It was still early after they returned to the dorm and washed up. Pei Yanchuan sat on the edge of his bunk, idly swinging his long legs.
Su Fengzi sat at the desk, flipping through a test paper covered in red crosses. He wanted to cry, but no tears came. "Pei Xiaohu, give your big brother another lesson, will you? I really don't know how to solve these!"
Pei Yanchuan lay back. "Brother Fengzi, after teaching you a few problems, I realized something."
"What?"
"I really wasn't cut out to be a teacher."
Su Fengzi: "..."
You little punk. That was a roundabout way of taking a jab at me, wasn't it?
"It's fine, Brother Fengzi." Pei Yanchuan sat up again and said to Su Fengzi, "It's only Monday. We have five days until the next exam. I believe you can work a miracle overnight."
Su Fengzi threw his pen onto the desk in despair. "No, I don't."
He, Su Fengzi, a Bilibili creator with a million followers, knew everything from astronomy to geography and could handle himself as well in a drawing room as in a kitchen. Yet now he had lost to a few measly high school math problems... Yes, he had lost. Utterly and completely.
"Why?" He scratched his head in frustration. "Is it really reasonable for high school math to be this hard?"
Su Fengzi clicked his tongue, then suddenly seemed to think of something. "Hey, Pei Xiaohu, you've got quite a few credits now, right?"
The school operated a credit reward system: the higher the test score, the more credits awarded. As the top scorer by an overwhelming margin, Pei Yanchuan had received twenty credits outright, becoming the student with the most credits in the entire school.
"Yep." Pei Yanchuan fiddled with his fingers, swinging his legs back and forth. "At the next class officer rotation, I can become Class Monitor straight away."
"When's the next class officer rotation?" Su Fengzi asked casually.
Pei Yanchuan thought for a few seconds. "In a month..." We'll have cleared this place in a month. What the hell will those credits be good for then?
"Who's our Class Monitor right now?" Su Fengzi continued.
"No idea. All I remember is that it's a monster..." Pei Yanchuan suddenly paused, then flashed a wicked grin, his Little Tiger Tooth jutting out brazenly. "If I kill it, can I become Class Monitor?"
Su Fengzi: ... Okay, but you sound like some villain plotting to murder his lord and usurp the throne.
"What if someone sees you? The rules say students aren't allowed to fight each other."
Pei Yanchuan said carelessly, "Then I'll just kill whoever sees me."
Su Fengzi: "...Makes sense."
I have to say, that's exactly what I'd expect from you, Huzi.
"What exactly does this monster want?" Pei Yanchuan muttered to himself. "Does it want to turn all the students into nourishment? If that's all it wants, what's that creepy ritual for?"
His words sparked a realization in the man sitting at the desk. Su Fengzi suddenly slapped the desk and stood up. "I've got it! It doesn't want nourishment. It wants followers!"
That was why it made the students perform those creepy rituals, why they were brainwashed while writing essays. Any students who disobeyed would be eliminated, and those who remained would become the monster's most devoted followers.
"Urgh-" Su Fengzi suddenly went limp. One hand clutched the fabric over his chest, while the other braced against the chair, barely keeping him from falling.
"Brother Fengzi!" Hearing his cry of pain, Pei Yanchuan immediately jumped down from the bunk and checked him over. "What happened? Are you hurt?"
With Pei Yanchuan's help, Su Fengzi sat back down in the chair. Only after a sip of water could he speak again. "I just used my precognition. I saw a group of people surrounding an ugly monster covered in yellow eyeballs-ugh!"
His own description nauseated him, and he could not help dry-heaving. After another sip of water, he continued.
"I saw a group of people performing some kind of ritual around that monster, chanting or singing or something." Su Fengzi was deathly pale and looked terribly weak. "It probably noticed me prying into its secrets, and I suffered a backlash."
Pei Yanchuan frowned. "Do all our abilities have side effects?"
The werewolf's side effect was losing his sanity, the Seer's was suffering backlash from the boss, and the Hunter's was trading his life for one kill at best... What about the Witch's?
Before Pei Yanchuan could think it through, Su Fengzi's coughing drew his attention again. "Brother Fengzi, let me help you back to bed so you can rest."
Su Fengzi nodded weakly. "Okay."
Meanwhile, Ye Chu had just finished class and was walking toward the dorm, still wondering how the argument between those teachers had ended.
What would have happened if the proctor had not taken him inside? Would they have ended up with one less subject, either PE or language arts?
Ye Chu entered the dorm building and greeted the Dormitory Matron, whose body was grotesquely twisted.
If a teacher disappears, their subject disappears too. What if the Dormitory Matron disappears? As he thought about it, Ye Chu slowly turned his gaze toward her.
The Dormitory Matron: "..." She suddenly felt a chill down her back.
Would the position of Dormitory Matron cease to exist, or would another monster take it over?
When he returned to their room, he found Xiao Xiao holding a notebook and reading it intently. Seeing Ye Chu enter, she stood up and greeted him. "Ye Chu, look what I found..."
Ye Chu took two steps closer and saw that it was a diary left behind by a Senior Student. The handwriting alternated between neat and chaotic, and some parts had even been scratched through so hard the paper was torn.
Xiao Xiao flipped to the beginning of the diary. A few large words had been written in red pen on the first page:
[Run!! Run now!!!]
The handwriting was crooked, and even those few simple words were smudged, making them look rather jarring against the clean white paper.
Xiao Xiao kept turning the pages. The handwriting on the second page was much clearer than on the first.
[I have to listen to the teachers. A senior boy told me that as long as I stay here for a month, I can leave this hellhole. He's very nice to me. When the math teacher calls on me, he even whispers the answers to me. What he said must be true.]
Ye Chu frowned slightly. "A senior boy? Aren't math classes held separately?"
Xiao Xiao shook her head and turned to the third page with a flick of her fingers.
[I can't take it anymore! Why do they keep calling on me!! I graduated years ago! Why is this happening?!!]
The sentence had been crossed out in red pen, but the original writing was still faintly visible. Another sentence followed beneath it:
[I am a student. My job is to study hard. It's my fault if I can't answer the questions. I must study hard.]
This page alone made it clear that the Senior Student's mental state had already deteriorated badly. Perhaps she had spent too long in this hellhole and had begun to think of herself as an actual student, subconsciously rejecting anything she had written from the perspective of her life as a non-student.
Ye Chu was glad he had not put his real name on his Student ID Card. Otherwise, given enough time, he might also have started thinking of himself as a student here.
Xiao Xiao kept turning the pages. The next page was a chaotic sea of red, twisted handwriting crawling over the entire sheet of white paper. Ye Chu stared at it, struggling to make out the words.
[The Laboratory Building!! Don't go! Don't go there! It's too terrifying!]
[It's all fake, all of it is fake. Can anyone save me?!]
[I want to live. I want to live!!]
[The Laboratory Building! There are clues inside! I saw that monster, covered in yellow eyeballs...]
[I am not a student. I am not a student. I graduated long ago. I am not a student. I have to get out of this place!!]
The writing below repeated that final line. [I am not a student.] filled every remaining gap on the page.
Xiao Xiao took a deep breath and turned to the next page. The handwriting had become neat again:
[I am a student.]
Before you continue