Turning the Tables

The students who chose the Logistics Squad, eight or nine out of ten did so because the non-specialized courses there were much easier.

In this regard, Ye Lan was no exception.

He chose logistics so that he could have more time to train.

Because of this, most of the logistics squad members were girls.

When they heard that even a single mistake would mean running ten extra laps, most of the girls shivered.

Ye Lan could understand their fear, but he was far more concerned with how to complete Teacher Cai’s task.

If you divided the classroom by the positions of Class E and Class D, then each class occupied half the room.

In each half, there was a long table—ten meters in length, two meters in width.

On the tables lay an assortment of wild plants and animal materials collected from alien worlds.

According to Teacher Cai, each student needed to have twenty edible materials in hand to be considered qualified.

With twelve students per class, that made two hundred and forty samples.

But there were only two hundred edible ones in total.

If there weren’t enough, or if anyone chose incorrectly, there would be punishment.

In other words, this was a test that no one could pass unscathed.

“Teacher! This isn’t fair! Someone is bound to be punished!”

Someone quickly did the math and raised an objection.

Teacher Cai glanced at the student and countered:

“Why don’t you forfeit then? Go run two hundred laps and free up those twenty food samples for your classmates?”

The student immediately shut up.

“You have ten minutes to study the handbook in your hands.

And no, you’re not allowed to compare the handbook with the materials on the table.

After ten minutes, the two classes will begin the contest.”

Teacher Cai pointed at the two tables and said with a smile:

“The slower class will have to eat the ‘food’ cooked by the faster class.

Starting now.”

She put heavy emphasis on the word “food,” and the dread it carried was no different than a Damocles sword hanging over everyone’s head.

What a joke—if the other side won, what if you ate something lethal?

While the others acted like this was a matter of life and death, Ye Lan just felt bored.

He casually flipped through the booklet, seeing nothing worth looking at.

Placed before the two classes were three hundred cooking materials.

If he were the one picking, he could easily sort out the edible ones in minutes.

Even for the poisonous ones, he had ways to process them.

So his “reading” was purely for show.

“Um… are you Ye Lan?”

At that moment, a girl from Class E approached him.

“Hm? That’s me. What’s the matter?”

Ye Lan raised his head and recognized her—it was the Logistics Squad captain, codename “Corn,” real name Yaceline Druy.

Yaceline had eyes as bright as emeralds, paired with fair skin and golden hair, making her appear dazzlingly radiant.

Seeing him look up, Yaceline blinked, then leaned close to his ear and whispered:

“When it’s time to hand in the booklets, could you… hide yours?

And turn in this blank one instead?”

Ye Lan felt a small notebook being slipped into his hand.

“You want me to cheat?”

He glanced back and saw the other Logistics Squad members huddled together, poring over their handbooks, while deliberately leaving him aside.

Still, every now and then, they stole glances his way, probably worried whether Yaceline could convince him.

“Someone in Class D—I know him.

His family runs a medicinal herb business.

There’s no way we can beat them.”

Yaceline spoke softly, even putting on a pleading tone.

“Please? Ye Lan~”

In his previous life, Ye Lan had had no dealings with Yaceline, so he knew little about her.

Later, when he became a commander, he never bothered to investigate someone who had nothing to do with him.

Her looks were indeed impressive, but Ye Lan felt no interest.

His heart already belonged to someone else.

Still, he couldn’t help but notice—was it just his imagination, or was Yaceline deliberately trying to use her charm to appear effortless in dealing with others?

Only, this “effortlessness” seemed clumsy, even awkward.

That in itself was worth pondering.

But this was no time for such thoughts.

What they faced now was not an open-book test but a highly difficult closed-book one.

The food handbook listed thousands of materials.

Even if twelve people split the work and memorized twenty edible items each, there was no guarantee those specific 240 would match the 300 on the table.

And if what Yaceline said was true—that Class D had a “specialist”—plus with the punishments being so severe, for Class E this was practically impossible.

So yes, cheating could be a way to protect the majority.

But this particular plan was so crude it insulted Ye Lan’s intelligence.

Every small move of DE classes would be noticed by Teacher Cai’s sharp eyes.

Not to mention, the classroom was equipped with cameras.

Trying to cheat was near impossible.

And to use such an ancient “bait-and-switch” trick, without even a shred of high-tech equipment?

That was just asking to get caught.

Clearly, someone wanted Ye Lan to make a fool of himself.

Yaceline might not be the mastermind, but she was definitely being used.

Still, Ye Lan decided to play along.

He nodded and said, “Got it.”

“Really?”

Yaceline looked surprised.

Such an amateurish plan was a setup obvious to anyone with eyes.

To agree was practically to invite humiliation.

Ye Lan chuckled softly and whispered back:

“If sacrificing someone already disgraced can buy even a shred of hope for victory, then those basking in the light will have no hesitation.

Isn’t that so?”

Yaceline’s pupils shrank.

“Then why would you…”

She realized Ye Lan knew full well someone was trying to trap him.

But why agree?

From the podium, Teacher Cai called out:

“Five minutes remaining.”

“…Never mind.”

Yaceline quickly realized she had no time left to ask more.

She hurried back to her spot and buried herself in the handbook.

Meanwhile, Ye Lan had noticed hostile eyes on him from Class D’s side—a boy with an unimpressive face, who was surrounded by all the other Logistics Squad students of Class D, making him a kind of center figure.

Judging from the situation, this boy must be the one Yaceline mentioned, the one from a pharmaceutical family.

Ye Lan had no recollection of him—just another background character.

But the smug expression on the boy’s face, basking in the moment, made Ye Lan feel disgusted.

He almost wanted to sneer aloud:

“It’s not that I look down on you all.

It’s just that all of you here… are trash.”

That wasn’t arrogance—it was truth.

He had the qualifications to be arrogant.

Across all the first-year students, including Class A, none could match Ye Lan in wilderness survival.

He wanted to ask them a few questions:

“Do you know the gut-wrenching agony of testing poisonous herbs on yourself, just to save a comrade?”

“Do you know the nausea of gnawing on insectoid corpses, because there was nothing else to eat if you wanted to live?”

These students knew nothing.

Because they still believed war was far away.

They wasted their energy on cliques and petty scheming, never truly grasping the meaning of life and death.

The mentality of those living in peacetime was worlds apart from those forged in war.