Rules-related weird stories: 4016

The eerie art teacher's voice was very soft, carrying a hint of sinister and evil aura, yet everyone nearby heard it clearly.

The muscles in Lin Yi's face twitched violently.

"What do you mean 'just my type'? Given the atmosphere at the time, even if a personification of the Jade Maiden of Peng Zu appeared, I wouldn't have given it a second glance, okay!"

Although he said this in his heart, he didn't say anything aloud.

The fanatical believer's small leader's attention was initially focused entirely on Lao Mo, but upon hearing these words, he turned his gaze to Lin Yi, who was standing next to Lao Mo.

In the next moment, a sharp and terrifying fierce light suddenly appeared in his eyes: "You! Ah, you dare to bring someone with 'identity credentials' here?!"

Faced with the fanatical believer's small leader's question, Lao Mo's expression remained calm: "Who I bring here is none of your business."

"You!" The fanatical believer's small leader was momentarily at a loss for words, but he didn't argue with Lao Mo in this place. "If you're looking for death, don't come to our side to die! Our little temple can't accommodate a great Buddha like you!"

Upon hearing this, Lao Mo's deathly pale face twitched with a fake smile: "Then I guess I'll be leaving…"

"You! Ah, wait, don't go yet!" The fanatical believer's small leader gritted his teeth, then pointed at Lin Yi's nose and said, "Everything else remains the same, but this guy… you have to protect him yourself. Once he passes this point, we are not responsible for whether he lives or dies."

"I never needed you to be responsible in the first place," Lao Mo sneered.

"Um… boss…" The fanatical believer, who was being held in Lao Mo's hand, said in a hoarse voice, "You guys can chat… but could you let me go first…"

The fanatical believer's small leader looked at Lao Mo.

Lao Mo lightly released his hand, and the fanatical believer slumped to the ground as if paralyzed, gasping for breath as if already drenched in sweat.

The fanatical believer's small leader kicked the fanatical believer who was panting heavily and winked: "Go, tell everyone to stop what they're doing and stop carving for now."

"Everyone?" A playful smile appeared on the corner of Lao Mo's mouth. "Looks like you've gotten into trouble again."

Upon hearing this, the fanatical believer's small leader immediately became agitated: "What, what trouble are you talking about! This is all an undeserved disaster, an undeserved disaster, you understand?!"

Lao Mo picked at his ear: "Yeah, yeah, I understand… Anyway, it's all a disaster I brought."

Upon hearing this, the fanatical believer's small leader's eyes darted around, and he immediately understood. Then, he clasped his hands together, and a flattering smile appeared on his somewhat twisted and terrifying face: "Hehe heh… not entirely, not entirely…"

Lao Mo said, "Hurry up, I'm in a hurry this time."

"Okay, okay, okay… Just wait for me a moment!" The fanatical believer's small leader responded and instructed the eerie art teacher to "look after" Lao Mo and Lin Yi, then immediately turned around and disappeared into the mist with another fanatical believer.

Watching the fanatical believer's small leader disappear into the mist, the look of bewilderment in Lin Yi's eyes deepened. He then approached Lao Mo and whispered, "Lao Mo… what's going on here?"

Lao Mo smiled: "Have you seen 'Journey to the West'?"

"Huh?"

"Do you know about Sun Wukong wreaking havoc in the Heavenly Palace?"

"Ah…?"

"Sun Wukong stirred up the underworld, changed the Book of Life and Death; he wreaked havoc in the Heavenly Palace, stole Lao Jun's elixir, ate peaches, and drank jade nectar…"

"Uh… what does this have to do with anything?"

Lao Mo said mysteriously, "How do you know that Yama's Book of Life and Death is flawless? Hasn't Lao Jun's elixir been secretly tampered with by others? Does the number of peaches in the Peach Orchard add up? Has the jade nectar been diluted with water?"

"Eh, ah—?!" Lin Yi seemed to understand something.

"If your boss is about to have an annual audit and you have a huge pile of bad debts, and at this time, Sun Wukong jumps out to clear all those bad debts for you, and all the problems are blamed on him… Tell me, isn't meeting such a person like meeting one's own parents?"

"Of course, although this is just a playful interpretation, if you think about it carefully, after Sun Wukong wreaked havoc in the Heavenly Palace, whenever the Monkey King went to heaven, wouldn't all the gods and Buddhas respectfully address him as 'Great Sage'?"

"So Lao Mo, you…" Lin Yi was stunned.

Lao Mo smiled calmly: "In the school district, you can call me a chef, but outside the safety boundary, many fanatical believers also like to call me 'Great Sage'—in ancient times there was the Great Sage Who Pacifies Heaven, and today there is the Great Sage Who Balances the Books."

"Otherwise, why would you think a chef like me, who is on the opposite side of the fanatical believers in the school district, would come here?"

"This…" Lin Yi's mind was a little confused. "Lao Mo, are you saying… they need your help, so they let you come?"

"What else?" Lao Mo said, "However, this is all 'old tradition'… Every region has some shady black market deals, and the school district is no exception."

"If the 'password' isn't right, if you come here alone, you'll just get ganged up on."

Lin Yi instantly thought of the tragic Mountain Man…

"What's the password?" Lin Yi asked curiously.

Lao Mo patted the pig-slaughtering knife hanging on his waist: "This is the password."

Lin Yi was speechless: "Doesn't your knife also have the word 'Virtue' engraved on it?"

"No, it doesn't… 'Serving people with virtue' is the motto of the sports department," Lao Mo said. "We chefs have always focused on 'when in Rome, do as the Romans do'."

"Uh… book balancing is also a custom?"

"Do a good deed every day, everyone gets what they need!" Lao Mo patted Lin Yi on the shoulder. "If you want to get ahead in the school district, it's not enough to just have skills, you also need connections."

"Damn…" Lin Yi's face darkened. "Even after becoming fanatical believers, they haven't abandoned these 'old traditions'?"

"Society is complex, and so are the fanatical believers," Lao Mo said. "For example, that guy over there, looking all disheveled, seems like he hasn't completed his 'performance'."

Lao Mo was referring to the eerie art teacher.

The eerie art teacher was originally staring at Lin Yi with a sinister look, pondering some evil plan, but upon hearing Lao Mo's words, she suddenly shuddered and became somewhat flustered: "What nonsense are you talking about?!"

Lao Mo spread his hands, pointed at the eerie art teacher with one hand, and looked sideways at Lin Yi, like Donnie Yen's meme: "See, she got anxious as soon as I tested her…"

Lin Yi pursed his lips and suddenly felt that Lao Mo was kind of cheap…

Maybe Mu Daxian was influenced by Lao Mo too much, so he could get used to the equally cheap Maozi…

However, compared to Mao Feiyang's kind of annoyingly cheap, Lao Mo's was a coldness in his bones, then suddenly blurting out cheap remarks, catching others off guard.

The eerie art teacher gritted her teeth and said, "I came here voluntarily."

"Explanation is just a cover-up." Old Mo said calmly, then, ignoring the slightly flushed and strange art teacher, he turned to look at Lin Yi and asked, "What time is it?"

Lin Yi quickly glanced at his watch: "It's 21:33."

Old Mo nodded slightly: "Not bad... If things go quickly here, we should be able to get to the art building by 23:00..."

Hearing this, the strange art teacher sneered: "So, you want to take this path to the art building... I advise you to give up on that idea. The art building is already surrounded by the Giggling Angels. This time, the gray mist is like a tide. Perhaps even the Night Watcher won't be spared."

"Going there is no different than moths flying into a flame."

The strange art teacher's words made Lin Yi's heart clench.

「The art building... has suffered such a disaster?!」

Old Mo, however, didn't show much emotion. He just continued to mock mercilessly: "If we just turn back like this, wouldn't I have come all this way just to balance your accounts? What a big face you have!"

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"You!" The strange art teacher was exasperated. "I don't want you to die in vain."

Old Mo sneered: "That sounds nice. If we die there, we'll become one of you sooner or later. Stop pretending to advise us."

The strange art teacher said: "I wouldn't bother with such hypocritical words. Don't you understand? Only those who accept Booze are truly glorious evolved partners. Those pseudo-humans who die first and then re-awaken their intelligence aren't worthy to be with us."

"Oh, you're not pseudo-humans?" Lin Yi couldn't help but ask.

"Tch." The strange art teacher disdainfully said, "What are pseudo-humans? They're just close to us, but they're not us. We are all born from living people who have undergone glorious evolution... 'New Humans'."

"Bullshit New Humans." Old Mo interrupted directly, "Those 'Apostles' went astray, but you're still chasing after them... The ending of the Black Moon Outpost is right before your eyes, but you refuse to accept it, fantasizing about finding a completely new path."

"The evolution of life is a gamble to seek that one line of success amidst countless failures... They are pioneers, and we will follow their ideals one after another," the strange art teacher said.

"But this world is already riddled with holes. This campus can't withstand a second 'Day of Destruction'."

"Once the aftermath spreads, the entire alliance will be affected."

The strange art teacher said: "If that day comes, then it will be a necessary sacrifice."

"It's a meaningless sacrifice," Old Mo denied. "The real pioneers are the ones who stabilized the campus. The overall framework and initial paths have already been established. We just need to explore step by step to stabilize the campus to the greatest extent..."

"Nonsense!" The strange art teacher suddenly waved her hand, and her cloak rustled. "I saw their plan. They want to excavate the last batch of 'Crystals' and then push the campus into eternal doom!"

"If you can't protect this area, then we, the fanatics, will use our own methods!"

"The laws of the world have never been about the minority obeying the majority! It's the very few who have mastered the ultimate power who hold the authority to make the final decision!"

"When relative rules can no longer maintain sufficient balance, absolute power must be used to carry out the necessary checks and balances."

Old Mo looked at the strange art teacher and slowly narrowed his eyes: "The struggle between factions is not simple."

"But what does that have to do with us?" The strange art teacher snorted. "Don't forget, you're one of us! If you weren't special enough, do you think they would let you stay on campus?"

Old Mo lowered his eyes slightly: "The campus and the authorities... are just in a cooperative relationship."

"Do you even believe that yourself?" The strange art teacher said, "If things were that simple, why did so many participants become fanatics in the first place? Because they saw through it. They all believe that in this world, only glorious evolution, becoming a transcendent life, can truly... survive!"

"Black Chef! The sun has already fallen!"

"How long will you remain foolishly ignorant before you recognize reality?"

"The long night is boundless, and the remaining light is just struggling!"

Old Mo sighed: "It's not yet... that time. The fire has not been extinguished. Everything is still possible."

"Foolish and hopeless," the strange art teacher said.

Old Mo shook his head: "What's so foolish about it? Are they so smart that they can't understand probability? But throughout the history of human civilization, hasn't it been about struggling to find that only glimmer of hope under seemingly dead-end situations?"

"You saw the failed path of the 'Apostles', aren't you also gambling?"

"If you can, we can too. It's just that from a probability perspective... humanity hasn't been completely defeated yet. Our hope is still greater than yours."

The strange art teacher bit her lip, and the muscles in her cheeks twitched a few times.

Just as she was about to say something, the fanatic leader returned with his men.

"Here it comes, here it comes!"

Seeming to see the hope that the mess would finally be settled, the fanatic leader's eyebrows curved, but such an expression on his face seemed a bit strange, like a puppet wearing a fake smile, stiff and eerie.

"Look here!" The fanatic leader seemed to be holding a ledger-like book, looking extremely professional. He spoke as he intended to flip it open for Old Mo to see.

Old Mo waved his hand: "I won't look at those bird-like characters of yours. Just make sure the statistics are clear. I'm in a hurry. Just tell me how much needs to be removed."

"Hehe heh... That's fine, that's fine." After all, he needed help, so the fanatic leader's face was full of flattery. He reached out and placed his hand on the large plaster cast in front of him, saying, "Like this, look."

He didn't know what he did, but soon, a deep aura appeared beneath the desolate land.

An invisible wave seemed to be imprinted under the earth's veins, slowly undulating, causing the small stones on the ground to tremble and roll.

Lin Yi's expression suddenly changed: "Not good, Old Mo! He activated the matrix?!"