[Temporary Event: At 9:12 PM on May 10, an unknown girl will be cornered by three men and hide in an alley (click to start navigation)]
[Event Content: Rescue the unknown girl]
[Event Time: Before 10 PM on May 10]
[Event Restrictions: Participants must rely solely on themselves for this event, the use of additional personnel through calling police or friends is prohibited (click for details)]
[Event Rewards: Encyclopedic Memory/100,000 points, Encyclopedic Memory One-Tenth Discount Coupon/Free]
After spending money to find a girlfriend, it appeared the next act was a hero saving the beauty?
Dubian Che began organizing his thoughts.
First from the appendices, rule 253: Temporary event rewards correspond with their difficulty levels.
The Encyclopedic Memory worth 100,000 points, plus a free one-tenth discount coupon. Even though Dubian Che had only experienced one temporary event and lacked extensive experience, he didn't believe this one would be easy.
The main reason it wouldn't be easy is the additional [Event Restrictions] compared to the last task of "deceiving Kiyono Lin once".
However, from this, one could also infer: if calling the police were allowed, the event would be very simple.
Summary: Although difficult to achieve alone, the possibility of success is not small.
Next was the personal risk.
The activity "deceive Kiyono Lin once" involved verbal confrontation, with the consequence merely being disliked by the other party and being told by a beautiful girl, "Your stench is suffocating me."
Such emotional damage was negligible, but he couldn't guarantee that this mission wouldn't result in physical harm.
Dubian Che looked at the Healing Medicine in the system store, priced at 1,000 points per pill.
This hooliganism event wouldn't likely get him killed on the spot, right?
Although he disliked being hit, if it helped significantly on the path to becoming a "Tokyo handsome guy," the tradeoff with Encyclopedic Memory was worth it.
Moreover, how could he stand by knowing that a young girl might be harassed?
Dubian Che decided to undertake the mission.
Then, to avoid getting beaten up, he needed to prepare.
He spent 1,000 points to exchange for 100,000 yen, and with a 0.5 mm mechanical pencil, he wrote in his notebook:
Stun gun, pepper spray, alarm, recording pen, multifunctional folding knife, metal baseball bat (stricken through) Alloy Steel Telescopic Stick.
A baseball bat was too conspicuous and awkward to use, with a risk of being seized by an opponent—men from the Island Country were surely more familiar with baseball than he was, especially in terms of strength. Dubian Che was confident: he was definitely weaker than his opponents.
Lastly, the incident took place at night.
Dubian Che added to his notebook: a powerful flashlight.
He had never bought these items before and didn't know if 100,000 yen would be enough.
Dubian Che logged onto Amazon with his cellphone, placing orders one by one. As everything was reasonably priced, he still had some yen left.
No need to worry about logistics; if ordered today, he could have everything by tomorrow.
After finishing these tasks, Dubian Che continued reading "The Great Gatsby."
It was a challenging read; the vocabulary was mostly familiar, and even rare words couldn't stump an English dictionary.
But the sensory experience of the original English text, its rhythm and details, required a cultural understanding.
If Dubian Che was only reading to boast about having read "The Great Gatsby" in English, he could just skim through it, but as he was reading with a learning mindset, aiming to improve his abilities, he couldn't just scan his eyes over the text.
Reading slowly, though at the same time, he felt pleased.
The slower the reading, the more it highlighted his deficiencies, right? When reading becomes fluent, it shows he had progressed from where he started.
Keeping this mindset and continuing to work hard, even if this event failed, even without the game system, he could still become a "Tokyo handsome guy."
But to have resources and not use them, that would be foolish—he might as well freeload at Kiyono Lin's mental health facility.
The place had a nice view and even kept small animals.
The next day, after school, Dubian Che went to the Human Observation Department.
After briefly greeting Kiyono Lin, he sat on a steel pipe chair, reading a hardcover book and waited for Yuzao Haomei to arrive.
The distant sounds of the music club, the crisp crack of baseballs on the field, and the rustle of pages turning were all very clear; the activity room was exceedingly quiet.
The third person to arrive in the activity room was Kawabata Yuuta.
He stood near the door, like a piglet sent into a tiger's cage.
"How do you spell it."
"Go home today and copy everything thirty times."
"Give me a little more time, please! I really know it by heart! I really do..." the little pig desperately explained to the tiger, trying to survive.
"Get out." The tiger swatted it to death.
The little pig wiped the sweat from his forehead with his school uniform, and his silhouette as he left the mortal world was very desolate. Dubian Che felt quite sympathetic toward him.
But he had already been copying for two days straight, a total of forty times, so if he still didn't know it, one could only say he wasn't paying attention.
Of course, it was also possible that he was too nervous, and his mind went blank.
Facing Kiyono Lin, such a high and mighty beauty, which normal young boy wouldn't be nervous?
But this had nothing to do with him.
"Hello, Che~" Right after Kawabata Yuuta left and before the activity room door was even opened, Yuzao Haomei's lively voice reached inside.
"Did you take notes yesterday?"
"Yeah~, hurry and give me today's predicted exam paper!"
Dubian Che handed her the exam paper, and Yuzao Haomei began to solve it seriously.
She was like the university students who, upon obtaining the exam scope, acted as if they had snapped up a great deal, memorizing the points tirelessly all night without considering it a hardship.
This was also an application of Mr. Lu Xun's 'Theory of Opening a Window':
Yuzao Haomei didn't want to study seriously, the teacher insisted on remembering all the knowledge, she was reluctant, but when Dubian Che told her she only needed to remember the part that would be on the exam, she gladly accepted.
During the time Yuzao Haomei was doing the exam paper, Dubian Che and Kiyono Lin read books without speaking a word.
At five o'clock, Dubian Che had finished grading Yuzao Haomei's exam paper.
"Why are there so many mistakes today?" she complained.
'Because at the beginning of the school year, you studied earnestly for a while, then relaxed, so of course, you didn't remember the later knowledge points.'
Dubian Che didn't voice this thought.
"I'll teach you a method," he said.
"A method? What method?" Yuzao Haomei asked cutely, tilting her head.
"Take today's key knowledge points, question types, answering steps, and organize them on sticky notes. Generally, don't look at them, but when eating with your parents or when they ask you to run errands or other things you don't feel like doing, take them out and seriously look at them for a while.
Furthermore, I guarantee that as long as you complete the predicted exam paper I gave you, not only will you pass the makeup exam, but you'll also get a pretty good score. Then your parents will think you've been studying hard regularly, and they won't just not blame you for not helping at home, they might even be more generous with your allowance."
"Can I get more allowance?" Yuzao Haomei's eyes sparkled behind her contact lenses.
Women who like money are really simple.
"Of course," Dubian Che affirmed. "But you must achieve a good score. That way, you can get more allowance, and also let the teachers and classmates know that Yuzao isn't just lazy normally; if she actually tries, she can score better than the top students in just one week. This is very simple for you, Yuzao, because you have the deviation value 74 I provided you..."
Dubian Che waved the exam paper in his hand.
"Predicted exam paper!" Yuzao Haomei excitedly blurted out the answer.
Dubian Che began to explain the exam paper, and Yuzao Haomei took notes seriously.
"You don't need to take notes so meticulously. This is practically the same as the exam answers; you just need to remember a small part, and you can easily pass."
"Eh? Really? Can it really be that impressive?!"
"Of course," Dubian Che affirmed again. "If a new exam paper were to be taken by me and the teachers together, they wouldn't score as well as I do. Does that confirm my accuracy?"
"Isn't memorizing the answers directly a bit inappropriate? If someone finds out, wouldn't they say it's cheating?" Yuzao Haomei suddenly felt embarrassed.
Dubian Che suppressed a smile and corrected her, "This is predicting the exam, where's the cheating in that?"
"Hehehe, right, right, it's predicting~"
The tutoring session went very smoothly. Yuzao Haomei initially wanted to continue taking serious notes, but then she was persuaded by Dubian Che saying 'scoring full marks would be too flashy; let's keep a low profile', so she only noted down what he suggested.
And these, indeed, were what Dubian Che truly believed would be on the exam.
After the seemingly swift passage of the cheating time and Yuzao Haomei had left, Dubian Che put the hardcover book into his bag, also ready to leave school.
"Aren't you the slightest bit guilty about lying?" Kiyono Lin suddenly spoke up.
"Sorry to disappoint you, but I don't feel guilty, nor do I consider it lying. In my heart, only untruths that carry negative consequences are lies; what I told Yuzao Haomei just now, I regard it as encouragement."
"So be it." Kiyono Lin looked at the book in her hand and remained silent.
Dubian Che watched her for a while, confirmed the conversation was over, and turned to leave.
"Dubian Che, you are beyond redemption."
"Kiyono, the one who is truly sick is you."
He closed the classroom sliding door.