The call of the Art Building

May 7, X023, 13:24, Teaching Building B.

Lin Yi stood before the steps like a statue. His gaze focused on the moss in the cracks between the steps, but his eyes were vacant, as though his soul had been drawn away.

"There really is moss, there really is moss..." He kept muttering the same words, his thoughts unknown.

A gentle breeze blew out from the foothills surrounding the Campus and brushed slowly past his ears. The leaves rustled, making it momentarily impossible to tell whether it was the sound of waves of leaves or waves breaking against submerged rocks...

"Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh..."

"Whoosh, whoosh... boom~"

"Whoosh-boom!"

"Whoosh-boom!"

Lin Yi fell into a daze. His pupils began to dilate, and his vision lost focus...

All that remained in his field of vision was a patch of dark green moss smeared with mud, and the moss... gradually twisted.

"Whoosh-boom!"

The surf sounded on, as though right beside his ears.

"Whoooosh-"

The breeze from the foothills abruptly turned wild, tearing frantically at his clothes like pair after pair of hands.

He became like someone standing amid wind and waves, as though he could embrace the sea just by spreading his arms.

"Whoosh-whoosh-"

The waves grew larger, and the sunlight above Lin Yi grew dimmer. A terrifying storm gathered overhead, as though a tempest was about to arrive.

"Boom-crack!!!"

A pure white bolt of lightning appeared in the gale, as though someone had struck the heavens with a giant axe. A huge fissure split the sky in response.

The thunder jolted Lin Yi awake, and he looked up at the fissure...

"?!" His eyes bulged, and his mouth fell slightly open.

The lightning froze before him, the storm stilled before him, and the torn sky looked like a picture drawn deep in the heavens...

As though someone had seized a corner of the picture and torn it off with all their might, the blank space left by the tear formed that frozen bolt of lightning.

Behind the broken picture, he saw a clock tower, a campus, and someone standing on that campus, looking up at the sky. It was...

Him.

Him, standing before the Teaching Building.

He was looking up at the sky.

He was looking down at the moss.

He did not know what he was doing, but his gaze met that of the "him" at this very moment...

"Me...?!"

Lin Yi felt a dizziness unlike anything he had ever experienced, like looking down at the earth from the clouds, or hanging upside down over a cliff, staring into the abyss.

His mouth opened wide. His heart was already a raging sea.

Was that me?

Then who am I?!

That's the Teaching Building... then... where am I?!

He stumbled a step backward, looking at his hands in panic.

The skin on his hands was somewhat dark, and his wrists were thinner than "his own." Judging by the hands alone, he was someone rather lean.

"Wait, my clothes...?"

Lin Yi noticed his cuffs. This was a very loose yellow knitted sweater, not what he had been wearing, yet it felt inexplicably familiar.

He grabbed the fabric at his chest and pulled it up, confirming again and again that these were not his clothes.

He felt his face.

His face was a little square.

He was a little rattled, too.

"I... how am I not me?"

Shocked and frightened, he looked toward the broken picture, peering through the blank lightning, staring fixedly at the campus within that blank space and searching for "himself" before its Teaching Building...

"Wait...?!"

"That Teaching Building...!!"

He suddenly noticed something!

"One, two, three, four, five, six, seven... eight!"

"Eight floors!"

"An eight-story Teaching Building!!"

[The Teaching Building only has four floors. Now there are four extra floors?!]

"I! I... where am I? Am I dreaming?!"

Lin Yi looked around.

Around him... was a castle-like structure steeped in Gothic style.

Pointed towers, vaulted roofs covered in multicolored prismatic glass, a pitch-black clock tower, dim moonlight, and... a raven perched atop the clock tower.

"I'm... in a castle?"

"Rumble-"

A storm spiraled high in the sky, thunder rumbling within the gale.

"Whoosh-whoosh-"

Waves surged beneath his feet, washing ceaselessly over submerged rocks.

He rushed to the castle's cold, moss-covered blue-gray bricks and craned his neck to look down.

A cliff.

This damned castle was built on a damned sheer cliff.

Below that steep, moss-covered cliff lay submerged rocks shrouded in spray and thin mist.

Beyond those rocks...

Was a sea enveloped in thick, gloomy gray fog.

He noticed what seemed to be a mud pit where the rocks met the cliff face. The foul, nauseating stench carried into his mouth by the sea breeze drifted from that mud pit.

Despite the terrifying distance between them, he could still clearly see the rotting fish and shrimp, crab shells and fish bones piled in the mud...

"Gulp..."

He swallowed and stumbled backward.

"Clat... ter!"

He knocked over an easel, scattering a drawing board and paints across the ground.

Looking around in panic, he suddenly discovered a mass of roughly painted yellow writing on the castle's brick wall.

In the dim surroundings, that writing was utterly at odds with the atmosphere.

Those twisted letters, those rough strokes seemed to spell out...

[Welcome to the Art Building.]

Lin Yi's pupils contracted to pinpoints. A vortex battered wildly inside him before rushing into his head, leaving his mind blank.

"The Art Building!"

"This is... the Art Building?!"

"I'm in... the Art Building?!"

Already dizzy, he felt a powerful sensation rise within him, telling him that he was right here.

"No, no, no!!!!"

"I'm not in the Art Building! I'm in front of the Teaching Building. I just finished eating. I... Liangzi and I just came back to the classroom!"

He kept recalling everything, raising his head to look at the sky, trying to find that blank space torn open by lightning!

He felt like a boat about to be blown out of the harbor by a storm. He needed to drop his anchor hard.

But a sinister gloom lingered in the murky sky, moonlight bathed the castle's brick walls, and the cold air chilled his limbs.

There was no storm in the sky, nor any lightning.

"How... could this happen?"

His head throbbed and felt swollen, as though something was about to burst out of it.

Cold air surged in from every direction. Deathly white sea fog crept up from below the cliff, reaching out to embrace him.

He touched the palette that had fallen to the ground.

He saw the picture lying on the ground.

The picture depicted a clock tower shrouded in a storm, with lightning tearing through half the sky.

The broken picture was precisely the sky he had seen.

Deep within that sky... was the campus of S City University.

A sentence rose in his mind:

"When you gaze into the abyss... the abyss will devour you."

He murmured to himself, his eyes panicked, his gaze darting from side to side, faster and faster.

"I..."

Just as the fog was about to embrace him, he closed his eyes and took a deep breath. Then he slowly crouched down and whispered with absolute resolve:

"I'm in front of the Teaching Building."

"My name is Lin Yi..."

"My student number is X0230506098..."

"I'm in front of the Teaching Building."

"My name is Lin Yi..."

"My student number is X0230506098..."

"I'm in front of the Teaching Building..."

He crouched down, his fingers touching something slimy and wet...

He opened his eyes.

Below the steps of Teaching Building B, Lin Yi crouched with his fingers touching the moss.

"I'm... in front of the Teaching Building," he murmured, his voice soft and gentle, yet utterly firm.

He stared resolutely at the moss. Deep within his eyes, some gleam seemed to fade away.

"L-Lao Lin?" Wei Liang's trembling voice sounded behind him.

Wei Liang's hand hung in midair, giving the impression that he wanted to pat him but did not dare, caught in hesitation.

"Are... are you okay?"

He gently placed his hand on Lin Yi's shoulder. Feeling the warmth passing from Lin Yi's shoulder into his palm, he secretly breathed a sigh of relief.

"Whew..."

"I... had a bit of a problem." Lin Yi immediately realized that sounded wrong and added, "But I'm fine now."

"As long as you're okay, as long as you're okay." Wei Liang patted his chest. "Then let's go back to the classroom and rest. After eating and taking a walk, it's better to sit down and rest a bit."

Wei Liang climbed the steps to the classroom door.

Lin Yi lowered his head to check his watch.

13:25.

Only a minute had passed, but it felt... as long as an hour.

"Liangzi, do you remember what happened to me just now?" He climbed the steps and checked the classroom doorplate, "Group B Class 2," then reached to open the door as he asked.

Wei Liang said, "You gave me a fright just now. I don't know what was going on with you either. I just saw you standing below the steps, spacing out."

"After spacing out for a while, you started looking up at the sky and then down at your feet... then, after another few seconds or so, you crouched down."

"What? You don't remember?"

Lin Yi opened his mouth, then shook his head helplessly. "Probably just a little low blood sugar making me unsteady..."

"That's what I thought." Wei Liang nodded, still saying nothing about Lin Yi's body turning ice-cold.

After entering the classroom, Lin Yi found a sunlit seat by the window. Once seated, he took his little notebook out of his pocket.

This little notebook held his notes, and he planned to use the lunch break to verify what he had written before and add some new discoveries.

But just as he was about to open the notebook, he caught a glimpse of green out of the corner of his eye.

It was the Wooded Belt outside Teaching Building B.

He glanced over there, then returned his attention to the little note...

"Hm?!"

He abruptly turned his gaze back, staring fixedly at the Wooded Belt.

After a fruitless search, his brow suddenly relaxed, and he felt his heart turn icy cold.

The statue of Little Genius had been there that morning.

But now it was gone.

"The statue disappeared over a single meal?"

"Everyone went to eat. Who would move a statue?"

But the statue was simply gone!

"Could it have run off by itself?"

Lin Yi found it extremely uncanny.

He thought again of that feeling of being watched from behind while walking along the tree-lined path toward the Staff Passage...

He also thought of the chilling wind blowing out of the woods, as though many things that were not right were hiding there.

He shook his shoulders, feeling a shiver run through him.

He looked up at the sky.

That cloud had drifted away after all. The sun cast warm rays over him, dispelling the cold that had lingered all this time.

He steadied himself, then turned his attention to the little notebook in his hands.

He opened the notebook, and the notes he had taken earlier appeared before his eyes again, bearing traces of crossings-out and revisions:

---[Since I'm about to be suspected of padding the word count, I've put the earlier notes in the chapter comments. Just click to see them. (I'm so conscientious, sob, sob, sob...)]--

He read through his earlier notes from beginning to end. After confirming that nothing needed changing, he turned the page, recalled everything that had happened on his trip from the Teaching Building to the Cafeteria for lunch and back, and began adding entries starting with note 10.

Along the way, he hesitated over note 5-[The Athlete Student "seems to (the words 'seems to' had been crossed out)" be a good person. Believe what the Athlete Student says.]-and thought about it for a while, but ultimately decided against adding anything.

He flipped back to reread note 5, then turned back and wrote:

"10. The Athlete Student is insanely strong and can deal with those things that aren't right."

"Under the Sun, the Athlete Student is very, very strong in a fight. (Currently unknown whether every Athlete Student has a Baseball Bat.)"

Only then did he properly begin writing:

"11. The food in the Cafeteria is like health packs in a game and has a cleansing effect. Whenever the weather is good, make sure to eat at the Cafeteria."

"Take the [Student Passage] to the Student Dining Hall on the first floor, line up at Meal Window No. 3 to buy food and eat, then put away the tray and leave immediately through the [Student Passage]."

After writing that sentence, he remembered how the Green Apron Chef would crawl out of Meal Window No. 10. After giving it some thought, he changed the last part to: "After eating and putting away the tray, immediately run into the [Student Passage] and leave the Cafeteria."

Then he added:

"While there, whether you encounter the Green Apron Chef or the blue-aproned chef, or someone else sits beside you, ignore them all."

He continued writing:

"12. If you step on the Green Apron Chef or those classmates who aren't right, Tomato Sauce will get on your shoes."

He thought for a moment. If that's the case, then theoretically, fighting back against them could get Tomato Sauce on me?

At the thought that any clothing or other items that got Tomato Sauce on them had to be thrown away, Lin Yi considered it, then added:

"Avoid them as much as possible. Don't fight them... perhaps ask the Athlete Student for help?"

He twirled his pen and thought for a moment. Deciding there was nothing wrong with writing it that way, he continued:

"13. The trash can is at the entrance to the Staff Passage. The Staff Passage leads to Basement Level One of the Cafeteria."

"If you need to throw something in the trash can, don't dawdle on the way. Throw it away quickly, then leave quickly."

"Oh, right! I almost forgot the most important point!"

Lin Yi's eyes lit up, and he hurriedly wrote down the key point:

"14. Tomato Sauce turns into plaster under the Sun (the mechanism is currently unknown)."

[Note: There's no transmigration or anything like that in this book, so everything the protagonist sees and hears is... actually, you can guess. I hope you're all in a normal state of mind when reading the first half of this chapter. At any rate, I didn't feel quite normal while writing it...]

Thanks to readers "Ink Spirit Fish" and "I'm Azhe" for the tips!!