Chapter 25
Chapter 25
“Red… red clothes!” Chen Lin had also noticed Xia Susu behind Window 2 in the cafeteria.
Right now, Xia Susu’s expression had gone completely blank, and she was cooking noodles with stiff, mechanical motions.
“I remember she was wearing blue earlier?” Lin Xiaoxue said, thinking back.
Xu You said, “Cafeteria Rules, rule two: cafeteria staff uniforms are blue, not red.”
Wei Sen glanced at the group chat avatars on her digital watch. Xia Susu’s avatar had not turned black.
“She must have broken some rule and been hit with Contamination by the power of an Eerie Entity,” Wei Sen said.
Lin Xiaoxue scratched her head. “Was it because she argued with someone just now? But the Cafeteria Rules don’t say you can’t make noise in the cafeteria.”
“She probably violated the Cafeteria Employee Code of Conduct.” As Wei Sen spoke, she saw Bai Xue and Ah Wen preparing to leave the cafeteria as well. “Let’s get out of here first.”
“What about Xia Susu?” Chen Lin asked quietly.
“Take care of ourselves first.” Wei Sen did not stop.
After leaving the cafeteria, Wei Sen briefly repeated what Bai Xue had told her to the others.
Lin Xiaoxue looked troubled. “Ah… Only three people can leave? Then even if we snatch the key from her, one of us will still have to wait another seven days.”
Wei Sen pressed a hand to her forehead. An eighteen-year-old’s mind really was too simple.
Xu You explained, “That woman was lying. The method she described won’t work at all.”
“Right?” Xu You looked at Wei Sen.
“Mm.”
“Huh?!” Lin Xiaoxue’s large eyes were full of confusion.
Wei Sen said, “She made up that lie because she wants to use the other survivors to achieve her goal. We just don’t know what her real goal is.”
“But Sister Sen, how did you tell she was lying?” Chen Lin asked sincerely.
Wei Sen looked at her watch. There were eight minutes left before class. “Ask the Daoist. I need to get to class. If there’s any news, we’ll talk in the cafeteria at noon.”
“Oh, okay…”
Wei Sen quickened her pace toward the teaching building. She had lost too much time just now, but the gains had been substantial.
///Ding~ Congratulations, Host, for achieving “Never Abandon Teammates.” Merit Points +50! Current Merit Points: 254!///
She had never been a good person to begin with. If the method Bai Xue described was real, Wei Sen would not have cooperated with Bai Xue, nor would she have told the others about it.
She would have taken that key for herself outright. Only when the choice was in her own hands would she truly have a chance to survive!
As for why she was certain Bai Xue was lying, the simplest reason was her microexpressions.
Bai Xue thought her disguise was flawless, but her overly confident, overly certain demeanor only proved that everything had been part of her design. She had too much faith in her own plan.
Second, the Red Door might really exist, but the key definitely did not!
If the way to escape was to make everyone kill one another, why would this Eerie World need to create so many rules to protect them?
At least for now, among all the rules Wei Sen knew, aside from the one made by “It,” every other rule existed to help everyone survive.
On top of that, Bai Xue had given her the disciplinary notice materials. If they could truly escape through the Red Door after seven days, why bother with such an unnecessary extra step?
So Bai Xue wanted to win Wei Sen over as an ally and have her investigate the secret behind those materials.
And even if Wei Sen told others the escape method, Bai Xue could still use the same approach in private to turn someone else to her side, as long as she promised to take them with her when the time came.
After all, in a situation where death could come at any moment, no one would refuse the safest option.
At 8:32, Wei Sen successfully found the classroom for Class 2, Grade 3. It was the first classroom on the third floor of Teaching Building A.
She had also checked the other classrooms. Looking in through the glass windows, every classroom was filled with thick white fog, making it impossible to see anything clearly.
Moreover, every classroom door was closed. She did not dare push any of them open recklessly. No one knew what would happen if she entered the wrong classroom.
Wei Sen stopped at the door of Class 2, Grade 3. After mentally preparing herself, she pushed the door open and walked in.
There was no fog in the classroom at all. It was just an ordinary elementary school classroom, with an old-fashioned blackboard, a bulletin board decorated with drawings of the sun and little birds, a round clock, and… her students.
Every student sat upright at their desk, their posture so uniform it was almost unnatural.
Their hands lay flat on the desktops, their backs ramrod straight, as if some invisible force had pinned them in place.
Aside from the Little Girl in the Red Dress in the front row, all the other children wore blue-and-white school uniforms.
The instant Wei Sen looked at them, they all turned their heads in perfect unison, their gazes fixing straight on her.
Their faces looked as though they had been bleached, deathly pale without the slightest hint of blood. Their lips, however, were tinged an unnatural bluish-purple.
And their eyes were the worst part. There were no pupils, only cloudy whites, as if something had hollowed out their souls and left behind nothing but empty shells.
Those eyes stared at her without blinking, as though waiting for something.
Wei Sen froze for a moment. She had to admit, the scene was more than a little chilling.
The Little Girl in the Red Dress, in particular, looked almost exactly like the figure Wei Sen had seen in the fog outside the Infirmary last night!
Just then, the class bell rang from the loudspeaker in the hallway.
“Good morning, Teacher!” Everyone stood and bowed to Wei Sen. Their voices were perfectly synchronized, as if squeezed out of the same throat, carrying a mechanical chill without the slightest trace of emotion.
Wei Sen carried the lesson plan to the podium.
She could feel that even though they were all bent over at ninety degrees, those pairs of empty eyes were still staring at her.
“Good morning, students.” Wei Sen stood at the podium, doing her best to slip into the role.
Everyone sat down in perfect order. They all looked at her, strange smiles curling across their pale faces.
The lesson plan on the podium suddenly moved on its own despite the absence of wind, pages rustling as they flipped rapidly before finally stopping on the last page.
Wei Sen lowered her head and saw the page covered densely in red writing, as though written in blood:
“Welcome back, Teacher Wei. We’ve been waiting for you for a long time.”
Wei Sen narrowed her eyes slightly. She seemed to understand the logic of this world now.
Although everything looked bizarre and unsettling, all of it was bound by a vast set of rules.
As long as she did not violate the rules, they could not do anything to her.
All they could do was use these little tricks to frighten her, confuse her, and subject her to Contamination, making her break the rules of her own accord.
For example, the bloody words on the lesson plan were fake, just like the blood she had seen on the ceiling when she woke up in the dormitory.
She clearly remembered that when she first received the lesson plan, she had gone through all of its contents. This sentence had not been there at all.
Wei Sen continued recalling the Teacher’s Rules.
The rules had specifically mentioned that without a lesson plan, she would be unable to teach the children. In other words, if she did not teach the children according to the contents of the lesson plan, that would also count as violating the rules.
With that in mind, Wei Sen ignored the words on the lesson plan.
However, a new problem had appeared.
The lesson plan was thick, and she had no idea how far the class had progressed.
Everything in the lesson plan was normal elementary school textbook material, but there were no notes whatsoever. She still could not determine the current progress of the class.
If she failed to teach according to the lesson plan, that would be equivalent to breaking the rules.
“Teacher, why haven’t you started the lesson yet?”
The Little Girl in the Red Dress in the front row questioned her. Her face began swelling visibly, and black cracks started appearing across her skin, as if something beneath it was about to burst through the flesh and crawl out at any second.
Behind her, the bodies of the other students also began twisting one after another, contorting in ways no human body should be capable of.
///Ding~ Danger detected around the Host. Merit Points will activate an additional reward, increased by +100 points!///
Wei Sen sucked in a sharp breath. Judging from the increase in Merit Points, she was currently facing extreme danger!
If she did not find a way to stabilize these “students,” this classroom would probably become her grave.