Chapter 2: School

The ticking of the clock echoed incessantly. In the classroom, Zhang Yu was earnestly working on the test paper before him.

But the test paper seemed endless; no matter how he worked or filled it in, there was never a moment of completion.

His seat was also growing farther and farther from his classmates, gradually making it impossible to see the figures ahead, as if he were being swallowed bit by bit by the darkness behind him.

Cold sweat broke out on his forehead, panic welled up in his heart, and his constantly writing hand began to go limp, losing its strength.

Only when he, along with countless books and test papers, fell into that bottomless darkness did Zhang Yu suddenly wake up on his bed.

"Was it a dream?"

"It seems to be some of Zhang Yu's past memories."

He rubbed his head, feeling countless fragmented memories belonging to the original body surging and shifting in his mind.

Although Zhang Yu had now taken control of this body, he still hadn't fully integrated the original memories; many details required focused recollection to remember.

Especially regarding the memories of yesterday's strange ritual, as soon as Zhang Yu thought back slightly, he felt dizzy and couldn't recall what had happened at all.

He glanced at his phone and saw it was only five in the morning. He had intended to go back to sleep, but found this body simply couldn't fall asleep anymore.

It was as if getting up at five every day to go to school had become an instinct of this body.

"Why does it feel like there's a sense of guilt if I keep lying down?"

Zhang Yu sat up, thinking that this was probably the influence of the original body's memories.

He patted his somewhat flat stomach and simply stood up, thinking, "Forget it, I'll just go to school. At least I can get a free meal."

He remembered that Songyang High School should provide three meals a day, and the meal fee for this month had already been deposited into his card.

And now, burdened with a huge debt of 700,000 and having only a little over fifty yuan on him, he couldn't afford to eat outside.

So he left the stuffy apartment, walked through an alley full of sewage, and squeezed onto a bus with a crowd of people.

Squeezed in a carriage mixed with the smell of sweat and food, with the air conditioning on but barely effective, Zhang Yu felt like a deformed takeout container being jostled along towards the city center.

After an hour and a half and two bus transfers, a sweaty Zhang Yu finally managed to squeeze off the bus.

Wiping the sweat from his head, Zhang Yu thought to himself, "Speaking of which, why do I have to be a day student?"

"Oh, I remember now, it's because I can't afford the dormitory fees."

Unlike where Zhang Yu lived, the place where he got off was in the city center. As far as the eye could see, there were high-rise buildings and clean, wide roads, and even the air was much fresher.

The men and women walking on the streets were mostly well-dressed, looking like urban elites.

Strolling along with occasional stops, he finally arrived at the school gate. From a distance, Zhang Yu could see the large characters on the gate: "Songyang Advanced Immortal Dao High School."

On the electronic screen at the school gate, there was actually a list of grades, showing the top ten students of each of the three high school grades from last month.

From this, one could tell that Songyang High School was a school that placed great importance on students' grades.

If Zhang Yu were to summarize from memory, it would be: at Songyang High School, grades are paramount; this is a world where everyone worships test scores.

Studying and exams here were as natural as breathing, and almost everyone had extreme discrimination based on scores.

Things like, "No wonder you have to queue so long in the cafeteria with such low scores," "With scores that low, you don't even deserve to eat at the same table with us," and "Top students must ruthlessly humiliate slackers, hehe..." were all considered positive campus culture.

"This is completely a world where scores rule, a hell for underachievers."

Zhang Yu glanced at the electronic screen showing "Grade 10, 1st Year Overall: Zhang Yu" and sighed inwardly, "Good thing I'm the one with high scores."

"Although my current ranking might be somewhat undeserved, at least I haven't been exposed yet. So I should be able to live a decent life at school, right?"

Songyang High School's cafeteria provided breakfast, so Zhang Yu followed his memories and came here.

Walking through, he noticed that although there were many students queuing for food in the cafeteria, it was extremely quiet. Almost everyone queued silently, took their food quietly, and found seats to eat in silence, like interlocking gears moving precisely through each step.

Some students were even reading books while eating, seizing every minute to study.

Zhang Yu casually found a seat and sat down. He had just taken a bite of a meat bun when he noticed someone sit down in the empty seat in front of him.

It was a girl with pitch-black long hair and fair skin.

The name of the other person surfaced in Zhang Yu's mind.

"Bai Zhenzhen."

"To be precise, Bai Zhenzhen is the top scorer of the entire first-year class, the woman at the top of the first-year pecking order."

Looking at the girl sitting across from him drinking porridge, Zhang Yu thought to himself, "Is she and I friends?"

"Because I'm in the top ten of the grade? Is this the so-called 'study circle'?"

Bai Zhenzhen was the kind of person who, unless she smiled, gave off the impression of being in a silent sulk; even the most ordinary words from her mouth carried a sense of distant aloofness that kept people at arm's length.

Just like now, sitting in front of Zhang Yu without saying a word, she made him feel as if she had some issue with him.

Just as Zhang Yu was focused on recalling the memories related to Bai Zhenzhen in his mind, trying to confirm exactly what their relationship was,

he heard the girl speak: "After you finish eating, come to the small garden. I'll wait for you there."

Watching her leave, a hint of thoughtful contemplation flickered in Zhang Yu's eyes.

A moment later, after he had eaten and drunk his fill, he got up and left the cafeteria, heading to the small garden behind the school.

This was a quiet spot behind the dormitory building, and at this hour, when most students were rushing to the classroom, it was almost devoid of people.

Bai Zhenzhen was standing by a flower bed. As soon as she heard Zhang Yu's footsteps, she turned around and quickly walked up to him.

"Dad!"

With a thud, she knelt on the ground, hugging Zhang Yu's leg and saying, "There were too many people in the cafeteria just now, so I was too embarrassed to say it."

"Lend me some money, please. My small loan has been overdue for almost a month! I'm kneeling to you…"

Watching this scene, Zhang Yu cursed inwardly: "What kind of broken school is this? The top student and the tenth-place student both borrow money to show off, right?"

And by now, Zhang Yu had also recalled that the reason he and Bai Zhenzhen knew each other was not because of some "study circle," but because she was his upline—she had sold him a small loan.

Let me reintroduce properly: Zhang Yu's classmate Bai Zhenzhen was his good buddy in sharing loan information from various platforms, bonded by a solid friendship forged through borrowing money together everywhere.

Thinking about how, under that icy poker face in the cafeteria, she had been constantly scheming to borrow money from him, Zhang Yu shook his head helplessly: "Let go of me first. How would I have any money to lend you?"

Bai Zhenzhen shook her head and said, "You're only tenth in the grade. How much could you possibly spend? Your loan applications must be way less than mine, right?"

As she spoke, she added stiffly and shyly, "As long as you help me pay off my debt, I'll do whatever you want."

Hearing this, Zhang Yu's eyes lit up. Looking at Bai Zhenzhen's usually cold face now blushing like a peach blossom, he found it had a unique charm.

He looked up and down at Bai Zhenzhen's figure and asked, "Whatever I want?"

Bai Zhenzhen bit her lip lightly and nodded: "Mm."

Zhang Yu: "Then can I pawn you off?" Bai Zhenzhen let go of his leg, stared at him, and said, "Yu, you really don't have any money left?"

Zhang Yu took out his phone and showed the balance and overdue messages.

Bai Zhenzhen stood up, brushed the dust off her pant legs, and looked at Zhang Yu in disbelief: "You owe seven hundred thousand? Even after graduating from college, you'd probably have to work a long time to pay that off."

"And you're only a freshman in high school—how can you spend so recklessly?"

Bai Zhenzhen shook her head repeatedly as she said this: "Zhang Yu, how exactly did you spend this money?"

Zhang Yu rubbed his head and said, "I forgot… let me think."

Bai Zhenzhen looked at him suspiciously: "You didn't invest it in something, did you? Were you scammed?"

As Zhang Yu recalled, he himself became uncertain: "Probably… not?"

But Bai Zhenzhen's expression suddenly turned serious. The more she thought about it, the more she felt there was something wrong with Zhang Yu's spending of over seven hundred thousand: "Let me see your phone."

Zhang Yu understood that she was worried about him—after all, investment, fraud, gambling, sudden death, and Qi deviation were the top five causes of death in Songyang City, with Qi deviation ranking fifth.

And at this moment, he also felt a growing curiosity about the original owner, so he took out his phone: "Just as well, I want to review how the money was spent too. Let's check the account flow together."

Their eyes swept across the phone screen, revealing the original Zhang Yu's list of expenses.

As Zhang Yu saw these, many relevant details of memory kept surging up in his mind.

Danding Pharmacy - 280.00

Danding Pharmacy - 250.00

Time Awaits No One Meditation Room - 120.00

Zhang Yu said as he looked: "I bought some pills at the school pharmacy, then rented a quiet room to do breathing exercises…"

Besides general education courses like language, math, physics, and history, the teaching content at Songyang High School also includes courses related to immortal cultivation.

What is called immortal cultivation is the path of cultivation by which a person gradually becomes an immortal. This is also the most important part of the entire high school stage, with the highest score proportion, and it is a key factor for entering prestigious universities.

Breathing exercises are one of the most basic skills of immortal cultivation. By gathering the spiritual energy from the atmosphere through breathing, one can accumulate the mana within the cultivator's body.

Only with sufficient mana can one drive greater combat power and climb to higher realms. It can be said that mana is the foundation for the operation of all immortal cultivation techniques.

For example, to break through from the Qi Refining realm to the Foundation Establishment realm, the mana requirement is over 60 points, while the upper limit of mana that can be mastered in the Qi Refining realm is 100 points.

In the system that the ten great sects are striving to build, everything is standardized and digitized as much as possible, even mana. For instance, the current mana tests at the school are all accurate to one decimal place.

Bai Zhenzhen nodded slightly and continued flipping through.

Shuixiu Catering Service Co., Ltd. -532.00

Zhang Yu said: "This is for extra meals at the cafeteria for nutritional supplementation—it cost quite a bit."

In immortal cultivation, the physical body’s strength is equally crucial. Consuming large amounts of food rich in spiritual energy and elements of the immortal path is also part of a cultivator’s daily routine, known as nutritional supplementation.

Longxiang Education Service Co., Ltd. -1500.00

Longxiang Education Service Co., Ltd. -3000.00

Zhang Yu recalled for a moment and said: "Mm… this is the fee for the tutoring sessions last time, as well as the cost of renting a spiritual root."

A spiritual root was originally a special talent, possessed only by a very few geniuses, which could greatly increase a cultivator's cultivation efficiency and combat power.

As the most famous barrier to immortal cultivation in the past, even Zhang Yu, who had been in junior high, and his mother had heard all kinds of legends about spiritual roots. So much so that when the original Zhang Yu was cramming for loans, he used renting a spiritual root as an excuse to ask his mother for money.

However, now that immortal cultivation technology has become increasingly advanced, ordinary people like Zhang Yu without spiritual roots can spend money to rent spiritual roots to improve their cultivation efficiency.

Continuing to flip through, aside from the few explanations Zhang Yu gave at the beginning, the subsequent expense items were mostly similar in content, almost all related to immortal cultivation practice.

After quickly glancing through Zhang Yu's recent months of expenses, Bai Zhenzhen looked at Zhang Yu with eyes full of pity: "Did you really spend all that money on your own immortal cultivation practice?"

"And you ended up in debt by over seven hundred thousand just to break into tenth place?"

"It's only been a little over three months since school started, right? What are you going to do now?"

As someone who had only arrived in another world for the first day, Zhang Yu was also completely lost about his future. He shrugged and said: "Just muddle along for now, slowly figure something out."

Noticing that it was almost time for class, the two walked toward the teaching building while talking.

"How come you owe over seven hundred thousand and still seem more relaxed than someone like me, who owes over two hundred thousand?"

Bai Zhenzhen looked at Zhang Yu's calm expression and reminded him: "You won't have any money to throw at studying anymore!"

"Do you know what happens if you don't have money for studying? Do you know how dangerous our situation is right now?"

Zhang Yu: "What happens?"

Bai Zhenzhen said: "There are only three weeks until the monthly exam. In three weeks, you won't have money to rent a spiritual root, buy pills, attend cram school, or even buy daily supplements… while everyone else is improving every second. By then, it’s very normal for you to drop dozens of places in the year ranking—you’ll be kicked out of the demonstration class!"

Combining what Bai Zhenzhen said, many related memories surged into Zhang Yu's mind.

The entire first year has ten classes, from Class 1 to Class 10, and they are divided according to the results of the monthly exam each month.

According to Zhang Yu’s ranking, he was naturally assigned to the best class, Class 1, also called the demonstration class.

Besides the regular general education exams, the monthly exam scores ultimately depend most heavily on the results of immortal cultivation.

After all, general education only accounts for 50 points, while the remaining immortal cultivation subjects together total a full 650 points.

Especially since all first-year students started formal cultivation after school began, their cultivation levels are actually quite close.

Although he seems to be ranked tenth, if he cannot maintain his previous rate of progress in the coming weeks, he could easily be thrown behind dozens of places.

Bai Zhenzhen continued: "If you keep having no money, your ranking will get worse and worse, your treatment will get lower and lower—in this vicious cycle, you’ll gradually be kicked from Class 1 down to Class 10!"

Her face was full of gravity: "With no money and no grades, you’ll become burnable trash in the teachers' eyes, a joke in the mouths of demonstration class students, and the object of cheap self-superiority for those extras in the regular classes!"

Bai Zhenzhen held her head: "In such a situation, not to mention cultivation resources, even your Dao heart will find it hard to remain stable. Your grades will only get worse and worse, and eventually you’ll fall below the elimination line. You’ll end up with injuries, a mountain of debt, and be kicked out of Songyang High School."

As if seeing that miserable future in her mind, Bai Zhenzhen looked up at the sky and lamented: "Do you want to live at the very bottom of the school’s contempt chain, be repeatedly humiliated! And eventually become a dropout degenerate of society?"

Upon hearing this, Zhang Yu twitched the corner of his mouth: "Then what do you think we should do?"

Bai Zhenzhen was silent for a moment, then turned her head. "Brother, to be honest... owing seven hundred thousand just to break into the top ten—maybe you really aren't cut out for the immortal path."

"I don't know how you got into Songyang, but my suggestion is... drop out and find a job, or I'm afraid you'll sink deeper and deeper."

Zhang Yu didn't reply, but sighed inwardly. "The only good thing about this crappy world is that you can cultivate immortality, and it's only been one day and they're telling me I have no talent?"

Not long after returning to the classroom, Zhang Yu picked up his vibrating phone and found that Bai Zhenzhen had transferred 500 yuan to him and sent a message.

Bai Zhenzhen: Pay the utility bill first.

Zhang Yu was slightly startled. He suddenly sniffed his own clothes and immediately understood that Bai Zhenzhen had smelled the odor of not having bathed for several days.

Although he himself was used to the smell, it should be quite noticeable to others.

Thinking that despite her own poor financial situation she had still given him money, Zhang Yu sighed inwardly. He typed a long message on his phone, then deleted it all, and finally replied: Thank you.

After finishing his reply, Zhang Yu looked at his palm and saw that the symbol on it was already half filled with black.

On the way to school and into the classroom, Zhang Yu had already noticed that only he could see the symbol on his palm.

Now he calculated the time and estimated that the symbol would be completely filled with black by tonight. He just didn't know what would happen once it was full.

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