Dice In The Darkness: Cthulhu Calls

Liu Xing had a high school classmate in the real world who, due to not scoring well enough in the college entrance examination, chose to switch majors. As a result, the school assigned him to the early childhood education program. Initially, this classmate of Liu Xing’s felt quite pleased, being the only male student in the entire class. However, reality soon dealt him a harsh blow.

The reason was simple. The career prospects for early childhood education revolved around interacting with young children in kindergartens. All courses needed to revolve around the theme of "education through fun," which meant that students in early childhood education had to be adept at "singing and dancing."

Most importantly, the "singing and dancing" required in early childhood education was quite different from what the general public would perceive as such. After all, the audience for this "singing and dancing" were the young children, so the "singing and dancing" in early childhood education had to embody one thing—adorableness.

In other words, it meant being cute.

Of course, apart from singing and dancing, another major subject in early childhood education was storytelling. After all, children in kindergarten loved to hear stories. Naturally, early childhood educators couldn’t just sit there and start telling stories from a book. They had to move away from the books, use emotional storytelling, and accompany it with body language...

In summary, for a tough guy like Liu Xing’s classmate, these early childhood education courses were nothing short of a nightmare. After all, these were all conducted in public, and for him, it was akin to a shameful act, a public humiliation.

Therefore, during a high school classmate reunion, when everyone was discussing their experiences in college, that classmate appeared utterly despondent.

Liu Xing, after hearing his classmate’s account, was the one among the group who found it most amusing (a true story).

Little did he expect that the tables would turn, and he would find himself entering the early childhood education program.

Liu Xing, feeling somewhat helpless, scratched his head, pondering whether he should contact Alice to help him switch majors. Although he was studying at Tokyo Comprehensive University simply as a cover, with grades and graduation being unimportant, he still couldn’t afford to skip too many classes. He didn’t want to risk getting expelled from the university within his first month due to excessive absenteeism.

More importantly, frequent absence could easily raise suspicions. According to the intelligence collected by Honekawa Suneo and his group, aside from the Deep Diving Society, there were several secret cult followers who had infiltrated Tokyo Comprehensive University.

Of course, the followers of other secret cults were merely using the identities of university students as a cover. They didn’t have any substantive objectives within Tokyo Comprehensive University. However, this didn’t stop them from gathering information about other secret cults.

If these followers of secret cults grew suspicious of him, Liu Xing believed that his identity would soon become public knowledge, and he would be in perpetual danger.

For the sake of his own safety, Liu Xing concluded that it was better to attend classes honestly.

With this in mind, Liu Xing took a deep breath and entered the classroom for the early childhood education program.

As he had imagined, besides himself, the classroom was filled with female students. This was going to be troublesome.

Feeling somewhat resigned, Liu Xing walked into the classroom, found a secluded spot, and started playing games and reading novels on his mobile phone.

Although Liu Xing kept his head down, he could still feel constant glances directed at him. The whispers and murmurs around him automatically translated into discussions about himself in Liu Xing’s ears.

It seemed he had truly made the "wrong" choice of major.

Liu Xing sighed and promptly sent a text to Alice, explaining his situation and expressing his hope that she could help him change his major.

Alice’s response was swift, but it left Liu Xing with mixed feelings. While Alice indeed had a way to facilitate Liu Xing’s change of major, she also mentioned that it would take some time. After all, Tokyo Comprehensive University had just begun its academic year, and the school leaders had many matters to attend to. Moreover, Alice was currently working for the Deep Diving Society, meaning that she was also under their surveillance.

Therefore, Alice could only assure Liu Xing that she should be able to help him leave the early childhood education program within a month.

In other words, Liu Xing still had to endure a period of studying early childhood education.

Headache...

At that moment, Liu Xing suddenly felt someone sitting beside him.

Turning to look, he discovered that it was Lu Tianya.

Liu Xing raised an eyebrow, somewhat surprised. "Lu Tianya, are you also in the early childhood education program?"

Lu Tianya shrugged, smiling as she replied, "Of course. The reasonwe entered Tokyo Comprehensive University was simply to find a cover identity. However, now that we are students, we need to act like students. We have to attend classes and take exams. The early childhood education program is the easiest, so I chose it. But, Ryuusei, you must have a different reason for choosing this program."

Liu Xing shook his head, smiling wryly. "Of course not. To be honest, I still don’t know why I ended up in the early childhood education program. Someone else took care of my enrollment letter, to be precise, Alice gave me that enrollment letter, and I didn’t look at it closely before signing up. Now I’ve realized that I’m actually in the early childhood education program..."

Lu Tianya chuckled and patted Liu Xing on the shoulder. "Well, since you’re here, you might as well make the best of it. Our early childhood education program is actually quite good, and there are so many pretty girls around. It’s a perfect opportunity for you, Ryuusei, to find a girlfriend."

Liu Xing looked at Lu Tianya with a troubled expression and said, "Lu Tianya, please don’t tease me. Besides, you know our situation. We are practically walking into a trap, and we could be killed by mythical creatures or secret cults at any time. So, getting a girlfriend now would only put her in danger. Unless I’m as lucky as Zhang Jingxu and find a girlfriend like you."

Lu Tianya blushed at Liu Xing’s words and murmured, "Ryuusei, what are you saying? Zhang Jingxu and I are not in a relationship."

Liu Xing raised an eyebrow, surprised. "What? You and Zhang Jingxu are not in a relationship? That’s not possible."

"Well, it’s because Zhang Jingxu never made a move, and how could I possibly bring up such things to him," Lu Tianya complained.

Liu Xing nodded, feeling like he had another chance to tease Zhang Jingxu.

After chatting with Lu Tianya for a while, Liu Xing was relieved to see another male student entering the classroom. He felt like he finally had some company. However, in the next moment, a female student followed the male student into the classroom, and they seemed to be chatting and laughing. Liu Xing suddenly felt that he had been presumptuous; the male student was likely just accompanying his girlfriend.

As expected, after chatting with the female student for a while, the male student left the classroom.

Seeing this, Liu Xing gave up struggling...

After a while, a middle-aged woman carrying a folder walked into the classroom. She seemed to be the homeroom teacher for the early childhood education program.

Because Tokyo Comprehensive University was a comprehensive institution, many programs only had one class, and the early childhood education program was one of them.

Sure enough, the middle-aged woman named Maeda Miko was the homeroom teacher for the early childhood education program.

After Maeda-sensei introduced herself, she began having the students introduce themselves, and she even designated the first person to do so.

Needless to say, Maeda-sensei naturally picked Liu Xing, as he was the only male student in the classroom...

Thus, Liu Xing could only stand up with a brave face to give a brief self-introduction and then promptly sit back down, continuing to bury his head in the sand.

A real fall from grace.

After the students finished their self-introductions, Maeda-sensei announced the end of the day after discussing some starting school matters, allowing the students to return to their dorms for settling in.

Liu Xing waited until the other students left before leaving the classroom with Lu Tianya and then contacting Zhang Jingxu and the others by phone.

Once everyone gathered, Lu Tianya couldn’t help but reveal that she and Liu Xing were in the same program.

Naturally, Liu Xing became the target of Ling Ishikawa and the others’ teasing.

Liu Xing felt helpless and had nothing to say.

After teasing Liu Xing, Ling Ishikawa and Zhang Jingxu also revealed their majors—they were both in the Civil Engineering program, just not in the same class.

Most importantly, the class advisor for Ling Ishikawa’s class was Ming Hanxing. At that moment, Ming Hanxing was temporarily absent as he had a meeting with other professors from the Civil Engineering department.

As for Zhang Wenbing, it seemed he was still dealing with company matters and would need more time to join Liu Xing and the others.

So, Liu Xing and the others contacted their senior, Zhang Shiwu, and prepared to join China Society directly under his leadership.

"Oh, it’s great that you want to join China Society. Just come to the Old Teaching Building. I’ll come downstairs to meet you," Zhang Shiwu said over the phone.

When Liu Xing and the others arrived at the Old Teaching Building, they saw members of various clubs holding posters and promoting their clubs to new students.

Liu Xing looked around and was somewhat disappointed to find that none of the clubs recruiting outside the Old Teaching Building were related to mysterious studies.

It seemed that the branch of the Deep Diving Society at Tokyo Comprehensive University had been forcibly disbanded by the school authorities last semester.

At that moment, Liu Xing saw Zhang Shiwu appear at the entrance of the Old Teaching Building and wave to their group.

So, Liu Xing and the others declined the enthusiastic invitations from other clubs and went straight into the Old Teaching Building.

"I knew you would join China Society, and I can assure you that China Society will not disappoint you. We are a very united and friendly society," Zhang Shiwu said with a smile.

Zhang Jingxu nodded and said, "I hope so. But by the way, senior, why aren’t you out promoting the society?"

Zhang Shiwu shrugged and said with a smile, "The reason we don’t do external promotions is that our China Society is a semi-closed society. We only invite Chinese international students and pro-China Island Nation students to join the society. After all, as I mentioned before, there are still quite a few anti-China Island Nation people around, so when we openly recruited members a long time ago, we encountered various troubles. Therefore, we can only choose not to publicly recruit members."

At that point, Liu Xing and the others, under Zhang Shiwu’s lead, arrived at the activity room of China Society.

The activity room of China Society was located in a spacious tiered classroom on the left side of the first floor of the Old Teaching Building. It seemed that China Society was quite a large organization.

At that time, there was only one girl writing on the blackboard in the activity room.

"President, the people I mentioned to you have arrived," Zhang Shiwu said with a smile.

The girl turned around and warmly said, "Hello, I am Meng Mengzi, the president of China Society, and I am a third-year student majoring in literature."

Liu Xing and the others introduced themselves.

When Zhang Shiwu found out that both Liu Xing and Ling Ishikawa were Island Nation people, he was somewhat surprised. "What? You two are actually from the Island Nation? I thought you were both Chinese. But then again, no wonder I didn’t hear you two talking yesterday."

Because "Watanabe Ryuusei" and "Ling Ishikawa" couldn’t speak Chinese, Zhang Jingxu spoke up, saying, "Ryuusei and Ling Ishikawa are good friends of ours, and they have always been fond of Chinese culture. Although they can’t speak Chinese now, they can understand what we are sayingMeng Mengzi nodded, smiling, and said, "In that case, Ryuusei and Ling Ishikawa are indeed qualified to join our China Society. Let’s take care of each other in the future."

At that moment, a sudden commotion could be heard from outside the Old Teaching Building.

"Ah, it looks like those guys are meeting on the first day of school," Zhang Shiwu sighed.

In response to the inquiring looks, Zhang Shiwu shrugged and said, "As I mentioned before, last semester, many clubs were disbanded due to conflicts, but some clubs were directly merged. Among them were two originally opposing clubs—the Strange Tales Society and the Urban Legends Society. These two clubs seem to both research urban legends, but their attitudes towards urban legends are different. The Strange Tales Society believes that these urban legends are real, while the Urban Legends Society believes that urban legends are all false and aims to uncover the truth behind these urban legends."

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