Daily Disposable Persona

After the school festival, Zong Yan’s life returned to its previous state of eerie calm.

If he had to pick out the biggest repercussion, it would probably be the graduation photo on the night of the festival.

Thanks to the excuse Zong Yan gave He Yuan, he was forced to go up on stage as the Night Watchman and stand for a group photo with all the students of senior three.

But even if you ignored the feelings of Xia KeYan, who’d cosplayed as Nunnally, there was also Ye JingMing, who was in a state of shock and given a blanket by a kindly investigator. In short, Zong Yan cast a wide psychological shadow. 

With a black umbrella in his hand he had to pose for photos as the Night Watchman with numerous enthusiastic students. He managed to appear in this guise in all the graduation books of senior three. Everyone praised him for his cool and handsome costume and for having the soul of a role-player. Later, his photos constructed yet another tall building on Qingyang High School’s forum.

Night Watchman Zong Yan: …

I’m so tired but I have to maintain the elegant smile of the Night Watchman.

In senior three, a student’s life was supposed to be three points and one line with no variations. The sports meet and school festival were a small splash of mercy given by school. After this splash, of course, the students had to return to a life of stagnant water.

The sad thing was that an unknown student leaked the news that their class was going to a bar after the midterm exam. The class teacher specially called the class committee to hold a meeting to discuss it. She said it was forbidden. The students were not allowed to violate the good discipline of the school.

So it all went up in smoke.

But it couldn’t be called a total loss. There were rumors that the students had formed a secret chat group, saying they were going to wait until winter break to find a chance to meet up at the bar.

In addition, Ye JingMing began deliberately avoiding him.

Not only did Ye JingMing avoid Zong Yan, his little brothers were hiding from him too. Sometimes when Zong Yan went to the cafeteria at noon for lunch, he accidentally passed some of Ye JingMing’s little brothers. They bowed and saluted in unison, like a head of state was reviewing the troops. It gave Zong Yan a weird headache.

Otherwise Zong Yan didn’t have time to care about it, because a new event arrived that was big enough to fill anyone with anxiety.

It was the parent-teacher meeting scheduled after the midterm exam.

The midterm exam itself wasn’t a big deal. Zong Yan’s study habits remained the same. He was solid in his coursework, except for physics, where he still couldn’t manage to improve. But the parent-teacher conference was actually a little worrying.

The class teacher knew about Zong Yan’s family situation, so usually Zong Yan was the only student whose parents weren’t required at the meeting.

But this time was different. This time the class teacher called him to the office.

“You’re a senior in high school. The parent-teacher meeting is very important. You have to ask your guardian to come.”

At this point the class teacher bent her finger and tapped on the desk. After looking around to confirm no one else was in the office, she lowered her voice. “That incident at the end of last semester, nothing happened to you, right?”

Last semester, Zong Yan was taken out of the classroom by the police, then got into a Dragon Group helicopter. A lot of students were thinking “Wow, so cool—”, but inside, the teachers were exploding. A lot of physics teachers were military nerds. They naturally recognized the emblem of the Dragon Group. When the class teacher thought of this incident, she felt a little apprehensive.

“It was nothing, just something minor,” Zong Yan said casually. “Why, what happened?”

“As long as you didn’t have trouble.”

The class teacher remembered how the Dragon Group had interviewed her. After thinking about it she didn’t say anything more.

“Anyway, your guardian has to come to the parent-teacher meeting.”

The guardian Zong Yan had filled in on his paperwork was an old grandfather who lived in the tube-shaped building. The other party was seventy or eighty years old. Zong Yan didn’t dare ask him to come to his parent-teacher meeting. How could he embarrass him with his shitty grades?

The last time Zong Yan had a weekend off, he bought a lot of groceries and brought them to the tube apartments to be distributed. The Dragon Team helped him fix up his identity problem perfectly. The grandparents in the tube building all thought he was living on campus and told him to study hard and not have too much fun.

When he left the office he was a bit preoccupied.

This preoccupation reached its peak after the midterm exam.

He wished he knew what kind of madness had infected the old devil of physics. The difficulty of the midterm exam skyrocketed, mixed with a lot of physics questions from previous years.

For one multi-part problem, Zong Yan clearly remembered doing a similar question in the 《Five Years of College Entrance Exams, Three Years of Simulations》 book. At most, the numbers had changed. But when the question showed up on the exam, he was completely stumped.

This must be the legendary: Open the book. Oh, I got it.

Close the book. Just now I have learned a new lesson about loneliness.

Open the book again. Oh, it’s a formula problem.

Close the book. What formula was that just now?

Zong Yan looked at the blank space on his comprehensive science exam paper and felt his brain go numb.

“Physics is really fcking evil ah.”

Zong Yan was a paragon of extreme partiality when it came to his classes. Halfway through the first round of review, he’d made significant progress. After bathing in a baptismal sea of review questions, his brain was like a new CPU running at super speed. Not only did he figure out the organic chemistry that he’d never fully understood, he also filled in the topics he was missing in biology.

But he still hadn’t made any progress in physics. If he continued at this pace, forget Tsinghua and Beijing University, the best he could do was an ordinary 985.

As the school chief of Miskatonic University, Zong Yan had been hoping that he’d get bonus points on the college entrance exam. When he asked He Yuan about it, he was told that in order to make it fair, if he wanted extra points on the exam he had to complete an investigation task above level C.

Zong Yan: …

He’d only completed one E-level task so far. And for that E-level task, he’d personally faced a Great Old One. Based on Zong Yan’s usual luck, what would a C-level task require?

The old devil of physics even gave him a deadline, saying that if he failed to pass the midterm physics exam with a score of 50, he would have a good talk with Zong Yan’s parents.

“It’s time to hand in your exam.”

He got up from his seat and turned in the test paper at the podium, filled with sorrow beyond words.

Why can’t I draw a study tyrant card?

The next day on the weekend, Zong Yan received good news and bad news from the class group.

In the math exam he got full marks, a score of 150. Apparently, the head math teacher of senior three had pulled the test papers of several students who did well in math across all the classes and corrected them before the other papers. Only Zong Yan was perfect, and the proof he’d written in the last big problem was logical and well-organized. The other students lost points on details and missed a perfect score.

He didn’t expect the first perfect score in senior three to appear in his own class. The mathematics teacher of Class 3 was particularly proud. He @’d Zong Yan and told him the good news directly in the class group software.

The bad news was that the math teacher wasn’t very good at using the class group interface. Instead of clicking “@Zong Yan”, he accidentally selected “@all members” which included the physics teacher who was lurking in the group.

【Taste of Life (Mr. Liu)】 : Wow, perfect score in math! I’m about to correct the test papers. I’ll look for your physics paper and see if there’s any improvement this time

Zong Yan: “…”

He wanted to fall over and die. He immediately shivered and quit out of the class group, set his status to Do Not Disturb, and hid in bed, pretending to be dead.

“Father God?”

The three-lobed eye of the Haunter of the Dark suddenly loomed in the shadows. A moment later Zong Yan felt the quilt on his body transform into a layer of slimy material, maybe some kind of flesh and blood adhesive, or possibly a tentacle.

The other two pillars of the three original gods were busy most of the time. One was active being an idol and the other was occupied with observing different lines of space-time. Only Nyarla, who had thousands of avatars, had the leisure to stay here every day.

Speaking of which, there was one thing that needed to be said.

Although Nyarlathotep repeatedly called him Father God and gave a good performance, Zong Yan maintained his observant attitude.

Sure enough, last week, he found out why.

“After the stars return, the day of Your Majesty’s awakening will draw near.”

The emperor of Hollywood lifted a cigar to his lips. His blond hair cascaded down his back, and the corners of his eyes narrowed in languor and boredom, filled with lingering contempt.

That’s right, it was contempt.

Zong Yan could see it. Although he didn’t fear for his life right now, he was far from a situation where these evil gods treated him as an equal.

“If Your Majesty awakens, the entire universe will cease to exist.”

Shub-Niggurath’s face was shrouded by the smoke. Through a hazy white fog, his face was beautiful beyond the limits of cognition.

“And you, too, will be absorbed by His Majesty, and become a part of the Lord of the Universe. In human terms I suppose it would be called the annihilation of your personality.”

Zong Yan was silent for a moment. “Why are you telling me this?” 

“Huh? Because it’s fun, of course.” The evil god gave a malicious smile. “It’s so interesting to see Nyarla get beaten down.

“Besides—since Your Majesty’s stream of consciousness can take on human form, there are a lot of people who will be interested. If I were you, I wouldn’t try to join with His Majesty’s consciousness again.

“After all… I don’t want Him to wake up.”

Nyarlathotep saw him not so much as a family member but more as a pet and a novelty. There was no such thing as kinship among the evil gods. Even if they called him Father God, it wasn’t even as sincere as when they used the words Your Majesty.

Rather than a pet, Zong Yan wished they’d just view him as an ant.

When he woke up, Zong Yan was covered in cold sweat.

Yes, the supreme Mother Goddess hadn’t met him in reality, but instead used some sort of dream-like communication method to inform him.

Because it was more fun.

In Zong Yan’s opinion, the other party was just tired of participating in such a scene of brotherhood. That’s why he put a knife to Zong Yan’s neck.

For reasons that were still a bit unclear, Shub-Niggurath didn’t want his Father God Azathoth to awaken.

Zong Yan felt like he was in a palace fighting drama. It was extremely annoying.

But as it turned out, an hour later something even worse showed up.

A man in a white robe appeared in mid-air, shredding space-time, not giving a moment’s thought to the countless dried-out bones behind him.

He gave Zong Yan a measured look. He clearly didn’t do anything. but Zong Yan felt like he’d been thoroughly examined.

He hadn’t seen Yog-Sothoth in half a month, but as soon as they met, Zong Yan knew his undercover conversation with the Supreme Mother Goddess wasn’t a secret to the all-knowing, all-powerful god.

Surprisingly, the evil god didn’t mention it. It was like he tacitly agreed with the discussion.

That’s right, knowing about it didn’t change anything. In order to avoid being subsumed, Zong Yan didn’t dare use the Azathoth card again.

Deadlock.

—

The author has something to say:

Bubbles: Actually I rushed back to attend the parent-teacher meeting

By the way, last night YaYa posted a short story about the whoring Hastur. It’s evil god x believer, and it won’t have V chapters. I wanted to try the creepy style of the Lovecraft genre. Interested parties can click to check it out~

TL Notes:

I haven’t read the Hastur story but it’s pretty short. I’ll tl it after the main story unless someone else grabs it 

went up in smoke – 泡汤 – hope dashed to pieces, fizzle out

985 – Project 985 was a project to promote the development and reputation of Chinese universities by allocating funding to certain universities in China. Most of the 39 universities of Project 985 are ranked among the top 500 universities in the world (Wikipedia)

deadlock – 死局 – impasse, stalemate, checkmate, dead end