Chapter 153
Chapter 153
Jiang Li could save Han Xueping at a critical moment once, twice, even three times.
But she could not possibly save Han Xueping for the rest of her life.
To redeem someone who had been bullied, outside help was indeed necessary. Someone had to help her escape that sea of suffering.
But what mattered even more was that the victim learned to pick up a weapon for herself, stand up, resist, and protect herself.
The phone, explicitly banned by the school, had already been delivered into Han Xueping’s hands.
There were many ways Han Xueping could save herself.
But since she had chosen this method, it had to be after weighing many different factors.
Perhaps only by stepping into the game herself and laying its ugly truth bare before the audience could she rip away the final fig leaf covering the Wang Family and the Ran Family.
Besides…
Through the sparse crack in the door, Jiang Li glanced at the figure on the rooftop.
The Elevator Attendant was standing right behind Teacher Wang.
If Han Xueping was truly in mortal danger, the Elevator Attendant would intervene.
The Elevator Attendant was Han Xueping herself.
She understood why her past self was doing this, so she did not step forward to stop her.
When the popularity of the Live Streaming Room on the phone in the corner skyrocketed and public opinion began to boil over-
The Elevator Attendant stopped waiting.
With her twisted, blood-soaked face and crooked neck, she lunged right in front of Teacher Wang.
Han Xueping, who was pure and kind by nature, could not see the terrifying face of the Elevator Attendant.
But the vicious-hearted Teacher Wang could.
So in Han Xueping’s live stream, Teacher Wang suddenly let out a strange shriek, stared at the empty air in front of him, and collapsed onto the ground.
Judging from Teacher Wang’s reaction, he seemed badly frightened.
He shrank backward, chanting over and over, “Don’t come any closer, don’t come any closer.”
During that time, he also tried to swing the whip in his hand, lashing again and again at the empty space before him.
Then, under the watchful eyes of the netizens in the Live Streaming Room, Teacher Wang did something astonishing.
He fumbled around on the ground and found a short piece of “rusted rebar.”
As he kept screaming, he gripped the piece of rebar and stabbed it into his own eyes, again and again.
Both eyes were gouged into a bloody pulp. The entire scene was horrifying.
In a towering rage, the Elevator Attendant grabbed Teacher Wang’s hand and forced him to blind himself.
The Elevator Attendant opened her mouth, which was filled with blood, leaned close to Teacher Wang, and roared through tears of blood:
“I told you! But why… why didn’t you help me, not even once?
“They hurt me so badly. How could you pretend you didn’t see anything!?
“Since you love acting blind so much, then you might as well actually be blind!!”
In the audience’s eyes, Teacher Wang had hurt himself.
But only the Elevator Attendant knew that she had pierced Teacher Wang’s eyeballs with her own hand.
The blinded Teacher Wang completely lost his mind. Terrified of the female ghost before him, he desperately fled toward the open space.
“No… don’t come any closer! Get away!!”
The Elevator Attendant chased him the entire way, forcing the now sightless Teacher Wang toward a rusted iron railing.
In the end, witnessed by countless netizens, the notorious Teacher Wang accidentally struck the loose railing, lost his footing, and fell from the rooftop.
The phone’s live stream also came to an abrupt end after being reported.
Below the teaching building, Teacher Wang had been smashed into a mass of flesh. Brain matter splattered everywhere, blood pooled across the ground, and he died on the spot.
And that loose section of railing was the exact place where the Elevator Attendant had once been pushed down by those people.
Back then, the Honor Student Fall Case had caused a huge stir for a while as well.
Although everyone speculated wildly about the truth behind it, the matter had still been closed as an “accident.”
However, because of that bloody incident, the school was mocked by parents for having bad feng shui.
Later, due to poor management, it went bankrupt in the end.
The matter was over.
Jiang Li pushed open the wooden door, pressed the Converter, and withdrew from this spacetime.
The moment Jiang Li opened the door, she ran into an elderly woman in the Safe Staircase.
The old woman’s hair was a tangled mess, and her mind seemed somewhat unstable.
Who knew which space-time this old woman had slipped out of? Somehow, she had ended up trapped inside the Safe Staircase.
When the old woman saw Jiang Li, she rushed forward in delight and grabbed Jiang Li by the arm.
“Pingping… Have you seen my Pingping? Sob, sob… My Pingping is gone… What am I supposed to do? She’s my only daughter…”
There were already many white strands at the old woman’s temples.
It seemed that in her own space-time, she had spent decades in this half-mad state searching for Han Xueping.
There were many Parallel Space-Time instances, and many “Han Xuepings” who had suffered the same fate.
They had saved Han Xueping in one space-time, but there were still countless other Han Xuepings mired in the swamp, struggling to break free.
Jiang Li looked at the old woman. “Ma’am, go to the rooftop. Your daughter might be up there.”
Rule Two of the Safe Stairway Passage Rules:
[If you see an old woman looking for her daughter in the stairwell, you must tell her, no matter the cost, to proceed to the very top of the building’s rooftop.]
After hearing Jiang Li’s words, the old woman thanked her repeatedly.
Then she hurried nonstop up the stairs toward the rooftop.
Jiang Li’s gaze fell on the old woman’s back.
Only the front of the old woman’s body looked normal.
The flesh on her back had already been gnawed away by a Malicious Spirit, leaving only stark white bone.
The old woman… was an Aberration.
On her way to the rooftop, she would once again encounter the Malicious Spirit at the turn of the stairs, the one disguised as Han Xueping.
Although she had been fooled many times before, the old woman would still be drawn to the “fake Han Xueping.”
And at that moment, when the old woman embraced her daughter, the “fake Han Xueping” would tear another chunk of flesh from her back.
Every time that happened, the old woman would abruptly regain clarity and flee at once.
It wasn’t that the old woman couldn’t recognize the Malicious Spirit.
The reason she was willing to pay the “price of flesh and blood” just to embrace the fake daughter was both because she missed her daughter, and because of the overwhelming guilt and self-reproach she felt toward her.
She blamed herself for passing the birthmark down to her daughter.
The old woman had always believed that perhaps, if not for that ugly inherited birthmark, her daughter might have lived a safe, uneventful life.
Behind her, the Elevator Attendant emerged from the Red Door.
The black mist lingering around the Elevator Attendant now dissipated completely after releasing its final wisp.
Now, as long as Jiang Li obtained the Elevator Attendant’s Positive Review and sent the Elevator Attendant away, she could achieve an SSS Rank clear.
Jiang Li and the Elevator Attendant headed downward side by side.
But just as Jiang Li was about to step forward, she realized something was wrong.
Looking at the stairs before her, Jiang Li’s entire field of vision swam dizzily.
The steps leading downward had fallen into a state of chaotic disorder.
The steps beneath her feet no longer existed as neat, level lines.
Every stair appeared before Jiang Li in a violently warped state, twisting and bending out of shape.
When Jiang Li looked at the stairs, they seemed compressed, twisted, and deformed. When she looked at her own legs and feet, they were compressed, twisted, and deformed as well.
Her vision had descended into chaos, as if someone had turned on a “distortion effect.”
Jiang Li recalled Rule Three of the Safe Stairway Passage Rules:
[Each flight of stairs has 12 steps. Be sure not to miss your footing.]
So that was the purpose of this rule.
In this state of visual disorder, it would be very easy to step into empty air and fall.
Seeing that the downward stairs had changed, the Elevator Attendant also paused for an instant.
Then Jiang Li witnessed an astonishing sight-
She saw the Elevator Attendant snap off her already broken legs and toss them straight down the stairs.
The Elevator Attendant’s pant legs hung empty. Now she could float down.
Just as Jiang Li was about to hold the railing and slowly feel her way downstairs, the Elevator Attendant suddenly crouched down in front of her.
“Get on. I’ll carry you down,” the Elevator Attendant said with her back to Jiang Li.