Chapter 2

After Tang Jing's analysis, everyone had some idea of the current situation, but it also made people even more desperate; let alone going home, with the current state, just leaving the classroom is a problem.

Chen Mu hadn't thought about it in such detail before, and couldn't help but admire Tang Jing a bit.

"What on earth is this, why have we become small?!"

Obviously, before Chen Mu joined, these people had already been arguing about the situation for a long time. Although senior three students are nearly adults, after all they are still students, and facing such a thing, few can stay calm.

Everyone turned their gazes toward Tang Jing again.

Tang Jing sighed, shook her head: "I'm not entirely clear either, but one thing is, if we really just shrank in body size, many things shouldn't be like this."

"What?" Everyone was puzzled.

"For example, when a person shrinks, brain volume drastically decreases, it's uncertain whether original intelligence can be retained; also, if bone strength stays the same, then after shrinking the body's burden would be greatly reduced; the body's heat dissipation mechanism would also become disordered; in short, shrinking would cause a series of problems, it couldn't be as calm as now."

"Finally, and most crucially, the clothes and shoes we wear have also shrunk along with us..."

Among those present, most people were completely bewildered.

"So what does that mean, exactly?" someone asked, puzzled.

Chen Mu interjected: "The meaning is, our bodies shrinking is not a change within the realm of biology and physics..."

Tang Jing nodded, glanced at him again, seeming somewhat surprised that Chen Mu could follow her train of thought.

"Then what kind of change is it?" someone continued to ask.

Tang Jing spread her hands: "Who knows? Superpowers? Magic? Or perhaps there really is a deity who thinks Earth's resources aren't enough for humanity to waste, so they created an apocalypse? In any case, the current situation is indeed hard to explain with present scientific theory."

"Absolutely ridiculous!" someone shouted.

"Ridiculous as it may be, but looking at it now, this explanation is actually the most reasonable." Dong Junwei obviously stood on Tang Jing's side.

"I don't believe it; everything in this world must be explicable by science, superpowers and magic are just deceit!" a male student said somewhat agitatedly.

Tang Jing sighed: "I also hope you're right. But the fact is, there's really no need to delve deeply; what matters is how we are going to survive."

Having said that, the scene fell into silence.

Time passed minute by minute.

By now it was approaching evening, and everyone could only sit huddled together, at a loss.

"Grumble..."

No one knew whose stomach made the sound.

The girl who had just shouted about wanting to go home blushed all over her face, embarrassed, and said: "I... I'm hungry."

A male student impatiently said: "Zhao Xiao Yan, why do you have so many issues? At a time like this, you're actually still thinking about eating?"

Before the girl named Zhao Xiao Yan could speak, Wei Dalei jumped up: "Gu Ping, what kind of fart did you drop? Her being hungry hasn't offended you."

Chen Mu's mouth curled slightly; he knew Wei Dalei had always had a crush on Zhao Xiao Yan, but this guy looked like a hairless brown bear, speaking in a rough voice, while Zhao Xiao Yan was famously a goody-goody, and they obviously didn't match; moreover, current girls' tastes are for pretty boys, so Wei Dalei's appearance would probably only be welcomed on Mars.

However, by this point, it seemed everyone's state of mind had changed.

Under the despair of the apocalypse, the sense of security brought by strength is irreplaceable by anything.

Zhao Xiao Yan indeed gave Wei Dalei a grateful look.

Gu Ping raised his voice: "What's it to you?"

Wei Dalei also shouted back without yielding: "If you're talking about Zhao Xiao Yan, then it's my business!"

Gu Ping and Wei Dalei already had some friction over trivial matters; normally, such minor squabbles among classmates wouldn't matter, but given the current situation, everyone's mindset was already unstable, tempers flared, nobody would back down, and they were almost about to come to blows.

"Alright! Say a couple less words, arguing only wastes energy."

Seeing the team's divergence growing larger, Dong Junwei stepped forward and immediately separated the two.

Chen Mu said: "It's already pretty late, being hungry is normal. Moreover, if we want to survive, food is the most basic need, so we really need to consider this issue now."

After the ant‑killing incident, Chen Mu's status within the team rose rapidly, and his words naturally carried weight.

Gu Ping let out a light snort and stopped speaking.

Tang Jing let out a faint sigh: "It's a pity that food isn't allowed in the classroom, and even if we leave to look for food, we don't know how long that will take."

Everyone fell silent, and Chen Mu also frowned slightly.

At that moment, a girl timidly said: "I... I actually brought a piece of cake into the classroom today secretly, and it's still in the desk."

Everyone was first stunned, then burst into loud laughter.

"Du Jia Jia, you're really a damn angel! Hahaha."

"You should be rated as this year's cutest violation of school rules..."

"……"

Du Jia Jia was instantly surrounded by the crowd.

A piece of cake, even if only some crumbs, would be enough to feed this group now, and could even last several days.

But the happiness didn't last long before the problem surfaced again.

The cake was placed in the desk, the desk opening is about seventy to eighty centimeters above the ground; given everyone's current height, who could reach it?

"Why don't we stack like arhats? One person stands on another's shoulder, then we can reach." Someone came up with a bad idea.

"You're crazy? That's at least the height of several dozen people. Not to mention we don't have enough people; even if we stacked, the person at the bottom would be stepped into a meat patty!"

"Otherwise, we could find someone to climb up…?"

This suggestion seems a bit more reliable, but who would do it? Eighty centimeters, for them now, is eighty meters, as high as a twenty-something-story building; who has the guts to climb?

"Wasn't there someone who was just righteous earlier? Let him go climb." Gu Ping remarked sarcastically from the side.

"I'll get it down, you don't eat it!" Wei Dalei immediately retorted.

"If I'm not eating, then I'm not eating."

"……"

The two were about to start arguing again.

Suddenly a female student crouched down, holding her head.

Ah! My head hurts!

Everyone was stunned.

At that moment, the remaining few female students also began to show signs of discomfort.

Dong Junwei gritted her teeth, held her forehead with her hand, and forced herself to endure.

Tang Jing slowly sat down on the ground, her expression painful, brows tightly furrowed.

The boys' reaction was a step slower; after five or six seconds, Gu Ping let out a loud shout and collapsed to the ground.

Immediately after, Wei Dalei and the others also could not escape.

Within less than ten seconds, everyone exhibited the same headache symptoms.

Chen Mu gazed at his fallen classmates, a bit unable to react, but just a few seconds later, suddenly it felt as if a thunderclap struck his mind, as if his eardrums were about to be pierced.

The difference was that, in just an instant, Chen Mu returned to normal.

The others were obviously more severely affected; it took nearly a minute before they gradually recovered.

Everyone looked at each other, not knowing what had happened.

"What on earth is going on?"

Tang Jing slowly rose to her feet, facing everyone's doubts, she said somewhat wearily: "It should be the aftereffect of our bodies shrinking, but all of this is too strange."

"Really spooky!"

Wei Dalei's temper exploded instantly; he had been half‑crouching, and he suddenly slammed a fist onto the ground.

"Boom!"

The ground beneath his feet seemed to tremble twice.

On the hard concrete floor, a clear fist print was left.

Everyone was startled.

Even Wei Dalei himself widened his eyes in disbelief.