Second High School.
The dismissal bell rang lazily, and groups of high school students streamed out through the gates, chatting and laughing as they headed home.
"Ugh, they assigned so much homework again today. I'll be at it until after eleven..."
"Tell me about it! That idiot teacher assigned twelve reading comprehension exercises! Does he want us to die?"
"Reading comprehension? Isn't that easy to bullshit?"
"How is it easy to bullshit?"
"If there are three long answers and one short one, pick the short one. If there are three short ones and one long one, pick the long one. If they're all uneven, pick C. If it's ambiguous, pick D."
"...Hold on, let me write that down!"
"..."
Suddenly, one student turned around and called to Li Yifei, who was trailing behind the group.
"Li Yifei, why are you so slow? Hurry up!"
Li Yifei snapped back to his senses. "Oh, coming, coming."
He quickened his pace to catch up, but his eyes kept darting around, and he seemed distracted.
"What's wrong with you? What are you looking for?" Wang Liang asked curiously.
Li Yifei hesitated for a moment, then sighed. "After what happened before, I've got trauma over walking home after school... Even though there's no evening study session now and it's still light out, I just feel... creeped out!"
Wang Liang rolled his eyes. "You just ran into a murderer once. Why are you making such a big deal out of it? You look big and burly, Li Yifei. How can you be such a scaredy-cat?"
"It's not like that... Sigh, forget it. You wouldn't understand even if I explained." Li Yifei shook his head.
Then, as if he had remembered something, he abruptly stopped walking.
"What now?"
"I just remembered that I didn't bring my homework. It's still in my desk drawer." Li Yifei said with a headache.
"Look at that brain of yours. You were already slow enough, and now it's even less useful... Good thing the school gates aren't closed yet. Go get it. I'm leaving with the others."
Wang Liang waved at Li Yifei with his backpack slung over his shoulder, then turned and left with the rest.
Li Yifei sighed where he stood, then turned back toward the school.
By the time he returned to the school gate, twenty minutes had passed since dismissal. Most of the students who should have left were already gone, and the whole campus was nearly empty.
"Good thing they haven't closed the gate yet," Li Yifei muttered as he hurried into the school.
The campus at dusk was quieter than usual, with far less of the usual lively atmosphere.
Every now and then, students who had stayed behind to clean would emerge from their classrooms, check the time, and hurry toward the gate, brushing past Li Yifei as he walked against the flow.
They were all eager to get home, eager to eat the steaming hot dinners waiting for them.
The farther Li Yifei went, the fewer people he saw, and the deeper the twilight grew.
The tall trees lining both sides of the path rustled in the wind. The fading rays of the sun, about to sink beyond the western hills, filtered through the gaps between the leaves, growing dimmer and sparser...
Li Yifei hurried to the sophomore teaching building, took the stairs two at a time to the fourth floor, and arrived outside his classroom.
In the empty corridor, aside from the dusky yellow light, Li Yifei was the only person there.
By then, nearly all the students on cleaning duty had left, and even the classroom doors had been locked.
But that was no problem for Li Yifei. He skillfully opened the window, set down his backpack, braced both hands on the sill, and flipped inside.
"Homework, homework, homework... Found it!" Li Yifei fumbled around in his desk for a while, pulled out a notebook, and his eyes lit up.
He stuffed the notebook into his bag, walked over to the window, and prepared to climb back out the same way.
Just then, two figures suddenly appeared at the far end of the corridor.
Li Yifei caught sight of them from the corner of his eye, shuddered, and quickly crouched down behind the tiles beneath the window.
What kind of rotten luck is this? I just had to run into the Dean of Students? Li Yifei cursed inwardly.
The two people walking down the corridor were Liu Xiaoyan, the Chinese class representative from his class, and the Dean of Students for their sophomore year.
Sneaking into the classroom through the window after school could easily be misunderstood. If the Dean of Students caught him, he would have no way to explain himself and would be in deep trouble.
So Li Yifei pressed himself tightly against the wall, intending to wait until the two of them left.
The pair chatted as they approached the classroom where Li Yifei was hiding. Gradually, he could hear their conversation clearly.
"...So your class really needs to focus on Chinese. Pick the student who writes the best essays and have them enter this city competition."
"I understand, Dean. There are quite a few people in our class who write well, such as..."
As they walked, the Dean of Students seemed to grow tired. He stopped, placed both hands on the corridor railing, and rested.
Liu Xiaoyan stopped beside him as well and continued speaking.
And they had stopped right outside the classroom where Li Yifei was hiding!
Li Yifei saw the scene reflected in the window and helplessly rolled his eyes. He simply sat down where he was and waited for them to leave.
"Mm, everything you said sounds good. Have them come to my office tomorrow. I'll talk to them." The Dean of Students nodded in satisfaction, turned to Liu Xiaoyan, and started to leave.
"Dean!" Liu Xiaoyan suddenly called out, stopping him.
The Dean of Students turned back and looked at her in confusion. "Is there something else, Liu Xiaoyan?"
A faint blush surfaced on Liu Xiaoyan's face in the twilight, and she suddenly became oddly bashful.
"Dean, actually... actually, I... I've always wanted to tell you..."
Li Yifei, hiding nearby, widened his eyes so far they nearly popped out, his gaze full of shock!
Holy shit!
I only came back for my homework. What the hell am I seeing?!
Liu Xiaoyan actually has a thing for the Dean?!
B-But the Dean is almost fifty! And he's bald on top!
Is her taste really that heavy?
The Dean of Students standing before Liu Xiaoyan furrowed his brows tighter and tighter.
"Actually, I... I've always wanted to...
Wanted to...
Eat you!"
As the final three words left her mouth, Liu Xiaoyan's mouth split open at a terrifying angle, as though someone had forcibly torn it apart! Rows upon rows of sharp teeth like barbs were revealed!
Her pupils had vanished, leaving only the whites of her eyes, making her look horrifying! Yet the dimples in her cheeks still gleamed with an eerie wine-red hue beneath the dusk...
The Dean of Students' eyes widened. He instinctively opened his mouth, about to scream!
The next moment, Liu Xiaoyan's entire head blossomed open from where her mouth had been! Countless sharp teeth gleamed with a chilling light!
That mouth was enormous—large enough to easily swallow an entire living person!
Then, in almost an instant, that gaping bloody maw swallowed the Dean of Students whole. Flesh and blood wriggled and twisted within it, sickening to behold!
Li Yifei, who had witnessed the entire process, clamped both hands tightly over his mouth. He stared at the window in terror, every muscle in his body trembling!
Liu Xiaoyan chewed for a long while. Then, that bloody maw opened once more,
and with a retch, spat out a completely intact Dean of Students.
Aside from some slime coating his body, he had not lost so much as a single hair.
He lay there quietly on the ground, while Liu Xiaoyan's head of flesh and blood gradually reverted back. Within seconds, she had returned to looking like an ordinary high school girl.
She stared motionlessly at the Dean of Students before her.
A few seconds later, the Dean of Students on the ground suddenly opened his eyes and rose in an eerie posture.
He and Liu Xiaoyan looked into each other's eyes,
and smiled at the same time.
Moving in an unnervingly synchronized manner, the two gradually disappeared down the far end of the corridor.
Only after confirming that they had truly left did Li Yifei finally remove his hands from his mouth. He collapsed limply to the floor, gasping for breath.
There were only two words in his mind:
"Again?!!!"