the screens, on the lookout for any signs of cheating. Some where checking the realtime upload of the student answers, grading them on the moment, discussing quietly their thoughts about this year's batch.

Hai Lan pointed to a screen. It was the same room as the one Qin Shuang was in, and Yin Mei could see that Alice was there as well - the girl's silver hair stood out, even though many people in this world had colorful hair.

But her eyes quickly left Alice and found Song Hua. His appearance was much like a younger demon king, with shorter hair, and a gloomier aura. He was similar to Qin Shuang, perhaps, in that regard. As if the both of them had seen the world as it was, for all its darkness, and as a result, were broken deep inside.

They were both people who had suffered.

At this point, Yin Mei tilted her head. Wait a moment. Qin Shuang knew the zombie emperor - and Song Hua, though more similar in appearance to the demon king, was undeniably also similar to the zombie emperor. After all, they all looked the same in the end. She recalled that Qin Shuang had always hated the zombie emperor - so could it be that this so called rivalry was much deeper than it appeared? After all, there was no way that Qin Shuang wouldn't be able to recognize someone with the zombie emperor's appearance, right?

She watched Song Hua as he typed his answers into the computer terminal with a serious expression, his red eyes dark. Yin Mei realized that both Qin Shuang and the demon king had red eyes and black hair. Qin Shuang would definitely be disgusted if he knew this, and Yin Mei thinking that found it slightly amusing.

She watched both Song Hua and Qin Shuang take their tests with a gentle and warm expression, though there was a hint of sadness in there as well. She was actually rather surprised that Qin Shuang, even though he was an old man from a thousand years ago, could actually pass this written exam with high marks.

It seemed that he had taken the time to thoroughly study up on this new era.

Even the complex science questions didn't phase him.

That being said, science was not as important, as he was testing into the combat section of the academy, not the R&D department. That would be a whole other beast.

"Your kids are doing really well," Alexei said from the other side of Hai Lan, his gaze on the tablet in his hands, his stylus moving as he graded another question from Qin Shuang.

Hai Lan curiously looked over, and was surprised. So far, Qin Shuang had yet to get a single question wrong. He was making good progress too - there was no reason not to think that he wouldn't be able to finish the exam in the remaining time.

Yin Mei looked down at the untouched tablet in front of her, picking it up and swiping a few times before she located Song Hua's test answers.

Although Yin Mei herself had no real knowledge of this world, Mei Wen was still a graduate of the Academy and a former star member of the Brigade - with her memories and brain to back Yin Mei up... along with the answer sheet, she could still efficiently grade Song Hua's test answers.

Like Qin Shuang, he had perfect marks so far.

But, it would be the last question that the two would truly go head to head against each other with - the hardest question. It would defeat Song Hua, but not Qin Shuang.

Really, Yin Mei swore this wasn't because Song Hua was lacking, but because this little brat had picked up the thing called the main character aura.

She called him a little brat, but still looked at the boy with a trace of affection.

Only a trace though.

She closed her eyes. In the end, she really didn't know how to feel about Qin Shuang. She wanted to dote on him like before, but actually, she couldn't even remember those days very well. Faces welled up in her memories, but she could just barely put names to them. She seemed to remember being happy. But not much more. And to top it off, she had already abandoned him once. She felt that he wouldn't forgive her.

Maybe interacting with Qin Shuang might bring back memories of that long ago time. But Qin Shuang had already grown up. He wasn't the same ten year old boy he had been.

Alexei looked up, and saw the expression on Yin Mei's face. A combination of wistful nostalgia, sadness, and bitterness all seemed mixed together, and he couldn't help but look at where she was looking - a nearby screen showing a room with the two kids that she had claimed as her favored applicants.

He was even more curious now - what in the world was the relationship between her and these two kids? It was already weird that she favored a Qin family kid, but this expression...

Yin Mei blinked, and the expression cleared. She had mulled over for it too long. Repeating these thoughts over and over in her head got her nowhere. She turned her attention away, deciding that she should finally take a look at the mission given by the system.

She had ignored it for the past few days, in part due to anger, and in part due to simply the fact that she was growing sick of these missions, and of this stupid system.

But like always, the system said nothing. She knew it could hear her thoughts. But the system never replied. It only spoke when necessary. Those other novels she had read before - hadn't they all gotten interactive systems? So why is it that only hers acted like a true machine, a true emotionless AI, only doing what it was programmed to do?

Main mission: Help Song Hua rank Number 1 on the midterms.

So essentially... private tutoring sessions?

A weird expression surfaced on Yin Mei's face, as all she could imagine were XX and OO scenes.

...

This... this...

She dashed the image as soon as possible, feeling like she had swallowed a bug. Seriously, this setting was way too terrible!