"Do you have some objection to my class?" The teacher at the podium looked displeased as she watched the thief jump at every little thing.
The thief's eyes were vacant, and he repeated the same words over and over: "Fake. It's all fake..."
He bent down, picked up the pen from the floor, and walked up to the podium step by step.
The teacher frowned slightly as she met his gloomy gaze. "You..."
Before she could finish voicing her confusion, the pen tip pierced her neck.
The thief pulled the pen out, and blood gushed forth, splattering the pristine white wall.
He wiped the blood from his cheek and burst into an eerie laugh. Pointing the pen tip at the students below, he shouted, "Hahaha, fake! You're all fake! You can't fool me!"
The students stared in horror, and a piercing scream shattered the silence.
"Ah—!" they cried, rushing toward the doors at the front and back of the classroom.
Before long, the classroom was empty. The sight of them running briefly brought the thief back to his senses.
He stared stiffly at the motionless corpse in horror. His legs gave out, and he fell straight to the floor. "No... impossible. This isn't real. This must be fake again!"
He was going mad.
No one could blame him, because he could no longer tell which layer of the dream he was in.
Or rather, he had already returned to reality.
When he first woke up, he thought he was still in the classroom. Unable to bear the pressure, he admitted that he had stolen the money.
As a result, the teacher and students transformed, each holding a sharp knife, and stabbed him again and again.
Just when he thought he was about to die, he jolted awake once more and realized that had also been a layer of the dream.
He tried different options. If he refused to confess, the evidence would be used to judge him; if he confessed, he would be killed. Death after death, he fell through layer after layer. Then he woke up again. Even the time and place of each awakening were random.
His mental strength was not particularly great, and his fear had reached a peak.
Every time he woke up, he naturally assumed it was still a dream.
"I didn't kill anyone. This is another trick..." Bracing himself against the podium, he staggered to his feet and stumbled out of the classroom.
Teachers from the school blocked the corridor, their faces wary.
"A dream. It's just a dream..." he murmured. He spread his arms toward the wary crowd, ready to face death without fear. "I stole the money. I'm the one who stole it. Come on, kill me!"
At the mention of stolen money, the people facing him all smiled and killed him.
He experienced death and woke up once again.
He finally broke down.
He could no longer tell dreams from reality at all. Now everything he saw was fake; all of it was just a dream.
He buried his head and wept bitterly, telling them of the pain of the dreams and crying out that he wanted to leave.
The teacher walked kindly down from the podium and stroked his head in comfort.
He kept crying, paying no attention to the teacher's comfort. After all, this was only a dream. A dream he could not wake up from.
"A dream?" the teacher's kindly voice asked as she gently patted his back.
Then something strange happened. The formerly gentle teacher suddenly gripped his head, squeezing his skull out of shape in her hand. "Shh."
He died again.
"Let me leave! Let me leave!"
Death.
"This is another dream! Hahaha, you're all fake! This is another dream!"
Death.
"Reality? Stop lying to me. There's no such thing as reality."
Death.
"I... can I still leave? I don't want to..."
Death.
After dying countless times, he worked out several conditions.
He could not admit to stealing, and he could not mention here that this was only a dream. The evidence brought forward would not kill him. As long as he acted like a mute, a silent, quiet mute, he could survive in the dream.
He did not want to go through it again. Even in a dream, he could clearly feel the pain of death. He wanted to stay alive and see how the dream unfolded.
Fan Daoyi watched the results. The thief's final choice was the course he had planned.
He was worried that He Piaojian and his people would discover him; with his current strength, he was not yet able to stand against the authorities.
For safety's sake, it never hurt to keep a low profile.
So he constructed a scenario in the dream to rid the thief of any thought of informing on him.
Be a quiet mute, behave himself, and be like a sponge, squeezed now and then for fear points.
The nightmare was over.
But the thief would no longer believe that this was reality.
A coppery sweetness surged up Fan Daoyi's throat. He coughed a few times, then turned his hand over to find a pool of blood.
He wiped the traces from the corner of his mouth with his thumb, then pulled out a piece of paper and wiped the blood from his hand.
He Piaojian, who had been idly twirling a pen, caught the faint smell of blood and abruptly raised his head.
Before Fan Daoyi could react, he felt himself being pulled. The next second, he heard He Piaojian say, "Teacher, Dao Yi doesn't look well. I'll take him to the school clinic."
Fan Daoyi, who had somehow ended up at the school clinic again, sat there all alone. He Piaojian had slipped away after bringing him over, using the legitimate excuse of looking after a sick classmate to skip class and sneak out of school.
Fan Daoyi closed his eyes wearily. He now felt that he had overestimated the guy. He had thought the slightest sign of something unusual had been noticed, and had even considered deleting his account, changing his identity, and running away.
"Um, student, you..." The school doctor did not know what to say either. "What's bothering you?"
The one who had brought him had rushed off, while the sick one sat there without a word. This was the infirmary, not some illegal establishment, right?
"My head hurts."
"A headache? Is it a cold? How about taking your temperature?"
"My heart is tired."
"Your heart is tired? Is the pressure from studying too much? Maybe relax a little?"
"Ah..." Fan Daoyi let out a deep sigh.
Was he picking a fight?
Seeing this, the school doctor took a deep breath and suppressed the urge to curse him out. All his countless words came together in one: "Scram."
Fan Daoyi was driven out of the school clinic.
Standing outside, he looked around in bewilderment. He had clearly said what was bothering him, so why had he been thrown out? Had he said something wrong?
Thinking back carefully, he found nothing in the three years of high school knowledge he had acquired that explained this situation. Humans were truly strange.
He found a dense grove and sat down in the deserted shade of a tree, leaning against its trunk for a light nap.
Staying in the classroom was boring anyway. He might as well lie flat.
Meanwhile, He Piaojian had sensed that something was wrong and found a suitable excuse to leave school and meet Xia Baoguo.
But he was completely off the mark.
"This is serious. Those guys still haven't given up. Destroying the surveillance cameras was only the first step, and now they've started resorting to poison."
Yes, judging by his own usual methods, he suspected that Fan Daoyi had coughed up blood because someone had played a dirty trick and poisoned him.
A pile of complaint letters sat on Xia Baoguo's desk, with the information they had gathered on Fan Daoyi in the middle.
He pinched the bridge of his nose to ease his fatigue, then said earnestly, "Is there any chance it really was his own health?"
"His health is so bad he's coughing up blood, and he still goes to school? Is everyone competing that hard?" He Piaojian shook his head and corrected him. "From what I know, there's definitely something fishy about this."
"Not everyone is as underhanded as you," Xia Baoguo muttered quietly. "People's hearts haven't turned that black yet."
He Piaojian did not hear his muttering and continued talking to himself.
"So, tell me, as a law-abiding, model citizen, shouldn't you give me a suitable reason to make another trip?"
His gaze fell on the letters of complaint. "I can help you settle the trouble once and for all while I'm at it."