The Strange Yellow Room

The fat man reached over, grabbed the boy by the back of his collar, and lifted him clean off the ground.

"Fuck! Didn't anyone teach you any manners, you little brat?"

The boy's feet left the floor, and he kicked wildly in the air, still cursing.

The fat man slammed the iron pipe in his hand against the carpet with a muffled thud and threatened him.

"Make another sound and I'll beat you to death!"

There was no law here now, and no one was in charge. Dealing with a brat like this came naturally to him!

The boy's mouth hung open, his curses stuck in his throat!

The fat old woman screamed, rushed over, and snatched the boy back.

"You fat bastard! What's the meaning of this? He's just a child! How dare you scare him like that! Are you even human?"

"You!" The fat man pointed at her through gritted teeth. "Have you no shame, you damned old hag? He was the one who started cursing!"

The middle-aged woman began making a scene. "Oh, somebody come look! We're being bullied! A grown man bullying a little child! Is there no justice left in the world?"

His voice was shrill, loud enough to make everyone's ears ache!

Just as everyone was starting to feel helpless...

A sharp slap rang out!

Lin Yang slapped her hard across the face.

The middle-aged woman froze. She clutched her cheek in disbelief. "You! You dared hit me?!"

Lin Yang pulled out a dagger and pointed it at her face. "I'm telling you, get lost! Or I'll kill you! Get lost!"

Lin Yang let out a shout!

The woman was so frightened that she collapsed onto her backside. Looking at the gleaming dagger and those murderous eyes, she felt as though it might plunge into her neck at any moment!

She immediately grabbed her grandson and huddled with him in a corner of the hallway.

The fat old woman no longer dared to curse. She merely muttered under her breath, "Oh, murder!" and "We've been kidnapped!" and things like that.

The boy buried his face in her floral shirt, his shoulders shaking, but at last he stopped crying!

That felt good.

A cold look flickered across the faces of the fat man and the others. "Hmph, that's how you deal with an old hag like her!"

Lin Yang looked away and turned to another group nearby.

There were about a dozen of them, men and women ranging from their early twenties to their forties.

They all wore the same expressions of confusion and curiosity, still not understanding what was going on.

Though Lin Yang's group had been making a commotion, their attention remained on their surroundings.

Someone crouched down to feel the texture of the beige carpet. "This carpet is so old."

Someone else tilted their head back to examine the incandescent light bulbs on the ceiling.

"They made it look old on purpose, right? It's a variety show set."

"Is this an escape room?"

"That NPC's acting was really good! He even pulled a knife to scare a kid!"

"Where are we?" a man in a plaid shirt asked loudly. "How did we get here?"

"We transmigrated, right? Isn't this transmigration?"

A skinny man wearing glasses rubbed his hands together excitedly.

"I've read tons of transmigration novels. I know this kind of opening so well!"

"It's so dirty here," a well-dressed young woman said, covering her nose and nudging the edge of the carpet with her toe. "How do we get out? I want to go back."

"The broadcast mentioned 'Facelings.' What's a Faceling?" someone asked.

"Fake. A hoax," someone answered confidently. "How could Facelings exist? You've been watching too many movies. It's just a gimmick from the show's producers."

A young man with dyed yellow hair leaned against the wall, a tattoo of some unrecognizable animal on his arm and a crooked, mocking smile on his lips.

His gaze passed over the people talking and landed on the nine people standing neatly in Lin Yang's group. He chuckled.

"Look over there. Those people are even standing in a row. Are they really that scared? You can tell they're extras the producers hired to scare us!"

The fat man froze when he heard that. He turned to glance at the yellow-haired man, a complicated expression on his face, a kind of speechlessness he couldn't quite put into words.

He remembered saying the same things in the classroom on his first day, speaking the loudest, shouting that it was all a variety show and that he sure as hell wasn't buying it!

Now, hearing the yellow-haired man say the same things was like looking in a mirror and seeing himself from over half a month ago.

"Idiot." The fat man didn't speak loudly, but every word landed on the carpet like a stone.

"This isn't some livestream studio. This is the world of Facelings. People die here!"

At that, everyone in the yellow-haired man's group laughed.

They genuinely found it funny. The yellow-haired man laughed the loudest, slapping his thigh, tears almost coming out of his eyes.

"Oh, man, the world of Facelings? You're really committed to the act! How much do you make a day? I'll do it too!"

The fat man tightened his grip on the table leg until his knuckles went white. He took a step forward, but Lin Yang reached out and stopped him.

"Forget it, fatty," Lin Yang said calmly. "Respect other people's fates."

"These guys are most likely newbies who just transmigrated here and haven't been baptized by the Facelings."

The fat man glanced at Lin Yang, then lowered the table leg, snorted, and turned back.

He remembered what Lin Yang had taught him: some people would only believe death was real when they saw it with their own eyes!

"Brother Lin," the fat man asked in a low voice as he came over to Lin Yang's side, "what do we do next?"

Lin Yang didn't answer right away. He looked around, his gaze sweeping over the yellow hallway. Incandescent bulbs lined the ceiling along the hallway, providing much brighter light than the classroom at the Faceling school, leaving almost no large areas in shadow.

Though the walls were covered in signs of damp, the wallpaper was intact, with no peeling or cracks.

The hallway was narrow, but the view was unobstructed. They could see dozens of meters in either direction at a glance.

This environment was even less suited to the Facelings making a move than the Faceling school!

"It's brighter here than at the school," Lin Yang said.

"There's plenty of light, the view is open, and there aren't many blind spots where someone could hide. It won't be easy for a Faceling to kill someone alone in an environment like this.

"As long as we don't split up, they won't have many chances to strike."

He paused.

"But the broadcast said there are some strange guys here besides the Facelings. Those are what we should be worried about. Let's find the exit first!"

Everyone nodded.

The eight people began walking down the yellow hallway.

The beige carpet creaked faintly beneath their feet. An incandescent bulb hung overhead every few steps, brightly illuminating the hallway.

There were doors in the walls on both sides of the hallway. Some were ordinary wooden doors, some were rusty iron doors, and some were closed.

Some stood half-open, the same dim yellow light spilling out from within. Lin Yang didn't push open any of them. He didn't know whether there might be danger inside.

But they had barely gone a few steps when a scream rang out behind them!

"Aaaah!! There's a dead body!!"

"Murder!! Murder!"