After the group entered the energy field this time, perhaps because of the thick fog, all signal was completely cut off—even the modified livestream devices couldn’t connect. Only now did everyone’s livestream rooms finally come online together.
The Bureau always pinned these energy field livestreams to the top of the homepage. Old and new viewers flooded in. The first thing they saw was the line from the paper slip.
Chickens don’t live past six years; dogs don’t past eight.
[Damn, they’re already hunting for clues??]
[Looks like it. The stream was down, I have no idea what’s going on. It’s killing me.]
[Can someone explain what that line means?]
[It’s an old folk saying—don’t let your poultry or livestock live too long. The longer animals stay with people and listen to human speech, the more cunning they become, and sooner or later they’ll bring disaster to their owners.]
[So is this energy field about animals—like a farm or ranch?]
[No idea, I’m desperate to know—I’m the King of Jiji!]
As the chat pondered whether this energy field was linked to animals, Jiang Yan and her teammates were speculating the same. But the “Student Code” spelled it out: Cow Rearing Class was the first entry course. Only after completing it would new classes open. What came next was unknown, so all they could do was take it step by step.
They followed Teacher Wang for about seven or eight minutes before stopping before a cowshed.
The cowshed was small, the shelter swept clean, the calves’ hooves visible just beneath the fence—there wasn’t a speck of dust; everything was meticulously cared for.
By contrast, the sheep pen and chicken coop behind were a mess.
Dirty water puddled on the ground, uncleaned. Footprints of all depths covered the area. A chick, no larger than a palm, squeezed through a hole in the coop, scuttled toward them, then, too excited, slipped and fell in the filthy water. Its already dingy feathers instantly turned black.
Teacher Wang kicked the chick back into the coop and turned to the group. “Pick one.”
Shen Huanhuan frowned, “Pick what?”
Teacher Wang: “Pick a chick or a lamb. If you can care for animals raised in such squalor, then the school will trust you to rear cows.”
Saying this, she opened the coop. The stench hit instantly.
Everyone held their breath, but Teacher Wang strode right in as if she smelled nothing.
The chicken coop was full of newly hatched chicks, living and dead. The dead ones lay trampled into the ground, their bodies stamped with leaf-shaped black footprints. When the crowd approached, a flurry of chirping chicks scurried toward them—a yellow wave.
The man who had come looking for his daughter was already starting to accept his plight. He had grown up in the countryside and recognized this scene at once. He hesitated, glancing around.
Jiang Yan caught his look and asked, “What is it?”
“They’re starving. Those chicks died from hunger.”
His voice was hoarse but steadier now, his spirit coming back.
Jiang Yan surveyed the coop; aside from a low-placed water bowl, all the feed was stacked up high, requiring people to feed them.
Teacher Wang’s eyes fell immediately on Jiang Yan, grinning broadly.
“These chicks will only follow the person who feeds them. Hurry up and feed them—once you finish, pick a favorite to keep.”
“You can’t join Cow Rearing Class until you’ve chosen—”
A final line that ought to sound playful dripped with malice instead, the threat of hidden danger nearly written on her face.
But without feeding, they couldn’t proceed to the Cow Rearing Class.
After a moment’s thought, Jiang Yan signaled the twins and Yu Renwan to wait and stepped forward herself. Lan Lin joined her.
Both scooped up wheat bran and scattered it among the chicks.
Upon seeing food, the chicks—hungry for ages—flapped their soft yellow wings and crowded forward, pecking at the bran, nuzzling up to their sides, some even forsaking food to burrow their heads against their shoes, chirping with dependence.
Jiang Yan stooped to pick up the chick most determined to rub against her shoes. “This one.”
“Good shoe cleaner, pretty handy.”
The chick seemed to understand. It flopped into her palm, showing its soft little belly.
Jiang Yan looked up, “Can we only pick one?”
Teacher Wang’s bloated body twisted as she gestured toward the group. “As many as you want.”
With that, Jiang Yan walked to the edge of the coop and picked up several dead chicks.
“I’m done.”
The woman looked a little puzzled, but said nothing. She only wiped her hands on her greasy skirt and urged, “The rest of you, hurry up.”
So, everyone followed suit, feeding and picking their chicks. Some selected the most affectionate; others, the slowest or the least hungry. Each had their own logic. In the end, the twins and Yu Renwan likewise gathered a few dead chicks from the corners.
The three thought remarkably alike.
They didn’t quite know why, but since Jiang Yan did it, so did they.
Either all would be fine, or all would be doomed—teamwork above all.
Next was the sheep pen.
With the earlier experience, everyone knew resistance was useless, and so fed and picked lambs in turn.
The pen was full of docile lambs, none taller than a thigh. Though filthy, their bleats and bright eyes made them seem gentle and intelligent. Shen Xiaoxiao soon found herself judging lambs by their looks.
At last, she picked the fluffiest one. As she reached out, it placed its chin trustingly in her hand.
Shen Xiaoxiao blurted out, “Just like a puppy!”
Shen Huanhuan frowned, “You’d better not get too attached.”
Shen Xiaoxiao considered, then returned it—ultimately picking a lamb with sparse hair and a comically twisted face.
“This one suits me better,” she reflected.
Jiang Yan picked a skin-and-bones lamb and, as before, chose two lamb corpses.
Her hands full of animal bodies, she set the earlier chick atop her new lamb’s back for convenience. But to her surprise, the gentle lamb suddenly shuddered and tossed the chick to the floor.
The chick was stunned.
It struggled up, then toppled to nestle on Jiang Yan’s shoe.
Jiang Yan stooped to retrieve it but paused, sensing its increased weight. Though it didn’t look bigger, it had clearly grown heavier in those few minutes.
Thinking of the note, Jiang Yan’s eyes narrowed.
She lifted the chick, puzzled, “Am I just imagining things?”
“Why do you feel heavier?”
In the chick’s eyes flickered a desperately human shock, darting its gaze guiltily away.
Jiang Yan mused, “I must be imagining things.”
She set the chick back on the lamb, but this time it didn’t shake it off.
After everyone had made their picks, Teacher Wang prepared to lead them away.
Then the ordinary man asked, “Why are there only young animals here? What about adult chickens and sheep?”
Lan Lin had filled him in earlier. He understood now—if he hoped to save his daughter and get out, he couldn’t let a single clue go. His despair had alchemized into desperate energy, mind full only of “survive,” “daughter,” and “clues.”
Upon his question, folds of fat bunched alarmingly on Teacher Wang’s face. She cackled—an ugly sound—her voice gravelly and her darting eyes full of malicious pleasure.
“In the back—can’t you see it?”
She pointed to a nest behind the pen. “Didn’t you see?”
It looked like a dog kennel.
A broken bowl with dirty water and leaves for food, scraps of raw, fatty meat mingled with rot. Animals here were treated even worse than the babies.
Jiang Yan had noticed it before, but the place felt oppressive; with an ordinary man in the group, her intuition told her not to look—consequences could be dire.
But the man’s eyes were fixed there now.
Beside the little den was a shattered pink pearl hairclip.
He knew it well. It was his daughter’s hairclip—a twelfth birthday present from not too long ago.
The man staggered forward, Lan Lin hastily stopping him. “Don’t—it’s dangerous.”
Shen Huanhuan added, “The creature inside is already dead—there’s heavy death energy.”
Even as the words fell, his face went deathly white. He wrenched free and bolted toward the kennel.
The nearer he came, the more violently he shook—his teeth chattered so hard it could be heard.
At last, he wrenched open the door.
A mother sheep lay within.
The expected, gruesome scene—his daughter being devoured—did not exist.
But what greeted him was even more shattering.
The mother sheep lay unremarkably, limbs folded, as one after another lamb crawled from her still-open belly. Her expression was gentle and loving—if only his daughter’s face weren’t growing from the back of the sheep’s head, it would almost have been tender.
A white roar filled the man’s head, flashes of light dancing before his eyes.
After a long moment, his breath quaked and he choked out a sob.
He cradled the mother sheep in his arms.
“I’ll pick this sheep.”
Teacher Wang let out a shrill laugh, unable to hold back her drool. “Good…good…”
*
This man could not be saved.
On the way to the Cow Rearing Class, he clung to the sheep, confessing his longing in a voice tight with sorrow. Before their eyes, the mother sheep grew abruptly larger, fiercely protecting him—her eyes full of attachment.
The chick he’d chosen had long been forgotten. It followed him with unnatural speed, glaring at man and sheep alike, brimming with malice and envy.
The man was fulfilling rule three from the Student Code.
“In this school, chickens and sheep will depend on you and love you like infants so long as you feed and care for them.”
But he was also violating the rule.
He had not extended equal patience to “them”; the chick was completely neglected.
Jiang Yan glanced at him, then looked away.
The man’s behavior confirmed her suspicions.
—The chickens and sheep here grow at unnatural speed, soon reaching “six years,” “eight years” as warned by the note.
Those numbers were vague, but if, at this pace, everyone’s adopted animals were still alive in three days, something bad would definitely happen.
—Caring for chickens and sheep offers some advantage early on, but later, who knows?
Now, the mother sheep’s protectiveness was powerful, but the venom in the chick’s stare was no less real. If the sheep weakened, the chick would likely kill it—and the man who ignored it.
Jiang Yan let out a soft sigh.
She gently stroked her own lamb and chick.
“Be good, now.”
“Always be honest, proper, gentle, and kind. Be filial; know how to share love, understand?”
The lamb looked up at Jiang Yan.
The chick ducked its head, pretending not to understand.
Jiang Yan, carrying two lamb corpses in one hand, strode forward with a bold air, but her voice remained gentle and soft.
“You were all so hungry, but none of your fellows’ bodies had a single bite missing. Such restraint, so well-behaved.”
“Now that I’m your guardian, I’ll take responsibility.”
“Tonight, let’s start with fixing your picky eating.”