Chapter 2
Chapter 2
Lin Yinxi had no way to explain.
Clutching the corpse’s leg, she hurried to the dorm room door, then fixed the people gathered inside with a determined gaze. “Trust me, and you’ll live.”
The leg was cold and heavy. With the skin peeled off, Lin Yinxi had to dig her fingers hard into the flesh to keep her grip from sliding.
The words had barely left her mouth.
Even Lin Yinxi thought they sounded a little ridiculous.
But she had no time to think about anything else.
“Ahhh, that’s so embarrassing!”
“We’re done for! A parasite got into Yinxi’s brain, and now she’s talking nonsense!”
“She’s holding a corpse’s thigh! She’s going to eat the thigh meat raw! She’s not human!”
Panic boiled like a pan of hot oil.
Lin Yinxi’s temples throbbed.
Explaining would only waste time.
And right now, time was worth more than life itself.
Forget it. She was going to drag the corpse out herself.
“I’ll help! Yinxi, for letting me copy your answers in that exam back then, I’ll believe you’re human!” Deng Miao called to her upperclasswoman.
Deng Miao suddenly rushed out.
She grabbed the corpse on the bed.
Her hands visibly shook when she first touched it, but she planted her feet wide, drove up through her thighs, and gritted her teeth as she hoisted it onto her shoulder.
“Bring the body. Follow me.” Lin Yinxi wasted no words. She quickly led her out of Room 501 and put the corpse by the emergency exit.
Huffing and puffing, Deng Miao piled her corpse there too.
They cleared three dorm rooms in a row.
Lin Yinxi was really starting to run out of strength.
Acid rose in Deng Miao’s stomach. She wanted to go outside and throw up, but she gritted her teeth and swallowed it back down.
All these bodies had been flayed.
“Urgh… Yinxi, are you trying to block the emergency exit door with the corpses? That way, if the monsters come up through it, they’ll crouch here eating the bodies and buy everyone time to escape?”
Fear and excitement filled Deng Miao’s head. She spoke at breakneck speed, her adrenaline soaring.
“No.” Lin Yinxi was simply short on time and had grabbed someone to help with the heavy lifting.
She was busy checking which dorm room doors on this floor were open.
“I’ve got it!”
Lin Yinxi was counting the fifth-floor keys in her hand. She looked up. “Got what?”
Deng Miao looked awestruck.
“Yinxi, you knew there were still survivors on this floor, didn’t you? You came up here especially to save us, and they actually questioned your intentions. That’s outrageous!”
Lin Yinxi: “?”
The more Deng Miao talked, the more excited she grew.
She pointed to the pile of corpses by the emergency exit.
“And these bodies!”
“Before you came up, you must have planned to pile them here and use their smell and the scent of blood to confuse the monsters’ sense of smell!”
Lin Yinxi fell silent for a moment.
Deng Miao’s eyes grew brighter and brighter.
“And you only asked me to help!”
“Had you already realized that I was the best at handling pressure and could work with you?”
Lin Yinxi: “…”
The more Deng Miao thought about it, the more sense it made.
“Yes! That must be it!”
“When you said, ‘Trust me, and you’ll live,’ you were actually giving everyone one last choice! Anyone willing to trust you would have a chance to survive!”
Lin Yinxi could not help rubbing her temples. She felt she really ought to explain.
Just then.
Her phone vibrated.
A group message popped up.
[New notification]
[Rabbit Keeper: Survivors are suspected in Room 501. Flayer 002, go upstairs and inspect it now.]
Lin Yinxi’s pupils contracted. The Flayers would act according to their work assignments.
She looked up at Deng Miao.
“We’re going to Room 504 now.”
“Wh… Hey, hey, hey… Yinxi, my shoe fell off…”
Lin Yinxi pulled Deng Miao into Room 504 to hide.
Room 504 was closest to the emergency exit. They could also climb through its outward-facing window and cross the air-conditioning ledge all the way to Room 507.
Room 507 was at the very end of the floor. After leaving through its door, they could climb out of the corridor’s shared window. There was a water pipe outside it, which they could slide down to get out of the women’s dormitory.
A place to hide, with a way out.
Deng Miao followed Lin Yinxi, her heart racing.
Room 504 was a massacre scene. Looking at the scattered corpses, Deng Miao asked, “Yinxi, do we have to be this efficient? Can we take a little break? You’re so exhausted, your face has gone an awful color.”
Lin Yinxi seized Deng Miao’s wrist. “Don’t talk. The Flayer’s coming up!”
Now fear drained the color from Deng Miao’s face too.
Lin Yinxi’s hand was still slick with fresh blood.
The thick reek of blood had temporarily numbed their sense of smell.
Deng Miao did not recoil. Instead, she covered the back of Lin Yinxi’s hand with her own and held it tight, her heart practically leaping into her throat.
Screams came from Room 501.
Deng Miao shuddered at the thought of how close she had come. If she had not left just now, she would be the one screaming.
The door to Room 504 had been damaged. Though it was closed, a huge hole had been smashed through the middle, so anyone outside could see straight in.
The screaming and frantic footsteps gradually faded.
Lin Yinxi’s phone received a private message from [Rabbit Keeper].
[Rabbit Keeper: Organizer, the workload on the fifth floor has increased. Three new corpses have appeared. Overtime pay for the additional work will be settled after dawn.]
Lin Yinxi replied with one of the system’s built-in stickers.
All her stickers were cute rabbit heads.
Pretty tacky ones.
She chose a nodding rabbit.
But once she sent it, the rabbit nodded, conjured a rose, and gave a flirtatious wink.
Shit.
In the still image, it looked like a perfectly respectable rabbit.
Once it moved, it became a nightclub rabbit.
She hurried to unsend it.
But there was no unsend option.
The other end fell deathly silent.
It was fine.
Lin Yinxi reassured herself that sending a rose counted as good manners. When she messaged an elderly professor before, the professor had liked replying with this sort of thing too.
Deng Miao could not understand what Lin Yinxi was doing.
To Deng Miao, Lin Yinxi’s phone screen was black. It was not even switched on, yet the expression on her face kept changing.
Deng Miao dared not make a sound, for fear of disturbing Lin Yinxi’s thoughts.
She figured that her upperclasswoman’s research paper was titled “If a Pig Becomes Human and Wants to Eat Pork, Is That an Ethical Problem or a Horror Story?” Yinxi was so brilliant and talented. She must know what she was doing.
At last, the screams from Room 501 stopped completely.
Lin Yinxi received another group message.
[New notification]
[Rabbit Keeper: Organizer is currently working on the fifth floor.]
[Flayer 002 is to reinspect the fifth-floor dorm rooms.]
[Adjusted work procedure:
1. Knock before entering a dorm room.
2. If Organizer is working inside, Flayer 002 must not enter.
3. Organizer has social anxiety. Do not disturb her work.
4. Organizer must open the door to cooperate with inspections.
5. All departments, please look after our new employee.]
Only Rabbit Keeper could speak in this group.
As Lin Yinxi read the messages, she wondered why he was talking in the group instead of answering her private message. Had that sticker offended him?
Then.
A private message popped up.
Rabbit Keeper had sent a sticker too.
It showed a cute, green-eyed cartoon rabbit in a smart suit, staring wide-eyed with its lips pressed together. Then a blush spread over its face.
The corridor light outside flickered on and off.
Lin Yinxi took a deep breath and held it. Her muscles were already aching, but she hauled and dragged the corpses in Room 504 into a pile by the door.
Slow, heavy footsteps came from the corridor.
Deng Miao’s pupils widened instantly. Her entire body froze.
A second later.
Knock, knock, knock…
She heard the Flayer begin knocking on the doors, one by one.