"..."
Li Qingping glanced at Zhang Dafan.
Qin Tianxiong glanced at Lieutenant Chen.
For some unknown reason, a chill ran down all four of their spines. They had a feeling… that they might be insane, too.
'This, this is what a *real* lunatic is like, isn't it?'
Gao Neng was also a bit speechless at this point. 'So much for the old, experienced military doctor,' he thought. 'This Wang ChaCha seems perfectly amicable, but isn't he a little… unreliable?'
'He could play this game too.'
'Just arrest everyone, and you won't miss a single one, right?'
"You're the only one left, Gao Neng. Do you choose the basin or the ladle?" Wang ChaCha asked, seemingly oblivious to everyone's expressions as he suppressed his excitement.
"I choose neither," Gao Neng replied with a smile.
'He wasn't an idiot.'
'The precedents were clear. No matter what he chose, he'd be diagnosed as insane, right?'
"Oh? Then what do you plan to do? I should remind you, there's nothing in the bathroom besides the basin and the ladle. You can't pull a Sima Guang and smash the vat. Besides, the bathtub is cemented in place. Moving it is even more impossible," Wang ChaCha said with a sly, squinty-eyed grin.
"..." Li Qingping and Zhang Dafan couldn't bear to watch any longer. 'This is a dead end, isn't it? How can he possibly win this?'
Just as they were about to speak, Gao Neng's voice rang out.
"I choose to pull the drain plug."
"..."
"The plug?!"
"That's right! To drain the water, you just pull the plug! Why didn't I think of that? It's way faster than using a basin or anything!"
Hearing Gao Neng's words, Li Qingping and the others were jolted into realization.
"Pull the plug? Are you sure?" Wang ChaCha also seemed a little surprised.
"I'm sure," Gao Neng nodded.
"Excellent! The diagnosis is in: you are completely sane! In such an urgent situation, the fastest way to drain the bathtub is, of course, to pull the plug. Only a lunatic would choose to use a basin and a ladle. Don't you all agree?" Wang ChaCha smiled and patted Gao Neng lightly on the shoulder, then glanced around at the others.
"..." The surroundings fell silent.
"What, does anyone have a different opinion?" Wang ChaCha continued when no one spoke.
"Not at all, not at all... Doctor Wang, you truly are a professional!" Lieutenant Chen finally reacted, becoming the first to support Wang ChaCha's decision.
"Yes, Doctor Wang is indeed very professional!" Li Qingping and Zhang Dafan exchanged a glance, and both finally let out a sigh of relief.
But Tang Weiwei and Ah Si were dumbfounded.
'Pull the plug!'
'They knew that too, for fuck's sake!'
"NO!!! This isn't fair! You quack... You never said pulling the plug was an option! I'm not insane! I'm not insane! Dad, save me!" Tang Weiwei screamed.
'He, a perfectly normal person, had been diagnosed as insane?'
'And Gao Neng, a maniac who was obviously the "insane" one, was diagnosed as normal?'
'He refused to accept it!'
SLAP!
A sharp slap landed across Tang Weiwei's face.
"You *are* insane! Do you understand?! You are insane!" Tang De's slap was incredibly forceful, sending Tang Weiwei tumbling to the ground.
THUD!
Tang Weiwei collapsed, his face covered in blood.
He stared blankly at Tang De.
Tears began to stream down his face, unstoppable.
"I'm not insane... No, I'm not insane... Am I insane? No... I'm not... I am insane? Wait, am I insane?" Tang Weiwei mumbled, his expression growing more vacant, as if he could no longer hear anything else.
Tang De bit his lip.
His fists were clenched so tightly his knuckles turned white, making a continuous CRACKLING sound.
"Lieutenant Qin, now that my son has been diagnosed as insane, I wonder what the procedure is now?" Tang De's amiable smile was gone, replaced by a cold, sinister gaze.
"He will first be taken to a Military Department hospital for supervised treatment. After his condition is cured, he will then face a Military Department trial!" Qin Tianxiong frowned before finally speaking.
"Then I shall trouble Lieutenant Qin!" Tang De nodded, then turned his gaze to Gao Neng. "So, what will be done with Gao Neng? Now that his sanity has been confirmed, he did just admit that he was the one who..."
BUZZ, BUZZ BUZZ!
Just then, a vibrating sound came from Lieutenant Chen.
Lieutenant Chen glanced down, immediately pulled a black, military-issue phone from his waist, and answered it.
"Yes... Understood... Okay!"
After speaking, Lieutenant Chen hung up and gave Gao Neng a long, deep look. "Gao Neng, you can go. However, there are still some suspicious points in this matter, and we need you to be available for questioning at any time. Take this phone with you and keep it on 24 hours a day. Understand?"
"Huh? Okay... Understood," Gao Neng nodded.
Meanwhile, Qin Tianxiong, Li Qingping, and Zhang Dafan were a bit stunned.
"Go?!"
It wasn't just them. Tang De's expression was also incredibly ugly. He swallowed the words that were on the tip of his tongue. His jaw was clenched and his chest heaved, but soon, an artificial smile was plastered back on his face.
"Ah, Gao Neng, you see? The Military Department is just. I've said it all along: as long as you didn't do it, you just need to explain things clearly. By the way, with your grades, I believe you can definitely get into the Military University in the City of Hope in this year's college entrance exams. You might even get into one of the Four Great Academies! That would truly bring glory to our Forgotten Land. Keep up the good work, and don't disappoint the school, understand?" Tang De's smile was utterly sincere.
"Understood!" Gao Neng replied with equal sincerity.
However, he paid no mind to Tang De's talk about the Four Great Academies.
'The Four Great Academies? Yeah, right...'
'That's where the true chosen ones go.'
'Someone like him, who had lived in the Forgotten Land for eighteen years, had no resources and no money. His starting point was leagues behind those chosen ones. Just getting into the lowest-ranked Military University would be a blessing from Lady Luck.'
In fact, his dream had always been very simple.
'Any Military University would do, even the lowest-ranked one. He might be at the bottom of the class when he first got in, but who could say if that would still be the case three or four years later?'
However, he had now broken through his first human limit.
'Although that damn system was completely unreliable, the fact was that his strength had indeed increased over the past two days.'
'So, he couldn't help but feel a little puffed up. He decided to challenge himself and try for a lower-middle-tier Military University.'
Of course, the most pressing matter now was still earning the one thousand registration fee.
Otherwise, all he could do was lament what could have been.
'I'll go to the Dream Toy Factory tonight!' Gao Neng was no fool. He had already guessed that the call just now was very likely from Shen Ning'Er.
'Let him go?'
'Impossible.'
'Otherwise, why would they "give" him a phone as he left? There was definitely something fishy about Shen Ning'Er's sudden decision.'
'The 10% of the one hundred thousand Alliance Coins and the beginner's treasure chest—he had to get his hands on them as soon as possible. Only by increasing his strength could he truly protect himself.'
...
In the monitoring room.
Shen Ning'Er sat alone on the sofa, a pen in her hand. After a moment of hesitation, she wrote down a piece of data on a white sheet of paper: Appearance...
100 points (Perfect).
After writing down "100 points (Perfect)," she continued: Acting: 50 points (Exaggerated), IQ: 60 points (Passable), Combat Power... 2 points (Imbecile).
After finishing this, Shen Ning'Er wrote another line in the corresponding column below. Appearance: 100 points (Perfect). This time, she didn't hesitate at all. Then, she quickly wrote out the rest.
Acting: 99 points (Indistinguishable from reality), IQ: 99 points (Superb), Combat Power: 99 points (Unrivaled... among his peers!)
After all the data was written...
Shen Ning'Er stared at the words on the paper and began to ponder.
'These stats completely crush mine, so why did I faint? Could I really have been dreaming...? Yes... it was a dream. It must have been a dream!' Shen Ning'Er muttered to herself, her gaze drifting toward the mirror beside her. 'You little siren, you're still so beautiful... Wait a minute. To find out if it was a dream or not, all I have to do is test him, right?'
As if struck by an idea, Shen Ning'Er pulled out a makeup kit, took out a brush, and began to apply it to her face.
Soon, Shen Ning'Er's appearance changed.
The corners of her eyes were lifted, making her look extremely bewitching. But the distance between her eyes seemed to widen, and her nose appeared larger. She was basically a different person.
"Perfect! There's no way that guy will recognize me now, right?" Shen Ning'Er's lips curled into a bewitching smile. Feeling it still wasn't enough, she used her brush to dot a few freckles on her face. "Hmph, tonight I'll let you see what real acting is, and what a superb IQ looks like!"
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