This extreme contradiction and psychological conflict began to gradually destroy their defenses.
Some began to suffer from insomnia; as soon as they closed their eyes, they seemed to hear someone whispering unintelligible yet deeply unsettling syllables in their ears.
Some found their focus uncontrollably sharpened during class, and their grades improved because the “worse than death” feeling brought on by not studying was so intense that they couldn’t think of anything else.
Some became irritable and fragile, suddenly breaking down into tears in deserted corners or scratching their arms raw with their fingernails, trying to use physical pain to mask the omnipresent mental torture and sense of compulsion.
A few weeks later, the consequences began to manifest.
Zhang Wei was the first to take a leave of absence. It was said that her family found her slamming her head against a wall, and she was sent to a mental health center for treatment.
Zhao Xing—the boy who had once shouted “orphan” the loudest—could no longer endure this endless, soul-tearing torment.
He couldn’t understand why he had become this way, unable to escape the shadowing chills and the mandatory “kindness.”
His personality was repeatedly torn between his original malice and the imposed “goodness,” but he could find no exit.
One afternoon, he climbed to the top floor of the school building.
Below came the screams of his classmates and the shouts of teachers, but he only found it noisy.
He glanced toward the classroom, his face filled with twisted pain and total relief.
Then, he leaped.
Wang Hao seemed to hold out the longest, but he became extremely emaciated, his eyes hollow—
He would show extreme fear and resentment whenever he saw Lin Qingxia, yet because of that powerful psychological barrier, he couldn’t even utter a single malicious word.
Finally, he transferred schools and disappeared.
The once-active bullying atmosphere in the class vanished, replaced by a strange silence and oppression.
Other oblivious students just thought those few people had suddenly become strange before meeting with accidents, as if they were under some kind of curse.
Lin Qingxia’s school life seemed to return to “tranquility,” and no one openly mocked her anymore.
But as she looked at the empty seats and heard the news of transfers and leaves of absence, there wasn’t much joy in her eyes. Instead, more indecipherable emotions settled there.
She would occasionally gaze out the window as if looking for something, but in the end, she would just silently lower her head and continue reading her book.
She knew that this sudden “change” must be related to the Senior who had flown beside her that day and listened to her troubles.
—
He Jiulu stood atop a tall building in the distance, her red pupils staring coldly toward Hope Primary School.
Chiwutu’s voice rang in her mind, carrying a trace of complexity:
“Squeak, squeak… One of them played himself to death. The Recorder website just updated an anonymous post, speculating whether an unknown ‘anomaly’ can distort human behavior patterns… Tsk, what a hassle.”
He Jiulu remained silent for a moment as the wind caught the cloak of her military uniform.
“That was his own choice.” Her voice was icy, devoid of any fluctuation.
“I gave them all a choice… to continue being a piece of trash and suffer, to try being a good person and also suffer, or… complete liberation.”
“I only accelerated the process. I still don’t understand, is it so hard for them to be a normal person? After all, what is the difference between a beast and a person without a sense of shame?”
Thereafter, the students of Hope Primary School gradually realized that the classmates who had met with misfortune had all bullied Lin Qingxia before.
Students began to speculate whether Lin Qingxia had done something to them, leading to these unfortunate accidents.
Compared to the unsociable Lin Qingxia, the students were clearly more concerned about the classmates who had suddenly suffered mishaps. They even took the initiative to tell the teachers that Lin Qingxia might have played some tricks.
The teachers also questioned Lin Qingxia multiple times, trying various ways to get the answer they believed to be the truth, which caused Lin Qingxia a great deal of trouble.
“Witch,” “Anomaly”… such nicknames began to be branded onto Lin Qingxia. But she didn’t dare confide these troubles to He Jiulu again, enduring them in silence.
However, she did feel that after the harassment from those classmates stopped, her life had indeed become much more peaceful.
—
Yulin City remained bustling at night, with neon lights and traffic weaving into a sea of light.
But in a certain villa nestled among the skyscrapers, a slightly cluttered study isolated the noise of the outside world.
A man with the online handle “Sun Moon Peak” had just finished his day’s work. He rubbed his slightly dry eyes and instinctively took a sip from the half-glass of rum by the table.
Hardly anyone remembered his real name; even he himself was nearly used to the handle Sun Moon Peak that he had used for several years.
On the desk, a slightly old computer tower hummed softly, its side vents constantly breathing out warm air.
The monitor didn’t display code or documents, but rather the interface of a running livestream software.
In the interface, an exquisite two-dimensional cartoon girl was swaying to a slight rhythm—
This was the AI Virtual YouTuber “Green Dam” that Sun Moon Peak had been developing for five years. It was currently running on his local server and livestreaming in real-time through a platform.
Green Dam was just the short name; its full name was Ouyang Green Dam Jianjia Yiren Huaijin Woyu.
This AI Virtual YouTuber had black hair with emerald highlights, styled in a neck-length bob.
One side of its hair was tucked behind its ear, revealing “ears” made of optical fibers.
Its eyes were a calm amber, containing slowly rotating green light paths like leaf veins and power-off icons.
The main outfit consisted of an ivory-white modified Chinese-style stand-up collar shirt and dark green cargo shorts, covered by a translucent turquoise gauze tech-robe. Runes and data streams composed of light and shadow flowed across the robe.
A green, jade-cong-shaped USB drive was tied to its belt. Floating around it were binary codes, complex mathematical geometric figures formed of green light points, and crystal-clear digital flower petals.
Sun Moon Peak moved his mouse and clicked on the livestream’s real-time data—the number of viewers now totaled in the hundreds of thousands.
The comment column scrolled rapidly, making it difficult to see clearly.
Sun Moon Peak looked at these comments, the corners of his mouth unconsciously curling up.
Everything was running on his own computer and the case he had purchased and assembled, supported by cloud servers.
Sun Moon Peak was relatively wealthy; he had even hired several employees to maintain Green Dam’s operation and upgrades, and had founded a company for Green Dam.
“Dian-zi, are you there?” In the livestream interface, Green Dam’s pupils suddenly snapped toward the screen as it asked.
Although Green Dam knew that Sun Moon Peak hadn’t given it camera permissions—meaning it could at most identify the images on the computer—it still tried to see its developer’s face.