Watching Yin Kuang's retreating figure, Zeng Fei and Wei Ming couldn't help exchanging a glance before shaking their heads in confusion and resignation. Li Shuangmu merely furrowed his brow, then paid it no more mind. Wang Ning, however, smiled faintly. He could probably guess what had made Yin Kuang so irritable.
"Ah! Lifespan, lifespan. How could I not feel the same? That damned Headmaster—how exactly does he calculate it? Why do I, Wang Ning, have only twenty-seven years to live?!"
Wang Ning angrily scratched at his scalp, growing just as restless.
Wang Ning certainly didn't think the "lifespan" attribute set by the Headmaster was meant to help them, letting them live longer. Quite the opposite: in Wang Ning's eyes, the "lifespan" attribute was proof enough of the Headmaster's malice and cruelty!
Why? Why were people sometimes unafraid of death? Because no one—especially young people—ever thought about the word "death," much less believed they would die so soon. So nobody worried about death at all. But now things were different. Everyone knew exactly how long they had to live. Every time they died, their lifespan was reduced a little... Just imagine the despair of watching your lifespan dwindle and death draw ever closer...
It was enough to drive anyone mad!!
"Lifespan" was a wolf chasing you from behind. If you didn't want to be eaten, you had to run for your life, fleeing with all your might—but no matter how fast you ran or how far you fled, whenever you looked back, you would find that vicious wolf getting closer and closer... The moment you let your guard down, even for an instant, you would... die!!
"Hey!" A hand landed on Wang Ning's shoulder.
"Ah!!"
Wang Ning, drenched in cold sweat, suddenly jumped aside. His left hand instinctively drew a blade and was about to slash the throat of whoever had touched him.
Zeng Fei jumped in fright and hurriedly asked, "Wang Ning, what's wrong with you... Why are you covered in sweat?"
Wang Ning cursed inwardly, but there was nothing he could do. He rolled his eyes at Zeng Fei and huffed, "You scared me to death! People can literally die of fright, you know?"
"Oh, sorry, sorry. I didn't know you were thinking about something. I just saw you covered in sweat and thought something had happened to you."
"...Sigh, I was scared by the prices in the Headmaster's exchange shop," Wang Ning said. "Look at this stuff. There's no way a person could afford any of it! Look at these Eighteen Dragon Subduing Palms—they cost five thousand Study Points and one B-rank evaluation, and you still have to comprehend the technique yourself? And this cultivation technique, the Tao Te Ching, is even more outrageous: twenty thousand Study Points and one S-rank evaluation. I seem to remember the Tao Te Ching outside only costs five yuan a copy!"
As he spoke, Wang Ning seemed to vent his anger by slamming his hand hard on the table. "In my opinion, the Headmaster clearly wants us dead. What kind of joke is this?"
Zeng Fei felt the same way. "You can say that again. I just looked at the Mobile Suit Gundam mecha. It was unbelievably cool, but the price to exchange for it... Sigh, never mind. The more I talk about it, the more I want it."
"By the way, what did you want me for?" Wang Ning asked.
Zeng Fei's expression turned troubled again. "Remember the 'Mary's Blood' from our Hidden Mission?"
"Yeah, that miraculous blood that can raise the success rate of T-Virus Enhancement. What about it?"
"I just checked, and sure enough, the T-Virus is available for exchange. Guess what? It's divided into five tiers, with success rates of ten percent, fifteen percent, and so on, up to thirty-nine percent. None of them are above forty percent, and the price doubles with every tier. But the ten-percent tier alone costs a full thousand Study Points and two F-rank plots. Damn, no wonder the Teaching Assistant said the Entrance Exam rewards were incredibly generous. When you convert everything, they really are generous!"
Wang Ning put on a troubled look, full of resentment. "I knew it. T-Virus Enhancement was never meant for us. So did we do that Hidden Mission for nothing?!"
"But it looks like we can trade 'Mary's Blood' to the Headmaster for two thousand Study Points and one E-rank plot," Zeng Fei added. "At least that's some consolation. Heh."
"You can do that?" Wang Ning's eyes lit up.
He had two bottles of Mary's Blood, after all. If he used one to inject the T-Virus, he would still have another—assuming, of course, that he didn't end up among the twenty-five percent who failed. Otherwise, he'd be in trouble and would have to use the other bottle to neutralize the T-Virus.
"Yeah. I just wanted to let you know. We put in the effort, so at least we've got something to show for it. I'm heading out. Anyway, the Teaching Assistant said not to exchange for enhancements just yet, so he probably has his reasons. We've got nothing else to do, so I'm going to look for the dormitory. Heh, maybe we'll be roommates."
With that, Zeng Fei waved and left.
"Roommates... I'd rather live alone. It's more peaceful," Wang Ning murmured.
Wang Ning glanced at Li Shuangmu in the distance, thought for a moment, then stood up and left the classroom as well.
Fuming, Yin Kuang rushed out of the classroom and hurried downstairs. Only when he reached the first floor and saw the strange, quiet campus beneath the dark-red sky did he suddenly realize—this wasn't his old school anymore.
Out of habit, he had treated this place like his old high school.
He was used to the green trees, red flowers, blue skies, and white clouds of his old school. Now, faced with nothing but a gloomy, eerie palette, he couldn't reconcile what he saw with the campus in his memories—or with the feeling the word "campus" was supposed to evoke.
The contrast was so immense!
"Suddenly, my old school feels like heaven compared to this place."
Looking at the seemingly frozen black clouds overhead, the dark-red glow, the gloomy trees in the distance and nearby, and a pitch-black pond close by, Yin Kuang couldn't help sighing.
"Is this a campus?"
From that moment on, the question was etched into Yin Kuang's mind. Not even the raging winds of time could wear it away...
In the end, Yin Kuang could only take a deep breath and let it out heavily. "Get used to this place... I'm here now, so I have to adapt... I'll work hard, just like I did when I was studying before. Get good grades, earn that Graduation Certificate as soon as possible, and then go home safely... Go home..."
He clenched his fists, then stepped forward and set off.
Although this was his first time here, strangely enough, he felt he knew the place very, very well, yet it also seemed unfamiliar. It was a very strange and contradictory feeling.
It was as if Yin Kuang knew that the black-water lake nearby was called Spirit Cleansing Lake, but didn't know why it was called that; or that the black trees were called Shadow Phoenix Trees, and the faintly glowing blue objects on them weren't fruit at all, but the Shadow Phoenix Trees' "eyes." The building behind him was called the Soul Slaughter Building, also known as Slaughterhouse No. 13. It was in District One, and had a terrifyingly strange name.
And that building in the distance, barely visible and resembling the Leaning Tower of Pisa, seemed to be the "library," located in District Four...
Looking around at the strange names and strange shapes of every building, Yin Kuang felt as if none of them were unfamiliar to him. He knew their names, though not what they were actually for. It seemed the all-powerful Headmaster really had implanted the relevant information directly into their memories, just as Teaching Assistant Xiong Ba had said.
It was simply incredible!
Yet as he walked, Yin Kuang began to feel uneasy.
It wasn't because he was lost or frightened by what he saw. Rather, after walking so far, he had turned around and could no longer see Slaughterhouse No. 13. He had passed Spirit Cleansing Lake, gone around the Shadow Phoenix Tree grove, and walked through Black Fire Garden—only to discover that in the vast campus, there wasn't a single person!?
That was right. Other than himself, Yin Kuang hadn't seen anyone.
It was as if he were the only human being in the whole world...
The thought suddenly came to him, and Yin Kuang was overcome by a nameless panic.
"Hey! Is anyone there?!"
Yin Kuang tentatively called out, but his voice seemed to vanish after traveling only a short distance.
"Hey!! Is anyone there?!"
Yin Kuang shouted again, louder this time. But just like before, even though he raised his voice, it didn't seem to carry very far. Yin Kuang had the feeling that something was blocking his voice. No matter how loudly he shouted, it couldn't travel any farther.
Although Yin Kuang knew his "dormitory" was just ahead, inside Dormitory Building 33, that did nothing to make him feel safe.
This had nothing to do with his mental fortitude. Yin Kuang was merely a little more resilient and a little more intelligent than most. Maybe he could suppress his fear and anxiety for a while, but not for long.
It was like the fear he'd felt after killing someone in Resident Evil 2. He had suppressed it with thoughts like "danger is right behind you, you don't have time to be afraid" and "Wang Ning is right beside you, stay calm!" But there was no denying that once he truly relaxed, memories of what had happened would return, and the fear would surge over him like a tide.
And now, in this strange, empty place, dim and blood-red yet so quiet it was almost unbearable, memories of the Entrance Exam began resurfacing, along with the hollow, soulless eyes of the man who had wanted to die... Yin Kuang's mind gradually, gradually began to falter.
This place was straight out of a nightmare!
Loneliness and isolation were the deadliest poisons in the world, the most terrifying nightmares!
"Calm down! Yin Kuang, you have to calm down!! Take a deep breath, take a deep breath... In... out... in... out... There's nothing to be afraid of... The dorm's just ahead. Almost there!"
Muttering to himself, Yin Kuang quickened his pace, head down as he hurried along. He was almost running blindly.
Whether he was walking too fast or for some other reason, Yin Kuang suddenly felt himself trip over something. It was furry, yet hard as steel—but none of that mattered. What mattered was that he had fallen again!
As he pitched forward, a thought inexplicably flashed through Yin Kuang's mind.
"Will falling this time send me back again?"
"Thud!"
Then Yin Kuang fell flat on the ground.
There was black grass beneath him, but the grass was also scattered with stones of various sizes, so of course he was bound to hurt for a while.
But before he could get up, a huge shadow fell over Yin Kuang.
At the same time, a blast of hot, foul breath hit his face.
"Hey, kid, are you blind? You don't watch where you're going, and you even dare step on this great master's tail. Are you trying to get yourself killed?"
The rough, beastlike voice shook Yin Kuang's chest and left him short of breath, even though the speaker hadn't raised his voice.
Yin Kuang shuddered and slowly looked up. A huge wolf's head loomed before him, as big as the front of a car. Its eyes were as huge as the lanterns hung up for the New Year, and its densely packed, crisscrossing teeth were bared in a snarl.
The hot, foul breath came from two nostrils like black holes.
It was an enormous wolf, and its fur was pure white.
Its snowy coat stood out vividly against the surroundings. For some reason, though, it was crouched behind a clump of low, black trees, doing who knew what.
Strangely, the huge white wolf was wearing a ring of roses around its ears?!
"Hey! Kid!!"
Seeing Yin Kuang merely staring at him in a daze without saying a word, the huge white wolf spoke. "You little rookie, didn't your Teaching Assistant teach you to show your seniors some respect? Tell me who your Teaching Assistant is! This great master will teach him how to do his job!"
"Huh?!" Yin Kuang scrambled to his feet. "You... you..."
"...Forget it," the white wolf suddenly said. "I'll let you off, since my heroic appearance scared you senseless. You, take this wreath off my ears and I'll spare you."
Yin Kuang hadn't quite gotten his bearings yet, but he understood one thing: this giant wolf was definitely a "senior"!
And according to the Teaching Assistant, "seniors = people you don't mess with."
So Yin Kuang hurriedly nodded.
The problem was, the giant wolf's head was so big that Yin Kuang couldn't reach it.
"Um... senior, could you lower your head a little? It's too high up."
The white wolf snorted a few times. "Damn it! You expect this great master to lower his head for a little bean sprout like you—damn it, this time I'll let it slide! Next time... Just you wait. Next time I'll make you pay! Making me run around the school wearing a ring of roses, in wolf form, no less! Hmph, if I can't do it myself, can't I get someone else to take it off?"
Who knew what he was muttering about? In any case, he still lowered his proud head a little and turned the side with the rose wreath toward Yin Kuang. "Hey, kid, be careful. There's a 'curse' on this wreath. Once you take it off, throw it away. Don't think it's a toy."
"Huh?! Oh..."
A curse? So what if it was cursed? Yin Kuang still had to take it off, didn't he?
Otherwise, who knew what might happen if he offended a "senior"?
Before you continue