Arc 4Chapters 77–101
No recap yet.
No recap yet.
Tian Bufan explained to Lin Yi how the campus’s descending layers overwrite cognition and why students with high inspiration must understand the rules behind their fluctuations. He then distinguished ordinary mountain fog from fog seeping in from another layer and began discussing how to leave campus.
Tian Bufan explained why the Student Rules might not offer a safe way to leave the Campus and warned Lin Yi to avoid the University Gate until they understood the Campus’s layers. They then discussed the Art Students, whose different appearances and colors marked different kinds of contamination, but the most dangerous group remained unexplained.
Lin Yi learned how Tian Bufan had gathered information about the Campus’s layers, identities, and pathways, then compared what Tian Bufan witnessed during the classroom battle with his own encounter with a sculpture. Tian Bufan deduced that mobile sculptures were abnormal units housed in the Art Building who invaded other buildings when the Campus’s layers fluctuated.
Tian Bufan explained how abnormal students and sculptures might form a reversible transformation pathway, while Lin Yi realized his own cognition had been overwritten. After Tian Bufan spotted an inhuman figure outside the window, he and Lin Yi continued investigating the Campus’s layers and the effects of light, ending as Lin Yi began discussing the streetlamp pole.
Lin Yi and Tian Bufan compared their theories about how streetlamps and buildings changed when the campus layer dropped, while debating whether another world existed beneath the campus. They ended by noting that the Teaching Building might conceal additional floors and that its forbidden elevators could reveal its secrets.
Lin Yi and Tian Bufan discussed how the Teaching Building’s shifting layers, the Teachers’ Office, and its stairwell worked, including the mystery of Mao Feiyang’s disappearance. They then began analyzing the Cafeteria’s passages and what its rules implied about the different beings on Campus.
Lin Yi and Tian Bufan compared their deductions about the Cafeteria’s passages, staff, and meal windows, concluding that abnormal chefs may emerge through a dangerous transformation process. Tian Bufan warned that Lin Yi’s encounter with a Green Apron Chef inside the Gymnasium meant it might no longer be safe, and the chapter ended with Lin Yi wondering whether Meal Window No. 10 was the Convenience Store.
Lin Yi and Tian Bufan reviewed the Campus’s dangers and theorized about the nonexistent road, the other world, and supernatural relics. Their discussion ended with Lin Yi wondering whether the book Tian Bufan had read really existed, as midnight approached.
Lin Yi uncovered signs that his memories and reasons for coming to Campus may have been manipulated, then went to sleep as the Dormitory lights went out. He woke in a memoryless vision of a classroom under attack, where a pure-white Sculpture entered and Nonhuman Classmates filled the Wooded Belt outside.
Lin Yi was pulled through visions of Tian Bufan and Wei Shan, experiencing their terrifying encounters and fighting with Wei Shan’s apparent strength before the dreamlike world shifted again. The chapter left him bodiless in dense fog, wondering whose perspective he would enter next.
Lin Yi dreamed that he watched the previous day’s events from an unseen, omniscient perspective, including the Green Apron Chef contaminating Mao Feiyang and spreading its powder to the group. He followed his former self into the Teaching Building, left wondering why Wei Shan, the Security Guard, and Kuai Hongji seemed able to sense things beyond the dream.
Lin Yi relived Mao Feiyang’s experiences after they separated, witnessing Mao Feiyang flee the Teachers’ Office when it became a black vortex and climb the Stairwell in search of the sculpture. The staircase transformed into a flooded stone passage lit by kerosene lamps, leaving Mao Feiyang inside an increasingly distorted space.
Lin Yi followed Mao Feiyang through the Stairwell as Mao escaped into a room numbered 2820, which Lin Yi recognized as a Dormitory room. Lin Yi suspected the Teaching Building and Dormitory Building were connected through shifting Layers, then realized Mao’s Contamination was reaching him and the others as Mao’s distress began to affect his perception.
Lin Yi experienced Mao Feiyang’s terrifying passage through the Dormitory Building, where the corridor shifted into a fog-covered, mossy landscape that seemed connected to the ocean cliff. As strange sounds and a vision of an ancient ritual overwhelmed Mao Feiyang, Lin Yi was forced to share his terror and pain.
Lin Yi witnessed the Dorm Supervisor rescue Mao Feiyang from the fog and escort him through the dormitories while conducting his rounds. After entering the elevator, the Dorm Supervisor pressed the covered “↑” button, and the elevator began accelerating upward.
Lin Yi and Mao Feiyang followed the Dorm Supervisor through the dangerous Art Building with their eyes closed and reached an office, where Mao Feiyang registered as an Experience Student. The Art Teacher gave Mao Feiyang two rulebooks to study, and the chapter left him staring at the Art Building Rules’ unsettling opening admonition.
Lin Yi and Mao Feiyang memorized the Art Building Rules, which explained the Castle, its protective light, and the different kinds of sculptures. The rules’ warning about Angel Sculptures led Lin Yi to recognize the Night Watchman from his visions and conclude that the Art Building occupied a different Layer.
Lin Yi and Mao Feiyang learned the Art Student Rules, which explained the protections and dangers facing Art Students on the Art Journey. Mao Feiyang gave his Student Commemorative Coin to the Art Teacher for registration, and the teacher began writing his student record onto it.
Lin Yi examined the Art Student Rules while Mao Feiyang recited them, reasoning about the Art Students’ place among the campus factions and the routes between layers. While picturing a bizarre geometric structure linking the buildings, Lin Yi nearly succumbed to a cognition-altering vision, but the Art Teacher pulled Mao Feiyang out of it and warned him to stop when darkness approached.
Lin Yi analyzed the Art Student Rules and suspected the Art Teacher could help Art Students become Experience Students, while Mao Feiyang finished memorizing the rules and left the office. Mao Feiyang reached the Art Building’s castle grounds under the Art Teacher’s light, unaware that the bridge’s candlelight might no longer protect him.
Lin Yi watched Mao Feiyang cross the ancient bridge and enter the Art Building, where candlelight kept hostile creatures at bay and the hall’s sculptures moved whenever Mao turned away. Mao resisted questioning the moving sculptures and found a signpost by the oak tree, leaving him to choose his next route.
Mao Feiyang entered Art Classroom IV while an eerie female teacher and Student Cadres waited outside, and Lin Yi realized the Art Building was saturated with contaminants he could now perceive. Lin Yi suspected his growing exposure might be attracting nonhuman entities, while Mao Feiyang remained inside the classroom.
Lin Yi deduced that directly perceiving Nonhuman Classmates caused contamination, which let them sense him, and he saw the Sailor Uniform Girl and her companions enter the Art Classroom as contamination emitters. The Art Teacher forced her way inside after the Sailor Uniform Girl invited her, then demanded the young man be handed over as an Art Student prepared to resist.
Lin Yi and the Art Students survived the eerie Art Teacher’s invasion when the Night Watchman rang the Clock Tower’s bell, then Lin Yi discovered the Art Classroom’s strange contamination and reconsidered how Wei Liang had escaped the Campus. The chapter left Lin Yi wondering whether Wei Liang had reached the Art Building through the Dorm Supervisor’s Office and found a way out.
While reviewing Mao Feiyang's experiences in a dream, Lin Yi discovered that Student Commemorative Coins drew contamination into Art Students and that Mao Feiyang shared it with four others. Mu Daxian befriended Mao Feiyang, hinted that becoming an Art Student could be reversed, and began introducing him to the classroom's supplies.