Staff Passage

Seeing this, Lin Yi could hardly offer any comfort.

Wei Liang's sneakers were the limited-edition Flying Kun collaboration between Flying Man and the famous idol trainee Ai Kun. The tongue bore a very distinctive logo of Ai Kun dribbling a basketball, while the side featured Ai Kun's signature Iron Mountain Lean pose.

When he shook his foot in those shoes, the Iron Mountain Lean seemed to come alive.

Because of this, Wei Liang would shake his foot, sometimes deliberately, sometimes unconsciously.

But now these limited-edition collaboration sneakers were about to be retired.

Filled with reluctance, Wei Liang trudged behind Lin Yi with his head drooping, following him toward the Staff Passage.

Outside the passage, the sunshine was just right. Walking beneath it, the two felt as though they were wrapped in a warm current.

The Staff Passage and Student Passage were on opposite sides of the Cafeteria. Their exits were several dozen meters apart, and reaching the Staff Passage exit from the Student Passage exit required following the paving tiles over a small slope and around the side of the Cafeteria.

Dense camphor trees lined the slope, with streetlamps occasionally standing in the gaps between them.

Lin Yi lowered his head to check his watch.

12:48.

It's already 12:48?

He frowned slightly. It had only been a little past noon when they were queuing. He hadn't expected more than forty minutes to pass in a flash.

But I shouldn't count as being "inside the Cafeteria" right now, should I?

Lin Yi considered this.

Still...

Although the Cafeteria's lunchtime opening hours are 10:40-13:20, I'd better play it safe, throw these shoes away, and get the hell out at light speed!

He glanced over the nearby streetlamps and saw their numbers painted in white: "Cafeteria-002," "Cafeteria-031," "Cafeteria-014"...

Sure enough, the order's still scrambled, he muttered inwardly, continuing toward the Staff Passage.

But as he passed a shaded patch beneath some camphor trees, he suddenly felt a chilly wind blow through the grove.

The feeling of being watched settled over him without a sound.

A chill swept over him, and he shuddered instinctively.

Just then, Wei Liang's voice abruptly came from behind him:

"Lao Lin."

Lin Yi jumped, his back snapping straight.

But he didn't answer the voice. Unsure whether he should turn around, he gritted his teeth and quickened his pace toward the Staff Passage.

"Holy shit, Lao Lin, slow down! Wait for me, wait for me..." The voice suddenly grew urgent. "It feels creepy and cold. Something seems wrong with this path. How about we stick to the sunlight?"

It's even doing a convincing impersonation! Lin Yi felt waves of pressure.

He took a deep breath, then gritted his teeth and charged down the slope, heading straight for the Staff Passage.

"Hey, what the fuck!" Wei Liang's voice grew urgent as well.

"Tap-tap-tap-tap..."

A rapid string of footsteps sounded behind Lin Yi. His hairs stood so straight they were almost fluttering in the wind.

After running some distance beyond the slope, he soon reached the entrance to the Staff Passage.

Unable to spare any attention for the voice behind him or that eerie feeling of being watched, he located the trash can and hurriedly crouched down to take off his shoes.

But just as he was removing them, his gaze instinctively fell on the tomato sauce stuck to them.

He froze slightly.

Then his surprise turned to alarm.

"Huh? This-"

Lin Yi could hardly believe what he was seeing. The patch of tomato sauce that had been on his shoes had actually become a white solid substance.

"What is this?!"

He rubbed his eyes and leaned closer for another careful look, only to discover that the whitish stuff seemed to be...

"Plaster?" He narrowed his eyes. "Wasn't this tomato sauce? When did it turn into plaster?"

He remembered it being tomato sauce...

No, wait. Was it really tomato sauce?

He thought back...

Had he actually noticed what had gotten on his shoes earlier?

I don't think... I did?

Did I or didn't I...?

Looking at the plaster-like substance on his shoes, he briefly sank into confusion.

At that moment, without Lin Yi noticing, the paving tiles beneath his feet began to show a faint distortion...

Like the markings of a python.

An indescribable sense of danger silently descended.

Although the sky was clear and the sun hung high, when Lin Yi experienced cognitive impairment, the whole world seemed to twist along with his confusion.

The shade from the tree-lined path, which covered half the road, slowly crawled toward Lin Yi as the tiles distorted...

No, no. Liangzi told me to look at my shoes. I remember perfectly clearly. It was definitely tomato sauce then!

Lin Yi remembered.

It was tomato sauce!

He held firm to that thought-it had indeed been tomato sauce before, but now it had become a plaster-like substance.

Once his thoughts were no longer muddled, that indescribable feeling dissolved into a gentle breeze...

"Whoosh-"

The breeze brushed Lin Yi's face. He noticed nothing and had no idea that the ground beneath his feet had briefly distorted...

He took off his shoes and, looking at the plaster-like substance on them, couldn't resist lightly knocking them against the ground.

Bang, bang, bang!

The plaster-like substance clung to the shoes like solid steel. Both shoes seemed to have turned into hard stone.

"How freaking bizarre." Lin Yi couldn't help smacking his lips. "Tomato sauce can actually turn into plaster. What a joke... wait!"

"Wait, wait, wait!!!!"

Something suddenly occurred to him, and he nearly sprang off the ground.

"Tomato sauce!"

"This came from tomato sauce?!"

An image flashed through his mind-the trash can in the Teachers' Office!

He remembered a lunch box in the trash can, stained with a dark red substance!

He remembered that the trash can had been in a gloomy corner of the office, so he hadn't immediately seen what it was. All he remembered was some dark red, sticky substance. But now-

"It was tomato sauce!!"

"So the Head Teacher ate something containing tomatoes!"

"Yesterday?!"

His memories began flashing back at light speed. He thought of the Security Guard leading that group of chefs through the fog on iron chains.

He thought of the Green Apron Chef mixed in among the Blue Apron Chefs!

That chef had been carrying a lunch box containing tomato meat sauce pasta!

And that group's first destination, or stopping point along the way, had been-the Teaching Building!

Clues suddenly began weaving together in his mind. He, his roommates, and Wei Liang had broken away from the group as they neared the Teaching Building, then entered its grounds.

They had seemingly arrived before the Security Guard and the others, but in reality, merely crossing the distance between two streetlamps to reach the Teaching Building had taken them nearly half an hour. Descending the stairwell to the basement had taken another twenty-odd minutes.

If the Security Guard had led the chefs through without regard for the thick fog, they would have reached the Teaching Building far earlier. Besides... the Group B Class 2 Teachers' Office was actually on the first floor, and could be reached simply by climbing those steps.

So-

"Before I met the Head Teacher... that Green Apron Chef had already delivered the tomato meat sauce pasta to her!"

"She... ate it?!"

Lin Yi's pupils trembled. Recalling the sinister sense of enclosure and the strange time discrepancy when he entered the Teachers' Office last night, he couldn't tell whether they had come from the tomato sauce in the trash can or... the Head Teacher?

But whatever the case, the unsettling pressure the Head Teacher gave him was undeniable.

And...

"The Head Teacher's eyes glow! Pah, pah, pah... glow, my ass. Her eyes have the same sort of color as the Security Guard's, but... they feel incredibly cold and sinister!"

"Cold... but not particularly hostile. Not like those unsettling students and creepy chefs..."

"Strange. How strange..."

Lin Yi shook his head, slowly setting the thought aside-it was only because he was standing in the sunlight that he dared think about it a little more.

If it's on the way later, I still need to stop by the classroom and write my latest thoughts on sticky notes.

Sticky notes were useful. To avoid forgetting anything, he could write things down and review them every night before bed, gaining new insights by revisiting what he knew.

Granted, he could write sticky notes anywhere. There weren't that many requirements. But writing them right here along the way...

Even in the sunlight, that seemed a little too bold.

The classroom was better.

At least during this time period, the classroom was a relatively safe "base."

But thinking of the classroom immediately reminded Lin Yi of the white plaster-like substance beneath the lectern and the plaster marks dragged all across the classroom floor.

"If the white plaster-like substance comes from tomato sauce exposed to sunlight, does that mean something dragged tomato sauce around the classroom last night?"

"And the tomato sauce..."

One disordered idea after another surfaced in Lin Yi's mind. There were surely plenty of connections between them, but he couldn't string them all together just yet.

He couldn't deduce where the tomato sauce had entered the classroom.

He had only a vague guess, with no evidence proving that the tomato sauce was connected to "that thing."

He took a deep breath and decided not to keep pondering the question.

"Lao Lin! Are you hiding from a fucking ghost?!" Just then, Wei Liang's voice sounded behind him, followed by a hand landing on his shoulder.

Wei Liang leaned halfway out beside him, supporting himself against Lin Yi as he panted for breath. Indignantly, he demanded, "What's wrong with you? I've been calling you forever. Why wouldn't you answer?"

Lin Yi froze slightly.

After experiencing so many eerie voices calling from behind him, coupled with the chilly wind blowing through the trees, he had naturally assumed right away that it wasn't Wei Liang's voice.

He hadn't expected his prediction to be wrong.

But faced with Wei Liang's piercing gaze, and the miserable sentiment of "I can follow behind you, like a shadow sleepwalking after the light" swirling deep in his eyes, Lin Yi didn't know what to say.

Although he had no idea what to say, the moment he opened his mouth, an utterly terrible line escaped before his brain could intervene:

"Well... the slope was too steep. I couldn't hit the brakes in time."

Wei Liang froze.

Wei Liang froze again.

Looking into Lin Yi's earnest eyes, which said, "That's simply the truth; there's no need for us to argue," Wei Liang blinked and blinked again.

He looked down at the somewhat worn soles of his limited-edition Flying Kun sneakers, considered this, then said:

"That slope... really is a little steep."

"And it wears your shoes down, too."

Lin Yi: "..."

"Ahem."

"Right? That's how I felt too." With a wry smile, Lin Yi rubbed the back of his head, then carried his shoes toward the trash can.

Just then, he suddenly sensed a faint vibration.

It came from beneath his bare soles.

He was slightly startled.

Immediately afterward, a barely audible sound suddenly traveled through the air.

Thump!

Thump!

"Thump..."

The sound approached from afar. It was faint at first, but before long, it had grown as loud as a heartbeat.

Thump!

Thump!!

The sound grew louder and louder, the vibrations stronger and stronger.

Finally, it became a heavy booming like the beating of a drum!

The enormous sound drifted out from the depths of the Staff Passage. Almost tangible sound waves seemed to ripple through the air.

Thump!

Thump!!

The sound was deafening. Lin Yi felt even his internal organs faintly resonating with it.

His face began to flush;

His blood began to surge;

His heartbeat began to follow that rhythm.

Ba-dump!

Ba-dump!

"Ba-dump..."

Gradually, Lin Yi could feel his heart pounding inside his chest. The hot blood throughout his body seemed to boil, to run wild, wanting to burst out of him!

"What the hell?!"

A terrifying pressure spread from the Staff Passage. If the Green Apron Chef and the unsettling students brought a sinister sense of eeriness, this drumming was a head-on terror.

It was as though some indescribable, gigantic creature lurking in the Otherworldly Abyss was awakening!

No!

It couldn't even be called awakening. Rather... it was snoring!

"Lao Lin! Lao Lin, I fucking can't take it anymore! What the hell is that sound? It's killing me!!" Wei Liang clamped his hands tightly over his ears, but they did nothing to block the pounding drums.

This was not sound at all, but a sonic wave-a powerful sonic wave that shook both body and mind!

"Throw... throw away your shoes! Then go! Hurry!" Lin Yi's eyes were slightly bloodshot as he gritted his teeth and growled.

"Okay, okay!" Wei Liang struggled to take the shoes off both feet, then held them in his hands.

The two clenched their teeth, resisting the sonic waves' assault as they struggled toward the trash can.

The trash can was only three to five meters away, but those few meters seemed as impossible to cross as a mighty river!

"Fuck! We fought our way out of the cafeteria, only to go down here!" Under the sonic waves' impact, Lin Yi felt a deafening force reverberate through him, and he could barely keep his footing.

Wei Liang was hardly any better off. The two staggered along like a pair of gym losers getting nowhere on a treadmill.

At that critical moment, Lin Yi suddenly felt something press against their backs, pushing him up to the trash can.

"Huh...?!" Lin Yi froze briefly.

"Idiot, why haven't you thrown your stuff away yet? I don't mean you. I mean both of you." A flat voice rang out behind him.

Xu Shunkang had a Baseball Bat covered in plaster dust slung across his back. Pushing Lin Yi with his left hand and Wei Liang with his right, he did the work of two men and brought them in front of the trash can.

"Fuck, what are you spacing out for? You think this is easy for me? I can't fucking hold out much longer either!"

Veins bulged on Xu Shunkang's forehead, and golden light surged through his eyes. The sonic waves sliced across his body like blades, instead tracing the contours of the muscles beneath his sportswear with perfect clarity.

The novel goes premium tomorrow. It's a bit rushed, so I haven't written a premium launch note, and I don't have any chapters saved up either. But I'm planning to stay up tonight to write the first premium chapter, so those of you who are asleep should be able to read it when you wake up tomorrow morning. I'll write a little launch note in a bit~