The School Gates Opened
It was a large box, sitting in the middle of the first-floor lobby!
The box was made of yellow, high-grade synthetic rubber and measured roughly one cubic meter. It had the letters "KI" on its surface, no lock, no markings, and only a single hinge.
The strangest thing was where it stood. There had been nothing there before.
"When did this thing show up?" Fatty walked around the box and knocked twice on its side with a table leg.
The box gave a hollow thud. "It wasn't here when I came through just now."
The loudspeaker came on.
"You are the only group of survivors left alive. Congratulations. This is the reward you deserve."
Lin Yang crouched down and opened the lid.
The box was neatly packed with supplies.
Chicken legs in sealed bags, vacuum-packed beef, sliced bread, cartons of milk, bottled mineral water, several cans of luncheon meat, and two unopened packets of biscuits.
A layer of dry ice lined the bottom of the box. Cold air spilled through the gaps, washing over their faces with an almost unreal chill!
Fatty was the first to reach in. He pulled out a bag of chicken legs, held it over his head, and examined it again and again against the gray daylight, as though appraising an antique!
"Sealed! Vacuum-packed! Made by a legitimate food factory! There's a production date..." He turned the bag over.
"The production date... 1958??"
"Is it safe to eat?" Shen Yue stood beside him, still holding the enamel cup in her hands, her eyes fixed on the chicken legs.
"It's safe." Jiang Yu'an took the chicken legs, tore open the packaging, and smelled them.
"There's no strange odor, and the seal was intact. If the people behind this wanted to poison us with food, they wouldn't have needed to wait this long."
"Exactly," Fatty chimed in.
"If they wanted us dead, they could've killed us ages ago. Why go to all that trouble? Facelings, tentacles, loudspeaker announcements, and then finish it all off with a box of poisoned chicken legs? That'd be way too boring."
"Let's eat," Lin Yang said.
Those words were like a gate opening.
Fatty handed out the chicken legs. Shen Yue received one, and a trace of worry flashed in her eyes. She looked at Lin Yang. "Brother Lin, my brother..."
Lin Yang patted her shoulder. "Your brother might not be in this world. He might be waiting for you in the real world. The one who died was a Faceling, not your brother."
Shen Yue nodded and finally breathed a sigh of relief.
That night, everyone gathered in the classroom.
The fire was blazing again, and Fatty arranged the beef and chicken legs on a wire rack to heat them.
As the meat from the sealed bags heated up, its fat sizzled. The aromas of seared meat and grease mingled, completely covering the strange smell of rotten eggs and decaying flesh in the classroom.
Someone had found several cans of cola in the box. The cans were covered in English, and they were so cold they made their palms go numb!
When Chen Yu handed a cola to Lin Yang, he said, "Brother Lin Yang, this one's for you." His tone wasn't ingratiating; the words came from the heart.
Lin Yang took the cola and pulled the tab. Bubbles burst at the opening.
He took a sip. It was so sweet! Sickeningly sweet, sweet enough to make his teeth ache, but it was the first sweet thing he'd tasted since transmigrating to this godforsaken place!
He leaned against the wall, set the can on his knee, and looked at the faces illuminated by the fire.
Those faces were finally different from how they'd been a few days ago. Back then, they had been full of fear, doubt, and mutual suspicion. Now they were relaxed, well fed, and warm.
Jiang Yu'an sat down beside him, also holding a can of cola.
Her hair fell loose over her shoulders, gleaming a little dark brown in the firelight.
She said nothing, just sat there drinking her cola, a shoulder's width away from Lin Yang.
"What kind of work did you do in the real world?" she suddenly asked. Her voice was quiet, just loud enough for Lin Yang alone to hear.
"I stayed at home."
Jiang Yu'an turned to look at him, a puzzled expression on her face.
"With your intelligence, you led everyone to safety, yet you couldn't find a job?"
Lin Yang smiled and shook his head. "I had no connections, and I wasn't good with words. All I could do was deliver takeout."
Jiang Yu'an's lips twitched. She felt a little sad too.
"If we make it out alive, you can come work at my company," she said.
"A forensic company?"
"No. An appraisal firm. It would be a shame to waste your powers of observation."
Lin Yang nodded.
He finished his cola and set the empty can on the floor, its aluminum surface glinting in the firelight. "I hope so."
Everyone slept well that night. The fire didn't go out until the latter half of the night. No one screamed, no one convulsed, and no one woke with a start in the middle of the night.
Fatty's snores came from the corner. Chen Yu found them noisy and covered his head with his coat. Shen Yue fell asleep against Jiang Yu'an's shoulder, still clutching the enamel cup.
Early the next morning, when daylight shone into the classroom, someone shouted.
"The gate's open!"
"The school gates are open!"
The iron gates had always been shut tight. Outside lay fog, grass, and those eerie tentacles. No one had dared go near them.
Now the iron gates had slid open to either side on their own, as though silently inviting them out.
A tin mailbox hung on the gate frame, with a stack of stiff cards inside.
Lin Yang walked over and took one out. He looked at the writing on the cover.
"A graduation certificate?"
It bore blurry writing and a photograph taken at some unknown time. He was the person in the photo, but the background was blank.
He wore a smile he had never shown in this world. A line was printed beneath it.
"With this certificate, you may be able to obtain a high-paying job elsewhere."
"What does that mean?"
"A high-paying job? Can we go back?"
"Graduation certificates! Have we graduated?"
Everyone received their own certificate.
Some held their certificates against their chests, some studied their photos over and over, and some asked, "When was this photo taken?"
Fatty held his graduation certificate beside his face and asked Shen Yue to see whether the photo looked like him.
Liu Jialiang rolled his eyes at him. "Be a little more careful. This thing's so weird. Aren't you afraid it'll suck your soul out?"
Fatty was so frightened that he immediately threw the certificate aside.
"Can we go out?" Shen Yue asked.
She stood three meters from the gates, clutching her graduation certificate. Her voice was soft, as though she feared that asking would make the gates close again.
"Will that tentacle monster come back?"
Lin Yang glanced at the grass outside the gates.
No tentacles reached toward them. The white fog was still there, and a stretch of gray-green grass extended into the distance. The outline of something could faintly be seen far away, but it was obscured by a thin layer of mist.
"They've even given us graduation certificates. It probably means they want us to leave."
But no one was sure. They didn't dare step through the school gates.
Except for the two men from Yanbian.
They stood in front of the gates.
The taller one patted the shorter one on the shoulder. The shorter one slid his hunting knife back into the leather sheath on the outside of his lower leg and straightened up.
The tall Yanbian man turned and grinned at the others. In an accent with the distinctive flattened retroflex sounds of northern Yanbian, he said a few words.
"You skinny fellas, let's go together!"
Then he stepped through the school gates.
The moment his body crossed the gate frame, he disappeared.
He vanished in an instant, as though something had swallowed him whole!
The shorter Yanbian man looked back at Lin Yang, then followed him out. "Aish, if we don't leave, what the hell are we staying here for?"
He vanished instantly too!
"Where'd they go?!" Fatty's voice cracked. He rushed to the gates, braced his hands against the frame, and stuck his head out.
There was nothing outside the gates but the gray-green grass, the mist in the distance, and deathly silence.