Five Frozen Centuries

“Marketing Investigation is a descriptive term. Tick it. ‘What is a consumer.’ Tick it. ‘Influence of a sampling error.’ Tick it…”

The teacher was pointing out the main points of the textbook to the students and getting them to tick it. The classroom was filled with the sound of flipping pages and gender-neutral pens touching paper.

Swoosh! Another tick. Swoosh! Another tick.

Yang Dong kept following the teacher’s rhythm. He drew one tick after another on the brand-new textbook, flipped the pages, and ticked them one after another. However, suddenly, he felt intense pain in his brain. It felt like he had been bitten by a sharp-toothed animal.

This feeling came and went quickly. Due to the interruption, it seemed like he could not keep up with the teacher’s rhythm. He missed a few ticks in a row. When he regained his rhythm, the teacher had already flipped the last page of the textbook and said, “Alright, this is the main point of this final exam. Study well.”

The students were speechless as they looked at the textbooks in their hands. Twenty minutes ago, they had flipped to the first page of the textbook. Twenty minutes later, they had flipped over the last page of the textbook.

This… This was the main point of the book?

What a headache!

Everyone was rubbing their temples. Even the teacher was rubbing his temples. He was debating whether he should give everything to them or hold back a couple of things for any makeup exams.

The students had not been focused on their lessons this semester, and some of them had skipped class. If they all skipped class, wouldn’t that make the students worse?

However, he had been idling around this semester, so he’d have a nagging feeling of embarrassment if he deliberately left a few topics for the makeup exams.

That was why the teacher was having a headache as well. However, he did not realize how unusual it was for the whole class to have a headache. It was as if someone’s mental wave had suddenly spread and affected everyone.

“Let’s revise!”

At the teacher’s command, the classroom became chaotic. Some students were reading, some were playing with their phones, some were sleeping, and some were talking.

The teacher looked at the students, planning to find a few who were the least serious about failing their subjects. However, after looking at them for a long time, the teacher realized that he did not know these students!

Although he had been teaching for a semester, he could not remember anyone’s name.

No, he could remember a few of them. Some of the people sitting at the front had answered questions, and some of them had an outstanding appearance. He could barely remember these people.

Ding!

A low, ear-piercing sound was heard. The whole class covered their ears in unison, and some students even shook their heads.

At that moment, even the slowest person in the class realized that something was wrong. Everyone looked around curiously. The students by the window started looking for suspicious things outside the window, but unfortunately, they could not find anything.

Yang Dong shook his head. He had not revised, used his phone, or chatted with his classmates. Instead, he was drawing.

He was using a notebook and holding a 2B pencil in his hand. He only made a few strokes casually before the prototype of a character appeared.

It was a character wearing a bamboo hat. On his right shoulder was a black eagle. His back was facing Yang Dong, who was holding the pen, and there was an endless path ahead.

A classmate beside Yang Dong walked over. He looked at Yang Dong’s drawing and said in admiration, “Impressive, impressive. Are you planning to draw comics?”

Yang Dong said, “I’m working hard. I recently signed a contract with Penguin Comics, but unfortunately, I won’t get much money. It’s only a few dollars a month.”

The student looked at him in admiration. “Impressive, impressive. A contracted artist.”

Yang Dong smiled bitterly. Perhaps this was very impressive in the eyes of ordinary people, but it was indeed not a commendable achievement in the circle. Many people younger than him had already left him far behind, and he could not catch up no matter how hard he tried.

More importantly, he did not have something called aptitude.

How helpless he felt…

Yang Dong continued painting, his heart filled with bitterness.

“Do you want to change?”

At that moment, a voice suddenly spoke in his mind. Yang Dong was shocked by the sudden voice. “Who is it?”

Yang Dong could not help but shout. However, he suddenly realized that this was a classroom. If he shouted like that, others would think that he was crazy. His self-control was not that weak.

“Yang Dong, you should be familiar with me. After all, I’m the person you created with your pen!”

A voice spoke in Yang Dong’s mind again. He wanted to speak, but the voice added, “You don’t have to shout. I know all your thoughts. I know them very well. Yang Dong, you draw just to vent your dissatisfaction with the real world. You don’t want to accept that this is an ordinary world. You don’t want to live in mediocrity. However, you have no choice. That’s why you imagine the world in the painting. Am I right?”

Yang Dong was completely stunned. His expression was very dramatic, but because everyone in the classroom was doing whatever they wanted, no one noticed that he was acting abnormally.

“Who… Who are you?” Yang Dong mumbled in his heart.

“Yang Dong, you should be familiar with me. After all, I am…”

…

The tunnel that Wei Huo was passing through kept getting redder. It was so red that it was dripping blood. No, the tunnel was really dripping blood. The blood had already covered half of Wei Huo’s body. The sticky blood and its pungent smell might have made an ordinary person faint from fear.

However, Wei Huo continued moving forward. As he moved through the blood-red tunnel, his surroundings became more and more realistic. He could still feel everything with his hands. Blood kept flowing past Wei Huo’s body. However, unlike water, blood flowed in waves.

This blood flowed rapidly and slowed down again and again. Wei Huo felt like he was moving through veins.

However, going from his sea of memories into blood vessels felt unreal. The switch between illusion and reality was too fast for Wei Huo to react.

The sea of memories was fake, but the blood vessels and blood were real. Where was the boundary between illusion and reality?

Wei Huo was confused. He even thought of going back to study the boundary between reality and illusion.

However, he had no choice but to move forward. He realized that the owner of this body was not in good condition. The blood flow was slowing down. Although the blood was moving in waves, it was slowing down. Besides, the depth of the blood was decreasing.

It was as if… this person was bleeding profusely.

Wei Huo could not help but guess. Time had stopped in his imagination, not because the story had ended, but because the creator of the story was about to die. His consciousness might have already ceased to exist!