"Huh? Then how did you figure it out? Are you some Mystic School master who can divine whether there's something wrong with them?"
Lin Yi was speechless.
"It's bad enough you've been spouting spooky nonsense this whole time. Why does everything you say have to come back to mysticism now?"
"Don't look at them. Look at the people who are obviously abnormal. Whoever those abnormal people keep staring at is basically normal. Does that make sense?"
Wei Liang snapped his fingers and exclaimed in delight, "Lao Lin, you're a fucking genius!"
"Come on, why do I feel like you're playing dumb?"
"Uh... was it that obvious?" Wei Liang leaned back defensively.
Lin Yi was too speechless to respond. After a moment's thought, he suddenly rose from his seat.
"What's up?" Wei Liang immediately asked.
Looking at the door Xu Shunkang and Xie Huayang had left through, Lin Yi said, "Something occurred to me."
Wei Liang followed his gaze, then smiled knowingly. "I've got it this time! Leave it to me!"
With that, Wei Liang got up too, then headed toward the bookshelves at the back of the circular classroom under Lin Yi's gaze.
"Wait, what are you doing?" Lin Yi grabbed Wei Liang.
"Huh? Didn't you figure out what Xu Shunkang meant and decide to stay up all night reading Hentai Manga?" Wei Liang asked, puzzled by Lin Yi's confused expression.
Lin Yi: "..."
"So... that's all you figured out?" he asked through gritted teeth, his voice strained and dry.
"Huh? Wasn't that it?" Wei Liang asked innocently.
Lin Yi gave him a look that said, "Tsk, nice!" He smacked his lips. "I'm a little curious how you managed to spend seven days on this campus unscathed last time."
Wei Liang was immediately displeased. "Shit, Lao Lin, you can question my intelligence, but not my survival skills, okay? I've even been on a wilderness survival reality show!"
Lin Yi shrugged noncommittally.
The wilderness survival show Wei Liang mentioned had actually involved eating a protein-rich caterpillar that burst in his mouth, then giving the close-up camera a thumbs-up and saying, "Packed with goodness and damn delicious."
But afterward, he'd dry-heaved for three days, wishing he could pull out his stomach and toss it into a washing machine for a spin.
Even now, the sight of caterpillar-shaped bread made him nauseous.
Lin Yi checked his watch.
20:55.
"All right, enough messing around. I've got something serious to do."
Wei Liang hurriedly asked, "Hey, where are you going?"
Lin Yi said, "I'm going to take a look outside the classroom."
"Huh?"
"What do you mean, huh? In five minutes, we won't be allowed to leave the classroom. Are you coming or not?"
Wei Liang hesitated for a few seconds. The thought of being watched by thirty or forty people who weren't right nearly gave him goose bumps, so he said, "Of course I'm coming! If we're lucky and the rain stops and the fog thins a little, we can go back to the dormitory to sleep!"
Given the chance, Wei Liang didn't want to spend the night in the classroom at all.
The two of them headed down the steps of the circular classroom toward the door.
The gazes of the thirty or forty classmates in the room began to converge on them.
Lin Yi faltered. For an instant, he suddenly understood firsthand what it meant to feel needles in his back.
He kept walking.
But just as he was about to reach the classroom door, someone outside suddenly pressed down the handle.
Click! Clack!
The classroom door opened from outside. Thick fog crept through the gap like tentacles, but dissipated after spreading only a tiny distance into the room.
Moisture carrying a faint fishy smell seeped in with a bone-chilling wind, striking Lin Yi, who was closest to the door.
"Whoosh-whoosh-"
For an instant, an image of waves crashing against submerged rocks beneath a black moon surfaced in Lin Yi's mind, and the sound of surf echoed in his ears.
He shuddered violently and hurriedly shook his head, driving the thought away.
He focused his eyes on the doorway.
Someone had indeed opened the door.
The head teacher stood there in a fitted business suit, a folder tucked under one arm, her other hand pressing the handle as she pushed the door.
Coming face-to-face with Lin Yi, the head teacher froze too. Her rounded, straight legs in black stockings instinctively took half a step back, her high heels giving a crisp click.
Lin Yi immediately raised his gaze from her black stockings to a sufficient height, fixing it on the name badge on her chest.
"Head Teacher-B2-039."
He let out a breath of relief.
The head teacher glanced at them without saying anything, walked into the classroom, and announced loudly, "Students are forbidden from leaving this classroom after 21:00. Anyone who needs the restroom should go now."
"If you don't go now and leave the classroom without permission after 21:00, neither I nor the campus will be responsible for the safety of your lives or property."
"There are restrooms beside both Group B Class 1 and Group B Class 3. Before entering, make sure there's nothing abnormal about the restroom lights. Come straight back when you're finished."
Only after giving those instructions did she turn her attention to Lin Yi and Wei Liang and ask warily, "Were you two about to leave the classroom?"
"Uh... we..." Wei Liang stammered.
Lin Yi said, "Teacher, we just wanted to get some air and use the restroom while we were out."
The head teacher moved aside a little and nodded. "Then hurry up and go. Come back when you're done."
"Yes, teacher."
May 6, X023, 20:58.
Lin Yi and Wei Liang walked along the corridor in Building B of the Teaching Building. The steps leading down out of the building were right beside them, but the thick fog seemed to have invaded the entire world. Even that short flight of steps felt as though its end was beyond sight.
The way it was half-concealed gave the illusion that a single misstep would send them tumbling down into an abyss.
A warm yellow light was faintly visible through the fog, like a lighthouse at sea.
"Whoosh... whoosh..."
Once again, Lin Yi faintly heard waves crashing against submerged rocks.
A trace of confusion entered his eyes. He looked around and, finding himself still in the corridor, concluded that he was hearing things again.
"Lao Lin, are you okay?" Wei Liang's voice sounded beside him.
Lin Yi asked, "What did I just do?"
Wei Liang said, "You suddenly paused. I thought you'd spotted something."
"Paused?"
Lin Yi froze for a moment, then asked, "Was it like what happened in the classroom?"
"I don't know." Wei Liang shook his head. "It was just a feeling I can't really describe."
At this point, Lin Yi looked into the fog. Nothing could be made out in its thickness, but he could hear the patter of rain.
In the mountain outskirts, everything was silent at night. As soon as it rained, it immediately gave the impression of rain drumming on broad leaves.
"It's raining pretty hard," Lin Yi said.
Wei Liang asked in surprise, "You're not still thinking about going back to the dormitory to sleep, are you?"
Lin Yi nodded. "If there's a chance, we should definitely spend the night in the dormitory."
Judging by the rules, if they treated this seven-day college-life experience as a survival game with a sizable cash prize, then the dormitory was the only safe zone on the entire campus.
Of course, Lin Yi couldn't understand some of the dormitory rules at all, especially the one about the hours for entering and leaving.
But that didn't change the fact that the dormitory was a safe zone.
Even though the Teaching Building-no, the classroom-was also a safe zone to some extent.
"But there's definitely no going back in weather like this." Lin Yi shook his head.
"Let's take it as it comes. Worst case, we spend the night reading comics in the classroom." Wei Liang shrugged.
Though he had looks when looks were needed, looks when brains were needed, and looks when skills were needed, he remained committed to thoroughly following the rules.
Suddenly, Lin Yi stopped and asked gravely, "Liangzi, how far have we walked?"
Wei Liang froze. "No idea. We should be almost at the restroom, right? What's wrong?"
Lin Yi lowered his head to check his watch.
21:08.
An ominous premonition suddenly rose from the bottom of his heart.
As though compelled, he looked back. His eyes instantly widened, his pupils trembling violently.
A classroom stood not far behind him, and the sign on its door unmistakably read-
Group B Class 2!
We've been out of the classroom for almost ten minutes, and we've been walking in place?!
Lin Yi felt creeped out, goose bumps rising all along his arms.
"What's wrong, Lao Lin?" Wei Liang instinctively started to turn around.
"Don't look back, Liangzi!"
Lin Yi stopped him with a sharp shout.
Wei Liang jumped off the floor in fright. "Fuck, stop fucking startling me like that! You scared me to death!"
Still, he obediently listened to Lin Yi and didn't look back.
"What's wrong, Lao Lin? Is something off?" he asked uneasily.
Lin Yi suppressed the eerie feeling inside him. "Nothing, nothing. I saw it wrong. Liangzi, you just said we were almost at the restroom, right?"
"Yeah. Why?"
"But we haven't seen the Group B Class 1 classroom yet." Lin Yi tried to keep his voice calm. "Shouldn't we see Group B Class 1 first? We turned left when we came out."
Wei Liang thought about it and nodded. "Right. We should see Group B Class 1 first, and then the restroom should be close."
"That's what I thought too," Lin Yi said.
Group B Class 1 should be next to Group B Class 2... Group B Class 1 should be next to Group B Class 2...
Lin Yi repeated it silently in his mind.
They walked another dozen steps.
A classroom appeared a short distance ahead. He peered intently through the fog and saw the words "Group B Class 1" clearly marked on its door sign.
"Lao Lin, Lao Lin, here's Class 1! The restroom should be right beside it!" Wei Liang exclaimed excitedly, then couldn't help muttering, "Damn, why does it feel like we've been walking for centuries... Why does the Teaching Building feel longer today than the last time I came?"
"That's weird..."
But Lin Yi couldn't feel happy at all. He stared at Group B Class 1's door sign as though he'd seen a ghost, utterly certain that if he hadn't guided Wei Liang into believing they were about to reach Group B Class 1, they might not have reached it even if they walked until dawn tomorrow!
It abruptly reminded him of that absurd feeling he'd had while traveling through the thick fog earlier-two streetlamps had clearly been close together, yet running from one to the other had taken over ten minutes!
A cold wind drifted out of the thick fog, carrying moisture against Lin Yi's face. They were clearly in the mountains, yet he seemed to catch a fishy smell unique to the seaside...
The rushing sound of waves was about to rise in his ears again, but this time there seemed to be more echoes, like whispers drifting in from somewhere even farther away.
From distant to near.
From soft to loud.
"Whoosh-"
"Whoosh--"
Lin Yi instinctively narrowed his eyes. It was as though he had received some kind of summons and was about to listen to that ancient echo.
He seemed close to making it out. A calling voice was mixed into the sound of the waves.
That call was hurried, urgent...
As though battered by the surf, his whole body began shaking violently.
He heard the call, but before he sank into it, his will tried to wake him. And so the eerie calling he heard gradually became a voice drawing closer from afar—Lao Lin...
"Lao Lin..."
"Lao Lin!"
"Lao Lin! Lao Lin!"
He was shaken awake, and the first thing he saw was Wei Liang's handsome face with its hint of roguishness.
But Wei Liang was extremely anxious now, his eyes beneath his baseball cap filled with worry. His hands gripped Lin Yi's shoulders as he shook his body with everything he had.
That calling voice... had been Wei Liang's.
Lin Yi abruptly came to his senses.
"Liangzi, did I 'doze off' again?"
Wei Liang shook his head helplessly, hesitating over his words. "Ah, Lao Lin, you... Man, you really don't seem right. Are you okay?"
He looked at Lin Yi with concern. "Have you been thinking too much this whole time?"
Lin Yi lowered his head and nodded. "My fault. I shouldn't have thought so much."
Actually, Lin Yi knew it wasn't his fault. Some aspect of the surrounding environment was probably guiding him. Of course, perhaps it wasn't the environment, but something more like... psychological suggestion. Although he had later fought to bring himself back to his senses, that guidance seeping in without a sound was the most dangerous element drawing him into thought.
"Hey, it's not your fault!" Wei Liang nudged Lin Yi with his elbow. "You like using your brain. Unlike me... I don't have one."
"Pfft..." Lin Yi laughed. "You really saved me this time!"
Wei Liang waved a hand and said smugly, "Everyone has their strengths. Not bad, huh!"
Lin Yi said half-jokingly, "I'm starting to understand how you made it through seven days safely."
Wei Liang smiled and pointed ahead. "Hey, there's the restroom!"
Lin Yi immediately looked over. Sure enough, a restroom stood not far away, with a long, snaking line outside its entrance.
These were all classmates who had come to use the restroom one after another, and quite a few had already finished.
"I suddenly don't need to pee anymore." Seeing that long line, Wei Liang lost interest in peeing for the moment and couldn't help sighing. "Even the men's room can draw a crowd like this. Tsk, tsk..."
Lin Yi hurriedly said, "We're already here, so let's line up. We have to get through the night. Can your bladder take it?"
"You've got a point. Normally, falling asleep would take care of it, but sleeping isn't allowed in the classroom." Wei Liang shrugged helplessly.
Lin Yi shook his head with a noncommittal smile.
But as he shook his head and smiled, his gaze inadvertently caught an unlit corner of the corridor...
In the overlap of dim light and thick fog, he vaguely made out a thin figure standing there.
The figure simply stood in the shadows, yet its eyes seemed to be staring straight at him. There was no telling when it might charge over and lunge at him.
Almost didn't make it in time. How embarrassing.
Before you continue