Gao Louyu

"Why did it take you so long to come out?"

The moment he returned to the restroom he had disappeared from, Huang Mao, his face bruised and swollen, demanded an explanation.

Yin Chao gave him a casual glance, making Huang Mao flinch and hurriedly retreat several steps.

Then he tried to cover himself. "I, I was just worried. Yeah, worried about you."

"Oh."

Yin Chao's reply was perfunctory.

Huang Mao no longer dared entertain any nasty schemes. He immediately opened the door and ran back to the office where Moqi Xinzhi was.

Only Midnight and Yin Chao remained in the quiet, cramped space.

"Tell me. What did they keep you behind for this time?"

Yin Chao glanced sideways at him and hopped onto the sink.

"You sound like you're interrogating me."

He sounded displeased.

Midnight said nothing and took a few steps closer.

With Yin Chao sitting on the sink, they were at the same height.

Yin Chao looked straight into Midnight's pitch-black eyes and smiled. "I met Linmu. I met him at the end of the first night."

"A hidden quest?" Midnight recalled the question he had grabbed Yin Chao to ask at the start.

Yin Chao nodded. "More or less. Linmu is the person on the loudspeaker. He asked me to clear their names. He said they'd killed someone."

"They?" Midnight murmured. "Everyone is guilty..."

He couldn't help reciting what Liang Chen had said during his turn to speak on the second night.

"That line from Liang Chen was my first thought too. So on the second night, I asked Linmu where he'd taken Liang Chen," Yin Chao said.

He deliberately stopped halfway, watching Midnight's handsome face fill with curiosity about him.

Midnight seemed to notice this too. He stopped asking questions and simply folded his arms, waiting for Yin Chao to continue on his own.

They stared at each other for a while. Finding it no fun, Yin Chao admitted, "Linmu said he'd taken Liang Chen to where everything began. Only the beginning could reveal the truth. It was the source of all the evil."

That left Midnight at a loss.

Then another scream came from outside the door.

Midnight lifted Yin Chao off the sink and set him down behind the door, his movements so natural that he seemed to have done it countless times.

Once Yin Chao was settled, he gently cracked the door open to check what was happening outside.

Outside was a monkey-headed man, dragging two students across the floor by their ankles, one in each hand.

Looking at the long trails of blood on the floor, Midnight shook his head and took out a strip of black cloth to tie over his eyes.

"What's happening? What's happening?"

Unable to see anything, Yin Chao asked in a hushed voice.

"A hunter is dragging living people around. It's a monkey-headed man," Midnight said calmly.

"On purpose?" Yin Chao asked. "Using them as bait to lure others out?"

That made sense. Midnight, who had opened the door a little farther to go out and kill the monkey-headed man, stepped back inside.

Before long, however, Moqi Xinzhi leaped out of the office where he had been hiding.

The monkey-headed man's attacks weren't powerful, but he was agile, nearly clawing Moqi Xinzhi's head off several times.

The two living people he had been dragging were tossed aside. With their legs broken, they could only crawl for their lives.

Even given an entire day, they wouldn't have been able to crawl out of the monkey-headed man's sight.

Seeing that Moqi Xinzhi was about to buckle, Midnight prepared to join the fight.

The moment he moved, Yin Chao grabbed him.

"She's the Prophet. I can't just leave her," Midnight said.

"Why are you so sure he's a good person?" Yin Chao asked, an inscrutable smile on his face.

Midnight didn't know why he was so certain either. For no apparent reason, he was willing to believe what Moqi Xinzhi said.

Seeing the monkey-headed man's claws already inches from Moqi Xinzhi's eyes, Midnight had no time to think further. He charged forward with the Black Sword.

Yin Chao was left standing behind the cracked door, sighing and shaking his head.

With Midnight joining in, the outcome quickly became clear. Fighting two opponents at once, the monkey-headed man fell on the defensive.

Soon, Midnight cut him down.

He frowned at the monkey-headed man's decapitated corpse. It had been far too weak, nothing like the opponent Moqi Xinzhi had just been fighting.

"Thank you for lending a hand, Killer."

Moqi Xinzhi clasped his hands in thanks.

Midnight flicked the remaining blood off the Black Sword without answering, then turned toward the restroom.

Along the way, his steps involuntarily quickened. His instincts told him to hurry, to go faster.

When he pushed open the restroom door, no one was inside.

Alarm bells rang in Midnight's head. He realized he had been lured away.

Their real target was Yin Chao.

Meanwhile, Yin Chao had passed out almost as soon as Midnight left.

When he opened his eyes again, the darkness before him was so thick he couldn't see his own hand.

He felt around and discovered he was somewhere spacious but dark.

"You're awake?"

A familiar voice rang out.

Yin Chao raised an eyebrow. "Linmu?"

"Heeheehee, it's me."

As soon as the words fell, the surroundings suddenly lit up. The glare forced Yin Chao's eyes shut, leaving only the sound of "Für Elise" ringing distinctly in his ears.

"Gao Louyu! Your homeroom teacher wants you in her office!"

Someone shouted.

Yin Chao's vision slowly recovered. He saw a girl with delicate features and a high ponytail rise from her seat.

Once he could clearly make out her face, his heart shuddered, and goosebumps rose all over his body.

Gao Louyu looked exactly like Linmu.

The girl stood and left the classroom, her classmates' gossip trailing endlessly behind her.

"Hey, did you see the way she walked? Is she still a virgin?"

"Definitely not. I heard people saw her on the pedestrian street at night!"

"Seriously?"

"Of course! Yang Yu from the class next door said so! She looks pretty innocent, but who knows how much she sleeps around..."

Yin Chao knew the girls talking very well. They were Xu Qianqian, Wang Li, and a few of their close friends.

Before long, Gao Louyu returned.

Her eyes were red and her eyelashes damp. She had clearly just been crying.

Teacher Li followed closely behind her.

Once the class quieted down, Teacher Li looked at Gao Louyu from the front of the room and spoke.

"I hope the girls in our class can have a little self-respect. Nothing is more important than keeping your own affairs in order!"

She hadn't named anyone, yet she seemed to have said everything.

The scene froze there. When it shifted again, Gao Louyu was standing outside the director's office.

She looked deeply conflicted.

"Gao Louyu? What are you doing here?"

Director He appeared behind her, accompanied by the potbellied vice principal.

Gao Louyu lowered her head and said quietly, "Director He, I'd like to report some problems to you."

Director He seemed to have already heard a few things about Gao Louyu. Impatience was written all over his face. "Go talk to your homeroom teacher first. I've got something to do right now. I'm busy."

He had barely finished when the vice principal beside him intervened. "Now, if a student has a problem, she should certainly bring it to a teacher. Gao Louyu, was it? Come to my office after school, and we can talk it through."

Gao Louyu's eyes immediately lit up. "Thank you, Vice Principal! I'll come after school!" she said excitedly.

Watching from an omniscient perspective, Yin Chao clearly saw the disgusting look the vice principal let linger on Gao Louyu.

Even without seeing what happened later in the office, he could easily imagine what would happen.

Sure enough.

Gao Louyu went mad after that day.

She had thought she was reaching for a ray of light, only to find it was a demon's deceptive phantom limb.