Dead Save

Chen Feng's pupils contracted. "How did you find us?"

From planning their escape to putting it into action and calling for help at the convenience store, Chen Feng thought they had left no openings. If their pursuers had still found them, there had to be either a mole or some supernatural power at work.

But this time, Chen Feng was wrong.

Professor Sheep smiled. "Someone reported you to me."

Chen Feng remembered the few lit windows he had seen in the surrounding apartment buildings when they left.

He understood at once. "The villagers."

The Fourth Mental Hospital stood in a remote urban village, and every villager there was a lookout for the monsters.

Under those circumstances, unless they had the Water Ghost's Invisibility Spell, they were bound to be spotted the moment they left the Academy.

Yellow Hair couldn't believe it. "Impossible! If that's true, how did Senior Chen Xinran escape?"

Professor Sheep smiled. "Oh, that stubborn young lady? I remember her. I didn't catch her; her parents brought her here themselves. She spent three years at the Academy without becoming a Model Student. Quite impressive."

A glimmer of hope rose in Yellow Hair. "Then she..."

"After she escaped, she killed her parents and then herself." Professor Sheep's sunny smile never faded, but his words chilled them to the bone. "Since this Academy was built, no one has ever gotten out."

With that, Professor Sheep sent an arc of electricity through them. All four felt as if every muscle in their bodies had cramped at once, contracting, tightening, spasming, and going numb beyond their control.

Thud.

Chen Feng dropped to one knee. The other three collapsed flat on the ground like dead pigs.

"Oh? You're still upright." Professor Sheep pointed at Li Guolong and the other two, then smiled at Chen Feng. "Not bad. You're a little stronger than they are, though not by much."

Chen Feng couldn't move, but his mouth was another matter. "Fuck you. If you've got the guts, fight me without using skills. Just you and me."

Professor Sheep lectured him. "Even now, you're still thinking about games and skills. The internet has poisoned you badly."

"Going online makes you a bad child."

Lightning struck Chen Feng again, but he didn't beg for mercy. He had broken the rules for bad children and provoked Professor Sheep on purpose, all to buy a little more time.

By his reckoning, it was almost time.

A police siren sounded in the distance.

Fatty breathed a sigh of relief. "Thank God. Finally."

Professor Sheep froze, then realized what was happening. "So you called the police?"

Li Guolong gritted his teeth. "That's right. You're finished."

Professor Sheep looked at them with mocking eyes. "Oh? Am I?"

His confidence gave Chen Feng a bad feeling. Only then did he notice that a single police car was approaching.

Why did they send so few people?

Yellow Hair's heart sank. "They're walking straight into a slaughter."

Li Guolong shouted toward the police car. "Officer! Officer! Over here!"

Four people got out of the car.

The male officer in front introduced himself. "I'm Hu Qing. Were you the ones who called?"

"Yes. They kidnapped us."

"Be careful, Officer Hu! He has a weapon, and he might attack you!"

"Officer Hu, call for backup! Hurry!"

Faced with their accusations, Professor Sheep remained calm. He raised his hands to show he had no weapon. "Hello, Officer Hu. I'm Professor Yang from the Fourth Mental Hospital's internet addiction school."

At the word professor, Officer Hu visibly let down his guard. "What exactly happened?"

Professor Sheep rushed to cast blame first. "These are troubled youths and psychiatric patients who ran away from our facility."

Li Guolong shouted, "Bullshit! You kidnapped all of us!"

"You can't just make things up." Professor Sheep pointed to the White Coats on the ground and the unconscious shopkeeper inside. "Look. They resisted so violently that they injured both the convenience store owner and our attendants."

Li Guolong grew frantic. "Don't listen to him!"

But Officer Hu ignored Li Guolong and complained, "Professor, you need to keep a closer eye on them in the future."

Professor Sheep looked apologetic. "I'm sorry. We were careless."

Officer Hu sighed. "Students, your parents sent you to the Academy because they want what's best for you. Stop making trouble and go back with the professor. Don't make more work for us, all right?"

Li Guolong and the others fell into despair.

Fatty swore. "What the fuck is wrong with your head?"

"Swearing too? You really do need some discipline." Officer Hu turned to Professor Sheep. "You can handle them. Let's go!"

Yellow Hair couldn't hold back any longer. He blurted out the truth. "They're all monsters! Those three on the ground can't talk, and the one with glasses can grow whips out of his back! Ask them if you don't believe me!"

Everything Yellow Hair said was true, but talk of monsters only convinced Officer Hu further that they were spouting nonsense. "They really are psychiatric patients."

And so, under Officer Hu's indifferent gaze, the four were loaded into a van.

Inside, Professor Sheep looked at the four of them with no way out and finally let loose with peals of wild laughter.

The village roads were rough. Instead of retracing its route, the van made a detour and entered the hospital through its front gate.

The moment they entered the Fourth Mental Hospital, Professor Sheep's face began to change.

His round face narrowed into a triangle. White fur and a white beard grew across it, and his ears lengthened and stood upright. His black hair grew short, then sparse, then white, while two large spiraling horns emerged from his head.

A goat's face appeared before them. "Welcome back, children."

Then they were taken to the hospital building.

There, Chen Feng saw the legendary Rabbit Nurse.

She was a woman with a rabbit's head, dressed all in white from top to bottom: a white nurse's cap, white uniform, white stockings, and white rubber shoes. She pointed at them with a finger painted orange-red and asked Professor Sheep, "Professor, who are these?"

Professor Sheep answered with great respect, "The children who escaped. I caught them and brought them back."

The Rabbit Nurse gave them a cold glance. "How disobedient. Get rid of them."

"You seem to be in a good mood?"

"Yes. The one we caught a week ago has agreed to join us."

"That's wonderful! Dean Ox will be delighted!"

"Go to the office and the Nurses' Station later to get the keys, then let our new colleague out."

"No need. These little brats already stole my keys."

The two monsters chatted back and forth.

Lying on a stretcher, Chen Feng listened with his heart pounding.

Dean Ox? Yellow Hair was right. This hospital really does have a hidden boss.

A new colleague? Next time, we'll have to escape quickly, or there'll be another monster to face.

At that moment, the Rabbit Nurse took a Logbook and a pen from inside her clothes. After staring at them for a while, she began drawing circles in it. Chen Feng and the others felt dizzy and drowsy.

I'm about to see that pig-headed bastard again.

That was Chen Feng's last thought before he lost consciousness.

But when he came to, he found himself standing on the sports field, not back in that lightless little room.

No Load Save?

Dread gripped Chen Feng. He tried calling to the other students around him:

"Hey!"

"Can you hear me?"

"What the hell is going on?"

Chen Feng was fully conscious. He could hear the sounds around him and feel the temperature, but he couldn't control his body. It was like being trapped in sleep paralysis.

Was this what it felt like to become an Imposter?

Chen Feng desperately called out to the system:

"Load Save! Load Save!"

The system gave no response. After all, the Save-Load System only triggered on death, and Chen Feng wasn't dead.

Anyone who died often knew that the average human lifespan was seventy-three years. Chen Feng was twenty-six, which meant this could go on for another forty-seven years.

That was over seventeen thousand days—more than four hundred thousand hours!!!

And that was the most optimistic scenario. What if Imposters lived forever?

"Then my save is dead."

Panic crept into Chen Feng's heart. Since arriving in this world, he had never faced anything so hopeless.

So he stopped worrying about conserving Points and immediately activated a Blessing.

[A modest gentleman, gentle as jade]

[You have activated Lu Xun's Blessing, Humility: The blessed are unaffected by spells, Magic, Sorcery, or abnormal statuses.]

Behind Chen Feng appeared the phantom of a gentleman holding a sword and glowing green.

Unfortunately, even after wasting one Point, Chen Feng still couldn't control his body. Apparently, being turned into an Imposter didn't count as an abnormal status.

But at least I know I can still use the system even when I can't control my body.

Unbelievable. I have so many lives, and I've still been driven into a dead end.

This world really packs a punch! What a ride!

A wild defiance suddenly surged through Chen Feng. If the Save-Load System was all he had, he would have ended up just like those other transmigrators on the third floor of the Happiness Internet Cafe. He would have been done for.

But he had more than one system.

And so, on a rainy night a few days later,

a blurry figure pushed open the dormitory door, walked up to Chen Feng's Imposter body, and snapped his neck.