The head teacher

"Food delivery?"

"What food delivery?!"

Lin Yi froze for a second. After thinking quickly, he decided to follow the instructions on the Teaching Building's noticeboard and explain his situation.

After hearing Lin Yi out, the peephole in the office door clicked open. An eye pressed against it and began surveying his surroundings.

Once she confirmed that Lin Yi really was alone, the peephole closed. Then the office door slowly opened, revealing a female teacher in a black business suit.

Without taking a close look at her appearance, Lin Yi immediately shot a wolfish gaze at her chest, searching for her name badge like a radar.

Fortunately, spotting a white name badge against her fitted black suit jacket was extremely easy. Lin Yi locked onto it at once.

The badge looked like a piece of pure white acrylic, edged with an embossed border of thorny vines. In its center were gold-stamped letters: Head Teacher-B2-039.

Lin Yi inwardly sighed with relief.

The female teacher said, "Come in first."

For some reason, Lin Yi felt that the female teacher also seemed relieved once she confirmed he was not delivering food.

Wait... food delivery? The instant Lin Yi stepped into the office, the image of the Security Guard leading a group of Chefs through the thick fog suddenly flashed through his mind.

Those Chefs in blue Aprons had been gripping Iron Chains with one hand. Hadn't they been carrying lunchboxes in the other?

Could it be them?

Just then, the female teacher's wary voice sounded beside his ear. "Are you all right?"

He snapped back to his senses and immediately answered, "Oh, I'm fine. Teacher, please help me complete my enrollment first."

There were too many things wrong here, but Lin Yi did not want to waste time thinking about anything other than obtaining his Student ID.

The female teacher looked Lin Yi up and down, then closed the door and nodded. "Stand over there and don't move. I'll tell you if I need anything."

Lin Yi stood with his back against the office door, his gaze following the female teacher as she sat at her desk and opened a drawer.

Lin Yi noticed that her drawer was very messy, but a blue envelope lay neatly in one corner.

She pushed the envelope aside, then took a form and a stack of cards from the very bottom.

She deftly flicked through the cards, then stopped and pulled one out. She checked its front and back before holding it up to compare it with Lin Yi.

"Lin Yi... Group B Class 2, Student Number X0230506098..."

As she repeated the information on the card, she pasted the attachment from its back onto the form. Then her fountain pen flew across the paper, recording information with a series of scratching sounds.

Normally, Lin Yi would certainly have taken a few more looks at this female teacher. After all, a young female teacher with a good figure, dressed in a fitted business suit with a hip-hugging skirt, black stockings, and high heels, was a rare sight.

But he had already encountered too many bizarre things that defied common sense along the way. Now he had no interest at all and only wanted to get his Student ID quickly.

Besides, this cramped, windowless office felt extremely oppressive. A powerful sense of discomfort kept assailing his senses from somewhere in his subconscious, driving him to leave.

So after taking a few brief looks at the female teacher's lovely legs in black stockings, Lin Yi withdrew his gaze, suppressed his discomfort, and began examining the office.

It was a private office, with only a dozen or so square meters of visible space. There was not a single window in the cramped room, and its minimalist interior exuded an oppressive atmosphere that made it hard to breathe.

The furnishings were extremely simple. Apart from the female teacher's sole desk, there was only a bookcase, a sofa, a few potted plants, and a trash can.

At first glance, the office looked very tidy. Even the books on the shelves were arranged meticulously. Yet the more Lin Yi looked, the stronger his feelings of discomfort and strangeness grew.

He turned to look at the wall.

An old-fashioned pendulum clock hung on the whitewashed wall, but its pendulum had stopped moving.

Its hands were frozen at seven thirty-nine.

He looked into the other corners, suddenly discovering scraps of paper in a concealed spot beneath the female teacher's desk. Then he spotted some torn, crumpled paper balls in the shadows of the sofa.

These paper balls were not well hidden, like toys hidden by a three-year-old. They were easy to miss at first, but against the office's overall tidiness, they became particularly conspicuous once someone deliberately looked.

Yet there aren't many paper balls in the trash can... Lin Yi muttered inwardly.

As Lin Yi stared at the trash can, he suddenly noticed a simple food container at the bottom.

From its appearance, this container was identical to those carried by the Chefs in blue Aprons he had encountered in the thick fog. But some unidentified dark red, viscous substance seemed to have seeped over the edge of the tilted container.

As he stared at the trash can, his unease and discomfort began mingling. An indescribably eerie sensation surged from it, washing over him in waves and making his heart race.

At the same time, however, an utterly absurd and irrational thought arose in his mind-

Go over there!

Go over there and pick up that food container!

See what that sticky substance inside is!

Just as he was about to take his first step toward the trash can, a gentle voice with a trace of coldness sounded beside him.

"That's expired food I haven't had time to throw out. Don't worry about it."

Lin Yi turned and suddenly discovered that the female teacher had come to stand beside him without his noticing. She stared straight at his face, a faint smile on her lips.

"Ah... oh, oh! All right, Teacher," Lin Yi said hastily.

The female teacher handed Lin Yi the card along with a small booklet. "This is your Student ID. Keep it safe. If you lose it, come to me immediately."

"This booklet contains the Teaching Building Rules. You can read it at your leisure once you reach the classroom."

"Remember, for your own safety, you must follow both the Student Rules and the Teaching Building Rules. Whenever you encounter two conflicting rules, use your current identity and surroundings to judge for yourself."

"Ah, oh, all right. Then what should I call you, Teacher?" Lin Yi asked after taking his Student ID.

"You don't need to know what to call me. You only need to remember this badge and uniform." The female teacher pointed at her badge. "From now on, your head teacher isn't me, but whoever wears this badge bearing the designation 'Head Teacher-B2-039.'"

"And you, Lin Yi, aren't my student either. My student is whoever holds the Student ID in your hand."

"So remember what I said. From now on, keep your Student ID safe. You can talk about it with others, but never hand it to anyone else."

"Do you understand?"

The female teacher's solemn manner gave Lin Yi a fright.

"Is this part of the rules... Teacher?" Lin Yi asked instinctively.

The female teacher said, "These aren't rules. This is my warning to you! Every head teacher must do everything possible to protect their students while they're at school."

Lin Yi nodded, then pointed at the trash can, hesitating. "Teacher, that trash can..."

The female teacher glanced at the trash can in puzzlement. A light suddenly flashed in her pupils, and her expression changed. "You need to leave! Leave now!"

"All right, Teacher. I'll be going, then." Not daring to ask any more questions, Lin Yi hurried toward a curtain at the back of the office.

At the rear of this cramped office, between the desk and the bookcase, was a partition screened off by a curtain. Lin Yi had been unable to tell what lay behind it while surveying the room.

But since Tian Bufan and the others who had entered earlier had not left through the front door, presumably they had left that way.

Yet as Lin Yi approached the partition, the female teacher stopped him. "The door is over there."

The female teacher pointed at the office door.

Lin Yi froze. "Over there? Then what about the people who came in just before me?"

"People who came in before you?" The female teacher rubbed her scalp and thought carefully before saying, "Someone named Wei Liang did come in a little before you, but he's already left."

"I only opened the door for you after he left. Didn't you see him?"

"It's normal if you didn't. He should already be in the classroom..."

Lin Yi's heart tightened as he listened.

Only Wei Liang came in? And he'd already left?

He suddenly remembered that when Wei Liang knocked, the voice behind the door had also been female. But when Tian Bufan and Wei Shan knocked, the voices had all been male.

Could the same door lead to different places?

Lin Yi felt that ever since he stepped onto the Campus, his understanding of the world had been subjected to all kinds of shocks and challenges.

The female teacher spoke. "Memorize your Student ID and copy it out once before you leave."

Lin Yi did as instructed. But while copying, he seized the moment when the female teacher turned away without paying attention, swiftly picking up a discarded paper ball from a corner and slipping it into his pocket.

For that one tiny movement, Lin Yi had employed every technique he had honed through years of cheating.

Fortunately, the female teacher really did not notice that he had stolen a paper ball.

"All right. Open the door and leave now. Once you're outside, don't close the door yet. Check the first classroom on your right. If it matches the classroom designation on your Student ID, go inside."

"If it doesn't, come back, close the door, and go out again."

Lin Yi's heart lurched. Even the classrooms can change locations?!

But he said nothing more, merely nodding and preparing to follow her instructions.

"Wait." The female teacher stopped Lin Yi again.

Lin Yi turned back in confusion.

The female teacher asked, "What time is it?"

Only then did Lin Yi understand. When he reached for the door handle, his sleeve had exposed his watch, and the female teacher had seen it.

He lowered his head to glance at his watch, then said, "Seven thir-"

"The clock on the wall is broken."

Lin Yi gave an awkward smile. "Eight oh five."

The female teacher waved a hand. "Off you go."

Lin Yi hurriedly pushed the door open...

Outside, everything looked exactly as it had before, but where the stairwell had been, there was now a classroom entrance.

The classroom door was closed. Its sign read: Group B Class 2.

Looks like this is right.

He turned and closed the office door.

Clang!

As the door closed, Lin Yi experienced the same feeling he had when Mao Feiyang closed the stairwell door.

That feeling of the world being cut off.

It seemed that even if he knocked again now, even if he could open the door, what lay behind it would no longer be the female teacher's office.

This was far too strange.

Inside the office.

After Lin Yi left, the female teacher very visibly let out a long breath of relief.

Then she lowered her eyelids and murmured, "Eight oh five?"

She looked at the clock on the wall. Its formerly motionless pendulum was now swinging with perfect regularity. The time on its face was precisely-

Eight oh five.

Confusion appeared in the female teacher's eyes.

She rubbed her eyes. The clock face returned to a motionless seven thirty-nine.

She closed her eyes, then opened them again...

Eight oh five, ticking.

Then a motionless seven thirty-nine again... eight oh five, ticking...

"Oh no! Oh no!"

Terror appeared in the female teacher's eyes. She rushed to her desk, pulled open the drawer, and looked inside.

The blue envelope lay in the drawer alongside the jumbled documents.

The female teacher let out a long sigh of relief and slumped into her chair.

"Phew-"

"Thank goodness, thank goodness..."

The evening breeze swept over Lin Yi. Something occurred to him, making him shudder.

And this made Lin Yi even more certain that Tian Bufan and the others had entered an entirely different office!

I spent over ten minutes in the office before coming out, but Young Master Tian and the others knocked and went in only half a minute apart!

Just as he thought of this, he felt someone watching him. Following that feeling, he turned and saw a thin figure in the Corridor not far away.

The figure simply stood in the shadows beyond the reach of the Corridor lights, staring straight at him. There was no telling when they might rush over and lunge at him.

Goosebumps rose along Lin Yi's arms. He hurriedly pushed open the door to Group B Class 2 and entered.

The moment he entered the classroom, someone called out to him.

"Lin!"

Lin Yi's eyes lit up. Looking toward the voice, he saw Wei Liang sitting in the classroom and waving at him, his face brimming with excitement. It looked rather like someone encountering a powerful backer in a foreign land.

"Come on, come sit here!" Wei Liang called excitedly.

Gazes converged on Lin Yi from all over the classroom. He gave them a quick glance, then went over to Wei Liang.

This was a huge Circular Lecture Hall of the kind commonly used for university lectures. A professor or teacher would teach from the semicircular platform at its center, while the students sat listening in seats arranged in rings around it, like an ancient Greek opera stage.

With his mind full of questions, Lin Yi ignored the other students' stares and walked straight to Wei Liang. He lowered the folding seat and plopped down.

"Lin, where's your Student ID?" Wei Liang asked as soon as Lin Yi sat down.