During that period, Zhou Fei's grades plummeted dramatically.
This secretly delighted Zhou Fei's uncle for quite some time.
Interestingly, Wen Xishu also noticed it—in his surplus memories, there was the image of his uncle secretly being amused.
This meant Zhou Fei knew all about it.
Zhou Fei's parents were abroad, and Zhou Fei lived at his uncle's house, where he was quite unwelcome. Anything Zhou Fei wanted, he had to work for himself, while Zhou Ming got whatever he wanted.
It sounded a lot like a pair of brothers Wen Xishu knew, even their names had the Fei and Ming in them.
But unlike them, Zhou Fei wasn't a failure; Zhou Fei just had a peculiar, reticent personality and disliked speaking. Yet, Zhou Fei was well aware of the outside world.
In the memories, the uncle often scolded Zhou Fei, berating Zhou Fei's father for birthing him so smartly. Zhou Ming was cheerful and lively, handsome like sunshine, but couldn't study well.
Zhou Fei appeared gloomy, his hair could cover his eyes, a clear sign of an introverted child, the kind often overlooked in school, yet he could score first in grade.
At the dining table, Zhou Fei was never allowed to sit at the table, eating leftovers from the family of three.
House chores were mostly shoved onto Zhou Fei, anything to weaken his study state and squeeze his study time, Zhou Fei's uncle's family would do it.
It wasn't too bad before high school, but after high school, it seemed they all went mad and started on medication.
Zhou Fei's grades finally took a nosedive...
The uncle started celebrating, Zhou Ming showed promise and began climbing up slowly. Eventually, Zhou Ming's grades surpassed Zhou Fei's.
Though Zhou Fei had crushed Zhou Ming academically for years, the uncle had always handled it low-key, as if he didn't see. But Zhou Ming winning once in a mock exam, the uncle set off firecrackers to celebrate, everyone knew.
However, they all got played by Zhou Fei.
Zhou Fei had finished all courses during junior year, but intentionally played weak to avoid further targeting by the uncle's family.
After taking those medications, Zhou Fei indeed lost interest in studying, but he had realized early on what was happening, then pretended to be weak.
Later, Zhou Fei started taking medication again, purely for fun. In any case, Zhou Fei didn't need much studying to score well.
This really was a segment from a cool novel.
After months of playing weak, Zhou Fei stunned everyone in the college entrance exam, ranking top in the province.
During the interview, Zhou Fei revealed some of the things his uncle's family had done, but he hid the worst parts. Although the uncle's family was condemned, the public only saw it as favoritism.
Many even said, it's not even his own son, which was pretty good already.
If the story ended here, it might conclude nicely, since it was a fairly decent ending. But unfortunately, because of Zhou Fei's soft heart, he didn't disclose the worst deeds of his uncle's family, which sowed the seeds for future troubles.
The memory ends.
Wen Xishu now understood, Zhou Fei's appearance at the "Good People Hall" was likely due to his uncle's sins.
"The words 'drug resistance' actually caused me to recall so many memories..."
There were still some memories, like Zhou Fei being frail and sickly since childhood, often medicated; even at his uncle's house, whenever Zhou Fei fell ill, the uncle always seemed to use the strongest type of medicine.
In fact, when dealing with common colds and fevers, doctors generally don't recommend using the fastest-acting medicine, afraid of developing drug resistance.
That way, it would be difficult to treat illnesses with medication in the future.
One could say Zhou Fei was naturally a medicine jar, especially resistant to those medications causing drowsiness.
But Zhou Fei gave Wen Xishu more surprises.
[Today you act out of character, they will gradually start focusing on you.]
A prompt appeared. At this moment, many cameras in the ward also started slowly rotating.
Wen Xishu was a bit puzzled:
"I clearly haven't done anything, yet I'm prompted I've acted out of character?"
Receiving this prompt was unsurprising to Wen Xishu, as he understood a point, the game was about finding ways to explore the three areas without drawing their attention.
But the issue lay in, why prompt himself acting out of character when he did nothing?
Could it be...
Wen Xishu quickly thought of a possibility.
"Zhou Fei has strong drug resistance... he would wake earlier than other patients in the ward, but he couldn't just sit awake doing nothing, right?"
Wen Xishu tried sitting up.
At this moment, Wen Xishu noticed that two of the cameras seemed uninterested in him and moved away.
Wen Xishu was startled.
He realized the second trait of Zhou Fei as Wise! Zhou Fei could sleepwalk?
No, it wasn't purely sleepwalking, but Zhou Fei made everyone who knew him believe he could sleepwalk.
Wen Xishu maintained a dazed expression, starting to move out of bed.
Constantly using peripheral vision, he sensed the surroundings changing. He walked out of the ward and onto the corridor.
The corridor outside the ward was empty, but numerous cameras were pointed at Wen Xishu. Yet some of them quickly moved away.
"They actually also condone Zhou Fei's sleepwalking…"
[Unlock Rule Five: Many eyes on the corridor are watching you, ensure your actions appear completely illogical to them.]
Wen Xishu understood.
"Zhou Fei could see the complete rules, so he knew how not to arouse their suspicion... ensuring one's actions appear completely illogical."