The rain lasted for two full days.
Lin Wu sat in the classroom, supporting his head with his hand, staring absentmindedly out of the window.
The incessant sound of rain seemed to become the background music for the entire world, monotonous enough to be boring and tiring.
“Lin Wu, Lin Wu?”
His thoughts, which were about to drift away, were suddenly brought back by the voice beside him.
Lin Wu instantly became alert. He realized that the class had already ended, and many students were packing up to leave the classroom.
The one calling him was the class monitor, Deng Chacha, who had come to his desk with a backpack on her back: “Do you have the PowerPoint slides?”
Lin Wu didn’t catch on immediately: “What?”
“The group assignment,” Deng Chacha tilted her head, her neat ponytail swaying, “you’ve been taking charge of the PowerPoint slides, right?”
Deng Chacha’s reminder made Lin Wu recall. The teacher had assigned a group project during the class just now: “The PowerPoint slides, I’ll take care of it. No problem.”
The PowerPoint slides were not an issue, but Deng Chacha couldn’t help but feel that something was off with Lin Wu: “Have you been staying up late recently?”
Lin Wu: “Huh?”
“You seem like you haven’t been sleeping well in class these past few days.” As a “comrade-in-arms” who always sat in the first row, Deng Chacha hadn’t seen Lin Wu like this before.
Lin Wu had indeed been having trouble sleeping at night and felt drowsy during the day. Now he awkwardly scratched his head: “Maybe there’s a bit of pressure.”
Deng Chacha’s expression froze for a moment, and she didn’t press further.
Everyone knew what had happened recently.
As Deng Chacha left, the three friends from the back row approached.
“With the Animal World changing and all, we still have to do assignments,” Li Junchi sighed, “life is tough for us.”
“Because mutations don’t result in death,” Ren Feiyu, who had gradually accepted the situation, said, “but not submitting a group assignment might.”
This course was taught by their director and head of the Environmental Engineering Department, Professor Huang. He was extremely demanding, and any slight underperformance might lead to failing the final exam. The nickname “Old Huang goes to war, not a blade of grass grows” had long been established among the seniors.
The next class was in another building, and Lin Wu, along with his friends, left the classroom.
They left late, and there were not many people in the corridor. Li Junchi and Ren Feiyu were still discussing the group assignment, as they had been assigned to the same group and both felt a gloomy future.
Although their discussion about who was the “ultimate academic underachiever” was heated, Lin Wu suddenly felt that today was unusually quiet. He turned to look at Xia Yang, realizing where the problem was.
This guy was unusually quiet today.
“What’s wrong?” Lin Wu poked him in the arm, “Are you feeling lost?”
Xia Yang turned his head, uncommonly dejected, his voice muffled: “Lin Wu, I might also…”
Lin Wu’s steps faltered.
“These days, I feel my body is incredibly light, and I always want to move. Sometimes, when sitting in class, I suddenly want to jump up, like there are springs attached to my buttocks,” Xia Yang poured out his feelings and couldn’t stop, “and about drinking water, you know I usually need to keep my throat moist, but yesterday, I didn’t drink a drop of water the entire day, and I didn’t even feel thirsty…”
Listening to Xia Yang, Lin Wu felt his heart sinking.
Although Xia Yang used words like “might” and “feel,” after these many days, they all understood that once you start feeling that something is not right everywhere, things are in trouble.
After Xia Yang finished speaking, he noticed that Li Junchi and Ren Feiyu were also looking at him. Clearly, they had heard everything.
Li Junchi was fine, but Ren Feiyu…
Xia Yang rolled his eyes, knocked him on the head without mercy: “What’s with your expression? I’m turning into a mutant, not going to the battlefield.”
Ren Feiyu, who covered his head in frustration, even tried to help analyze based on his previous experience: “Light, always wanting to jump, what kind of animals have these characteristics…”
Li Junchi summarized: “Speed + endurance. Well, there are many animals like that, horses, donkeys, mules, gazelles… even wild rabbits, right? If they can’t run, how can they escape from predators?”
Ren Feiyu said: “It doesn’t necessarily have to be herbivores. Yesterday, we watched that documentary, and it mentioned animals like wolves and African wild dogs. They also have good endurance; otherwise, how could they catch their prey?”
——The study atmosphere in dormitory 333 has been intense lately, with frequent collective viewings of various educational documentaries on animal science.
“What if not only can you run faster, but your dental condition also improves?” Seeing that they still couldn’t come up with a conclusion, Lin Wu provided new information.
Xia Yang squinted at him, looking skeptical… no, almost certain: “Stop with the ‘ifs,’ my brother. Are you asking for yourself?”
Lin Wu stubbornly stared at him for three seconds: “Fine, you win.”
Ren Feiyu widened his eyes: “Lin Wu? You too…”
Li Junchi was even more bewildered: “Wait, what’s going on?”
In one dormitory, four people, three mutants. What’s happening? Isolate him as a group? That’s not acceptable!
Li Junchi: “Actually, I didn’t tell you guys, but these past few days, I’ve been feeling strange too. I always want to ride a horse freely. How do I describe it to you? It’s like riding through the world with a princess’s smile, crossing an icy river on an iron horse—”
Xia Yang: “Are these two lines from a poem?”
Li Junchi: “You first appreciate your own ‘thousands of feet deep in peach blossoms, dragonflies standing on top of the head.'”
Until they reached the classroom for the next class, the brainstorming session in 333 had not yielded significant results.
As usual, Lin Wu took his seat in the front row.
After considering it for a while, Xia Yang stopped by his side before heading towards the back of the classroom, offering some constructive advice: “If you really can’t think of an animal with both speed and endurance, change the criteria.”
Lin Wu, confused, looked up: “?”
Xia Yang patted his shoulder: “Think of animals that like to sing at night.”
Lin Wu quickly realized and then looked surprised: “Did I sing at night?”
“The frequency, the bizarre song choices, beyond imagination.” Xia Yang spoke slowly, emphasizing each word.
In late September, more and more students began to experience abnormal physical symptoms. Although the severity was not high, there were very few cases like those reported in the news, where taking a deep breath would allow them to stay underwater for half an hour. Still, the forums of the university were flooded with “mutation posts” that were full of—
Topic: I seem to have mutated…
Topic: I’m done; I feel like I’m a pig…
Topic: Can’t figure out what I’ve become, but I’m sure I’ve mutated.
Topic: My dad, my mom, my sister have all mutated; tired of it, let it all be destroyed.
On this evening, the relevant authorities, through a live news broadcast, announced the most significant research progress since the outbreak of abnormal physical symptoms: China successfully confirmed the first global case of animalistic genetic activation in a person!
“…We successfully extracted the gene fragments activated in the mutants and, after detailed testing and comparison, confirmed that the direction of transformation is towards the Asian black bear…”
The four people watching the live broadcast on the tablet were silent when they heard the final result.
Although everyone had been discussing “animality” all the time, the idea of “mutation=animalization” was not officially confirmed by the authorities, still relying on terms like “observed” and “commonly existing.”
People always like to hold on to a glimmer of hope. After all, no one wanted to be suddenly told that they had to learn to coexist with the inexplicable animal nature that had been activated.
But today, all hope disappeared.
It’s for the best.
Just like the second shoe finally dropping, the people downstairs felt relieved.
The next day, the school held the second school-wide meeting. However, learning from the lesson of the first meeting, they didn’t inconvenience the track and field stadium again, opting for a video conference.
On the screen, the old principal looked a bit more haggard than at the beginning of the month, but he remained serious and patient as he repeatedly emphasized—
“Although the animalistic transformation of the mutants has been confirmed, everyone must remain calm…”
“Many of our teachers have already adapted to the abnormal physical conditions, continuing to shine and contribute on the teaching front as before. Students, you can definitely do the same…”
“The abnormal physical condition will not affect your health. I hope everyone can stay calm and prioritize their studies…”
“Stay calm…”
“Stay…”
After the meeting, Lin Wu and his friends were almost brainwashed by the repeated emphasis on “staying calm.”
In the afternoon PE class, with just a casual warm-up, Xia Yang jumped up 1.5 meters in place. The physical education teacher happened to pass by in front of him and was nearly kicked away.
How the hell are we supposed to stay calm!
On the last day of September, after nearly a month of rampant and still rapidly spreading global physical abnormalities, it finally received an official international name—
Animality-Awakening, abbreviated as A-A.
In Chinese, it is called: Wild Awakening.
