"Did you meet Deng Wen?" When Ji Xun turned back, Jiang Yao chuckled. "What kind of person do you think he is?"
Ji Xun thought for a moment. "Calm. Rational."
"He's incredibly smart." Jiang Yao's eyes were full of warmth as he spoke of Deng Wen. "He has a very high IQ, so he was the first to discover the school's secret."
Ji Xun asked, "What secret?"
Jiang Yao raised his chin, motioning for Ji Xun to look at the two men below chewing raw meat.
"I promised Deng Wen I'd help you get out, but you have to tell me everything you know."
Jiang Yao's throat tightened, and his lips trembled slightly. "You have to get him out."
"All right. I promise."
Without sorrow or joy in his voice, Jiang Yao laid bare a horrifying piece of the past.
Class Twelve of the first-year students had drawn everyone's attention from the day they enrolled.
That was because Class Twelve brought together all the teenage prodigies in the city.
Peng Di, whose parents were famous pianists and who possessed extraordinary musical talent herself; Deng Wen, whose exceptional IQ had allowed him to master four languages by the age of ten; and Jiang Yao, whose parents, the richest people in the city, had taught him business from childhood, allowing him to earn enough for a villa by sixteen.
There was also Wu Xiran, who had held numerous solo art exhibitions, and Feng Tiantian, a beautiful former child star...
Every single person in Class Twelve was impossible to overlook.
They came from comparable backgrounds, shared similar interests, and had all received excellent educations. Naturally, they became friends.
"Deng Wen is smart and sensitive. We grew up together. He's only a month younger than me, but I've always looked after him, and he relies on me a lot." Jiang Yao's voice caught slightly. "So when he realized something was wrong, I was the first person he told."
"Deng Wen noticed that something was wrong with his health lately. Sometimes he had no energy, and other times he'd get inexplicably overstimulated. He ruled out everything he came into contact with, one thing at a time-the water he drank, the food he ate-and finally discovered that someone had tampered with our meals."
"We didn't tell anyone. We kept eating in the cafeteria every day as usual, but we secretly saved samples and took them to the School Infirmary for Doctor Zhai to test."
Doctor Zhai. Ji Xun made a mental note of the name without interrupting Jiang Yao.
"Doctor Zhai told me someone had been putting drugs in our food. We were already addicted."
"Were the other students in the same situation?"
Jiang Yao gave an intensely bitter smile and shook his head. "You know, the Principal seems kind and approachable, but he's actually a complete monster."
Jiang Yao clenched his fingers until his knuckles cracked. The hatred in his eyes was like a loaded gun, ready to fire at the Administrator and the cook in the distance.
The Administrator was the Principal's Proxy Ghost. The two were partners in crime who had hit it off immediately.
In their eyes, there were only three kinds of students at the school.
The first were privileged teenagers like those in Class Twelve, whose parents they couldn't afford to offend.
The second were top students, living advertisements who boosted the school's college admission rate.
The third were attractive students from poor families, with no one to stand up for them even if they were mistreated.
"The Principal divided the students into ranks and put a price on each of them. He used to target only the third group. He controlled them with drugs and used them in some kind of illegal exchange of sex for political favors. But later, he decided that way of making money was too slow, so he set his sights on us."
Drug addiction was a bottomless pit. To satisfy their cravings, addicts could only keep throwing money into it.
To the Principal, students who could only trade their bodies for drugs were far less valuable than the young son of the city's richest family.
Besides, Class Twelve also included the son of a high-ranking city official. If he could control these teenagers, money would pour into his pockets.
"After we discovered his plot, we approached one of the students he'd victimized. We wanted to report that scumbag together, but we never imagined that student would trick us."
The teenagers had nothing but reckless courage. They didn't understand how a victim could become a monster's accomplice.
The victim was also a perpetrator. That student lured Jiang Yao and the others to the Small Auditorium, where the Principal and his men were waiting.
Ji Xun's heart sank. He had already seen what happened next in the Small Auditorium: the Administrator and the thugs knocked them down, and the students of Class Twelve were then taken somewhere unknown.
Ji Xun asked, "Where did they take you afterward?"
Jiang Yao trembled slightly, as though recalling an utterly terrifying memory. "Behind the school building. There were piles of sandbags and steel reinforcing bars, and a large truck. Then I felt pain all over. When I regained consciousness, I found myself trapped, unable to move. I could feel Deng Wen beside me, but I couldn't speak."
Jiang Yao let out a long breath. "I don't know how much time passed. At first, I could barely move my fingers, but eventually I could move my upper body a little. Then one day, everything around me suddenly became very noisy, and a mirror appeared in front of me. Not only could I move freely, I also saw Deng Wen."
Jiang Yao knew no further details.
He had been out of the mirror for too long. Once he finished speaking, he prepared to go back to Deng Wen.
"How ridiculous. The Principal and the Administrator were hailed as heroes for fighting the fire, while we were branded cowards who shirked responsibility." Jiang Yao murmured blankly, "My parents came to the school and broke down crying, but all I could do was watch. I couldn't even tell them I was already dead."
[Players remaining: eleven]
No one had died the night before. Everything seemed so peaceful.
Ji Xun hunched over his desk, writing furiously. Yuan Ci tried to speak several times, but ultimately decided not to disturb him.
When Ji Xun finished, he slapped the sheet of paper onto Su Rang's desk and left the classroom without looking back.
Su Rang asked, "What did Ji Xun write? A talisman?"
Yuan Ci took it and looked. The handwriting was an utter mess. He shook his head with a chuckle, his gaze softening.
Maybe you haven't even realized it yourself, Ji Xun, but you really are a very gentle person.
The very gentle Ji Xun knocked on the School Infirmary's door in a huff.
A refined-looking man in glasses opened the door, a warm, friendly smile on his lips.
Ji Xun smacked his lips. They both wore glasses, so why did Yuan Ci look like such a cultured scoundrel?
"What seems to be the trouble, young man?"
Ji Xun entered the School Infirmary, discreetly scanning the room before raising his palm toward the man. "My hand hurts."
He glanced at the name badge on the doctor's white coat and added, "Doctor Zhai, I hurt my hand."
The skin of that hand was very pale, its fingers long and slender with well-defined knuckles, but a red burn marked the palm.
A flicker of admiration crossed Doctor Zhai's eyes when he first saw those hands. Then his gaze fell on the wound, and his brows knitted tightly together.
"No, we can't let it scar." Doctor Zhai had Ji Xun sit on the infirmary bed, then hurried off to prepare some medicine, muttering all the while, "How could such perfect hands be allowed to scar? Absolutely not."
His movements grew increasingly exaggerated, and he became more and more agitated.
Ji Xun looked at a stand beside the infirmary bed. He remembered other students mentioning that the School Infirmary had an anatomical skeleton model.
But now the stand was empty.
The anatomical model was gone.
Before you continue