"For severe polluters, mild polluters are a similar entity... but ’similar’ doesn’t mean they will be treated with ’friendliness’. Only a few among the severe polluters maintain their sanity; most act based on ’perception’ and ’instinct’."
"It’s like throwing a cub into a pack of greedy and hungry beasts—almost none will choose ’protection’. The majority of the beasts would rather devour the cub to satisfy their hunger..."
"But the severe pollusers are constrained by the weather and so can only act opportunistically. Foolish hunters still rely on ’perception’ to track their prey, while the cleverer ones have already begun to lay down markers..."
"In such cases, unstable Experience Students are quite likely to start breaking rules... After being contaminated, their brain’s reasoning and their behavior logic can deviate due to cognitive distortion. What’s lethal is that even if they realize a problem is occurring, they have no means to get back on track, and some may not even be aware they are sinking."
"Once they break the rules, all that awaits them is death or something even more terrible than death."
"And those Experience Students who narrowly escape the severe polluters find themselves facing more problems, such as... losing their Student ID card."
"Not to mention it being taken." Xu Shunkang squinted his eyes, a smirk tinged with sarcasm appearing on his lips, "Imagine... discarding your own Student ID card, what would that scene look like?"
Lin Yi felt a chill run through his scalp, suddenly experiencing a fearful and trembling emotion towards the unknown.
"Discarding one’s own Student ID card?! What kind of situation would cause that?"
He couldn’t imagine, nor could he fathom, the kind of mad and twisted mental state at that time.
"After losing a Student ID card, Experience Students lose some protection provided by the rules," Xu Shunkang stated, "Of course, it’s not to say that having a Student ID card will ensure the kind of protection I mentioned."
"Rather, the Student ID card, as an Identity Credential, is crucial for anchoring one’s own ’identity’ in critical moments and is also needed in many places, right?"
"Once lost, they can’t use them, like allegedly returning to your dorm but being unable to swipe the card, or going to the Cafeteria but being unable to swipe the card to eat, and so forth."
"’Unable to engage in key events related to that identity positioning’ is the most dangerous consequence of ’losing an Identity Credential’."
"In such a scenario, it is very difficult to anchor yourself back from an unstable state unless..." he glanced at Lin Yi, "someone helps."
"If it continues , with the contamination intensifying, Experience Students move from a salvageable ’unstable state’ to an unsalvageable ’unstable state,’ then... things become serious."
"Once they lose self-awareness, their shield against contamination completely collapses, and ’mist’ will start to transform the human body just like radiation, making Experience Students gradually change from ’human’ into a type of severe polluter carrying the contamination... also known as the kind of ’non-human classmates’ you were talking about."
"We even have a more professional term for them—’Nocturnal species’."
With that, Xu Shunkang stopped, partly to give Lin Yi and Li Huiyuan time to digest the information, and partly to watch their reactions to see what they might reveal.
Yet both appeared unruffled, not only showing no signs of confusion, but rather... seeming like they were in a damn class absorbing knowledge!
That was way off the original score.
"So... ’Nocturnal species’ originated like that?" Lin Yi frowned slightly—this differed from what Tian Bufan had deduced...
"Oh? And how did you think they came about?" Xu Shunkang asked curiously.
Lin Yi hesitated, then ventured, "I thought it was the Art Students who changed."
"Art Students transforming?" Xu Shunkang was slightly taken aback, "Have you ever seen an Art Student? Our class doesn’t have any real Art Students right now."
Lin Yi thought to himself that he had seen them in his dreams, not just Art Students but also an Art Teacher, but such things were dangerous to say aloud, as they might lead to a beating.
So he said, "I thought I saw one... during mealtime, wasn’t there a girl you said was an Art Student?"
"Which girl?" Xu Shunkang said, puzzled.
Lin Yi recounted the incident they had seen together about the girl in the sailor uniform with a pink hair clip, helping Xu Shunkang to recall: "How about now, remember?"
Xu Shunkang suddenly realized, and then contemptuously said, "I remember now, but the thing is, assume at that time I told you she was a ’Nocturnal species,’ would you have been able to handle that perception?"
"???" Lin Yi was baffled, soon realizing Xu Shunkang was gauging his reaction, but he immediately widened his eyes and exclaimed, "Holy crap, she’s a ’Nocturnal species’?!"
Xu Shunkang deadpanned, "I was just making a comparison, don’t take it seriously..."
"That gave me a scare..." Lin Yi wiped his sweat, thinking to himself that those people had shared the same ride to school with him, only to disappear overnight, and if they had turned into Nocturnal species that fast, then the contamination around the Art Building was damn outrageous."
"So... what is she, then?" Lin Yi asked curiously.