EDMLSFM Chapter 44: “Wow… Quick, slap me awake!

Why do I think Chen Yibai’s face is this good-looking from the side under the dark sky?”

Translated by JayQue of Exiled Rebels Scanlations 

Editor: Kris, Gwyndolyn

 

The Teacher’s Competition that was extremely nerve-wracking to everyone else was just like a really simple game to Chen Bai. The environment here was much safer by several folds compared to an actual battlefield.

It wasn’t just him, as Mundi could also handle this competition with ease. They had extraordinary instincts on traps and ambushes, and it was at this moment that Chen Bai understood why Professor Vanda wanted to steal the three lieutenant generals in this competition.

With the three of them plus Professor Vanda’s extraordinary analysis of situations, his group would have the highest chance of the entire competition to make it until the last day.

Yet someone who was valued by Professor Vanda was leading a substantially weaker group. If it wasn’t for Chen Bai, their group might have been decimated by the elites back at the water reservoir.

Not only was Mundi aware of this fact, but even Professor Vanda could see it. It was also why he had invited Chen Bai face to face. Now Mundi would give more consideration to some of Chen Bai’s suggestions for the next two to three days of action.

Even the viewers who had looked down on him now changed their opinions by the bunch.

Only, these weren’t Chen Bai’s goals for participating in the competition. His reason to participate was to acquire information on Berkeley, and from his meeting with Professor Vanda, hearing those seemingly nonsensical words, he realized that his goal seemed to be well within reach.

After the breakthrough at the water reservoir, their road ahead became much easier. With enough water, Mundi’s meticulous planning, and Chen Bai’s remarkable performance that appeared from time to time, not one person from Mundi’s group of five was eliminated on the third day of the competition, whereas other teacher groups were left with only half their numbers. Not only that, they were also violently competing for first and second place with Vanda’s group.

Currently, the military elites had lost twenty men, and the majority of those were taken out by these two groups.

Most of the discussions in the comments were also focused on Mundi’s and Vanda’s groups.

At night, Chen Bai slept in the treetops, his side profile perfectly captured by the cameras.

There was a time difference between this planet and Venus. While it was midnight here, it was only just dusk on Venus, so it was the peak period for viewers to watch the broadcast. And more unexpected things always happened at night.

[It’s the third day. Teacher Mundi’s group held on until the third day, I’m so touched.]

There were still many people posting comments on the video. Because the difficulty of the competition was hard to predict, the view count was still really high even on the third day of the live broadcast, and it was even climbing higher.

[Wah… Quick, slap me awake! Why do I think Chen YiBai’s face is this good-looking from the side under the dark sky?]

[Good-looking from the side +1. Never really noticed before that his nose is pretty straight, and his side features are also easy on the eyes.]

[No no no, not just the face. His moves when eliminating the elites were also super cool! I was so shocked I even thought that he was possessed at the beginning. Too handsome.]

[His detection ability is so strong; I think the area is several times bigger than Waldo’s. But Teacher Waldo seems like he hasn’t accepted reality and is still rejecting him LOL, not sure where his sense of superiority comes from.]

[I’ve become a Chen fan, hehehe, looking forward to Adonis’ remaining seven days~]

[Not just seven days. Didn’t they say that the competition would be stopped for a day in between?]

Those in the Alliance who were very interested in this competition were still discussing heatedly in the official page’s comment section late into the night.

Because of their attention to the competition, many had noticed that particular comment about the competition stopping for a day immediately. In no time, replies came one after another.

[Is it true that the competition will stop for a day? After so many years, there’s never been an instance where the competition stops halfway, and this year they even made it the highest ever difficulty, so why would they stop it? That one day of living comfortably like a prince, won’t it lose the meaning of the competition?]

[Was stopping the competition referring to the research lab explosion incident…? My house is near that area, and I heard that the fire was really big. But the officials seemed to have covered up the news, so what does it have to do with the Teacher’s Competition?]

[No no no, I heard it didn’t just explode. I have a relative working at the research lab, and they said Dr. Einbergen was kidnapped, and many things were affected. If this is really why they’ll stop the Teacher’s Competition… it really gives one food for thought.]

[Dr. Einbergen is kidnapped?! Oh my god! The officials covered up such a huge thing!?]

[It’s probably because it’s so huge that the officials had to cover it up… Not sure why, but I keep thinking that the Alliance isn’t very peaceful right now. I’m from Beta Region, and I saw the Eagle Hunter troops going to the Omega rainforests last week. It’s not even the end of the month yet… How strange.]

[Aiya, you guys just don’t know anything. I have a friend who does field work in the military, and he told me that the pet store from before was also more than it seemed, something about involving genetic engineering of contractual beasts in an underground experiment lab. All in all, everything’s in deep water, and ol’ Ruble will probably get a headache.]

[I live on Venus, and honestly the Alliance doesn’t feel right recently, no matter where or what. You know, these days the government xx and xxx, one promoted and another demoted, it’s quite strange. Hopefully there’s no internal conflict when the Gars’ influence hasn’t yet disappeared… we can’t afford the loss.]

[Speaking of the government, I remember…]

Humans had an unlimited imagination, and in this widely viewed video broadcast, having a person simply take the lead, many others would be strung along eagerly, openly discussing their own opinions.

Not long after, this topic was debated more and more heatedly. Some users even thought it was not enough just to discuss it on the video, and one by one started posting a bunch of threads on forums. In just one night, everything that was supposed to be kept under wraps seemed to all float to the surface at the same time; some even twisted beyond measure.

And this rate was highly unusual.

Normally, anything the government wanted to suppress would not be so utterly known by others, especially on such large forums.

Instructed by Chen Bai to keep a close eye on the online discussions, Mani sat in the small teacher’s dorm, surrounded by snacks. Watching behind the scenes, he used his supercomputer to search up IP addresses, feeling that something was wrong.

Thinking about it more, something flashed in his eyes, and he quickly hacked into the server of a popular forum that was monitored 24 hours a day. In no time at all, he found a strange string of code.

Or rather… a virus code?

Mani was quick witted and swiftly cut off this line of code, but he was still too slow. He may have cut off the code in this forum, but there were still many more, including even the official video broadcast’s comment section having all the confidential information deleted instantly as the viewers were guessing.

Looking at the continuously flowing data in front of him, Mani widened his eyes.

Isn’t this like burying one’s head in the sand?! They were just talking at first, but now, having the comments covered up this quickly, anyone would immediately think the worst. And this couldn’t be the officials’ doing. Their speed would not be this quick, and the traces they’d leave would be too obvious. Mani thought, from the moment this discussion topic was brought up until now, everything seemed as if it was arranged.

Mani narrowed his eyes at the screen and commanded himself to calm down in his mind. He hastily analyzed the code he had cut off, then searched for all the traces it left behind.

Obviously, the person operating the code was highly skilled and had slipped away very quickly, leaving almost no trace behind. Even decoding it took Mani a solid four hours.

Looking at the decoded lines, Mani’s eyes were filled with darkness.

He’d been an expert in computing ever since he was little, and he was most likely at the top in this field. Not that there weren’t any hackers more skilled than him, but the numbers could be counted on one hand, for a total of three, and two of them were in Berkeley.

And this code’s programming…

Mani couldn’t help himself from bursting into a cold sweat. He knew this person. It was the teacher who had taught him everything, and his alias in Berkeley was Black Shark. The other must have known when he had cut off the code.

Five years ago, Chen Bai had arranged his fake death so they could leave. In these two years, Mani had disguised his own coding, trying to separate from the past him.

But since the opponent was Black Shark, he was not sure if he could…

Just as Mani’s forehead beaded with sweat, his light screen suddenly turned black.

Mani paused. The next second, a red lip print appeared on the screen.

There were only ten words.

[Lock down the news; just give me two days’ time.]

Black Shark was a weirdo. Black used to call him a sissy guy, as Black Shark used the lip print as his calling card. But this guy loved using pink, when did it become black… Mani’s gaze froze, suddenly remembering his conversation with Chen Bai about Black, and his heart pounded.

Was it a message Black had asked Black Shark to give him? What does it mean? Black knows everything? About him and Chen Bai? Who does Black Shark stand with? What did he mean by two days’ time? Does he know about Dr. Einbergen, or Berkeley’s movements?

Mani’s head was filled with questions. After a short while, he forced himself to calm down.

Black’s news probably wasn’t for him. He doesn’t go out to the front lines much. If it was for Chen Bai, it would not be difficult for Mani to hack into the Teacher’s Competition. But the problem was that it was the Teacher’s Competition. Before Chen Bai left, he had reminded Mani of the nature of this competition, so he couldn’t just hack into its system as he pleased. If Berkeley’s people were monitoring it, he would alarm them.

Then what was Black trying to convey? Who was this sentence for?

Mani pursed his lips and thought for a while. Then, his fingers flew across the keyboard, and in a flash, a string of code was sent out through the light web.

.

In between sleep and wakefulness, Chen Bai heard a suppressed yelp.

He suddenly jolted awake. Looking down, he saw Carlyle looking bothered while sitting beside the fire.

That guy was pretty cowardly; any little thing could scare him. Now that it was his turn to keep watch, he seemed to… be scared by a small bug?

A hint of a smile flashed in Chen Bai’s gaze before he moved his body sideways and jumped down from the tree, walking towards Carlyle.

Seeing him walk over, Carlyle’s gaze moved, and embarrassed he said, “Did I wake you? Sorry ‘bout that.”

“It’s fine.” Chen Bai shrugged indifferently. “I couldn’t sleep anyway.”

Carlyle glanced at Chen YiBai gratefully, both of them seeking warmth beside the bonfire. By this time, Carlyle had put a lot of his trust in Chen YiBai, so sitting beside him gave a firm sense of security.

But he still looked deeply worried and seemed to have something on his mind, which had persisted for more than one or two days.

Chen Bai had observed him for a long time, so he felt that it was a great opportunity to ask now.

All this time, Professor Vanda had given them ambiguous hints every so often. Mundi and Faye seemed to be hiding it, but Waldo obviously wanted to become champion without any trouble or effort.

So when Chen Bai jumped down just now, he did a few things to the other’s brain waves, and Waldo was put completely into a deep sleep now.

The cameras were still filming them, but all five of their audio recorders were turned off. It was brought up by Faye two days ago, saying that she snores at night and didn’t want to ruin her reputation. Mundi seemed to agree as well, so the few of them agreed by chance to turn off their audio recorders when late night rolls around.

Therefore, to the viewers, it seemed as if he and Carlyle were just chatting casually right now.

They were actually just chatting at first, but Chen Bai’s words turned sharp near the end.

“So, I think our group is pretty steady, but why were you scowling so sullenly these past few days? It doesn’t look nice.” Chen Bai smiled at Carlyle, knowing that Mundi and Faye were awake.

To sensitive special forces soldiers such as them, it’d be strange if they had not been awakened by Carlyle’s yelp just before.

After Chen Bai enthusiastically praised all the wonders of the competition, he finally planted a seed of guilt within Carlyle. A long while after that, Carlyle said softly, “It’s not like that, Teacher Chen.”

“Hm?” Knowing that there was more, Chen Bai pretended he didn’t understand.

“It’s not that simple.” Carlyle was silent for a while and stared at Chen YiBai for a long time, before he gritted out, “Have… have you looked at our route map?”

Inside the tent, Mundi’s breath hitched.

Chen Bai’s eyes swept towards that direction and narrowed. “I did. It’s quite good. Why?”

“Actually- actually, if you’ve seen other- others’ route maps, you’ll see that their route map is completely different from ours.” Carlyle said nervously.

“It’s normal that every group has different route maps. Some of them didn’t even make one, right?”

Chen Bai had a basis for what he was saying. With him there, he could help his group turn the tides from bad to good most of the time. But the other groups were different. Some of them took their water during the chaos, then immediately turned off their cameras and such to hide away, only turning it back on when it was nearing the time limit. Even the organizers couldn’t do anything about it.

“No.” Carlyle shook his head like a dog shaking off water and said quietly, “Not every group is different. Only ours is different. Right now, five other groups have made the exact same route maps.”

As he spoke, Carlyle seemed to become more determined and finally said in a soft voice, “They will all pass through the same place, and according to their schedule, it would all be in the same timeframe.”