"Testing It Firsthand"

Lin Yi froze like a block of wood, but uncontrollable ecstasy soon spread across his face.

He rolled onto his back on the ground, gulping down air.

He wanted to wash his insides over and over with the fresh scent of earth and the fragrance of flowers and grass, cleansing away every last trace of the rotten, deathly, nauseating stench the sea breeze had brought!

"Haha... hahahahaha... cough, cough, cough..."

Feeling the long-absent breath of life, he felt alive and could not help laughing aloud, but he laughed so hard that he choked on his saliva and coughed several times.

Suddenly!

His gaze sharpened. The earlier sense of danger had left him with a lingering wariness of abnormal surroundings, and he keenly noticed that the air he breathed contained not only the scent of earth, flowers, and grass, but also a salty dampness!

"Is that... a sea breeze?!"

Every muscle in his body instantly tensed as he followed the sensation to its source.

Then... he locked onto a pair of feet with socks worn perversely over the outside, and somehow, those very feet seemed to radiate a certain awkwardness.

"Uh..." Lin Yi froze. "Aren't those Wei Liang's fucking feet?"

His gaze shifted, meeting Wei Liang's exceedingly strange expression.

For a moment, things were extremely awkward...

"Lao Lin, you fucking..." Wei Liang looked down at Lin Yi and hesitated. "How come I never noticed you had a fetish for sneaking looks at people's feet?"

He... suddenly understood why this bastard Lin Yi had brought so many socks...

A kink!

"This fucker Lao Lin has seriously messed-up kinks!"

"Goddammit! How am I only finding out now that this fucker Lao Lin's sexuality... seems a little fucking off?!"

His anus clenched instinctively, and his whole body seemed to grow uncomfortable.

"Lao Lin, if you don't fucking get up, I won't be able to hold this foot back!" Wei Liang raised a foot with the imposing air of someone whose stomp could shake the world.

Amid the somewhat tense atmosphere, Lin Yi silently climbed off the ground and rubbed his nose.

"Well... it's not what you think."

"I haven't even said anything yet!"

"It's written all over your face..."

"Fine!" Wei Liang spread his hands and said disdainfully, "You didn't think I missed that weird, pervy laughter of yours just now, did you?"

"Seriously? We've been classmates this long, and you don't know I like long legs in black stockings?" Lin Yi pressed a hand to his forehead, speechless.

Wei Liang sighed mournfully. "Setting gender aside, if I cross-dressed, I'd have long legs in black stockings too!"

"Oh?!" Lin Yi's eyes lit up.

"Fuck!" Wei Liang abruptly realized what he had said. "Get lost! Fuck off! Calling every foot a pretty little foot will only ruin you!"

"Fuck! I'm normal!" Lin Yi snapped.

With the atmosphere growing increasingly suggestive, Lin Yi felt that anything he said would only make things worse.

"Fuck it, class!" Lin Yi said through gritted teeth, heading toward the Gymnasium.

"Fuck!" Wei Liang followed him. "Hurry up, hurry up. It's getting late."

"Right, the time!"

Lin Yi paused. He had spent so long on that nonexistent road that he had no idea how much time he had wasted. Was he going to be late for PE?

He hurriedly looked down at his watch.

14:20.

"Huh? It's only 14:20?!"

He was stunned.

He had spent at least a dozen minutes walking while lost on that nonexistent road, yet... his watch only said 14:20?

Only two minutes had passed since he last checked his watch?

"How could this happen? That's impossible!"

Had time seemingly stopped, or... had it passed at an extremely slow rate?

Or... had something affected his "perception" of time?

His expression gradually grew serious. An eerie atmosphere slowly enveloped him, his hairs silently stood on end, and he gave a sudden shudder.

"Liangzi," he suddenly said.

"If you've got a fart, speak it. If you've got something to say, let it rip-wait, no. Get to the point!" Wei Liang said warily.

"I'm being serious!" Lin Yi's face hardened. "You were walking ahead of me just now. Do you remember what happened before I... ahem, fell flat on the ground?"

"So you do know I was ahead of you! How would I know what you were doing behind me? Was I supposed to peek at you with my ass?" Wei Liang said scornfully.

Lin Yi's face turned murderous.

Wei Liang hurriedly added, "But..."

"But what?"

"But... I think I vaguely heard you calling me from behind, so I turned around," Wei Liang said. "The moment I did, I saw you rushing over to touch my feet, you fucker!"

"Just... in the time it took to turn around?" Lin Yi suddenly froze, looking thoughtful. Then something occurred to him, and he hurriedly said, "Wait, bullshit! When did I touch your feet?"

"You didn't, but it was pretty much the same!" Wei Liang snorted.

"Hey, hey, hey! Let me repeat myself!" Lin Yi did the Deng Chao chopping-the-table-with-his-hand.gif gesture. "I do not fucking like hairy legs!"

May 7, X023, 14:23.

Lin Yi and Wei Liang walked along the only road leading to the Gymnasium, cursing as they went.

Quite a few other students were heading to the Gymnasium around them.

Lin Yi looked at these students.

They all looked perfectly normal and gave off none of the aura that made him sense danger, but every one of them wore a gloomy expression and kept silent. Clearly, they had noticed at least some of the abnormalities on Campus too.

Lin Yi looked away and kept walking.

After just a few steps, he suddenly sensed that something was wrong.

He looked at the students around him.

He still could not see any problems.

"Something seems off, but I can't tell what..."

He looked away, confusion appearing in his eyes.

"That's strange..."

After a few more steps, he looked at the students around him again.

Suddenly, he seemed to notice something...

"Could it be... the number of people?"

He looked around and silently counted the students near him.

There were plenty of people farther away, but eight students in total were near him.

He looked away and walked on, silently counting his steps.

After roughly twenty steps, he looked around again.

There were... five students in total.

"Three more people vanished?!"

Lin Yi froze.

"Did they vanish into thin air, or...?"

He looked away and kept moving, watching the students walking more or less alongside him out of the corner of his eye while silently counting his steps.

"Lao Lin, pick up the pace! Stop looking around!" Wei Liang urged from behind him.

Lin Yi glanced at him and hurriedly said, "Okay, okay, I get it... Shit!!!"

He whipped his head toward the students beside him, his pupils contracting slightly.

"Fuck! Another one fucking vanished!"

"What's going on?"

Lin Yi guessed that these people might have stepped onto that nonexistent road just as he had, but the question was... how had they gotten there out of nowhere?

Lin Yi frowned.

"The Gymnasium is supposedly one of the safest places on Campus, yet even getting there is this dangerous."

"So they just shoveled out all the danger and dumped it onto the road?"

"What kind of 'Law of Conservation of Danger' is this?"

"Not a word about the dangers on the road to the Gymnasium!"

He thought as he walked, trying to work out how he had accidentally stepped onto that "nonexistent road."

As he recalled it, he immediately spotted the key issue.

"It was the 'sea breeze'!"

That wind carried the briny stench of the sea, mixed with dried shrimp shells and rotting fish and shrimp, making it very easy to think of the seaside...

"I smelled it, closed my eyes to think about the smell, and when I opened them, I found myself on that road..."

"That's where the problem was!"

"Those students who suddenly disappeared had something in common with me..."

Lin Yi felt that perhaps only some of the conditions needed to be met for someone to appear on another road.

But he had no time now, nor did he want to think about these questions.

Once he returned to the Dormitory that night, he would have plenty of time to think. Not only could he think it over, he could discuss it with Tian Bufan.

Speaking of discussion... the contents of the Gymnasium Notice Board suddenly surfaced in Lin Yi's mind, and his spirits lifted.

"Wait!"

"I think... I've figured something out!"

The notice board in front of the Gymnasium said:

[There is one and only one road leading to the Gymnasium. Streetlamps are installed along it, each with a streetlamp number. Do not step onto roads without streetlamps.]

[The Gymnasium was built in a somewhat unusual location, so the wind may be a little strong. Do not worry. As long as there is no rain or fog, this is normal.]

These two rules were written right at the top in the largest lettering, visible at a glance.

"So the purpose of the notice board is... to make us firmly believe that there is 'one and only one' road to the Gymnasium!"

"In other words, firm belief is a necessary condition for reaching the Gymnasium?!"

"And what the second rule actually means is that we shouldn't pay attention to the wind!"

"So it's 'ignore it' again?"

At this thought, Lin Yi could not help pausing.

So he had essentially... fucking tested the Gymnasium Notice Board's contents firsthand, deepening his understanding of it through his own painful lesson?!

"Fuck, how did I manage to step on a land mine like this?!"

He looked at Wei Liang.

Wei Liang jolted violently. "Fuck, what are you doing?! You scared me!"

Lin Yi leaned back slightly and looked Wei Liang up and down...

"Liangzi, have you noticed the students around us?" he asked tentatively.

Wei Liang shook his head. "I've only got eyes for the road. Just focus on walking. Why bother with anyone else?"

Lin Yi was momentarily stumped, then asked, "So you didn't smell anything either, right?"

"Didn't I already tell you? I can't smell anything, okay!" Wei Liang said impatiently.

Afraid Lin Yi would ask again, he pointed to his nose. "It was raining outside the classroom last night. I think I accidentally caught a bit of a chill. My nose is a little blocked. I can't smell anything."

"Your nose is blocked...?" Lin Yi was dumbfounded. "How could you be so careless? Dude, did you do that on purpose or by accident?"

The road to the Gymnasium was clearly abnormal today, and the "sea breeze" seemingly had not blown into his face alone. Quite a few students around them had been diverted onto that nonexistent road.

But Wei Liang... had he anticipated this and blocked his nose beforehand?

"Fuck, who does that on purpose? Would you deliberately catch a chill?" Wei Liang flew into a rage, his eyebrows instantly knitting together.

"Oh, oh, my bad, my bad..." Lin Yi hurriedly conceded, putting an end to the subject. "Hey, look! We're at the Gymnasium!"

Lin Yi pointed ahead.

They had already walked down the slightly sloping road. The Gymnasium was not far ahead, and it looked as though they only had to round a corner to reach the entrance.

Wei Liang looked at the Gymnasium and stopped dwelling on their earlier topic.

From this angle, Lin Yi discovered that an enormous egg-shaped building was connected to the back of the Gymnasium.

"That's the Giant Dome, basically a soccer field. It was designed as part of the Gymnasium. You can get there from the Gymnasium through the [Safety Passage]..." Wei Liang explained. "It's written in the 'Gymnasium Rules.' We'll get a copy and take a look in a bit, and you'll see."

"Oh," Lin Yi replied.

By the time they reached the Gymnasium entrance, his watch read 14:26.

S City University's Gymnasium was much larger than Lin Yi had imagined. Its scale did not seem school-level at all, but more like a municipal facility.

Looking at the Gymnasium up close, Lin Yi had a strange feeling. It did not feel like an ordinary sports venue, but more like... some kind of fortress built with high walls.

But that was only his first impression, and he let the thought pass.

The Gymnasium entrance was an enormous glass door. Several athlete students in blue-and-white sportswear stood inside.

Each of these athlete students carried a Baseball Bat and surveyed the surroundings with intense vigilance. Spotting Lin Yi and Wei Liang, one of them barked irritably:

"Hurry up! Jog a few steps!"

"Dragging your feet like you're out shopping?!"

"Come straight through this door. Yeah, yeah, stop fucking looking around and hurry up!"

Wei Liang whispered, "Athlete students are just like that. It's like they're always angry... I wonder if they've got too much pent-up frustration and nowhere to let it out..."

"What are you muttering about? You're coming to the field to practice ball with me later!" an athlete student snapped, pointing his Baseball Bat at Wei Liang's nose.

Wei Liang's face immediately fell. He shrank back and cried in anguish, "Come on, dude... I wanted to go to PE and get some hands-on instruction from a pretty senior girl..."

"Gymnastics, huh? Heh, sure. I'll instruct you later." A burly, muscular hunk stepped out through the doorway, raising his eyebrows and looking at him with a cold smile.

"Uh..." Wei Liang's expression froze. Like a wilted rapeseed flower, he drooped his head and walked through the Gymnasium doors.

Lin Yi followed close behind Wei Liang and walked inside.

The instant he passed through the Gymnasium's main entrance and stepped inside, he suddenly felt invigorated...

An unprecedented sense of safety enveloped him in an instant.

He instinctively felt an urge to stay in the Gymnasium.

Staying in the Gymnasium as an Athlete Student didn't seem so bad...?

A thought quietly crept into his mind.

Just then, something struck his chest.

"Stop spacing out. Come get a copy of the Gymnasium Rules first!" Wei Liang urged, thumping his chest with his hand.

Lin Yi immediately looked over and saw a large pile of manuals displayed on a Self-Service Lending Machine ahead. Even from a distance, he could clearly read the words on their covers through the glass.

Gymnasium Rules.

The next chapter will be out after midnight and reveal the Gymnasium Rules. There absolutely won't be any delays, haha (really!). Yesterday, I just couldn't get into the right headspace to write, sob... The next chapter will reveal the Gymnasium Rules.