When Yin Mei stepped into the principal's office, Ri Yang's father was currently on the phone with someone, his voice serious and forceful. The head of security was standing nearby with a stern face and furrowed brow, his hands behind his back. Seeing that Yin Mei had entered, the man quickly wrapped up his call, before finally turning to the girl.
"You've left quite a mess," He said, and Yin Mei coughed lightly.
Perhaps she had gone a little too far with that group by the West Gate.
The principal had on a slightly wry smile. "It's fine. It's technically self-defense anyways. You did good in finding the Ming twins. It would have been terrible if they managed to get their hands on any of the experimental subjects." He said, taping an elegant and slender finger on his desk as he looked deep in thought.
Yin Mei translated this as that there would be no docking of salaries today. She was satisfied.
The head of security frowned a little, but said nothing. It was not that he was dissatisfied with this decision of the principal's, he just wanted to give Yin Mei a slight slap on the wrist (not literally) for disobeying direct orders. After all, in a state of emergency, it was imperative that order was kept to. How disastrous would it be if everyone was like Yin Mei, deciding to run here and there and do whatever they wanted?
"As for the Ming twins, we'll handle things with them. Although no one was seriously harmed, I'm sure that we can still manage something." The principal laughed eerily and Yin Mei wanted to tell him that he really looked like a villain right now.
But she kept proper etiquette and remained silent. After all, he was her boss.
"Don't be too hard on them." Yin Mei couldn't help but say. Sigh, in the end, look how kind of a person she was! She still felt guilty toward Ming Wei after all those years. She couldn't help but put in a good word or two. "They have their reasons."
The principal narrowed his eyes, taking a good look at her. "Their... reasons, huh? And what reasons, would those be, pray tell?" He asked, the aura of the leader of a major family leaking out as he folded his hands in front of him.
Yin Mei paused. "Well... so you see... this is just a what if scenario, right?"
The principal raised an eyebrow. He considered for a moment. "Alright." He said.
"Now, what if, just what if you know, the Ming family was able to ah... obtain some very... special information right?" Yin Mei shifted a few times uneasily, feeling a little bad in divulging the secrets of the Ming family, but even so, she continued on. After all, this was for the good of all of mankind! Also it was just a what if scenario alright, so therefore, it didn't count!
"And so, this special information contained information about the fate of the world in it. And it wasn't a very good looking future. So therefore, the Ming twins decided they need to do something about it. They needed to... uh... become heroes to save the day, right? This is all what if okay." Yin Mei added on. The principal nodded, indicating for her to continue.
"And to save the world, they needed to gather a few things. Some of which are inside the garden. And therefore, we come to our current situation. Although it's just what if. You know, what if the world was ending and the Ming twins were secretly superheroes trying to save the world."
Actually, what she had said wasn't exactly accurate. It was... somewhat the truth, but not the whole truth. She had omitted and changed a lot of things.
In reality, the truth was this: The Ming family's youngest child had been born with a prophecy ability. Fearing the consequences of this, they hid the child away from the rest of the world.
The child's prophecy ability predicted many great disasters. To be precise, it all involved disasters on large scales.
It was one such prophecy that the child had recently divulged which had driven the Ming twins to raid the Black Cross Academy's experimental garden. It involved some information that involved the evolution of the zombie virus.
That was right, the evolution of the zombie virus, thought to have been cured a thousand years ago. The zombie virus that was no longer a threat, of which all current humans were immune too. The zombie virus that no one was infected with, because firstly, the infection rate of the remaining zombies (or better known as mutants now) was minuscule, and secondly, because those remaining zombies were isolated in their own city, of which humans were forbidden entry to without the proper procedures.
For Ming Wei, whose life work had been the zombie cure (and the virus itself, but we don't mention that), of course he couldn't let said virus run rampant as a new evolved, super version of itself.
So, using the information gleaned from his newly obtained younger sibling's visions, he began researching the virus again, and preparing for its evolved form.
So actually, what Yin Mei had said could be considered to be quite true in the end.
Of course, Yin Mei could actually just reveal all this. But, she somehow felt that that would be kinda bad. Aside from knocking the plot so off-course that she'd honestly have no idea if it could even be knocked anymore off-course, it could potentially result in mass panic.
There was the that the major families and the government may band together to do something about it, but who was she kidding? Those major families setting aside their differences to work together, even if it was for the zombie virus? She felt it was more accurate that they would all fight for resources and lock themselves in an underground safe house.
Now, it wasn't that she didn't think people were capable of making good, correct decisions under duress.
It was that she didn't trust humans. At least, most humans.
She didn't think that the major families were composed of idiots (some were though, granted), just power hungry assholes who couldn't get their shit together, even under threat of an apocalypse.
She had always wanted to yell at those types of characters in the movies and books, not understanding how they could think like that instead of working toward the betterment of the world, but now she realized that it's because humans were really like that.
Sure, there were good people out there (somewhere, she was sure), but these people weren't it.
What other reason would the Ming family thus keep this information to themselves, instead of conferring with the other families and the Empire's government?
The principal furrowed his brow, seeming to seriously consider what Yin Mei had said.
She studied her perfectly painted almond-shaped nails, not even chipped a little from the battle, the red polish gleaming in the light of the room. Hmm, hmm, her nails were very interesting. Very interesting. She decided that she wanted to paint them blue next time. A nice aqua color, maybe.
(A/N: My nails are currently a sparkly blue aqua, therefore I require Yin Mei to match them. Yes.)
"I will look into this. If what you say is true, then we may be able to come to a compromise with the Ming family. For now, you may be dismissed. Classes will resume as usual tomorrow." The principal said, but just as Yin Mei was about to exit, he suddenly spoke. "You didn't know about the attack, right?" He hadn't thought it particularly strange that Yin Mei held possession of this information, as it was well known that the Ming and Mei families were close. But if she had known about the attack, then even if he was reluctant to punish such an excellent teacher, then he would still have to.
Yin Mei shook her head, her face calm. The principal nodded, accepting her answer before waving her off.
The next day, the class was a little bit different. The students were still uneasy, and it was understandable. But, this much wouldn't get in the way of the things that they had to do. Yin Mei was in a room with just a table and two chairs. She would be calling the students in one by one to discuss plans about the field experience.
The students wouldn't just be surviving during this period, but they would also have a curated training plan with various carefully selected missions just for them. That was what they were here to discuss today. Although, Yin Mei wouldn't be going to much in detail, just suggesting what she though was appropriate. The students would also be going over this with all their other teachers, before their combat teacher would finally look over the plan and edit it.
Yin Mei looked up as Song Hua stepped into the room. His appearance was as delicate as ever, his round baby-faced cheeks showing his youth. Song Hua was only 15, still a child. Yin Mei would need to at least wait until he was 21 before being able to gobble him up (legally speaking).
But looking at him now, so up close, with his thick fluttering lashes, his glittering eyes and porcelain skin... She really wanted to eat him.
Song Hua shifted slightly uncomfortably under Yin Mei's intense gaze, letting out a soft cough and drawing the girl's attention back to the present. She waved a hand at him to take a seat, her gaze calm as if she was not just thinking uncensored thoughts.
She had never understood those novels where the one thousand year old immortal or vampires would be able to get together with high school children. Those sorts of pedophiliac actions were against her morals! As a law abiding citizen, Yin Mei would not have such untoward intentions to a little young chick like Song Hua. Once he was officially an adult, that would quickly change though.
Song Hua sat down, his actions as delicate as his entire self. He looked at Yin Mei, having recognized the emotions in her eyes. They were similar to the way older woman and even some men had looked at him before. During that time, he had been disgust, and even felt disdain toward those people.
But seeing this woman look at him that way, he didn't feel that way at all. He almost felt... excited. As if he actually liked the way she looked at him, with the thinly masked desire in her eyes.
He inwardly shook his head, pushing down the thought. But he couldn't stop his eyes from roaming. It first stopped on her lips, plump and glossy, the inside dyed a reddish-pink, like she had just been sucking on a lollipop. It continued down, the slender neck, so delicate that it looked like he could break it with a single touch. And then those collarbones-
Yin Mei cleared her throat. "Are you listening?" She asked, blinking at Song Hua, whose eyes snapped back to Yin Mei's face.
"Of course," He said calmly, as if he had not just been looking at his teacher's chest (and though it was not the most abundant chest in the world, and in fact, on the smaller side, they were round and perky, and in his opinion, quite satisfactory looking - but he would never admit this out loud).
Yin Mei nodded, though her gaze remained doubtful. She continued to talk, though Song Hua had completely missed the first part of the conversation. "Considering your grades and performance so far, I've decided to recommend these missions for you to take during the field experience. If you have any opinions, do say so."
She handed over her tablet, where a long list of missions were displayed. It was clearly a lot to take on in a week, but Yin Mei believed that Song Hua could do it. She felt that if he did not do at least this much, then he would never be able to overcome Qin Shuang.
Song Hua also felt this way. He was the type of person to constantly push himself over the limits, and so he didn't say anything, only nodding as he handed Yin Mei back her tablet.
"Then I'll input them into the system."
Back in his dorm room, Song Hua was sitting on his sofa, looking at his tablet. Mei Wen had sent back the essays on Lu Mei the other day after grading, and Song Hua had gotten a 98 out of a hundred points. He read the note that was attached to the essay.
She had written that although she personally supported Lu Mei, objectively speaking, his essay had brought up many good points. Even so, Lu Mei's contributions toward humanity as a whole couldn't be ignored and she wished that he had gone over this more in his essay. As a result, she was deducting two points.
Song Hua set down his tablet beside him, leaning back.
Lu Mei. Whenever he read articles or essays on this historical figure, for some reason, he always felt irritated. In fact, it was somewhat similar to the way he felt toward his teacher, Mei Wen.
He couldn't understand this feeling, as if a cat was scratching at his heart. It was painful. It was despicable.
Whenever he saw her, it was as if the emotions he worked so hard to control were ballooning up, wanting to consume and devour him.
He hated it.
He hated her.
And yet, even so, he still wanted her.