Word Spirit · Silence

The twelve who had escaped death collapsed onto the ridges between the fields, gasping for breath.

Once they confirmed that the terrifying crows wouldn't cross the boundary of the woods, their taut nerves finally relaxed—and all the resentment that had been building up erupted at once.

"Who shoved me just now?!"

Yu Shishi's hair was a mess, and her knees were still bleeding. Her eyes bloodshot, she pointed at Bai Lianhua, who was drinking water.

"Bai Lianhua! You knocked that log over just now, didn't you?! You wanted to use me as bait!"

Bai Lianhua had been savoring her narrow escape. Her eyelid twitched, but she quickly put on a pitiful expression.

"Shishi, what are you talking about...? It was so dark, and everyone was running. I almost fell, too. How could I have tried to hurt you?"

"You were the one who ran so slowly you almost dragged everyone else down, and now you're turning around and accusing me... Boohoo..."

As she spoke, she leaned against Yang Wei, looking as if she had suffered the greatest injustice in the world.

The three boys nearby who had once pursued Yu Shishi—the so-called "Simp Group"—also spoke up, eager to secure their place in the team.

"Yeah, Shishi. It was so chaotic just now. You must've seen wrong."

"Bai's so delicate. How could she have had the strength to push a log?"

"Everyone was terrified. Let it go."

Seeing her former friend stab her in the back and her suitors switch sides, Yu Shishi trembled with anger. "You... you..."

"That's enough!!"

A furious roar cut off the argument.

Yang Wei hurled the empty water bottle in his hand to the ground and got to his feet, his face full of menace.

He shoved Yu Shishi hard in the shoulder, sending her stumbling and crashing to the ground.

"Yu Shishi! Are you done making a scene?!"

Yang Wei towered over her and pointed at her, spittle flying from his mouth.

"There was nothing anyone could do for you in that situation! We were all trying to survive!"

"This isn't Blue Star! It's not school! And you're not some little princess whose family spoils her rotten!"

"If you want to stay alive, shut your mouth and follow orders! Nobody's willing to pay for your spoiled-little-rich-girl temper!"

Yang Wei's words were like knives, tearing apart the last shred of Yu Shishi's dignity.

Tears in her eyes, she looked around, only to find that not one of the dozen or so people left was willing to step forward and say a word in her defense.

Everyone chose to stay silent or watch with cold indifference.

Only Guo Shuai came forward and made a show of trying to hold Yang Wei back.

"Come on, Old Yang, calm down. Don't let this ruin things between us. We just escaped."

Then he turned to Yu Shishi on the ground.

"Shishi, you're being unreasonable, too. Apologize to everyone, and we can put this behind us."

"Apologize?!"

Yu Shishi stared at his hypocritical face in disbelief, and her stubborn streak flared up.

"Why should I apologize?! She was the one who hurt me! You're all bad people! You're all in this together!"

"I'm not staying with you anymore! I'm going back! I'm going to find Yuqing! Boohoo..."

With that, she got up, wiped away her tears, and charged without looking back toward the dark edge of the woods.

She ran in the direction of the bus.

"Hey! Don't—"

Wang Jinsheng, a substitute on the Basketball Team and one of her former suitors, instinctively tried to stop her.

But Yang Wei's icy glare scared him back into silence.

"Let her go!"

Yang Wei snorted. "Good riddance to a deadweight who doesn't know what's good for her. At least we'll save some rations!"

"Who knows if it'll really be safe once the sun comes up tomorrow? We already don't have enough supplies!"

Wang Jinsheng shrank his neck and didn't dare say another word.

Meanwhile, Yu Shishi, having run into the darkness, fled blindly.

In the dark, Yu Shishi ran wildly without knowing where she was going.

Anger and hurt filled her mind, completely robbing her of reason.

"Thud!"

Suddenly, her foot caught on something, and she crashed hard to the ground again. One of her shoes flew off, too.

In the faint moonlight, she saw that she had tripped over a scarecrow.

It stood silently at the edge of the wheat field, among the weeds, holding a lantern and looking down at her.

Under normal circumstances, Yu Shishi would have fainted from fright.

But now, after being humiliated by Yang Wei and betrayed by her best friend, the anger pent up inside her had completely overwhelmed her reason.

"Are you picking on me, too?!"

"Even a lousy pile of straw thinks it can bully me?!"

Yu Shishi shrieked, snatched up the shoe that had fallen beside her, and swung it hard at the scarecrow's head!

"Smack!"

The scarecrow's head, attached by only a few threads to begin with, was knocked ninety degrees to the side.

It hung crookedly from its neck, looking ridiculous and comical.

"Get lost! Move it, you mangy mutt!"

Having vented her anger, Yu Shishi—covered in straw and filthy from head to toe—haphazardly pulled her shoe back on.

She got up and limped toward the pitch-black Twisted Forest ahead.

She didn't stop until her figure had completely disappeared into the night.

The little scarecrow, its head still tilted, suddenly moved.

"Creak... creak..."

With a scraping sound, its crooked head slowly turned back, bit by bit, revealing its hideously twisted face!

Where its eyes had been drawn in charcoal, two dazzling red lights blazed to life!

The red light instantly locked onto the direction Yu Shishi had gone. Its mouth opened and closed.

However...

Just as it seemed about to do something...

Ahead, Yu Shishi crossed an invisible line and plunged headfirst into the forest of twisted trees.

Zzzt.

The dazzling red light in the scarecrow's eyes abruptly went out the moment it touched the forest's aura.

It froze in place, staring blankly toward the woods for two seconds.

Its once-terrifying mouth slowly drooped at the corners, as if it were a little...

Wronged?

Then it slipped back into the shadows and resumed standing guard.

But something was different...

It slowly opened its straw-made mouth and spoke in a hoarse, halting voice.

"B-bully... me."

"Bully... me."

"Bully me."

Its voice gradually changed from hoarse to clear and smooth.

The scarecrow was imitating Yu Shishi's words and her voice...

Over by the wheat field.

After getting rid of the unstable element, Yang Wei began assigning the night watch.

"Guo Shuai takes the first shift, Wang Jinsheng the second, Wu Hao the third... Lianhua and I will take the last shift."

Thanks to her honeyed words and attentive personal service, Bai Lianhua had managed to land the easiest watch.

Night fell deeper.

Aside from those on watch, the other students soon fell fast asleep, overcome by fear and exhaustion.

In the second half of the night, it was Wang Jinsheng's turn to keep watch.

The surroundings were frighteningly quiet. Only the wheat rustled as the wind swept through it.

Suddenly.

"Boohoo... help me..."

A faint sound of crying drifted from deep in the wheat field nearby.

Wang Jinsheng, who had been nodding off, jerked awake.

That voice... sounded so familiar!

It was Yu Shishi!

"Shishi? Are you back?"

Wang Jinsheng was overjoyed.

He still hadn't given up on Yu Shishi. He hadn't dared say anything earlier, but now...

If he could save her alone, wouldn't that be the perfect chance to take advantage of her vulnerability?

Lust clouded his mind, and his IQ hit zero.

He didn't even bother waking the others. Instead, he crept toward the sound.

"Shishi? Is that you? Don't be scared. It's Brother Jin Sheng..."

He pushed apart the tall wheat stalks and saw a petite figure standing ahead with her back to him.

She wore the same clothes as Yu Shishi, her shoulders trembling as though she were crying.

"Heh, Shishi. I knew you couldn't bear to leave us."

Wang Jinsheng swallowed and reached out to pat the figure on the shoulder.

But then—

Just as his hand was about to touch her—

The figure suddenly stopped crying.

Her head spun around a full one hundred and eighty degrees, at an angle no human could possibly manage!

That wasn't Yu Shishi's face at all!

It was a hideous face stitched together from rags!

Rotting grass filled its insides!

It had no features, just a blood-red slit stretching all the way to its ears.

"Sur-prise!"

The thing let out a shrill, grating imitation of a voice.

"Ah!!!"

Wang Jinsheng nearly lost his soul from fright and let out a scream.

But in the next moment, the scarecrow sprouted three arms and locked him in a death grip!

Its split mouth gaped open, swallowing Wang Jinsheng's head in one bite!

Countless withered yellow stalks pierced his body, instantly replacing his flesh and even his bones!

"What was that sound?!"

"Ah! Someone screamed!"

Yang Wei, Guo Shuai, and the others woke in an instant. They grabbed the Window Breaking Hammer and wooden clubs, ready for danger, and charged toward the scream.

"Over there! That idiot Wang Jinsheng!"

They rushed through the waves of wheat and arrived at the scene.

But Wang Jinsheng was lying on the ground, clutching his head, his face twisted in pain.

There was no monster in sight.

"Jinsheng? What happened? Why were you screaming just now?!"

Guo Shuai asked nervously, shining his flashlight at Wang Jinsheng's face.

"Wang Jinsheng" slowly lifted his head, smiled a simple, honest smile, and waved his hand.

"I'm fine, I'm fine... Sorry, everyone."

"It was too dark. I tripped over a wheat stalk and hit my head. It hurt so much that I couldn't help yelling."

Hearing this, everyone breathed a sigh of relief, followed by a flood of complaints.

"Damn! You scared the hell out of me!"

"What's wrong with you?! You scream like a pig getting slaughtered just because you took a fall!"

"Come on, let's go back to sleep."

Cursing under his breath, Yang Wei put away his weapon and turned back.

Guo Shuai brought up the rear. He glanced at Wang Jinsheng with some suspicion and asked with concern:

"Are you really okay? Didn't you hurt your head?"

"I'm fine. Really."

"Wang Jinsheng" got to his feet. His movements were a little stiff, but his voice sounded perfectly normal.

"All right, be careful. Don't fall again."

Guo Shuai smiled and patted him on the shoulder.

The moment his hand made contact, he felt a strange, stinging sensation.

He glanced over in the moonlight and spotted a few withered stalks of wheat clinging to Wang Jinsheng's shoulder.

"You've got to be more careful. You're covered in grass."

Guo Shuai didn't think much of it. He casually brushed off the stalks and turned to head back.

And the instant he turned around,

the honest, simple expression on "Wang Jinsheng," standing in the darkness, vanished.

The corners of his mouth slowly split into a wicked grin.

Beneath the skin of his neck, stalks of wheat could be seen stirring faintly...

Meanwhile, outside the bus.

Compared to the eerie horror in the wheat field, the scene by the bus was entirely different.

Jiangnan sat atop a mountain of crow corpses, like a man deep in thought.

Below him, Chen Tong, Wang Meng, and Liu Yuqing stared up at him with near-fanatical adoration.

"Incredible! Absolutely incredible!"

Wang Meng was still marveling. "Hundreds of Mutated Crows! He wiped them out just like that!"

"I peeked through a crack earlier. The rest of the crows all ran off. They didn't dare come anywhere near us!"

"Jiangnan is... unbelievably strong." Liu Yuqing couldn't help praising him, too.

But unlike their soaring spirits,

Jiangnan, seated atop the mountain of corpses, felt so miserable he could have cried.

What a loss!

A huge loss!

To pull off that display and save his own life, he'd burned through more than three hundred words in one go!

That was a whole year's worth of savings!

And on top of that...

Jiangnan looked up at the roof of the bus.

Because of that indiscriminate "Human Gatling" barrage just now, even though he'd killed every crow...

the already strained roof had been riddled with holes by his Air Bullets.

Now it was on the verge of collapsing, the cold wind howling in. Even the bus's last bit of defensive capability was nearly gone.

"Sigh..."

Jiangnan let out a long sigh inside.

Just then, a humming sound rang in his mind.

He instinctively glanced at the time in the lower-right corner of his vision.

[00:00:00]

A new day had begun.

[ Ding! Daily Settlement complete.]

[Word Quota refreshed: +1 (Current balance: 6341)]

[Current location: Twisted Jungle]

[Check-in successful!]

[Congratulations, host. You have obtained the B-rank Word Spirit "Silence"!]

At the sound of the notification, Jiangnan, who had still been lamenting his loss, instantly sprang back to life. He even straightened his back.

Another new skill!

A detailed stream of information flooded into his mind.

[Word Spirit · Silence (B-rank)]

Effect: Creates a powerful Silence Field centered on the user.

Within this field, everyone and everything except the host will be stripped of the ability to make sounds and forcibly turned mute.

Trait: Lasts for one hour. An absolute rule that cannot be resisted.

Range: 30-meter radius.

Cost: 1 word.

Activation method: Hold your index finger to your lips and softly say the Activation Word: "Shh."

Jiangnan's eyes lit up as he read the description of his new skill.

It didn't deal damage, but it was practically a divine skill!

After being mute for so many years,

he could finally let other people get a taste of what it was like!

He refused to believe that a normal person, turned mute,

could out-argue someone who'd been mute for eighteen years!