Uneasy daily life

Bai Ying: [A perfectly lawful and ethical statement.]

Mai Sakurajima: [Just say what you want to say.]

Bai Ying: [The obvious statement that it won't give anyone a handle to use against you.]

After a brief commotion.

Baiying: [Change the player! What brilliant idea does Vice President Yukinoshita have?]

Yukino Yukinoshita: [Without specific details or any examples, aside from expressing sympathy, I have nothing to say—if you want someone to answer a question, at least make the question more detailed.]

Bai Ying: [According to some statistics, among high school student suicide cases, full-time high schools account for a larger number, with the main reason being academic pressure. Part-time high schools account for fewer cases, and the reasons for suicide are mostly related to family issues or illness.]

Yukino Yukinoshita: [Hmm... part-time high schools don't place as much emphasis on college entrance exams. If high school students don't dedicate their time to studying and instead have free time, they're prone to getting lost, not knowing how to plan their lives, and unknowingly going astray, right?]

Baiying: [Full-time high school? Could it be that Vice President Yukinoshita can't understand the pressure of studying? After all, Vice President Yukinoshita is a genius who can easily be the top student in her grade...]

Yukino Yukinoshita: [How can studying not be stressful? I just don't understand why people commit suicide because of academic pressure. Can you understand, Haku-kun?]

Bai Ying: [Under what circumstances do you think people would choose suicide?]

Yukino Yukinoshita: [An emotional outburst, a sense of despair, probably due to a major blow...]

Bai Ying: [Please provide specific examples.]

Yukino Yukinoshita: [Hmm... terminal illness, bankruptcy, debt, broken family, etc.?]

Bai Ying: [What if the couple broke up?]

Yukino Yukinoshita: [Absolutely impossible!]

Bai Ying: [Hmm... In other words, you think people would commit suicide because of life, wealth, and family, but why do you think people wouldn't commit suicide because of their studies?]

Yukino Yukinoshita: [Is academic performance really that important?]

Bai Ying: [Of course! When you begin to understand the world, you're already studying. Grades are how your family evaluates you. You spend most of your waking hours at school, with homework, textbooks, teachers, and classmates filling your life as a high school student... Similarly, a corporate slave works, spending most of their time at work. Wealth is how family and others evaluate them... A corporate slave might commit suicide because their wealth evaporates, so a high school student might commit suicide because they're not doing well academically.]

Bai Ying: [Many adults can't understand why high school students would commit suicide because of their studies, because their lives aren't based on academics—an adult who is unhappy at work, criticized by their boss every day, ridiculed by colleagues, and looked at with disappointment by their family, and unable to achieve wealth and fame, is prone to taking extreme measures.]

Yukino Yukinoshita: [That's true...]

Bai Ying: [Using the evaluations of others and society as the standard for survival will lead to this unfortunate path. Top students are a minority, successful people are a minority; the contradiction lies in the fact that this world is made up of losers, yet it celebrates success. Those who cannot understand and escape this contradiction will drive themselves to their doom.]

Yukino Yukinoshita: [Rather than having imposed standards, learning to measure things for yourself is the way to escape this contradiction. Is that why Haku-kun didn't schedule so many tutoring sessions during the event, allowing everyone to relax?]

Bai Ying: [What's my ranking in the grade?]

Yukino Yukinoshita: [Part Two]

Bai Ying: [What's your ranking in your grade?]

Yukino Yukinoshita: [First.]

Bai Ying: [If everyone else doesn't learn, won't we be guaranteed a top-two spot?]

Yukino Yukinoshita: [Indeed.]

Bai Ying: [Grades don't matter, ranking matters! A clever way to rule is to make others think you haven't done anything; a clever way to learn is to make others think we haven't learned anything!]

Angelina: [Are most of the participants in the trip seniors?]

Bai Ying: [Consider it nipping my job-hunting competitors in the bud.]

Yukino Yukinoshita: [The president's foresight and strategic planning are truly remarkable. I think we could add more methods on top of that—for example, deliberately teaching incorrect knowledge points. If someone misunderstands a point for a period of time while studying, it will form a bad habit that is difficult to correct, thus leading to failure in exams...]

Bai Ying: [Oh my god! As expected of the exam genius, she actually has such a wicked plan! Hahahaha!]

Yukino Yukinoshita: [Hahahaha—]

Mai Sakurajima: [If that's the case, why not just arrange a trip for the event? Why an uninhabited island?]

Bai Ying: [Tourism? Isn't that supposed to relieve their stress? The reason they're on a deserted island is precisely to increase their stress!]

Mai Sakurajima: [What do you mean by that?]

Bai Ying: [No cell phones, no activities, no travel, no familiar forms of entertainment, and no external pressure to study! Just as office workers don't voluntarily work overtime, students also hate voluntarily studying. However, long-established values ​​make them anxious about doing nothing! Because they know that this situation of not having to do anything can't last forever; eventually, they have to return to studying. Family, school, society, and even themselves all use studying as the standard for evaluation, but they hate this.]

Bai Ying: [Of course, people won't willingly do things they hate or find painful, but reason tells them they have to do those things, while there's no external force urging them to do them passively, and there's no entertainment on the deserted island to distract them... So, they start to feel anxious, irritable, and uneasy, feeling they should do something, but also not wanting to. Time slips away in this anxiety, and only when they look back do they realize they've accomplished nothing!]

Mai Sakurajima: [I see. What an amazing plan! Not only did it prevent everyone from studying, it also ruined everyone's mood. This school trip and tutoring program is truly ingenious—neither a trip nor tutoring.]

White Shadow: [Hehehehehehe—!]

Click! Bang! Bang bang! Bang bang bang!

A series of attempts to open the door, followed by increasingly frantic knocking, suddenly blended into the broadcast.

White Shadow: [Who's outside?!]

Bang! It seems like something broke down the door.

[Bai Jun! Are you having fun using other people's voices?!]

Hehehehe...

[Wait! Don't come any closer!]

A jumble of incoherent conversation broke into the broadcast, and it seemed that someone who had been misbehaving had been arrested somewhere. The broadcast then cut off amidst a burst of jarring static.

The students listening to the broadcast looked at each other in bewilderment. No wonder the broadcast suddenly veered to the topic of interfering with competitors through despicable means... Were those voices just white shadows?

"Was that all orchestrated by Shiro just now?" Yui Yuigahama sighed. "Luckily, Yuki was watching over him, otherwise, no one would have been able to stop Shiro, the student council president."

Hachiman Hikigaya: "I don't think the president was stopped."

Yui Yuigahama asked in surprise, "Huh?"

Hachiman Hikigaya turned his head and gestured with his lips: "Look."

Not far away, Yukino Yukinoshita was pacing back and forth with a dark expression, her hands clenched into fists, her cold gaze sweeping over the small wooden houses. Mai Sakurajima and Kazuka Toyohama were also walking around, clearly looking for something.

"...Where Xiaobai is, seeing is believing."

Yui Yuigahama paused for a moment, then muttered a quiet complaint.

Despite a thorough search, they successfully located a small wooden hut containing broadcasting equipment, but the culprit had already escaped, and a search of the surrounding area yielded no trace. Yukino and the others, realizing something, went to the makeshift dock on the beach. All the yachts were moored there, untouched.

After Bai Jun's nonsensical ramblings, where did he go?

Yukino Yukinoshita rubbed her temples, pondering the possibilities...

"She must have gone to the city to play!" Toyohama Kazuka suddenly said. "Angelina didn't see her either! The broadcast was probably her voice, and with her superpower, as long as she's not seen, flying back to the city from the island would be easy, right?"

Yukino Yukinoshita's eyes twitched slightly, and she gritted her teeth: "This white fungus..."

"Yukino, those words you said on the radio before..." Mai Sakurajima asked curiously, "That part sounded a lot like something you would say. Did you actually say it, or did the hater make it up?"

Yukino Yukinoshita said irritably, "Some of it was what I discussed with him, but mainly it was because he messed things up too much during this event... He said yesterday that he would definitely resolve it, and here he is today!"

"Hmm..." Toyohama Kazuka scratched her head, "I don't know what that bastard is up to, but it can't be anything bad, right?"

Is it not a bad thing?

Yukino Yukinoshita thought for a moment, went back to take a look, and suddenly found that several people had put their desks together and were engrossed in studying.

Yumiko Miura was among them.

"What are you looking at?" Miura Yumiko keenly noticed the gaze beside her and asked uncomfortably, "Is studying so uncommon?"

Yukino Yukinoshita pondered for a moment and said, "In terms of academics, you're the type who appears relaxed and at ease in front of others, but you're more used to secretly working hard in private, right? After all, not many people like studying, so it would be awkward for you to pretend to be studying in front of everyone."

"#!" Miura Yumiko felt attacked and immediately retorted, "My grades are great!"

Yukino Yukinoshita sighed: "I'm asking what you're doing?"

"Hmph! Isn't this all your student council's doing?" Miura Yumiko said with a sour face. "Coming to a deserted island for a week, how did you even come up with that idea? Besides, it's just self-study, what's so difficult about that? I don't want to become a laughing stock for that guy. Anyway, don't bother me while I'm studying."

Yumiko Miura buried herself in her books and continued doing exercises and making drafts.

Yukino Yukinoshita squinted at her, a strange thought popping into her head—Miura, is she probably a plant arranged by Haku-kun? If she really has a lot of opinions and dissatisfaction, given her temper, she will definitely confront and argue with Haku-kun... although given her ability to argue and her easily angered personality, she will most likely just humiliate herself.

With some ideas starting to form, Yukino Yukinoshita wandered around the island a few times and discovered that Hayato Hayama and a few others were exploring the deserted island. She also found some students wandering aimlessly, gathering together to think of ways to play, and that Houtarou Oreki and Hachiman Hikigaya were lying on the grass, taking a break...

"Hey, Oreki," Hachiman Hikigaya said lazily, "Shouldn't you be studying? If you don't study, how will you get into the university Chitanda wants to go to? If you don't study, how will you face your parents in the countryside?"

Houtarou Oreki: "Private Marseille."

Hachiman Hikigaya: "And then?"

“Private Marseille.” Houtarou Oreki replied calmly, “I’ve already apologized, so I don’t need to apologize to you anymore—when you’re going to be lazy, you should be lazy to the end, otherwise it doesn’t count as being lazy.”

“Yes,” Hachiman Hikigaya agreed. “Those idiots have been completely fooled by the chairman. He deliberately said those things. Even if they understand that they should study hard and relax hard, and not fall into the chairman’s trap and become anxious, the more they think about it, the more upset they become.”

Houtarou Oreki spoke in a flat, salty voice: "When I'm playing, I think about studying; when I'm studying, I think about playing. The more I play, the more I feel like I'm committing a crime and should study. The more I study, the more I feel like I'm in prison and should play... My thoughts and actions are always contradictory. No matter what I do, it's wrong. No matter what I think, it's wrong. Anxiety arises from this and spirals out of control—it's quite exhausting."

Hachiman Hikigaya clicked his tongue and said, "The president is really good at manipulating people's hearts."

Houtarou Oreki: "For example, using Komachi to control Hikigaya?"

Hachiman Hikigaya: "Get up!"

……

"Wow, sir, what if everyone unites and demands your resignation?"

As Angelina strolled through the city, she felt a growing sense that her superior's position was precarious.

"What? I actually managed to unite everyone? As expected of me."

Bai Ying felt deeply proud.

Angelina: "?"

"Alright, let's start a new and sweet date: shopping, chatting, having snacks, and then sharing a romantic kiss on the beach at sunset before heading back to the deserted island."

"...Don't say what's inside the gift box before you open it!"

Chapter Forty-Nine: Fellow Enthusiasts? Heretics!

Ultimately, people should strive for improvement.

Ultimately, people must reclaim their inherent rights.

Ultimately, people must continue on the path of struggle and the pursuit of freedom.

Angelina said so.

Now that I've been promoted from an employee to your girlfriend, things can't be the same as before. Before, when my boss told me what to do, I wasn't allowed to voice any objections, and he would drag me into all sorts of strange things!

Things are different now. We need to set conditions, demand better treatment, and insist on fairness!

For example, the two of them can sneak out together, stroll around the city of Izu, and have a heart-pounding date!

If you don't agree, say NO to your superior's request!

I originally thought I would have to be wary of my superior's sweet talk, prepare my bargaining notes, and be alert to any underhanded tactics. But the deal was reached very easily. It seems I've improved and am no longer the person who was easily fooled by my superior.

"Huh huh huh~"

Angelina squinted as she sipped her hot drink, her steps becoming more bouncy, causing her two ponytails to sway back and forth with each step.

"Left foot, right foot, left foot, right foot, left foot, right foot..."

"Ok?"

Left foot, right foot, left foot...

Angelina instinctively became aware of which foot she was using, and after only a few steps, she suddenly felt something was off.

Sigh! Left? Right? Left, right, left—

"Right foot, right foot..."

Right, right... wait a minute!

"stop!"

Angelina snapped out of her daze, her eyes widening. She instinctively let out a low shout, slammed on the brakes, tensed her body, and successfully steadied herself in a right lunge position.

Clap clap clap!

Applause came from the side.

"Wow!" Bai Ying praised Angelina's performance highly, "The best!"

"#!"