All Eyes on Me

Students crowded into the auditorium, with every student from the first through third years gathered together. Fortunately, the place was big enough for them all to stand.

Lin Qiye stood onstage with the principal. He casually picked up a microphone, tested the volume, then checked whether Hongying, Si Xiaonan, and Li Yifei were in position.

By now, some of the students had started shouting.

"What's going on? Where's the principal? What did he call us here for?"

"Yeah! If there's something to say, hurry up and say it! Couldn't he have said it over the PA? Why did he have to make us come to the auditorium?"

"The air conditioning isn't even on! It's boiling in here!"

The principal, who had just stepped onstage, was at a loss. The vice principal and the other school administrators also began asking him what was going on.

He was also starting to recover from being intimidated by Lin Qiye.

I'm the principal of No. 2 High School, for heaven's sake. How did I let a student scare me like that? Golden eyes? I can do that too! Aren't they just colored contacts?

Just because of one thing this student said, I had everyone come to the auditorium. How ridiculous!

He immediately wanted to step forward, drive the arrogant student off the stage, and give him a scolding, but then he heard Lin Qiye speak into the microphone.

"Everyone, eyes on me! Look at me, look at me! I have an announcement!"

No one knew what Lin Qiye was going to do, but everyone, whether they were monsters or not, turned to look at him.

"I'd like to dedicate a song to everyone here!"

"I'll sing Borrow Five Hundred Years from Heaven!"

Without listening to how the crowd might react, Lin Qiye closed his eyes and let his voice ring out.

"Along the gentle, undulating curves of rivers and mountains—"

Hongying, Si Xiaonan, and Li Yifei all thought he had gone mad. He had gathered the students here to sing?

But they soon realized something was wrong.

Even with their ears firmly plugged, they could hear a sound that seemed to come from hell pouring out of Lin Qiye's throat and sweeping through the entire auditorium.

Even if you applied every word in the world for terrible singing to Lin Qiye, it wouldn't be enough to describe one ten-thousandth of how bad he sounded.

And the teachers and students below, who weren't wearing earplugs, felt an impact dozens of times greater than the three of them did.

"Ah! My ears!"

"What is that sound? I feel like I'm going to die!"

"Oh, God! Kill me!"

Some people fainted on the spot. Others held out for a second or two before fainting as well.

Soon, more than half the people in the auditorium had passed out.

Only sixty-odd people remained standing.

But there was something very wrong with them too.

Although they were standing, they were clutching their heads in pain. Instead of human cries, agonized hisses came from their mouths.

Then their heads burst open like flower buds, revealing the bright red flesh inside and the vicious teeth embedded in it.

The people still standing were the transformed monsters!

Wen Qimo had just found a few fragments of information about the monster in an ancient text. It was called the Nanda Snake Demon, and it possessed exceptional powers of disguise and intelligence no less than a human's. After swallowing a living creature, it could also plant a snake seed, turning a human corpse into its offspring.

It could produce only one snake seed a day, while its offspring could produce one every three days, and their combat strength was relatively weak.

At that moment, the only living humans in the auditorium who could still move were Lin Qiye, Hongying, Si Xiaonan, and Li Yifei.

"Xiaonan! Let's go!" Although Lin Qiye's voice from hell had left Hongying frazzled, she still maintained the composure and reflexes a Nightwatcher should have.

The case in her hand unfolded in an instant, and a blazing spear appeared in her grasp.

A fiery red figure darted among the unconscious teachers and students sprawled on the floor, each thrust of her spear claiming a monster's life.

Si Xiaonan and Li Yifei, who had been slightly dazed, checked that their earplugs were fine before joining Hongying.

Si Xiaonan drew her straight blade, while Li Yifei grabbed a fire axe.

But the monsters were utterly unable to fight back. Lin Qiye's "singing" had tormented them so badly that they had no strength left to resist.

At that moment, an extremely bizarre scene unfolded in No. 2 High School's auditorium.

Three blood-soaked figures darted through the horde of monsters, killing as they went. Teachers and students lay unconscious on the floor, while someone onstage sang Borrow Five Hundred Years from Heaven, so lost in the song that he didn't notice how unbearable it was without earplugs.

"I really—want to live—another five hundred years!!!!!!!"

"That's enough, Qiye! Stop borrowing! We've killed them all!" Even with earplugs in, Hongying could barely take it anymore. She shouted to Lin Qiye at the top of her lungs. Lin Qiye might be able to borrow another five hundred years from heaven, but even another five seconds of his singing was too much for her.

If she hadn't put in earplugs beforehand, she would probably have been just like those monsters, clutching her head and unable to move.

"Hey, wait! There's another one here!" Si Xiaonan suddenly spotted a figure crouching beside a monster.

Seeing this, Li Yifei raised his axe to strike.

"Wait! Have you gotten carried away with the killing? That's a student, not a monster! He hasn't transformed!" Lin Qiye, who had switched off the microphone, hurriedly jumped off the stage and stopped Li Yifei, looking at the student before him.

The student wore glasses and had short hair. Although he was dressed in a school uniform, he clearly seemed different from the other students, giving off an air of wisdom.

At the same time, the way he crouched beside the monster's corpse, examining it carefully, gave the impression that he seemed to have a strange curiosity about these things.

"So that's how it works? All the organs inside the human body are replaced? Leaving only the skin?" The boy was still talking to himself, seemingly unconcerned by the changes around him. Only when Lin Qiye and the other three gathered around did he look up.

"Student, what should we call you?" Hongying was still somewhat wary. All the other teachers and students here had fallen unconscious, but this student alone was fine, and she couldn't help feeling suspicious.

Seeing the figures gathered around him, the boy stood, brushed the dust off his clothes, adjusted his glasses, and took the cotton out of his ears.

"Sorry, I didn't hear what you just said. But my name is An Qingyu, a student at No. 2 High School," he replied.

"An Qingyu? You're the An Qingyu ranked first in the whole city? The apple of No. 2 High School's eye! Oh my God, I almost killed you! Everyone else fainted, so how come you're fine?" Li Yifei exclaimed.

"What, is that surprising? Don't make such a fuss. It was just basic deduction. The reason was right there with the four of you," An Qingyu replied calmly.

All four of them immediately became interested.