Entering the Slaughter State

The fat man looked puzzled. "Understand what?"

Lin Yang stepped forward and slapped him hard across the face.

"This isn't Werewolf, you idiot! If you die, you don't get a second game! If you're going to kill someone just because you suspect them, then everyone will die! And you'll be the next one!"

The fat man clutched his face, stunned. "I..."

Lin Yang turned, sweeping his gaze over the crowd, and continued.

"I'm not a seer. I'm here to teach you that lesson! Anyone who kills on impulse will only reap what they sow. Understand?"

Lin Yang wanted to get rid of the fat man, an unstable element.

But if he used his identity as a "seer" as a reason to kill, then anyone could use the same excuse to kill someone else in the future. Order would break down completely.

That chaotic fighting pit wasn't what he wanted.

Everyone froze for a couple of seconds at his words. They looked at one another, and it suddenly dawned on them.

Some of them flushed. Even the fat man lowered his head.

"I get it now... If we go by 'better to kill an innocent than let one go,' couldn't anyone just kill whoever they wanted? Forget the Facelings... we'd end up killing each other."

"That's right. We can't just kill people recklessly. We'd be falling right into the Facelings' trap!"

The way everyone looked at Lin Yang changed. Rather than being angry that he'd lied, they were glad he'd taught them this lesson.

The young man said, "Either way, there's one thing we can be sure of now."

"What?"

He pointed at Lin Yang.

"This friend of ours definitely isn't a Faceling! Facelings would do everything they could to cause chaos and kill people. They'd never think as far ahead as he did."

Everyone nodded at that. "That's right! He may not be a seer, but he definitely isn't a Faceling either!"

The fat man stood there in a daze, the utility knife in his hand clattering to the floor. His face burned from the slap.

But deep inside, the suffocating grip of fear loosened at Lin Yang's words.

"Then... then that means I'm not a Faceling either. I'm not!"

Someone immediately shot back, "Who knows whether you're a Faceling or not?"

"Then... I can teach you all a lesson too!"

"Get lost!"

"..."

Everyone bickered noisily, but said nothing more about it.

Lin Yang walked up to the short man, bent down, and held out a hand.

The short man stared at him blankly, tears still pooled in his eyes. His lips trembled for a long time before he finally managed to squeeze out a few words.

"Th... thank you."

Lin Yang pulled him up. "We're all just trying to stay alive. If you'd died, we wouldn't have been far behind."

The man breathed a sigh of relief at having survived, then said,

"I'm Chen Yu. By the way... are you really a seer?"

Lin Yang shook his head.

"Of course not. If I were a seer, I would have said so on the first day."

Chen Yu nodded at that.

And behind Lin Yang, where he was unlikely to notice, a figure's sharp gaze gradually turned calm and regretful.

Lin Yang understood that if his identity as a seer were exposed, he would only die faster. Zhang Lei was an example.

So he would keep it well hidden. He would find and kill those Facelings through other means.

Lin Yang turned to head back to the storage room.

But while he was away, several people had crowded inside. It had been taken over.

Lin Yang frowned at them. "Get out."

The people exchanged glances, then protested.

"Why should we? You're not a seer."

"Yeah, you stopped us from fighting, but that doesn't mean this place is yours!"

Lin Yang looked at them coldly. "Get out. I found this room first."

Their leader, a muscular man about 1.8 meters tall, said dismissively,

"What if I don't? What, ever heard of survival of the fittest? You tell me not to leave, and I won't leave? Come on, worst case, we fight it out."

Lin Yang looked at him without a word, then silently turned and left.

The refrigerator key was on him, and the spot was well hidden. His food wouldn't be found.

He had a way to deal with the idiots in the storage room, but it would come at a cost.

For now, he would let the bullets fly a little longer.

He turned, fetched a stool, and sat outside the classroom, looking around.

The two corpses had been dumped carelessly in a corner, making everyone deeply uncomfortable.

The air was thick with the rusty smell of blood, the sweat of more than thirty people crowded together, and an indescribable stench of decay drifting faintly from some corner.

He stood at the front of the classroom, his back against the edge of the lectern, his gaze sweeping over everyone present.

Some had their heads lowered, some huddled in corners with their knees pulled to their chests, and one person was drinking water. It was half a bottle of mineral water they'd found in a desk drawer.

There was no telling how long it had been there. The person drank carefully, as though drinking the last drop of life itself.

His gaze moved to a young woman standing nearby.

She looked about twenty-two or twenty-three, not particularly tall, with delicate, pretty features.

She wore a dark blue outdoor jacket, her long hair tied in a low ponytail. Her face was expressionless, and she leaned against the back wall with her arms crossed.

She had been watching this way the whole time, scrutinizing them. The way she looked at Lin Yang was like she was examining a case file.

She was someone he knew too, the girl he'd had a crush on in high school. She had later been admitted to a top 985 university without taking the entrance exam to study forensic medicine.

But by now, those little feelings had long since vanished.

Time crawled by.

The sun moved from the east to overhead. Sunlight poured through the windows, changing from a cold white to a dazzling gold.

Noon arrived.

The classroom began to heat up. The stuffy air, tinged with the smell of blood, grew thick and sticky, like an invisible film clinging to their skin.

Some people were reaching their limit.

"I'm hungry! I'm so hungry!"

A man leaned against a corner, his lips dry and peeling, his eye sockets sunken. His voice sounded as though it were being squeezed out of his throat.

"Is there anything to eat? Does anyone have food?"

No one answered him.

They had gone hungry all day yesterday and all morning today. Everyone's stomach was cramping.

There was no food, no water, and even their saliva had turned sticky.

A young woman crouched on the floor, curled up in a ball. "How much longer until we can leave...? I'm so hungry."

"Maybe... soon. It should be... Don't worry, there'll definitely be a chance. Someone will come and save us..."

Her companion patted her back, but as she did, she clutched her own stomach, her comforting expression turning to one of pain.

She didn't know whether anyone would actually come to save them either...

Someone in a corner was gnawing on their fingernails.

When you were hungry enough, even the tiny bits of dead skin under your nails seemed edible.

"Fuck! I'm getting out of here." A middle-aged man stood up, walked to the classroom door, and kicked it!

The iron door didn't budge. He kicked it again, and the metal gave a dull echo.

"Stop fucking kicking it," someone said weakly. "More than a dozen people took turns trying to smash it open yesterday and couldn't. You think you can kick it open by yourself?"

On the middle-aged man's third kick, his leg gave out. He slid down the door and slumped onto the floor, his eyes red.

"Fuck... fuck... What did we do wrong? Why did they throw us in here?"

No one could answer that question.

The fat man, the one who had held up a utility knife and tried to kill Chen Yu yesterday, had lost his energy too.

He sat on a desk, the flesh of his belly bunched together, one hand pressed over his stomach. "Goddamn it! If I find out who brought me here, I'll chop them to pieces!"

He looked down at the two corpses, counting the livor mortis marks on their bodies.

The smell of the two corpses seemed to have seeped into the walls and wouldn't go away, no matter what. It made people want to throw up.

"What are we going to do...?" someone began to cry, holding it back, as though afraid of disturbing the others.

But in the classroom, so quiet that only breathing could be heard, the crying scraped against everyone's eardrums like a knife.

Suddenly, the young man in the hoodie fixed his gaze on Lin Yang.

"Hey, friend! Think of something, will you? Right now, you're the best one here at making decisions!"

More and more people turned to look at Lin Yang.

"Yeah, we're so hungry. If this keeps up, we'll starve to death!"

He had resolved one bout of infighting, so he was the only one with a little authority now!

The way these people looked at him was like a desperate flock of sheep seeing hope of salvation.

But Lin Yang was no saint. His storage room had been taken over, and he was in no mood to save them.

Just as he was about to say something,

The loudspeaker sounded.

That male voice, like Belial's, rang out again, echoing through the empty classroom.

"A friendly reminder: if the number of Facelings exceeds the number of survivors, the Facelings will no longer disguise themselves and will enter the slaughter state. At that point, everyone will die."