Chapter 281

Click, click, click.

The robot stopped at the classroom entrance, the sign in its hand changing to "I want to attend class."

He Yushui glanced at the doorway, said nothing, turned and opened the projector on the podium. The screen lit up, the outline of an ancient city slowly emerging—streets, houses, city gate, every brick and tile clearly visible.

"Today's lesson, we won't be flipping through the textbook." He slapped the desk, "Let's go take a walk three thousand years back."

The students sat up straight, eyes shining.

The triplets sat in the first row—Zhao Xing fiddled with the terminal on his wrist, Zhao Chen stared at the main control screen ahead, and Zhao Yang lightly touched the sensor on his ear.

Virtual signal linked successfully.

The holographic image unfolded, the whole classroom as if the roof had been lifted—sunlight poured down from above, the floor no longer concrete but a rammed-earth path. In the distance vendors hawked goods, artisans hammered bronze ware, and the wind carried the scent of charcoal and clay.

"This is a city from the mid-Shang dynasty." He Yushui stood at the spot resembling a street entrance, his voice a few degrees louder than usual, "What you see now is not an animation, but a true-to-life city model reconstructed from the latest deciphered oracle bone data."

A student reached out and touched the wall beside him, then jerked his hand back in surprise: "I felt it!"

"That's the haptic feedback system at work." Zhao Xing looked up, saying, "You're touching a virtual wall, but the neural signals make it feel real."

Laughter came from the back of the classroom, someone whispering, "Can I kick it?"

"Sure." He Yushui grinned, "But if you break it, you'll have to pay for it."

The class burst into laughter.

Zhao Chen tilted his head slightly, glancing at the data stream. On the brainwave monitor, most students' curves were steady, except for the bespectacled boy by the window, whose frequency was a bit erratic.

He said nothing, just lightly tapped Zhao Yang's elbow.

Zhao Yang immediately lowered his gaze to his terminal. The backend log of the language system jumped—an anomalous data packet had been injected, source unknown, disguised as an educational resource file.

He swiftly swiped his fingers, pulling up the protocol layer analysis interface.

He Yushui continued lecturing: "The spot we're standing on now was the market center back then. Everyone, look at the house on the right—a set of inscribed turtle shells was unearthed there, and the translation was just finished yesterday."

He raised a hand and pointed; a few lines of ancient script appeared in the air, then immediately shifted into modern Chinese:

"With fire to draw light, with metal to receive signals, six united can reach the heavenly mechanism."

The students below began to discuss.

"What does this mean?" someone asked.

"It sounds like a communications device." Zhao Yang suddenly interjected, "'Fire' refers to the power source, 'metal' is the conductor, and 'six united' could be an encoding method."

No sooner had he finished speaking than a system prompt sounded in his ear:

【Cognitive interference fluctuation detected】

Almost at the same moment, the bespectacled boy from earlier jerked his head up, his gaze going blank.

"Teacher." He suddenly raised his hand, "That passage… isn't worded like that. I recall the textbook saying 'Revere Heaven, honor the gods, pray for blessings and auspiciousness.'"

The classroom fell silent for an instant.

He Yushui paused, then smiled, saying, "You misremembered—this is the new translation, not yet in the teaching materials."

"But I saw the data this morning." The student insisted, "That's exactly how it was written."

Zhao Xing quickly glanced at his terminal interface and discovered the historical record had been tampered with—the original teaching document had been changed into different content, the title still in official format but the text completely altered.

Someone is altering the students' memory input source.

He lightly tapped the desk twice, then three short taps—their agreed-upon signal.

Zhao Chen immediately activated a bio-scan, an invisible wave sweeping over the whole class. Seventeen students, sixteen normal, only one brainwave frequency out of sync with the virtual environment—that boy.

Zhao Yang had already traced the data stream backward. The malicious code was hidden inside a file titled "Basic Civilization Knowledge Pack_v3," which superficially was a general courseware pushed by the Ministry of Education but actually carried a memory-guidance program.

He snorted coldly, entering a command in the backend: 【Isolate anomalous module, activate purification protocol】.

A blue flash flickered across the screen, then everything returned to normal.

He Yushui continued lecturing, tone unchanged: "Next, we'll see what the school looked like back then."

As he spoke, he subtly gave the triplets a glance.

The lesson progressed, the virtual scene switching to a schoolhouse where a few children in animal skins sat in a circle listening, the teacher drawing symbols on the ground with a wooden stick.

The students watched, entranced.

The bespectacled boy blinked, lowered his head to flip through his notes, and frowned: "How come I seem to have forgotten what was just said?"

No one answered him.

Zhao Yang stared at his terminal; the trace showed the attack source coming from an unregistered relay node, its position drifting unpredictably—clearly intentional concealment.

But he noticed that each data injection was accompanied by a faint call to the language protocol—using the underlying code of the language system they themselves had developed.

Someone is imitating their technology.

Zhao Xing whispered, "Could this be an internal leak?"

Zhao Yang shook his head, "Doesn't seem like it. The call is too crude, like a snippet intercepted midstream."

Zhao Chen looked at the class's brainwave chart and said, "The interference has stopped, but they're still monitoring."

He Yushui walked to the podium and pressed the final button.

"That's all for today's lesson." He said, "Next time we'll talk about how students back then took exams—apparently those who failed had to copy the *Six Arts Outline* a hundred times."

The students laughed, then one after another took off their headgear as the virtual world faded away.

The classroom lights came on.

Outside the door, the robot's sign changed again, now reading: "I want to go to school too."

No one paid it any mind.

He Yushui wiped the sweat from his forehead, sat down, and took a sip of water. He knew those ten minutes hadn't been simple. On the surface all was calm, but in reality the triplets had been fighting behind the scenes.

He glanced at the triplets: "How's it going?"

Zhao Yang put away his terminal: "Someone tried a dirty trick, but it was blocked back."

"Will it affect the students?"

「Not for now. 」 Zhao Chen said, 「but we need to find out who sent the fake assignment. If they change the safety regulations next time, students might perform dangerous actions in the Virtual Environment. 」

He Yushui nodded, was about to speak, when the Classroom's big screen suddenly lit up.

It was a video call request.

After connecting, the screen showed a middle-aged woman in uniform, with a sign behind her reading "Ministry of Education Remote Education Office".

「Teacher He. 」 she said with a smile, 「we watched the entire demonstration class just now, and the effect was very good. 」

He Yushui stood up: 「Thank you, leader, for the affirmation. 」

「Not just affirmation. 」 the woman said seriously, 「the department has decided that starting next week, this Metaverse Teaching Model will be promoted in fifty pilot schools nationwide. Your class, as the first successful case, will be included in the training manual. 」

The Classroom instantly became lively.

The students slapped each other's hands, someone shouting: 「We're on TV! 」

He Yushui also smiled, his eyes slightly warm.

The Triplets exchanged a glance, saying nothing.

Zhao Xing whispered: 「The faster the promotion, the greater the risk. 」

Zhao Yang stared at a data window in the corner of the screen, which was still flashing: 【External Monitoring Signal not disconnected】.

Zhao Chen pulled his chair back, lowering his voice: 「They're not here for the class, they're here for us. 」

After hanging up the video call, He Yushui turned and wrote four characters on the blackboard: **Careful input**.

Then he pointed at these characters and said: 「From now on, when you learn anything, whether it's written in a book or pushed by the system, first ask——is this really how it originally was? 」

The students fell silent.

The bespectacled male student raised his hand: 「Teacher, if even what we see could be altered, what can we still trust? 」

He Yushui glanced at the Triplets.

Zhao Yang stood up and walked to the podium: 「What you can trust is your own process of discovering problems. Just like earlier, when you noticed something off and spoke up—that's enough. 」

He paused: 「Technology can deceive, but doubt cannot. 」

The Classroom fell silent for a few seconds.

Then someone clapped, followed by a second, then a third.

The applause grew louder.

He Yushui clapped his hands: 「Alright, class is dismissed! Tomorrow at the same time, keep time‑traveling! 」

The students packed up and walked out, chattering about the ancient city they had just seen.

The Triplets didn't move.

After everyone had left, Zhao Yang finally said: 「That signal is still looping around outside. 」

Zhao Xing called up the tracking map: 「It doesn't dare come straight in, but it's skimming the edge of our data, as if collecting the operational patterns of the teaching model. 」

Zhao Chen stared toward the door: 「The robot hasn't left. 」

He Yushui walked to the window and saw that the machine was still standing in the Courtyard, its sign changed to 「Please let me learn」.

He shook his head and turned back, asking: 「Should we report it? 」

Zhao Yang shook his head: 「Reporting it would be useless. This signal is too light, drifting like dust; the system would only treat it as background noise. 」

「Then let it drift? 」

「No. 」 Zhao Yang twitched the corner of his mouth, 「we'll change our approach. 」

He opened the Terminal, created a new project file, and named it: **Metaverse Teaching_Public Test Version v1.0**.

Then he added some basic parameters, including scene loading logic, sensory feedback mechanism, and a simple language translation module.

「What are you doing? 」 Zhao Xing asked.

「Setting bait. 」 Zhao Yang said, 「since they want to steal, we'll give them something they can take. 」

「But this is our technology. 」

「So we need to change it. 」 Zhao Yang raised his head, 「change it into something they'll make mistakes with. 」

Zhao Chen understood: 「Lure them to connect the wrong way, then reverse‑locate them? 」

「Exactly. 」 Zhao Yang pressed Enter, 「let them think they've found a treasure. 」

He Yushui watched the upload progress bar on the screen, slowly smiling.

「You guys are really bad. 」

Zhao Xing shrugged: 「Not bad, just smart. 」

Zhao Yang clicked send.

The file was pushed out via the Public Education Platform, labeled 「Free Open-Source Teaching Tool」.

Three seconds later, the system popped up a prompt:

【External Node detected accessing, downloading file】

Zhao Yang stared at the IP routing path, his finger hovering over the execute key.

Zhao Chen said: 「Wait, let it download a bit more. 」

Zhao Xing stared at the monitoring chart: 「Its connection method……feels familiar. 」

He Yushui leaned in: 「Like whom? 」

Zhao Yang suddenly narrowed his eyes: 「Like that program that sneaked onto our server that night. 」

The air in the Classroom suddenly sank.

That program had once tried to read the Triplets' dream data.

Zhao Chen whispered: 「They've had their eyes on us for a while. 」

Zhao Yang said nothing, only lowering the trigger threshold of the Purification Protocol to the minimum.

As soon as the other party parses the file's content, it will activate the hidden command.

He pressed the confirm key.

Screen displayed: 【Reverse tracking activated】

The progress bar started moving.

Forty seconds.

Thirty seconds.

Twenty seconds.

Zhao Yang stared at the countdown.

Zhao Xing suddenly said: "It stopped."

Everyone was stunned.

Zhao Yang refreshed the page.

The download was interrupted.

The connection disappeared.

That IP, completely vanished without a trace.

But just before the disconnection, in the last millisecond, the system captured a fragment of residual code.

Zhao Yang zoomed in, examining line by line.

Suddenly, his pupils constricted.

"This isn't an ordinary hacker." He lowered his voice, "This code structure... uses the same compilation language as that old Terminal in our home."