"Staying out overnight costs Five Credits. How many would I lose for smashing down the door in front of the dorm supervisor and forcing my way out after lights-out?"
"No idea. I never went to school." After swallowing Gao Ming, the Big Dog raced through the shadows.
The downpour washed over its black fur, and shadows streamed along its body. Every leap carried the Big Dog several meters away. It could move freely through the darkness.
Hidden inside the Big Dog's body, Gao Ming saw the campus after lights-out through its eyes.
Rain dripped from the corner of a roof onto unwanted textbooks, blurring the lessons on their pages. People ran through the Building Corridor, laughing and chasing one another, as though dancing, as though singing.
Panting drifted out of the classrooms. Wingless birds circled beneath the dark clouds, and threads of blood hung from the rooftops to the ground like the starlight of this world.
A bizarre, dazzling world lay reflected in a puddle, until a huge paw stomped down and shattered it.
Leaping through the shadows, light and dreamlike, the Big Dog flickered in and out of sight as it slipped between figures, drawing gaze after gaze.
Couples stood embracing at the edge of the woods. Students holding their ID cards had just climbed over the wall. Teachers on night patrol hurried past, and a security guard picked up his hat and set it crookedly on his head.
The campus broadcast seemed to be playing a little nocturne. If one listened closely, its gentle singing lay hidden in the heavy rain. It did not care whether anyone heard it. However it sang, the plaster figures in the Art Room would applaud.
Students in unconventional clothes scribbled furiously in the Study Room. The light in the library's last private