Reversing Falsehood and Preserving Truth: All Gods and Gods Are in My Hands

A chilling mist, carrying a biting cold, seeped in through the gaps in the glass partition. When it wrapped around Zhao Lei's ankle, he sneezed loudly, rubbing his nose as he looked at the person opposite him—Wang Hao, the physical education student from the next class. At that moment, Wang Hao's face was distorted in the mist, his normally regular features stretched taut like a fully drawn bow.

Wang Hao staggered when he landed, the old injury on his ankle aching slightly from the cold air. He stared intently at Zhao Lei.

Wang Hao is a veteran seed player on the school's track and field team. From his first year of high school to his third year, he worked so hard to earn a spot to represent the province in the National Middle School Games that he suffered from knee effusion and ankle sprains. He even spent New Year's Eve training extra.

On his first day at the school, Zhao Lei broke his two-year-old 100-meter record by a margin of 0.3 seconds. In the team's final test, he pushed himself to the limit, his throat burning and his vision blurring, but he was still 0.02 seconds slower than Zhao Lei. In the end, the coach casually said, "Zhao Lei's explosive power is more suited to sprinting," and took away the national competition spot that he had held for half a year.

These pent-up frustrations, like stones sunk to the bottom of the water, which he usually forcibly suppressed with bandages, were now stirred up by the illusory mist and surged up instantly, making his chest feel suffocated and even his bones feel a venomous pain.

"Why are you the one participating in the national competition?" Wang Hao's voice was hoarse, a fog of delusion seeping into his heart from his sleeve, amplifying the jealousy hidden deep within him into a raging fire. "I train every day, even in my dreams, and what about you? You transferred here less than a month ago and you've already stolen all the hard work I've put in over the years!"

He took a half step forward, and his ferocious reflection was immediately seen in the mirror of the glass partition. The resentment in his eyes froze into poisonous ice: "The coach always talks about you during pep talks, and the teammates are saying behind your backs, 'With Zhao Lei here, Wang Hao's core position is gone.' You think I didn't hear that? Last week at the team dinner, the coach smiled at you the whole time, but didn't even glance at me, a veteran player who's been training with us for three years!"

But Zhao Lei's reaction was completely unexpected.

Zhao Lei scratched his head, completely oblivious to the murderous intent in his words. Instead, he patted his chest and chuckled, "That's because I've been doing extra weighted sprints lately, and the results are amazing! I'll give you the training plan later; I guarantee your performance will improve!"

Zhao Lei didn't take Wang Hao's resentment seriously at all—in his eyes, all jealousy was an affirmation of his own strength.

Just then, the glass partition wall suddenly lit up with a cold white light, and a history question appeared out of thin air on the panel. The ticking of the countdown was sharp as needles, making people's hearts tighten:

Question: Which of the following clauses in the Treaty of Shimonoseki best reflects the aggressive demands of the great powers for capital export?

Option A: Ceding the Liaodong Peninsula, the entire island of Taiwan, and its affiliated islands to Japan;

Option B: Pay the Japanese army 200 million taels of silver in reparations;

Option C: Open Shashi, Chongqing, Suzhou, and Hangzhou as commercial ports;

Option D: Sakura is permitted to establish factories in treaty ports in China. Goods manufactured in Sakura factories will be subject to the same inland transportation tax, inland tax, currency tax, miscellaneous levies, and benefits from storage in warehouses in China as goods transported into China by Sakura subjects. The same preferential treatment will also apply.

Wang Hao's face instantly scrunched up. He had always been at the bottom of his class in academic subjects. He stared at the four options for a long time, but he couldn't even remember the general contents of the Treaty of Shimonoseki.

But the illusionary fog fueled his jealousy, and he gritted his teeth, pondering the rules.

The rules clearly state that if you choose the wrong answer, you get 200 points, and if you choose the right answer, you lose 100 points. If he chooses the wrong answer and then tricks Zhao Lei into choosing the right one, he can both avenge the loss of the national competition spot and instantly widen the point gap. Even if they both lose 50 points, he will not let Zhao Lei get away with it.

He glanced at the options, and option A instantly made his eyes redden. Taiwan has been Chinese territory since ancient times; how could it possibly be ceded to Japan? That's absolutely wrong! His fingertip was about to land on option A when he suddenly stopped—

He recalled the humiliating treaties in his history textbooks; Japan's greed was ingrained in its very bones, and they were capable of seizing land.

His gaze swept over option D. The long, convoluted sentence was absurd, with even the punctuation reeking of absurdity. It looked like a trick question from the test creator, and this was the "trap" he wanted to choose.

Another layer of illusion seeped into his heart, and those deliberately forgotten images suddenly surged forth:

He sprained his ankle and limped to the training field. The coach just tossed him a bottle of safflower oil and then bent down to demonstrate the starting action to Zhao Lei.

At the school sports meet, the girls surrounded Zhao Lei asking for autographs, but no one noticed that he was hiding in a corner of the stands, secretly rubbing his swollen and shiny knees.

Even the professional running shoes he bought with half a month's living expenses became worthless cheap goods in front of Zhao Lei's limited edition.

These images pierced his nerves like needles, and jealousy instantly fermented into a bone-deep hatred. He stared at Zhao Lei's face, bloodshot veins spreading across the whites of his eyes, only one thought remaining in his mind:

Even if he triggers the punishment and gets "expelled," even if he falls into the fog outside the school, as long as he can make Zhao Lei stumble, he'll accept it!

So his fingertips hovered tightly above the D button, like a venomous snake eyeing its prey, waiting for Zhao Lei to make the first move.

Zhao Lei was completely clueless. He hadn't even finished reading the question. He was just staring at the lengths of the four options, and all he could think of was his long-used guessing mantra: "If there are three long options and one short option, choose the shortest one; if there are three short options and one long option, choose the longest one."

After glancing at the options, option D was incredibly long, with sentences so convoluted they could make your tongue tangle – it was practically tailor-made for a mnemonic device.

Without a second thought, Zhao Lei pressed the "D" button. After pressing it, he winked at Wang Hao, "We sports students have to choose the ones that exude momentum. Option D looks like a running track, so it's definitely right!"

The illusory mist had completely permeated Wang Hao's consciousness. Looking at Zhao Lei's carefree attitude, he felt it was the greatest mockery of his years of hard work—what he had fought so hard for, Zhao Lei could easily obtain through luck.

His eyes instantly turned fierce, and he pressed D without hesitation. He had only one thought in his mind: I must choose this most obvious wrong answer. At worst, we'll all die together!

But the next second, the cold white light in the cubicle suddenly turned into a soft light green, and a cold mechanical voice broke the oppressive silence, like a bucket of ice water being poured over Wang Hao's head: "Both selections are correct, 100 points each."

Wang Hao's smile froze on his face instantly, and he stood there dumbfounded, as if his bones had been removed. He stared at option D repeatedly, muttering to himself, "Impossible... How could such an absurd sentence be correct?"

He clenched his fist and slammed it against the button panel, but the panel didn't budge. The impact only made his knuckles ache. At that moment, all hope in his heart was shattered.

The illusory mist solidified around him, and jealousy drove him to madness. Even luck was on Zhao Lei's side; he could never win in this lifetime! Since he couldn't win, he would perish together with him!

Zhao Lei didn't care about any of that. Upon hearing that he had advanced, he immediately jumped up excitedly and said in a carefree manner, "Not bad, bro! I didn't expect you to be such a good student. I'll train with you from now on, and I guarantee you'll surpass me next time!"

Wang Hao's face turned pale and then red. His jealousy hadn't subsided when he was choked by this farcical outcome and almost passed out.

As he was teleported out of the glass cubicle with Zhao Lei, the resentment in his eyes had transformed into a deathly resolute silence. His fingertips unconsciously dug into his palms, drawing blood without him noticing. A fog of illusion churned around him, and the thought of mutual destruction took deep root and sprouted in his heart.

When the two landed, they were on a floating metal platform, facing the giant electronic screen in the center of the playground, surrounded by other survivors of this level. At this moment, on the leaderboard on the electronic screen, only Zhao Lei and Wang Hao had the red number "100" next to their names, making them the only two people with "100" in the entire game.

Standing on the platform, Zhao Lei excitedly shouted to the cubicles below, "Lu Yu! Teacher Liu! I advanced!"

His movements were so exaggerated that he didn't notice Wang Hao behind him, who was staring intently at his back. Blood droplets from his palm fell onto the metal platform, spreading out a small patch of glaring red.