The corridor in the Dormitory Building was neither particularly long nor particularly short. Ji Zhe was dragged into an unnumbered dorm room by members of the Student Council.
Unlike every dorm room he had stayed in before, this one was enormous. Its walls and floor were blood-red, and rows of beds stood inside, each screened off by a mosquito net.
As he approached one of the nets, Ji Zhe peeked inside.
Students in school uniforms lay asleep on the beds. Their skin sagged, their faces were covered in wrinkles, and age spots dotted their bodies. The smell of old people permeated the entire room.
"Is this a student dorm or a hospice?" Just looking at them sent chills down Ji Zhe's spine.
"They're the bricks and stones that make up this school. Without their sacrifices, the school's current rules wouldn't exist." A Student Council member wearing an armband shoved Ji Zhe. "Keep moving."
"Bricks and stones? These students on the verge of dying of old age became the School Rules?" Ji Zhe noticed a thread made of shadow attached to every student's chest. The threads twisted their way toward a certain room.
"Do these threads lead to the room of whoever makes the School Rules?" He had barely taken a step in that direction when a Student Council member held him down.
"Behave!"
Dragged and shoved along, Ji Zhe was taken to the very back of the dorm room. He saw students entering from the queue outside being pushed behind the mosquito nets. The dying, aged students on the beds pulled the threads out of their chests and inserted them into the new students' eyes.
Once that was done, the newcomers emerged from their sleepwalking state and became new Student Council members.
*The Student Council members might have been the