"It's not that bad," Ji Chengxuan said optimistically. "Let's go in and take a look."
Yun Que'er shrank back fearfully. "You might not want to live, but I do!"
Ji Chengxuan suddenly showed a mischievous smile. "Don't you always want to leave this place? How about we just bravely charge in and have a try? Maybe if we get hit by a broken beam, you can go back smoothly. If you're even luckier, you might even be able to take me with you."
Yun Que'er was utterly speechless and seriously emphasized, "The system stipulates that the host cannot harm the original body."
Ji Chengxuan let out a scoff. "You sure sound high - minded now."
Ji Chengxuan strode inside. Yun Que'er frowned. He really wasn't afraid of death...
"Hey! Watch out for your safety!"
"It's okay," Ji Chengxuan waved his hand. "My fate is in my own hands. I don't believe my lifespan is this short."
...
What nonsense!
Yun Que'er stood alone at the door. Another gust of hot wind blew by, and she inexplicably shivered.
Come to think of it, no one ever came to this place. Standing here alone made it seem eerie.
After much hesitation, Yun Que'er still gritted her teeth and caught up with Ji Chengxuan.
The two walked around the school and found that it was actually quite large - scale. It wasn't like an ordinary rural primary school where you could see the whole thing with just a turn. Instead, it was a large courtyard with rows of small houses, which were the classrooms for the students. The last row was the teachers' offices.
In front of the courtyard was a playground. In the center near the classrooms was the flag - raising platform, but the national flag was gone.
"My dad said this school was built during the Republic of China era," Ji Chengxuan said. "It's said that our province used to be a strategic stronghold. There were trenches near and even in our village. But our place was relatively safer. So during the war, it was a good place to train new recruits. The school we're seeing now was the former military academy."
Ji Chengxuan pointed to the back. "I don't know if you noticed carefully just now. The bricks used for the back wall and the other courtyard walls are different, which means it was rebuilt later. The original courtyard should have been even bigger than it is now. The very back was the training ground."
Yun Que'er nodded thoughtfully. "Later this place fell, so the military academy was abandoned."
"But there should have been a lot of weapons and supplies left behind, so bandits were also rampant here," Ji Chengxuan added. "Do you know the story of 'being forced to take to the mountains'?"
Yun Que'er had this basic common sense.
"So what?"
"So rather than saying the bandits were causing trouble, it's more like ordinary people had no way out and picked up weapons to go to the mountains to protect themselves."
Yun Que'er listened with great interest. It took her a while to react.
"Are you getting off - topic? We didn't come here to recall history."
"But this place is really worth protecting. Don't you think so?" Ji Chengxuan said.
The school in front of them was indeed a site worth protecting.
"I think we should think about why the system asked us to find this place," Ji Chengxuan speculated as he spoke. "Maybe the main purpose is for us to find a way to protect this historical relic."
Yun Que'er thought what Ji Chengxuan said was simply a fantasy. Even if this place needed protection, it wasn't their turn.
It wasn't that she lacked confidence in herself, but it was simply impossible. After all, their public identities were still those of children.
Who would listen to children...
"How do you know if you don't try?" Ji Chengxuan saw the doubt in Yun Que'er's eyes and said, "Or should we go back first?"
"Tsk," Yun Que'er clicked her tongue. "Can going back solve the problem and achieve our just ideals? Don't be silly. We're not some big shots."
Ji Chengxuan smiled and winked at Yun Que'er.
"Let's go."
Ji Chengxuan took Yun Que'er to the clinic. Old Doctor Ji was rarely idle and hadn't been borrowed by other villages to see patients.
He was happy to be at ease. When he heard the two children asking about the abandoned school, he even cut them half a watermelon and talked about it with great interest.
"At first, it wasn't a military academy but a literacy school, where people from all around who couldn't read came to study. But in the war - torn era, people were struggling to survive, so no one had the heart to learn this."
Old Doctor Ji took a sip of his tea and told the past stories to the two of them.
"Later, when the war reached a fever pitch and a large number of agents needed to be trained to infiltrate the enemy or steal enemy intelligence in disguise, the school underwent a large - scale expansion and became a military academy."
Yun Que'er took a bite of the watermelon and asked indistinctly, "And then?"
"Then..." Old Doctor Ji sighed. "Because of the fall of this place, the school had to relocate. Since there was an air - raid shelter below, it once became a gathering place for refugees. Later, the bandits from the back mountain also gathered here for a while. After the founding of the People's Republic of China, it was turned into a rural primary school. But later, a bigger school was built in the town, so this place was completely abandoned. It's been about a dozen years, I think?"
When Old Doctor Ji said these words, there was a sense of regret in his words. He felt sorry for the past history.
Some stories might not be good, but history should be remembered, not left to be blown away by the sand and buried by time.
Listening to Old Doctor Ji, Yun Que'er slowed down her action of eating the watermelon.
She suddenly thought Ji Chengxuan made sense. They really should do something.
But could they do it?
Yun Que'er was caught in a tangle. Sometimes she thought about the system's previous hint "there's no instruction without a reason", and sometimes she thought it was simply a fantasy and impossible to achieve.
Before they knew it, it was almost dark, and Yun Que'er and Ji Chengxuan still hadn't completed the task.
Yun Que'er thought she was going to fail this time and would have to accept the punishment. So she turned her grief and indignation into appetite and ate a whole bellyful of watermelon. Finally, she leaned against the wall and walked out of the clinic.
Ji Chengxuan, who was ordered by his father to send Yun Que'er home, couldn't help teasing her when he saw her unpromising look.
"Didn't you say you'd rather die than eat at our place? But I see you've eaten plenty, both before and now."
Yun Que'er let out a long belch. "I was just listening to the story..."
She felt her belly was full of watermelon juice and her neck was like a solid watermelon. She didn't seem to have any brains left.
Ji Chengxuan couldn't help laughing heartily when he saw Yun Que'er struggling to move.
But suddenly, Ji Chengxuan's face froze.
"I have a sense of foreboding..."