Chapter 5
Chapter 5
Lin Yinxi stared at the iron box. Though her breathing was not quite steady yet, her eyes slowly brightened.
Every monster obeyed the work instructions [Rabbit Keeper] posted in the group.
That meant she could know all their movements in advance.
Using that, she could surely escape the women’s dormitory, find a signal outside, and tell the world that monsters had invaded this place!
Lin Yinxi licked her dry lips and slowly reached out. Rather than grasping the box directly, she pinched its edge between two fingers.
Little by little, she picked up the heavy iron box.
The moment she held it, the box warmed slightly.
At some point, a rabbit-head emblem had appeared on its surface.
It looked so much like the built-in rabbit sticker she often sent on her phone.
Before Lin Yinxi could examine it closely, Prop Maker suddenly turned his hand and caught the back of hers.
Her heart jolted. She instinctively tried to pull away, but the immensely strong monster held her fast.
His slippery hands enveloped hers, leaving the deeply unpleasant, sticky feel of pork against the back of her hand.
It was so revolting that her scalp prickled.
For an instant, Lin Yinxi thought he had discovered she was human.
But on further thought, she realized that was not it.
Stay calm.
The worse the situation, the more she needed to stay calm.
Lin Yinxi tried hard to remember.
The earlier group message had said:
[Prop Maker’s hands can touch and modify anything. Passing colleagues, please do not disturb his concentration.]
The monsters generally kept out of one another’s affairs.
Earlier, Rabbit Keeper had told the Flayers not to interrupt her work because [Organizer has social anxiety].
So why worry here that passing colleagues might distract Prop Maker from his work?
There had to be something to gain.
Lin Yinxi bit her lower lip lightly, leaving a faint white line. Then she simply relaxed and took the plunge, extending her hand so Prop Maker could feel his way upward from it.
A steel plate had struck her right hand before, severing the tendons in several fingers and leaving a scar. Even after rehabilitation, she had never been able to play the piano again.
Now, after his touch, her fingers actually reddened and warmed slightly. Then the old scar burned afresh, scabbed over, and fell away.
She flexed her fingers. They were more nimble than before.
Prop Maker had processed and improved her injured right hand too!
Then her phone vibrated. A new group message popped up with a new photograph.
It was actually a picture of them holding hands just now.
[New message]
[Rabbit Keeper: This muted group is for work notifications only. Do not post messages.]
[Rabbit Keeper: 200 Rabbit Coins deducted from Prop Maker’s wages.]
Prop Maker released Lin Yinxi immediately. Tall and thin, he crouched down, and his overly long hands hurriedly resumed dismantling corpses at a furious pace. For an instant, his strength slipped out of control. His nails scraped the concrete floor and left several long gouges.
The wage deduction had made him angry.
With his mouth sewn shut, he could not say so. All he could do was turn his anger into motivation to work.
Lin Yinxi held her breath and rose onto tiptoe. Her cold-sweat-soaked hand gripped the iron box tightly as she edged sideways over the piled corpses, passed through the emergency exit, and hurried downstairs.
Prop Maker whipped his head around and pressed one hand against the wall. It cracked downward, the fractures spreading onto the steps. Lin Yinxi quickly stepped over the cracked stairs and headed for the first floor.
Don’t take your wage deduction out on her!
She took two or three steps at a time. On the way, a private message arrived from [Rabbit Keeper].
[Rabbit Keeper: Are you a humanoid entity?]
Entity?
What did that mean?
She could not help pausing, but soon shook her head, afraid to dwell on it any longer. This was no time to think about that. She had to reach the first floor as quickly as possible and open the corridor window from inside.
[Rabbit Keeper] followed it with a group invitation link.
What was this? Lin Yinxi’s hand shook as she managed to tap the link and enter a large group called [Green-Eyed Rabbit Containment Center].
She frowned. A staggering number appeared in front of her. This group actually had thirty thousand members.
Messages raced across the screen like machine-gun fire. Lin Yinxi could not understand what they were saying, but it was clearly a chaotic group for idle chatter.
Most messages consisted of strange symbols, garbled writing, and bizarre voice recordings, occasionally interspersed with legible words… There were even unfamiliar identification numbers, which made her heart pound.
She had joined the group.
People kept tagging her.
Her phone kept vibrating.
Lin Yinxi chose a rabbit greeting sticker at random, then quickly changed the group’s notification setting to [Do Not Disturb].
[Women’s Dorm Building 1 Flayer Work Assignments]
[New message]
[Rabbit Keeper: An unidentified object has touched a shrine on the exterior wall. Flayer 003, inspect the exterior wall.]
Oh no!
The lightbulbs in the women’s dormitory’s first-floor corridor were shattered. Broken glass covered the floor and would crunch if anyone stepped on it.
The emergency exit’s green light flickered. Lin Yinxi followed the edge, carefully avoiding the glass, reached the window, released its latch, and pushed it open a crack.
Cold wind poured in.
The mist outside the window was thicker.
Deng Miao’s hand reached inside and pressed against the edge of the window. Her small, pale face appeared. She sobbed to her upperclasswoman, “Yinxi… you’re finally here! Pull me up.”
Lin Yinxi seized Deng Miao’s hand and hauled her inside.
Deng Miao tumbled through the window, banging her knees against the floor. Without even noticing the pain, she grabbed Lin Yinxi’s sleeve. “Yinxi… there are others…”
Two figures clambered awkwardly inside and collapsed to the floor, exhausted, with muffled groans. One was Lin Yinxi’s roommate, Heng Jiangyue. The other was Chen Hongmei, who had kept doubting her at the beginning.
“You’re not dead?”
Heng Jiangyue and Chen Hongmei asked at the same time.
But their tones seemed different.
Heng Jiangyue sounded more confused. She lowered her head and muttered to herself, “That’s impossible. Was my dream wrong? Two people reach the first floor of the women’s dormitory in the end, not three…”
Chen Hongmei sounded somewhat regretful. “Yinxi, I should have listened to you from the start…”
Hearing an odd sound outside the window, Lin Yinxi pulled Deng Miao to her feet. “We have to go, now!”
But she had barely finished speaking.
A gust of cold air brushed past Lin Yinxi’s ear. She looked up sharply. The Flayer’s sharp black hand pressed onto the edge of the window. With a low, wet panting sound, it violently shoved the window open from outside.
A rank smell hit her face.
Lin Yinxi turned and ran, her steps hurried. She dared not look back.
They quickly passed through the corridor and reached the front entrance.
The door would not open. It was locked!
Lin Yinxi took out the dorm matron’s keys she had picked up upstairs. Biting the soft flesh inside her mouth, she searched for the right key from memory.
She remembered.
Whenever her part-time work kept her out late, the matron would make an exception and open the door for her.
It was this key, the one with white paper stuck to it.
She inserted it into the lock and turned. With a click from the mechanism, the door opened.
Lin Yinxi was shoved out of the women’s dormitory and fell.
“No!” Chen Hongmei clawed through Heng Jiangyue’s trouser leg as the Flayer dragged her into the pitch-black corridor amid agonized screams.
Heng Jiangyue’s pale lips trembled. “Don’t blame me… You were never meant to get out…”
“What are you mumbling about?” Lin Yinxi got up, dusted herself off, and reached a hand toward Heng Jiangyue.
Heng Jiangyue looked up in a daze. Seeing Lin Yinxi completely unharmed, her pupils contracted sharply. “How did you get out through the front door too?”