"Ignoring"

At that moment, Lin Yi felt a chill race up his spine, plunging straight into his brain like a blade leaving its sheath, then splitting into countless icy currents that surged wildly out through the crown of his head.

His limbs instantly turned rigid, and his mind went blank. All the black and white stockings in his thoughts vanished, leaving only that classmate's face.

When the classmate turned his face toward him, Lin Yi strictly followed the Head Teacher's warning and did not spare even a sliver of his gaze to look at him.

But even with his eyes locked on the desk leg before him, the field of vision of the human eye and the retina's imaging ability still presented him with a fairly complete image of the classmate's face.

It was a dull, young face covered in a thick layer of greasy material, as though white wax had been melted and smeared over it.

Within his field of vision, there was also a blurry mass of black hanging down. It seemed to be long hair, yet it also seemed to be something else.

And something on that classmate's face seemed to be reflecting a glittering yellow light.

Lin Yi focused all his attention on the desk leg in front of him. His extreme trembling had instead left his body utterly rigid, as though he had become one with the desk leg.

He held his breath and concentrated. Never mind daring to take a deep breath-he wished he could make even the air inside his nose circle around a few more times.

The classmate stared dully at Lin Yi for a while, then tightened his grip on the flashlight and slowly straightened up.

Only then did Lin Yi's taut body slowly relax.

But at that very instant.

Whoosh!

The classmate doubled back, suddenly bending halfway down again and tilting his wax-white head toward where Lin Yi was!

At that moment, less than a fist's width separated him from Lin Yi!

He seemed to have noticed something, yet he also seemed unable to see Lin Yi. He merely stared vacantly at the spot where Lin Yi's face was, as though he wanted Lin Yi's gaze to notice him.

But Lin Yi's eyes remained fixed on the desk leg the entire time.

The breath Lin Yi had been about to release remained trapped between his chest and throat. Within mere seconds, his face and neck flushed red, and his entire body began trembling involuntarily.

An indescribable terror spread through his heart, slowly kindling his desire to look like a campfire, enticing him to look at that face.

"Look at me..."

"Take a look at me..."

"I know... you can see me..."

"Hurry and look at me..."

"Please..."

Lin Yi gave no response, nor did he dare respond in any way.

He simply stared fixedly at the desk leg. If his gaze really had been a blade, he would already have carved it into a long, shapely, perfectly straight, beautiful leg...

Just as Lin Yi had held his breath so long that his eyes were about to become bloodshot and his mind was growing hazy, the classmate still refused to give up. He extended an arm as pale as though it had been coated in plaster and reached toward Lin Yi.

You motherfucker!!!

Lin Yi's eyeballs were practically popping out, but when a person reached a dead end, there was nothing left besides madness or going mad.

Everything seemed to slow to a crawl, and countless rules scrolled through Lin Yi's mind...

The Student Rules, the Teaching Building Rules...

Damn it, what else?!

Right! What Xu Shunkang and Xie Huayang said!

And... what the Head Teacher said!

Those words formed a raging storm in Lin Yi's mind. At that moment, he felt no fatigue whatsoever. Instead, his will was firm and his mind clear.

Just as the classmate's hand was about to reach his shoulder, he did something utterly insane!

His gaze slid down along the desk leg and landed on the floor.

The composite floor tiles bore chaotic patterns, like a child's random scribbles.

Just then, light and shadow shifted above his head. The classmate's hand grabbed back and forth at his former position before finally withdrawing in frustration after catching nothing.

It really works! It really works!!

Lin Yi's heart pounded, but his body was already trembling from holding his breath to the limit. Even so, he kept a death grip on the desk leg.

He was gripping so hard that his knuckles were beginning to turn white.

But his excitement outweighed everything. He was so pumped up that he pushed himself beyond his physical limits.

Because at last, he had received his first positive feedback from the rules!

Before leaving, Xu Shunkang had told him:

[Following the rules is a means of protecting yourself.]

And the Student Rules said this about evening self-study:

[During this period, if you notice any unusual noises or see unusual figures outside the windows, please ignore them, especially when they call out to you outside the Dorm Supervisor's Office or the classroom.]

He had recited the Student Rules in his head countless times, but not one of them mentioned how to deal with a situation like the one just now.

Was that a problem with the Student Rules?

Clearly not.

The Student Rules condensed the unexpected situations they might encounter into a dozen or so extremely concise entries, and what had just happened was clearly covered by this one.

If any unusual noises occurred in the classroom, the best course of action was to "ignore" them.

And there were those warnings the Head Teacher had given before leaving:

[Do not close your eyes!

Do not look around or look up!

Do not communicate with anyone!

Pay no attention to any sounds!]

These warnings were all extensions of the concept of "ignoring."

Whether it was the Head Teacher or Xu Shunkang and the others, they all seemed to know more than he did. But they seemed to have reservations, so they could only warn him in this manner.

Could they be afraid that saying too much would make people think too much about this?

Lin Yi felt that his guess was correct.

Thinking was fine, but he could not think about phenomena that seemed off, much less try to understand things that seemed bizarre.

The intense fatigue he had experienced several times before had come precisely because he had thought about those things.

So whether they can see me has something to do with whether I look at them?

Or... was this rule written based on some kind of "underlying logic"?

This whole series of measures, including "ignoring," is based on some single, fundamental "law."

The thought surfaced instinctively in his mind.

At the same time, he instinctively began directing his attention toward the classmate who had only just walked away...

At the critical moment, he shattered the attention he was about to direct toward the classmate with a soul-searching question-

Which is better, the Bare-Leg Cult or the Stocking Cult?

The Stocking Cult is absolutely unbeatable, but when faced with certain special cases from the Bare-Leg Cult...

Hmm...

As long legs and beautiful stocking-clad legs gradually surfaced in his mind, Lin Yi felt his earlier suffocation and discomfort easing.

"Phew-"

All right, it's okay now...

Hearing what sounded like the classmate turning to leave, Lin Yi let out a long breath of relief. His nerves, which had been stretched almost to breaking point, finally began to relax.

He suddenly understood a little of why the bookshelves in the Circular Lecture Hall held manga, especially hentai manga...

When you really had no choice but to change the subject of your thoughts, the fundamental drive of lust outweighed everything else.

But then again, what would girls think about at a time like this?

Lin Yi shook his head. That question was beyond his expertise.

He reined in his concentration, sensing the pulse of the earth like a prone camper, his hands gripping two desk legs, as though he were a giant turtle pinned to the tiles by the desk.

Suddenly, an odd noise came from the desk above him, as though a sandbag had knocked against its leg.

A heavy force traveled along the desk to its corner. Lin Yi's nerves, which had only just relaxed, suddenly tightened again. He gripped the desk legs, doing everything he could to keep the desk from moving.

What is it now?!

Are they going to flip the desk?

Fine, fine, fine, so that's how you want to play?

He gritted his teeth, but the desk abruptly went still.

Just as Lin Yi was feeling puzzled, an enormous dark shape slid down along the corner of the desk and landed in front of him with a thud...

It was Little Genius, the one who had been holding the portable flashlight at the beginning.

He had already lost all signs of life. His eyes had rolled back until only the whites showed, and intense terror and despair were etched into his twisted face...

He fell to the floor and stared at Lin Yi with enormous, ghastly white eyes, as though trying to release all the terror he had felt before dying.

But Lin Yi did not see it.

Having grasped some of the rules of survival, he had already fixed his eyes on the patterns on the floor before Little Genius's corpse slid down.

Terror surged like a tide, but he was a rock, remaining unmoved as darkness engulfed him.

But Little Genius's corpse began to slide slowly...

It turned out that the classmate from earlier was holding Little Genius by one foot in one hand and the portable flashlight in the other, moving slowly through the classroom.

Like a lawful evil night watchman, he swept the beam around at random, dragging the corpse as he roamed the classroom.

"Aah-"

Some of the classmates hiding beneath their desks accidentally saw Little Genius's gruesome state. Unable to withstand such oppressive terror, they broke down screaming.

Just then, a strained voice emerged from that classmate's throat:

"You... saw me!"

The incredibly hoarse voice sounded as though someone were speaking with a mouthful of sand. Hearing it was as uncomfortable as having worms crawling over one's body.

"I... found you!"

"We... found you!"

Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh...

Throughout the classroom, gazes fell beneath the desks in the dark corners, locking onto those classmates who had screamed.

Clack! Clack! Clack! Clack...

Seats sprang back up one after another, and thin, straight figures left their seats in succession.

May 6, X023, 22:43.

Inside the dim classroom of Group B Class 2 in the Teaching Building.

Figures began roaming the dark classroom. Occasionally, a beam of light swept past, stretching their shadows straight across the floor.

Thick fog howled through the open classroom door, stirring the pages of the books on the shelves into a rustling flutter.

The night deepened, and the fog thickened. Outside the windows, lightning tore through the night sky. Inside the classroom, figures darted about and walked woodenly, like a sinister forest of gravestones.

Lin Yi remained pressed against the tiles, his eyes fixed on the patterns beneath him, listening intently for the ticking hands of his quartz watch amid the rising and falling screams.

"Tick! Tick! Tick! Tick..."

He silently counted each movement of the hands, and time seemed to flow through his fingertips.

When the hands reached the 1,358th second, the classroom's incandescent lights, which had long been out, suddenly flickered with a pop, then slowly went out amid a sizzling sound.

"Clank-clank-"

From the Corridor outside the classroom came the sound of Iron Chains scraping against the floor.

Thud! Thud! Thud...

Heavy footsteps echoed through the classroom Corridor.

A figure as tall and imposing as an iron tower was reflected in the frost-covered windowpane.

It's the Security Guard! Lin Yi's heart gave a violent leap, but he still stayed put.

The Security Guard's silhouette moved slowly across the windowpane, coming from the rear of the classroom to its doorway, where he stopped.

The scraping of the Iron Chains against the floor stopped along with his footsteps.

But in the next instant, the Iron Chains slid rapidly across the floor with a harsh rasp. An image automatically formed in Lin Yi's mind of the Security Guard's mountainlike bulk swinging the Iron Chains.

The Iron Chains tore into the classroom with a powerful rush of air. A moment later, Lin Yi heard them wrap around something tough.

"Get out here!"

The Security Guard's deep, heavy voice rang out like muffled thunder on a summer night. He heaved, and the Iron Chains dragged whatever they had wrapped around out of the classroom!

After that, the classroom door slammed shut with a bang!

As the classroom door closed, it was as though the two worlds had been severed with a single stroke.

The final scene reflected in the glass was the Security Guard clutching something pitch-black as they tumbled down the steps.

The whole world seemed to fall silent.

Those classmates in the classroom who were not quite right also stood rooted blankly in place.

Only one incandescent light on the ceiling remained, flickering on and off with a "pop... sizzle... pop... sizzle..."

Before long, the classroom's incandescent lights began flickering one after another.

As the incandescent lights came back on, brightness gradually returned to the classroom. The fog hanging over the floor tiles rapidly dissipated, as though it had met its nemesis.

Lin Yi stared at the floor, studying the frequency of the shifting light and shadow with utmost care to gauge how the classroom's incandescent lights were coming back on.

Only when the lights stopped flickering did Lin Yi slowly rise from the floor. His gaze moved from the tiles back up to the desk legs as he watched the classroom out of the corners of his eyes.

But because that eerie classmate had nearly toyed with him for a third time not long ago, he had no intention of leaving the desk, even though he felt the classroom was safe now.

He was waiting to see whether some idiot would dare stick his neck out first.

Then he heard a voice beside him, sounding as though its owner had been granted a reprieve: "Lao Lin... are you okay? Fuck, that scared me to death!"