The world was forgetting him

"The Basement...?"

The moment he discovered the Basement, Lin Yi suddenly felt that the darkness at the end of the Corridor seemed to begin writhing slowly in a strange way...

Whether because his gaze had been drawn to it or because he was paying too much attention, the darkness slowly expanded in Lin Yi's vision, washing toward him like ink spreading across white paper...

[Entering the Gymnasium's Basement is forbidden!!!]

At that critical moment, the huge red lettering from the Gymnasium Rules suddenly flashed through Lin Yi's mind.

"!!!"

A string of visually striking exclamation marks erupted over Lin Yi's forehead like an explosion. His own will severed his train of thought in a single stroke!

"Holy! Shit!"

Lin Yi shook his head, wrenching his gaze out of the darkness as though drawing a blade.

"Hah... hah... hah..."

He took several deep breaths and looked around, finding himself still in the Gymnasium.

He glanced at his watch.

14:35.

"Not much time passed. Looks like I only spaced out for a moment."

He looked down at his feet.

A few more steps would take him to the white line. In other words...

"I was drawn in, but the pull wasn't strong enough..."

"Was it because I hadn't crossed the line?"

"Or because... there's something special about the Gymnasium?"

This white line divided the areas within the Gymnasium. It was both the dividing line between the different sections in reality and the dividing line between the experience areas and non-experience areas on the Map.

Crossing this line would take him into a non-experience area.

Lin Yi did not know whether his willpower had grown much stronger after enduring a period of torment, allowing him to pull himself back from the brink of losing himself, or whether he had been protected by the lights because he was in an experience area.

Personally, Lin Yi leaned toward his willpower having improved somewhat, because the Corridor leading to the Basement was itself lined with old Kerosene Lamps.

The light from the Kerosene Lamps was like a domain, and also like some kind of seal, suppressing the darkness in the Basement and preventing it from spreading.

Lin Yi drew his gaze away from the Corridor and looked at the row of old Kerosene Lamps.

Inside the old Kerosene Lamps were little things resembling candle flames, like fire and yet like fireflies. They gathered, scattered, and drifted, seemingly not flames, yet resembling flames more closely at certain stages.

Though they were in a Gymnasium Corridor without wind or rain, those candle flames kept flickering unsteadily, as if constantly buffeted by a cold wind.

"Looks like you've noticed too." A calm voice suddenly sounded beside Lin Yi.

Immediately afterward, a tall, muscular figure stepped out from his side and stood shoulder to shoulder with him.

That familiar voice made Lin Yi's soul tremble. He turned in delighted surprise, and the person beside him was indeed...

"Young Master Tian?!"

Lin Yi was both surprised and delighted. Standing beside him was none other than Tian Bufan.

"Eugh." Tian Bufan waved a dismissive hand. "Spare me the reunion speeches... PE isn't for chatting, so I came early to meet you."

Lin Yi looked surprised. "You were that sure I'd come here?"

"Not only was I sure you'd come, I was sure you'd come to this exact spot at this exact time." Tian Bufan's gaze settled on the old Kerosene Lamps in the Corridor as he said calmly, "Don't be surprised. All it takes is a simple line of thought to make a reasonable prediction."

He continued unhurriedly, "Based on what I know about you, after entering an unfamiliar environment, you generally stop somewhere you consider 'safe' to familiarize yourself with your surroundings."

"Rather than reading the Gymnasium Rules, which you already have on hand and can consult anytime, you'd definitely first check your surroundings against the Map."

"So with a simple process of elimination, I knew you'd be here."

Lin Yi opened his mouth. Although Tian Bufan made it sound simple, predicting the time and place he would appear was a bit too absurd, wasn't it?

He immediately felt as though Tian Bufan had him completely figured out-although that had happened plenty of times before, this was still a bit too absurd.

"Even so... how did you know I'd have PE at this exact time?" Lin Yi slowly voiced his confusion. "A lucky guess?"

Had it been him, he could never have predicted Tian Bufan's location so accurately. He would have been more likely to stumble across him through sheer blind luck.

"A guess?" Tian Bufan raised his eyebrows. "Anything that ties results to luck has never factored into my considerations."

"Uh..." Lin Yi felt he was being looked down on.

"I discovered that every class in the school has PE at this Time Point, so you were bound to appear here now," Tian Bufan said.

"All right." Feeling increasingly outclassed by Tian Bufan, Lin Yi spread his hands. "So you came early to have a chat with me?"

"As I just said, time won't allow it, so we can only exchange a few words," Tian Bufan said. "PE exists for a reason. If we're just going to chat, we can do that in the Teaching Building normally... provided we can find each other's classrooms and don't accidentally enter the wrong class, of course."

"But considering the strict regulations on going up and down the Teaching Building's stairs, along with certain other factors, it's easy to make an inadvertent mistake. So unless necessary, we'd better not meet in the Teaching Building."

"It would be best not to even know each other's classroom or Student Number, in case our thoughts accidentally go astray when our minds are muddled, and the other's classroom number or Student Number pops into our heads and sends us the wrong way."

Lin Yi could not help pondering this. "So... did you come to find me because you have some extremely important information to tell me?"

He had a lot of information he wanted to exchange with Tian Bufan, but Tian Bufan clearly only wanted a brief meeting right now-it rather felt as though he had come to check whether Lin Yi was still alive.

So Lin Yi handed the initiative in their conversation to Tian Bufan.

Tian Bufan narrowed his eyes, a hint of sharpness flashing in their depths. "I came to find you to tell you... something has happened to Maozi."

Lin Yi's heart tightened. He had yet to find any clues related to Mao Feiyang, yet Tian Bufan had already determined that something was wrong with him?

"How do you know?"

"Because... I've discovered that I'm losing my memories of Maozi. That's illogical. 'Forgetting' is something that would never happen to me," Tian Bufan said gravely.

"You're saying you have amnesia?" Lin Yi asked in surprise.

"Amnesia means remembering nothing, which clearly doesn't match my situation."

"Then... dementia?"

Tian Bufan: "?"

"It's hard to imagine someone with your intelligence saying something like that... It seems you've 'restrained' yourself far too much to avoid being influenced by the environment."

"So..." Tian Bufan rubbed his brow bone, looking rather troubled. "With your current intelligence, it's hard for me to explain... If all else fails, let's wait until we're back in the Dormitory tonight."

Lin Yi showed no displeasure at Tian Bufan's words.

"You said... you're forgetting Maozi?"

"Try recalling him," Tian Bufan said. "You should have noticed too, but you've restrained yourself too much."

"I can't help it. If I don't restrain myself a little, things really can go wrong very easily..." Lin Yi said, torn. "Without Liangzi last night, something serious might have happened before I could 'adapt.'"

"Your shortcoming is that you need to 'adapt,' but your advantage is precisely your ability to 'adapt,'" Tian Bufan said. "Besides, sometimes it really isn't that you aren't 'restrained' enough, but that you're too sensitive to changes in the environment itself..."

"You sense far, far more than other people."

Lin Yi lowered his eyelids slightly. "Let me think about Maozi..."

He tried recalling things related to Mao Feiyang and found that his impressions of recent events were still very vivid, but the further back he went, the blurrier his memories of him became.

He looked shocked. "I'm losing my memories of Maozi too!"

"Not just you. The others are probably much the same," Tian Bufan said.

"How could this happen?" Lin Yi asked. "Could it be related to that Stairwell?"

"It must be." Tian Bufan nodded. "So far, I still can't deduce Maozi's location. Considering how strange this Campus itself is, we have probably already lost contact with him."

"More than that... I feel that the world is 'forgetting' Maozi."

"Why?"

"There is no 'why,' no 'how could this happen,'" Tian Bufan said heavily. "Only 'this is how it is.'"

Lin Yi froze, feeling pressure come rolling toward him.

Tian Bufan said, "For now, I still can't determine whether some indescribable 'rule' is tampering with our memories, but one thing is certain: Maozi is slipping away from us."

"Do you know what the most frightening thing in life is?"

"Is it death? No, it isn't."

"It's 'being forgotten.' That's something more frightening than death."

"'The forgotten have no way home.'"

"If the whole world forgets Maozi while he's lost in that Stairwell, how is that any different from eternal exile?"

Lin Yi gritted his teeth. "We have to get him out."

"Ridiculous," Tian Bufan sneered.

"What did you say?" Lin Yi glared at Tian Bufan. "He's our roommate!"

Tian Bufan shook his head. "Impulsiveness robs people of reason. Staying calm is how you solve problems."

"With nothing but empty words and empty hands, how can you talk about saving him? You don't even know where he is."

"I..." Lin Yi opened his mouth, only to be struck speechless.

"I went to look where the Stairwell was." Tian Bufan shook his head scornfully. "What a joke. There was no Stairwell at all!"

"The Notice Board in front of the Teaching Building said that turning left after leaving the Stairwell would take you to the Teachers' Office."

"But turning right after leaving the Teachers' Office takes you to a classroom."

"If we use the classroom as our reference point, then the classroom is the Stairwell."

"But... we reached the door of the same Teachers' Office, yet after going inside and opening the door again, I didn't see you."

"So I suspect that the location of the Teachers' Office is constantly changing."

"Behind that door is one-no, an entire expanse of moving Teachers' Offices."

"That's why we appear outside different classrooms after going in and coming back out."

Lin Yi thought for a moment, then said, "You mean, if the Teachers' Office is an independent architectural structure within the Teaching Building, and it moves in some kind of cycle, we can use it as a transfer point to return to the place where turning right outside takes us to the Stairwell?"

Tian Bufan glanced at Lin Yi, showing no doubt about the fluctuations in his intelligence, and nodded. "That's more or less it, but I have too little information about the Teachers' Office."

"Neither the Student Rules nor the Teaching Building Rules mentions the Teachers' Office at all."

"For something the Rules don't mention, there's only one possible situation."

"That thing is beyond the control of whoever made the rules."

"Until we're absolutely certain, neither of us should rashly go into the Teachers' Office to try anything."

"After all... I feel there's something off about the 'Head Teacher.'"

Tian Bufan spoke slowly.

Lin Yi pondered. "There are major problems with my Head Teacher too..."

"We'll consider the Head Teachers later." Tian Bufan raised a hand to interrupt him. "I've already conveyed the most important point for now. What else concerns me is... how well have you adapted?"

"And how well have you been restraining yourself?"

"I still need to restrain myself... I thought being under the Sun would be safe enough, but I still ran into plenty of trouble." Lin Yi shook his head.

"'Under the Sun'? Such a straightforward clue doesn't sound like something you deduced."

"An Athlete Student told me. He said I could think as much as I wanted under the Sun."

"Heh." Tian Bufan smiled. "You're lucky. You even had an Athlete Student remind you of something like that."

"What about your side?" Lin Yi asked.

Tian Bufan shrugged. "Last night, an Athlete Student got into a fight with an Art Student in the classroom."

"A fight? An Art Student?" Lin Yi was astonished. "Wait, didn't the Athlete Student leave the classroom before 21:00?"

"Who told you they had to leave? Hmm..." Tian Bufan suddenly mused. "Did the Athlete Student who told you that you could think under the Sun tell you that?"

"Yes." Lin Yi nodded.

"What else did he say?"

Lin Yi hesitated, on the verge of speaking. "Can I tell you? Will it make you think too much and cause problems?"

Tian Bufan glanced at him. "You can. But... judging by your tone, even though you've been restrained enough, you've still stepped on quite a few land mines?"

"Uh..." Looking embarrassed, Lin Yi could not help scratching his head. "Without Liangzi, maybe... I'd have been forgotten by the world too."

He thought of that nonexistent road. It really had been just like walking across a barren land in the void.

Tian Bufan raised his eyebrows. Though Lin Yi seemed to have faced a life-or-death ordeal, the corners of his mouth could not help curving slightly when he heard it. "Interesting... Now I'm extremely interested in what you've experienced over the past two days."

"But there's no rush. Tell me in detail when we're back in the Dormitory tonight."

"Right now, I'd rather hear... what the Athlete Student told you."