Chapter 75: Mr. Tree
Violation of rules, parents were called.
For the other children, it might be more about shame, but for Sumu, she just didn’t want to be left hanging in the office for an entire day.
Even though the leather sofa there was much more comfortable than the hard chairs, all that awaited her was the teasing and mockery of people passing by.
Teachers, both male and female, with wrinkled skin and youthful faces, would particularly notice this child sitting vacantly by the door as they walked by.
At first, some thought she was unwell, but later everyone heard about it, after all, it was rare gossip in the monotonous teaching work.
A child trying to be unique, with two completely disconnected parents.
The office wasn’t exactly quiet, allowing Sumu to repeatedly catch her name from the mouths of those teachers.
Once eager for attention, she now felt every mention tighten her toes; every time a passing teacher called her name and she looked up, burying her face again made it even deeper.
What bound her tightly to that sofa was almost a lethal embarrassment.
She couldn’t be carefree like those who were called out to stand in punishment; after all, she was just an ordinary child.
As expected, she didn’t find a savior until school ended, only able to return alone to the empty classroom, sorting the messy papers on the desk, looking for the workbook marked “Sumu” on the teacher’s desk, then flinging her backpack and walking along the river back to her house.
Even now, at eighteen, when she merely looked at the eye-catching “violation” on the school rules, she was stunned for nearly half a minute before freeing herself from that damned trauma.
A certain damp sensation came from the back of her neck, making Sumu subconsciously touch her neck.
It felt like being wrapped in a scarf drenched in sweat, a sensation coming from the outside.
Truly suffocating.
Looking at the red words welded onto the iron plate, Sumu suddenly developed a rebellious thought.
How wonderful it would be to smash it.
But smashing it would probably lead to more serious violations.
Sigh.
Sumu glanced at the electronic clock at the school gate, her heart suddenly tightening.
[1:32:34]
Two and a half minutes had already passed since the first class in the afternoon started, which meant she only had the same amount of time left to change into her school uniform and sprint to the fifth floor of the teaching building.
In reality, she might manage it; after all, she was no ordinary person anymore, but in her dreams, her physical condition seemed to be suppressed back to that of the girl who would gasp for breath even after running a hundred meters.
There’s no time left!
Sumu hurriedly pulled out her handheld game console and issued the command to change her outfit. In the next moment, the clothes wrapping her transformed into a set of dowdy blue and white style sports school uniform in a flash of white light.
In the next second, she dashed through the school gate, struggling to climb upwards under the astonished gaze of the gatekeeper.
The moment she crossed that invisible barrier, many vague, scattered figures suddenly materialized in the once empty campus. Familiar yet indistinct, they seemed merely like scenery.
But Sumu couldn’t care less, grabbing the handrail of the stairs, she pushed herself toward the classroom using both hands and feet.
Though she didn’t know what grade she was supposed to be in, her intuition told her the destination was on the fifth floor.
Two layers remaining, one layer.
Sumu’s strength was gradually failing; this sensation felt quite peculiar in a dream, but she had no time to ponder, only able to suppress the symptoms of breathlessness and darkness closing in on her eyes by counting the steps she took.
She sweated profusely, the suffocating feeling around her neck intensifying, making Sumu increasingly uncomfortable.
Finally, she was almost there; she should make it—
Suddenly, her arm was yanked, causing Sumu to stumble and nearly fall.
At that moment, when she irritably looked at the person, her heart sank.
That short man in a suit, no matter what, she would never forget him.
With dark skin, dressed in a suit, and possessing an intimidating eagle-eyed gaze, he should be a figure that instills fear.
However, he was just too short, even shorter than Sumu, but at this moment, he unleashed incredible strength from his compact figure, forcibly halting the desperately running Sumu.
The Grade Director, Mr. Tree.
The name “Mr. Tree” bore no relation to his appearance, but amusingly, his online nickname was Mr. Tree, making him the object of student jokes.
Of course, most who had been tortured by him called him Root Two to mock his height.
But when being stopped by him, one had to honestly address him as Liang Lǎoshī.
“Hey, where have you been?”
Caught in that hawk-like gaze, perhaps due to the frantic running earlier, Sumu’s legs unconsciously began to weaken, forcing her to grip the handrail to steady herself.
“Uh, I just went to the bathroom.”
Helplessly, Sumu could only come up with a lie that worked at any time.
Other teachers might first question her, but Mr. Tree was different; his focus was unlike that of ordinary people.
“Hmph.”
He snorted coldly, releasing Sumu, but that didn’t mean he intended to let her go; on the contrary, this was the beginning of his reprimand.
“I often suspect that you all are secretly doing powder. I heard that those who indulge in it will see their bladder capacity shrink from three hundred milliliters to fifty milliliters.”
…?
Sumu was taken aback by Mr. Tree’s words for a moment.
Was it because he was a chemistry teacher? No, it should be because of his own nature; in short, he didn’t quite seem like a normal person.
But now she didn’t have time to waste with this guy; she had to hurry, hurry to the classroom just a few meters away.
Although directly shaking this guy off was something she would have never dared to think of before, this was her dream, and she wouldn’t let a mere illusion mess around here.
“Degree of Sinking: 15%”
Sumu shrugged off Mr. Tree’s hand and bolted toward the classroom. Almost as soon as she turned around, a furious shout came from behind her, but the Sumu now was no longer the timid Shushu who feared teachers.
She had joined the more authoritative collective of college students, getting along so harmoniously with teachers that there was no other way.
Pushing open the door, the moment she stumbled into the classroom threshold, the furious curses and buzzing from behind vanished instantly, as if nothing had happened.
That’s right, the classroom was considered a separate area in the Layer Two dream, and once she stepped inside, everything outside temporarily collapsed.
However, the classroom, campus, and office—these places with relatively continuous and profound memory points maintained a close connection between dreams, and the pathways in between were relatively fixed, ensuring they wouldn’t lead her to strange areas when Sumu left.
Once Sumu rushed in, the sound in the classroom abruptly stopped due to her presence, and everyone turned to look at her, including the teacher.
But Sumu was too busy gripping the door frame and gasping for breath, having no energy to care about any of that.
“Uh, this student, who are you?”
