Reunion

With regards to dealing with the system, Invigilator A had a plan. That, Qin Jiu knew.

He had always thought that he would naturally be dragged into the plan by Invigilator A but contrary to his beliefs, he wasn't.

For a very long time, Invigilator A never mentioned his plan. It was as if to him, as long as he is certain Qin Jiu is someone with the same goals and isn't standing on the opposition's side, that alone was enough.

They had the closest of relationships and did the most intimate of things together, had the same goals and would help each other out, but they were still walking down two different roads.

This was a lone wolf's nature. Qin Jiu knew this better than anyone.

He thought he was already the prime example of one but he didn't expect that there would be someone else who would be more lone wolf than him —– Invigilator A was not only alone, there was also something else mixed in…..

At first, Qin Jiu didn't know what this was. This continued until he found out about the true of origin of the system and Invigilator A.

When he once again saw those beautiful eyes that were once used by the system, he suddenly understood. That was a habit of his cultivated over time; it was a special way of closing himself off.

For others, closing themselves off was a way of protecting themselves but Invigilator A was different. He was protecting others.

He would always draw a circle around danger zones and would habitually sit himself in the middle of it and forcefully push everyone else out of that circle. This was just like how he was trying to persuade Qin Jiu to leave the system once he passes the examination and not come back.

To do this, Invigilator A deliberately said a lot of ruthless words, and Qin Jiu also said a lot of scummy things.

He would even try to coax the other party to lower his guard during their most intimate of moments.

As he watched the other person's shoulders, neck and chest flush faintly red while their forehead is pressed against the back of their hands, firmly refusing to speak, he would secretly say to himself that he really was a bastard.

Sometimes Invigilator A would look at him impatiently through half-lidded eyes and heavy breathing.

If it weren't for the fact that their bodies were entangled, Qin Jiu would even think that he would snort coldly the next second. Unfortunately, the situation greatly reduced the effect of that.

So he would often stare at Qin Jiu for a while and say in a hoarse voice, "You're acting like an undercover agent right now."

"Then can I succeed this time, Big Invigilator?" Qin Jiu would always tease him back.

And then he would say: "No."

This negative answer continued for a while. In fact, it wasn't that long but to Qin Jiu, it felt like a long time had passed. When he thought back later, he realised that the reason he would think this way was because they had too few opportunities to be alone together.

Again and again, he underwent re-examinations. 

As the numbers accumulated, Qin Jiu could feel Invigilator A sometimes lowering his guard, revealing his innermost emotions. That should represent reluctance and softening. But the next moment, he would be cold and stern again.

But in the end, Qin Jiu succeeded.

The moment it was revealed, Invigilator Z Chu Yue was also present.

For the majority of that time, she spoke while the other two listened. Whenever A would speak up to add something, she would always look at Qin Jiu curiously. As she scanned him up and down, her gaze even seemed a little over-enthusiastic.

Later one day, she said to Qin Jiu that she probably wasn't polite looking at him like that, but she was really surprised and curious. Before then, she had never thought that there would be a day when A would bring someone over to understand everything about them.

She said: To me and to him, this is the most forbidden zone.

***

The two head invigilators had planned this for a very long time. It was the best plan under the circumstances at the time —– The people involved were limited to the smallest amount so that the scope of casualties could be controlled to a minimum.

"This plan actually involves one thing and that is, the master control authority." Chu Yue explained at that time, "The master control authority is basically the authority to control the entire system. We usually say that A and I have the highest of authorities but that is only relative to the others. The one who truly has the highest of authority would be the one who possesses the master control authority. To put it bluntly, you can control the entire system if you have it but it also doesn't mean that you can do anything you want."

"So who has this authority?" Qin Jiu said, "Don't tell me it's the system itself. It should be something else."

"Very good." Chu Yue gave him a thumbs up.

"Under normal circumstances, this master control authority is possessed by the system itself. This is undeniable. But as long as the designer's original intention wasn't filled with malicious intentions, a contingency plan should exist. This was what we thought so we have been investigating in this direction."

After the system went out of control, it had very 'cleverly' hidden the information related to this but as long as it was still bound by the rules, there would always be a way for them to uncover it.

"How many contingency plans did you find?" Qin Jiu asked.

"Two." A said, "One is an emergency mode, and another is a frozen mode. The two come in this order."

If the system's central control centre reaches a state of 70% dysfunction, it would enter emergency mode. In this mode, the system would undergo the highest level of self-repair and the master control authority would be transferred to the 'emergency control unit'.

If the 'emergency control unit' fails to stop the decline and the system's main control centre continues to have problems, eventually reaching a state of 100% dysfunction, the system would enter frozen mode and the main control authority would be transferred over to a head invigilator.

It was like switching to semi-automatic mode if automatic mode didn't work, and if that also didn't work, it would switch to manual mode.

Chu Yue said: "The head invigilator currently refers to A and I so there are very few people involved. We just need to make sure we don't reveal ourselves."

Qin Jiu asked, "Then what is the emergency control unit that comes before you two?"

"That, we don't know. It hasn't been triggered before." Chu Yue said, "In the rules, that thing is referred to as Team S. It sounds like a team for emergencies but where would the personnel come from? We have discussed this many times before and we think that this Team S might refer to something the system generates as part of the emergency procedure."

Qin Jiu thought about it and felt that it made sense.

Based on this order, Team S should theoretically have an authority higher than that of Invigilator A and Z, but they are already the highest of the invigilators. To have authority higher than them, it could only be the system itself.

"And so, our plan is actually very simple. It is to wait for a suitable time to render the system's entire core dysfunctional in the shortest time possible, get the main control authority and instruct it to let everyone out before ordering it to shut down forever.

Qin Jiu asked: "When is considered a suitable time?"

Invigilator A said: "When the system's vigilance lowers, and Plan B is complete."

Chu Yue laughed and said, "Speaking of vigilance, you can be considered big contributor."

Qin Jiu raised a brow: "Is that so?"

Chu Yue pointed at Invigilator A, "Him and I are subjected to a lot more restrictions because we must ensure that we continue to appear to be on the system's side so that it won't take back our authority to receive the master control authority in the event that it reaches a frozen state. To do this, we must act appropriately and avoid angering the system. We basically have to restrain ourselves and the overall process is slow because of this."

"But you are different. Do you know how many patches the system was forced to apply after you entered the system?" Chu Yue said gloatingly, "Oh, you probably don't know. When you have the chance to enter the main control centre, you should try pulling it up. Anyway, just seeing it puts me in a good mood. There were many patches and they were all rushed so inevitably, there would be contradictions to its logic and more and more bugs would appear both superficially and hidden away. These bugs would lower the systems vigilance. If the dysfunction is lower than 70%, the system would try to fix itself. We plan to wait for it to drop to 75% so that the chance of this rebellion succeeding is higher. As for Plan B—–"

If there was a problem with this plan and it wasn't dealt with properly, there could be casualties. If the scope of casualties was large, there would be disastrous consequences. They couldn't risk too many peoples lives so they thought of a Plan B.

Invigilator A said: "I am trying to make a self-correcting program. It may take some time."

"During this time, I'll help you continue to lower the systems vigilance." Qin Jiu said.

But this plan was disrupted in the middle.

For Invigilator A, he suddenly received a red warning from the system saying that he had an overly intimate relationship with Examinee Qin Jiu.

For Qin Jiu, he had reached the limit of the number of re-examinations he could do and was directly sent out of the system.

This result wasn't something Qin Jiu didn't expect. Before this, he had secretly approached Invigilator Z Chu Yue and asked her to do him a favour —– If he was sent out of the system, to please leave him an invigilator position.

He will definitely come back.

The moment he was sent out of the system, Qin Jiu suddenly remembered something——

When the system is finally overturned and they safely return to normal life, he should find a good doctor to carefully check Invigilator A's eyes.

It wasn't to find out anything, it was just for the result.

With this his Big Invigilator can completely relax and no longer need to lower his eyes.

...

When he left the system, summer had just ended, and it was the beginning of autumn. 

For the first few days, he was probably still in a comatose state. When he woke up, he found himself in a hospital.

It was a hospital associated with the army and the room was a mixture of pure white with occasional army green mixed in. He stared at the border between the white and the army green colours in daze for a long time until a nurse came and asked: "What are you looking at?"

He narrowed his eyes and fell silent for a while before saying: "It's nothing."

It was just that when the two colours are put together, his eyes couldn't help but be drawn over.

He asked the nurse in a trance: "The ophthalmologist here——-"

He suddenly fell silent. Halfway through his words, he suddenly couldn't remember what he wanted to ask.

***

The events during that time was actually more blurred than anything else.

Qin Jiu even wondered later whether he had really returned to reality or he if was still trapped in some corner inside the system.

He didn't stay in that environment for long.

One morning, he was pulled into the system again. This time, it was with the Invigilator name.

He heard from among his colleagues that A and Z have the highest authority and are called the head invigilators. The others are ranked according to their strengths but because the single letters have all be used up, the rest of them must use letter combinations. His code name was Gin.

That afternoon, the old and new invigilators were called together for a meeting.

He ran into the Invigilator A his colleague had talked about outside the conference room.

He was wearing a plain white shirt with army green trousers and was talking to Invigilator Z beside him. For the most part, it was Invigilator Z who talked. He rarely spoke and would only occasionally nod.

When listening to others speak, he would always keep his eyes slightly lowered.

The early autumn sun filtered through the glass, casting light and shadow on his face.

Those eyes were clearly hidden in the shadows, but Qin Jiu felt at this moment that he could see the clarity of his eyes past that.

Invigilator A stopped a few steps away and looked up over in his direction.

Qin Jiu for some reason asked, "Have I met you before?"

Invigilator A didn't speak.

Strangely enough, he appeared to be very calm but for some reason there was a brief moment where one would mistakenly feel that...he was actually very sad. 

After a few seconds, Invigilator A retracted his gaze: "No."

KK has something to say:

Their love is so beautiful