(A year ago)

JinE was sitting in her room, checking the extensive amount of emails she received.

Post 1: I really like Yoo Shiah from class B-11.

Post 2: Everybody please help me with the upcoming Math exam. Tips? Practice tests? Mathlette champions, Jeon Minha and Bae Yoobin, please help if you see this post.

Post 3: Is anybody going to the end-of-school-year party?

Post 4: Blacklist edited. Don't touch me!

"Uhhh! Why do I have to go through all of these stupid posts? Do people run out of good things to write?"

JinE scrolled down her email list and opened each one. Being an admin was not easy at all. Other than reading and banning posts, she felt like being the secretkeeper of the whole school. When a student posted something, a notification was sent to JinE with their names and information also. Therefore, JinE knew everything happening in school and even out of school. Somebody liked someone, somebody hated someone, somebody wanted something, somebody complained aobut something, JinE knew it all. And she had to be objective and keep secret about everything she read. 

Her phone suddenly rang.

"Hello!"

"Hi JinE!" It was Youngjoon. "Can you go to school early tomorrow? I just found this thing and it's extremely cool."

"Can't you tell me right now? I have a lot of things to do and I'll be staying up late. I don't think I can make it tomorrow."

"It's not convenient to talk on the phone. I'll shoot you instructions through an email. Wait for it."

"Seriously, what have you done?" JinE asked, suspecting Youngjoon's ability of blowing up the community site.

"I told you I found this very cool thing. Only two of us can access. Well, maybe more. But I haven't told anybody about it." Youngjoon sounded very excited.

"Is it something from the district?"

"No. How come something from the district be interesting? Just wait for my email and you'll get it."

"OK, I'll get it. Now I have like a hundred emails to go over."

"Good luck. Bye."

*Email notification*

"Woah, that was fast. Let's see. What's this?"

Youngjoon sent a lengthy email of very long paragraphs and screenshots of his computer. Having very little knowlede about computer science, glancing through everything didn't help JinE at all. She gave a long sigh and started reading from the beginning.

Hi JinE. So I just wandered around the site for fun, stalking some of the people on our watchlist, and eliminating dead accounts. The deeper I went into the old accounts, especially of the admins from the very first generation with the site, the creepier it gets. The admins used this feature which allows them to view details of a person's account, everything they store in the drive, when they log in and log out, what they do. Basically, that feature lets you literally stalk somebody, like the way Superior Admins from the district do to Inferior Admins like us, but to a greater extent. For what reson, I don't know. Here is a screenshot of what I found from a 12-year-old admin account.

[Screenshot]

A later update of this feature allows you to break into a random account and shut down inappropriate files, or even shut down the whole account and clear that person's record in the district, so that person has never been in this district. Basically, the admin could directly manipulate the whole network.

[Screenshot]

As far as I retrieved, this feature, the latter one, has been used only once to remove a "nasty person", as the news feed then told. I don't have the roster then to find out who the unfortunate person is. Here is the profile of that brave admin.

[Screenshot]

It seemed like admins then were cruel. They did a lot of crazy things because there weren't internet policies yet so they were free to behave the way they want. I found this feature, which has been used a lot until 10 years ago, that allows you "organize" your roster and everything by ranking the account. The ones that are highly ranked are considered useful and they will be more likely to show up on top of your mailbox and notifications. Usually those are from excellent student (well, in the old times, excellent students are sage) and school staff. The low ranking accounts are placed at the end of the notification box JUST TO BE IGNORED, because low ranking students were not bright. The good thing about this is that it saved a lot of time and admins could listen to the right people. It also discouraged low ranking students to spend less time in the site and study more. This feature was used freely for a few months, then put on restrictions. The restrictions were so strict, some parts of it are stil in the policy now, that they discourages the admins to run this feature. Gradually, it was abandoned but not deleted. I even find a lot of old features on the restriction lists that are not deleted yet. Here are they.

[Screenshot]

I tried copying the features onto my computer to test. They are still working well on my simulated network.

[Screenshot]

But that's just a simulation. I don't want to use them for real on the site. Despite the pros, there are certain cons to be considered, that's why they are restricted and forgotten. If you want to see them in work in my sim network, come early tomorrow morning. If not, there are instructions below if you want to explore it yourself because my computer seems to complicated for you.

JinE carefully scrutinized the list Youngjoon gave and all of his screenshots. All of these sounded great to her. She couldn't believe there were such incredible things happening 10 years ago.

"I must see him tomorrow." JinE said to herself. 

She didn't know what to do with that much excitement after just 10 minutes. She didn't know what to do if she gained access to those features. She didn't know yet. She was just curious. She just wanted to know more about those forgotten things so at least she would know what to do. They did sound amazing, despite the disadvantages and risks they brought to the admins and users. But in JinE's eyes, especially when she had to go through a lot of things from annoying people and see inappropriate things being put on the network, the features were all what she needed. 

(The next morning)

"So that's it?" JinE asked.

"Yeah, that's all." Youngjoon closed his computer. "I can run these features further than I thought I could but I try not to spread it too much. Anyway, if you are careful, you can fly through all that."

"I'll see what I can do on my computer. It's freaking slow and old."

"Anyhow, I deeply recommend you not to use these features at all." Youngjoon suddenly changed the subject.

"Why? You just gave me very detailed information."

"I just think that you need to know. Besides, you know too well that all of these features violate the current policies for admins."

"You're right." JinE sighed.

"You look upset when I say that."

"Uhm...I'm just sad because I don't have a full-blown simulation world like you so I can try them." JinE lied.

"Well I can make you one." Youngjoon smiled.

"No thank." JinE looked away. "We should get to class. The bell will ring in 5 minutes."

(That evening)

Post 1: Mathlete championship tomorrow. Anybody looking forward to it?

Post 2: Jeon Minha and Bae Yoobin, please make WM High School proud! Love you! <3

Post 3: Let's have a poll. Who do you think would earn higher score: Minha or Yoobin?

Post 4: What if both of them win? Will there be a tie?

"Why are there so many posts about the Mathlete thing? Oh yeah, the championship is happening at the end of this week."

JinE received about 30 emails which all talked about that hot issue. Most of them were about the rivalry between Minha and Binnie. JinE had to spend another night filtering out absurd posts and put them in order to be publish, or...

"Why don't I try the thing Youngjoon gave me?"

Following his instructions, JinE started to look in random people's network drive, where they saved their school files and documents. She began with Binnie's account. There were like a thousand different files of sample tests, practice tests, answer keys, and formula sheets. Binnie was surely studying hard for the Mathlete, day and night. She didn't even show up elsewhere other than her class during break times. Nobody could see her doing anything other than studying and cramming hard.

"This is boring."

Binne's account had nothing to see. She rarely posted on the site, and seldom joined in a group coversation, at least when her friends added her. JinE exited and scrolled down her list.

"A-ha! Jeon Minha!"

Opposite to what JinE expected Minha's account to be like, she was totally stunned at what showed up on her screen. JinE thought Minha's drive would be pretty similar to Binnie's, or even bigger, since Minha held many positions in school. The thing was: JinE couldn't break in the account at all. As she clicked on the drive icon, it said, "Password required." Why would a normal person lock their account? There was no way Minha could know of JinE and Youngjoon's secret business. Is she hiding something in her drive? Absolutely! Absolutely! That's the only answer.

Excitement rose in JinE's bloodstream. She wanted to know what was in there. What was so important that she had to put a password on? If she wanted to keep it private, why upload it to the network drive?  What if there were inappropriate contents in there? Then it was JinE's job to get rid of it!

After a few simple steps, the passcode to the overall drive was broken. But JinE's happiness lasted only for 5 seconds. As she clicked on a folder, another pascode barrier showed up.

"Oh my gosh, how many passwords does she have to enter every day to do her work?"

There were five folders on the drive, which might contain many folders inside. They were named by number, and JinE couldn't make any sense out of them. She simply gave up.

(The next day)

JinE parked her bike in the lot and blithely walked in the school. She didn't realize there were many people touched her on the way, as all students were heading to an assembly. One of the students was Minha. JinE wasn't awre of the piece of note Minha squeezed in her hand until she seated herself on a bench. The note said, "Can I meet you at the end of the day in front of the Art room? Jeon Minha."

"Did she find out?"

Probably not. Probably yes.

"Let's see what she has found out."

JinE didn't know Minha was observing her from a higher position.

(The afternoon)

"So, what do you want to talk about?" JinE asked immediately as she approached Minha.

"I have some questions about the community site and the school network."

"I can answer those about the community but for the school network, Seo Youngjoon may give better answers."

"I want to ask you, not Youngjoon-shi." Minha looked very serious.

"So what do you want to ask?"

"Actually I want to ask about the admin position, not particularly the site."

"Be quick. I don't have much time." JinE looked at her watch and showed boredom. Well, she wasn't a monitor. No need for courtesy.

"I believe you are a good admin."

"What?" 

"I believe so. That's why I want to talk to you."

"OK, really, I don't have time. Just ask directly to the point."

"I don't know if this is true or not, but I feel like the community site and the network are not working the way they should be."

"Are you contradicting yourself? You just said..."

"Yes. I am aware of what I say." Minha cut in. "But this is what I see myself and hear from my friends. There are opinions and requests that are never heard, never reached, like they never existed. I'm just curious if there is a certain way the site operates."

JinE suddenly freezed up. Why was Minha questioning such deep question? She must have found out something. A "Goody Lady" like Minha never spent her time in unnecessary things.

"Well, my job is to operate the site. The network is Youngjoon's job. We just operate. If there is something faulty, you should blame the district or whoever designed the whole system. Sorry if I don't understand your question." JinE replied.

"Uhm...there is one more thing I want to ask." Minha now seemed worried.

"Is it only one thing?"

"Yes. And I'll make it quick."

"OK. Say it."

"Is our community, and the network, I mean the whole sysem, is it safe?"

JinE stared at Minha for a second.

"Yes. Yes it is. I'm sure about that. Everything is checked. There is no fault."

(That evening)

JinE had to find out what was in Minha's drive. There must be something Minha was suspecting at the the whole system. She might be hidding something, like the answer keys to whatever test. She might be hidding a list of people to be blacklisted. She MUST be hidding domething! There was no way a normal person would be protecting their drive and distrust the system at the same time. She MUST know something.

JinE cracked the second line of passcode for Minha's drive. It was much harder than the first one, as there were five to crack. And JinE learnt a terrible truth: she had been wasting time. There was nothing in all five folder! NOTHING! Nothing but a single piece of note in each folder with the same content:

You think I'm stupid?

JinE exited and opened the activity log of Minha's account. It said Minha had recently removed all of her documents.

"Aaarrrrhhhhhh! Why? Why? WHY? Why did I even do this? WHY DID I EVEN DO THIS? WHY DIDN'T I LISTEN TO YOUNGJOON?"

Minha knew there was somebody breaking in her account, so she had moved everything out of the network drive. JinE got the upper hand, but she still couldn't win. And her action with the obsolete features would be recorded.

Secret #2 told.

Author's note:

Don't panic if you feel like this should be where the comeback update belongs. Don't panic if you don't see any character list. The day after I update Chapter 6, part 1, I deleted some abundant parts like the hiatus update, the comeback update, the character lists, and the background characters list.

Why the character lists? I am too tired with these lists, just listing details about the characters while I myself keep forgetting to add information. There are twists and secrets between the characters, and I explain what happened at the end of the chapters, so I think character lists are not necessary anymore. The thing that infuriates me the most is that what I write and format in the editor mode does not show up exactly in the viewer mode. So I have to add some spaces, and some different font sizes, some different colors, and see it in the viewer screen. And then go back to the editor mode. In average, each character takes 10 times of editing, some, like Jiho and Minha, takes more times, because they have more information.

Why the background characters list? There will be more and more background characters who may appear, or even just mentioned, once. I myself can't remember which name I have or have not used. I can't remember what their roles are either. So, as a relief to my brain, I decided to let them go, literally.

However, two important background character, Son Eunjo and Son Eunho, will stay. They are very likely to appear in the third story of this Horror School Trilogy with my favourite recurring character, Seo Youngjoon, as the main character.

For those who have read the first story of this Trilogy, 7 school myth (link in the Foreword), you might have catch a glimpse of Seo Youngjoon. He was then disobedient and troublesome, but appeared in just a section of chapter 2. In this story, he has changed much and become a gentleman, playing a bigger role. Spoiler: this chapter is not the last time he appears. There are more things to tell about this guy. Have you ever wondered why he knows virtually everything and (not always) appears at the right place at the right time? 

A bit of more spoiler, more like a description to a new story, about Youngjoon. He is revealed to have known Son Eunho and does not react when he hears about Eunjo's reaction to his brother's death. So, what is the relationship beteen these three people? Final clue: in 7 school myth, Youngjoon was in 10th grade. In this story, he is in his senior year. So the third story of the triology may fall in his 11th year, a bit of the timeline.

That is all I have to say. Thank you very much for being patient. Please leave comments below about how this story is going, what character you like most, and what you expect to happen to later characters. I would love to read your opinions. They are a great source of inspiration.

Love you <3