Card Room (Rebirth)
chapter-22

Xiao Lou and Yu Hanjiang walked with light footsteps behind Ying Xiaoya, secretly entering the grade three teaching building, the Chongwen Building.

At 7:40, classes had already begun. Reading sounds were heard from time to time in the teaching building. Ying Xiaoya trotted all the way to class 3 on the third floor. She stopped at the door of the classroom and took a deep breath, seeming to hesitate.

Up close, Ying Xiaoya was actually very beautiful. She had white skin, excellent facial features and a pair of big eyes that were highly recognizable. She was thin and her hair fell to just below her ears. Her face was small and delicate and she was completely suitable to be the heroine of a campus idol drama.

She hesitated at the door for a moment before biting her lips and shouting, “Reporting!”

The door of the classroom opened and a young female teacher with long straight hair wearing a suit skirt spoke coldly, “Ying Xiaoya, do you know what time it is? I told you last week that today I wanted to do a dictation test. You actually only came to class now?”

Countless pairs of eyes were looking from the classroom. Ying Xiaoya blushed and bowed her head. “Yes, I’m sorry…”

The female teacher frowned and let her go in. Ying Xiaoya ran to her seat in a panic and in the process, she knocked over a metal pen case that the boy had placed on the table. In the quiet classroom, a ‘bang’ was heard as pens, erasers and rulers were scattered all over the floor. Ying Xiaoya rushed to help him pick them up and whispered, “I’m sorry, Class Monitor. I didn’t mean to…”

The boy leaned over and picked up the stationery scattered around, speaking lightly. “It doesn’t matter.”

Ying Xiaoya finally reached her seat.

There was a total of 40 students in the class. Two people sat at a table and Ying Xiaoya’s seat was in the fifth row near the door. Her desk mate was a fat girl with a ponytail who asked her, “Are you okay?”

Ying Xiaoya quickly shook her head, walked behind the table and sat down, quickly bringing out her English textbook from her bag.

The classroom door was closed by the female teacher while Yu Hanjiang and Xiao Lou stood at the back door, continuing to observe through the small window.

A girl sitting near the back door had sharp eyes and found them. She looked at Xiao Lou and whispered, “Who are those two?”

”They are probably part of the school’s supervisory office and are checking the classroom’s discipline.”

”I haven’t seen them before. Are they new? They look so handsome.”

”They are quite handsome. Hey, the teacher is looking over. Don’t speak.”

Yu Hanjiang and Xiao Lou glanced at each other and didn’t know if they should laugh or cry.

In the 3 of Hearts room, only being caught by the security guards would lead to being expelled from school. It didn’t have a negative impact if the students and teachers found them. Yu Hanjiang whispered into Xiao Lou’s ears, “Profession Xiao, is it feasible for us to pretend to be teachers of this school?”

Xiao Lou replied in a light voice, “It should be possible. The number of teachers in this school is more than 300 and the students certainly won’t recognize all of them.”

Yu Hanjiang nodded and took a step back while pulling Xiao Lou.

The two men were hiding in a monitoring blank spot on the third floor and didn’t need to worry about being seen by the security guards. In addition, all the morning classes were in session and the corridor was extremely quiet. The movements inside the classroom were clear and the location that Yu Hanjiang chose was one where they could see Ying Xiaoya through the window.

In the classroom, the teacher ignored Ying Xiaoya’s late episode and continued to teach.

She asked the class representative to hand out the monthly exam test results.

Blood drained from Ying Xiaoya’s face the moment she received the paper.

The English teacher stared at her and spoke coldly, “For this monthly examination, our class actually has a student who only tested 15 points! The paper is out of 150 points. Closing your eyes and throwing an eraser or guessing ABCD would give a higher score than this!”

The classroom was silent and Ying Xiaoya’s head almost touched the table.

The English teacher directly named her. “Ying Xiaoya.”

The girl stood up stiffly.

The English teacher asked, “My family might be cursed. How do you translate this sentence?”

“My family is…”

She apparently forgot the word and couldn’t speak.

The English teacher frowned and turned to look at the boy sitting in the middle of the third row. “Xie Xinghe, you say it.”

The boy whose pencil case had been knocked over stood up, tall and cold-faced. He pushed the silver-framed glasses up the bridge of his nose and looked calmly at the teacher. “Maybe there is a curse on my family.”

This young man was in the period where his voice was changing but his voice was clear and sounded especially good when speaking English.

The teacher nodded with satisfaction and motioned at him to sit down. Then she glanced at Ying Xiaoya. “Did you hear it? Ying Xiaoya, I spoke this question just last week yet you are directly giving me empty air? What were you doing in class?”

The entire class’s eyes swept towards her and Ying Xiaoya shyly lowered her head, her body shaking slightly.

The English teacher declared, “Take this lesson’s paper and go to the back row to listen!”

Ying Xiaoya took the paper to the back row. Her head was lowered and her expression couldn’t be seen. Her clenched fists at her side were shaking.

Xiao Lou frowned. The English teacher criticized her in front of all the students and also sent her to the public penalty station. This would hurt the girl’s self-esteem. In particular, Ying Xiaoya was now 17 or 18 years old and she was sensitive. It was estimated that this criticism was unbearable.

Seeing Ying Xiaoya’s head lower and lower, Xiao Lou had a bad feeling in his heart.

The normal class began and the teacher started explaining the monthly test paper.

Xiao Lou observed for a moment before whispering in Yu Hanjiang’s ear. “Group Leader Yu, I feel something isn’t quite right.”

Yu Hanjiang turned back with serious eyes and whispered, “What did you find?”

“This is a dynamic plot secret room and we need to gather clues around Xiao Lou. Last month’s test, the questions on the English test paper and the English teacher asking Ying Xiaoya to translate a question that she couldn’t do and then having Xie Xinghe continue… I feel this question should be a clue.”

Yu Hanjiang frowned and thought for a moment before something sharp flashed in his eyes. “You mean, ‘my family is cursed’, the keyword is ‘curse. This is related to the last hint we got when entering the secret room?”

Xiao Lou nodded. “Yes, this is a cursed school.”

Entering the secret room, the last tip said that Maple Forest High School was a cursed school. The maple leaves were so red because they absorbed too much blood.

At the time, Xiao Lou only felt this sentence was deliberately creating a climate of terror but now it didn’t seem as simple.

Curse? Was the campus’ bloody case related to the curse?

Both men looked at each other, their expressions become serious before they continued to watch the classroom.

Nothing happened afterwards in the class. The English teacher kept talking about the test paper until the bell rang and she left.

The classroom became lively. Two or three students gathered to chat. Some people borrowed Xie Xinghe’s homework to copy, some people ran out to go to the bathroom and some took out bread to eat breakfast.

Only Ying Xiaoya stood alone in the back of the classroom, eyes filled with tears.

Her desk mate went over and handed her a paper towel, grabbing her arm in comfort. “Xiaoya, it is nothing. This time you didn’t test well but next month’s result will be better. Zhang Qing, this woman is fierce but she isn’t only like this to you. Many people have been scolded by her. Don’t mind it.”

Zhang Qing was apparently the English teacher just now.

Ying Xiaoya quickly wiped her tears and barely squeezed out a smile.”Thank you, Yi Ru.”

Just then, the class monitor Xie Xinghe came over with a cold face. “Ying Xiaoya, you were late today and our class had 2 points deducted. This week we definitely won’t be rated as an advanced class. Would you please stop dragging Class 3 back?”

Ying Xiaoya bowed her head in an ashamed manner. “Class Monitor, I didn’t mean, I…”

Xie Xinghe frowned. “Next time, remember to use an alarm clock and don’t sleep late again.”

Just then, a tall boy suddenly came over and blocked the front of Ying Xiaoya, staring coldly at the class monitor. “Xie Xinghe, what are you talking about here? Didn’t you hear what she said? She didn’t mean it!”

Ying Xiaoya pulled at him with a white face. “Yu Hui, don’t say…”

Yu Hui raised his eyebrows and stared into the class monitor’s eyes. “I can’t understand your hypocrisy! Why are you fucking acting as an official at school? Is it so great to be the class monitor?”

Xie Xinghe pushed up his glasses. “Am I wrong? She has been late a few times this month. Ask her yourself.”

The two boys had a close confrontation and their eyes emitted a force until a scream was heard. “Fuck, the class teacher is coming!”

The room instantly became quiet and everyone ran back to the seats, taking out their language textbooks and pretending to read it. The students who were copying homework were so frightened they quickly stuffed their books into their drawers. The four people in the back of the classroom also returned to their seats.

Xiao Lou, “…”

It seemed that the class teacher was very authoritative. The group of students reacted to the class teacher like a mouse hearing a cat.

The class teacher who entered was a middle-aged man with a wealthy (fat) figure. His eyes swept over the room and he smiled. “Oh, you are so serious today? However, your acting is quite bad. Some students even have their textbooks upside down.”

The classrooms with upside-down textbooks immediately turned red and turned their textbooks over.

The class teacher gave him a glance. “The result of this month’s examination has come out. Our senior Class 3 has become the penultimate science class and one of the students has won first place in the year. This ‘laurel’ is worthy of celebration.”

The students, “…”

The class teacher declared, “You performed so well that in order to celebrate your excellent results, today’s language class won’t be held! Go to the playground and give me a lap and let all the teachers and students see your style. Yu Hui, take the lead and run 10 laps first!”

The group of students were kicked out of the classroom with pained expressions.

Xiao Lou and Yu Hanjiang were surprised by the teacher’s operation and couldn’t get out of the way int time. They directly ran into the students who came out of the classroom.

Many students looked at them curiously and some of the girls whispered about their identity.

The class teacher hesitated and asked, “You two are?”

Xiao Lou smiled and stepped forward. “hello, we are new first grade teachers. My last name is Xiao and this is Teacher Yu. We are familiarizing ourselves with the environment of the school. Later, I’ll have to ask Senior to take care of me.”

Yu Hanjiang, “…”

He looked back at Xiao Lou and found that the other person didn’t change expression when lying. This reaction was really fast.

Pretending to be a teacher was natural for Xiao Lou.

The class teacher obviously believed Xiao Lou’s words and smiled, shaking Xiao Lou’s hand. “Mr Xiao, you look around slowly. I’ll take the students to the playground first.”

It wasn’t until the students and class teacher disappeared at the end of the corridor that Yu Hanjiang sighed with relief. “It seems there are too many teachers in this school and the students and teachers don’t know everyone. It was wise for you to impersonate a teacher.”

When Xiao Lou was at university, he didn’t know how many colleagues there were in his department. This large school had more than 300 teachers and it was normal for teachers of different grades to not know each other. He smiled and turned back. “Group Leader Yu, let’s move separately. I will watch Ying Xiaoya while you search the classroom.”

Yu Hanjiang nodded easily. “Yes, I will search for clues in Class 3. You follow them and pay attention to avoid the cameras. We will meet in the air corridor on the third floor before class is over.”