Chapter 30

Chapter 30

“He’s reached the fifth floor!”

“He’s reached the sixth floor!”

“He’s reached the seventh floor!”

Messages came through on the watch almost once every second. Wei Sen rushed out of the room, just in time to see a head pop out from the stairwell on the right.

From the office behind her came the sound of bones scraping against the floor.

The only thing worth being grateful for was that the stairwell on the left was right next to the office door. Without another word, Wei Sen immediately charged downstairs.

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw a figure sprinting toward her from the stairwell on the right.

He really was moving like the wind!

Those legs had been forcibly stretched to twice their length. They didn’t look human at all!

Because his legs were running so fast, his upper body swayed back and forth like a long balloon, his posture grotesquely bizarre.

Wei Sen ran downstairs at the fastest speed of her life, while the Long-Legged Principal and the Skeleton Monster pursued relentlessly behind her.

Huang Xinze, who had been waiting for Wei Sen outside the teaching building, saw the scene and was so shocked he burst out swearing.

“Run!” Wei Sen rushed out of the teaching building.

Huang Xinze froze for one second, then immediately broke into a mad sprint across the field.

“What the hell did you provoke?!” Huang Xinze asked as he ran.

“The principal and Vice Principal of this school.”

“Huh?! You’re saying that hopping skeleton is the Vice Principal?”

“Yeah. It’s a female skeleton. I found the faculty information upstairs. So far, aside from the Vice Principal, we’ve seen everyone else.”

“Damn, you can even tell whether it’s male or female?”

Wei Sen clutched her side, starting to get a stitch from running. “Can you not talk to me while we’re running for our lives?”

“You’re too slow!” Huang Xinze said, then crouched down in front of Wei Sen. “Get on!”

Wei Sen looked back and saw the principal’s hand already reaching for the back of her head. With no other choice, she leaped onto Huang Xinze’s back.

“Hold tight!”

Before his words had even finished, Huang Xinze shot forward like an arrow loosed from a bow.

“Go to the cafeteria!”

“Where’s the cafeteria?”

“The blue building on the left!”

“Got it!”

“No!” Wei Sen suddenly remembered that the cafeteria opened at 11:30 for lunch. The third morning class had not ended yet, so the cafeteria was not an absolutely safe place!

“Then where do we go?” Huang Xinze carried Wei Sen on his back as he ran laps around the track, while the two school administrators behind them followed closely, as if they knew no exhaustion.

Wei Sen’s mind raced.

Why were they chasing her?

Had she broken some rule?

No. So far, she had not violated any known rule.

Could it be… the photos!

Wei Sen tried deleting the pictures she had taken in the Principal’s Office from her watch. Sure enough, after the last one was cleared, the two figures behind them instantly stopped moving.

Principal Zhang returned to a normal human shape, while the skeleton stiffened in place.

“You can stop now.” Wei Sen let out a breath of relief.

By the time Huang Xinze looked back, Principal Zhang and the skeleton had already turned and left.

He slowly stopped and set Wei Sen down.

Wei Sen looked at the man in front of her, drenched in sweat, and her opinion of him improved quite a bit.

In that situation just now, he could have abandoned her and run for his own life, but he had not given up on her.

Thinking about it that way, Xia Susu had also been with him on the first day, which was why nothing had happened to her.

“Looks like those two things don’t have as much stamina as me! Haha!” Huang Xinze laughed while panting heavily.

“Thank you,” Wei Sen said.

“We’re in the same group. Why are you thanking me? No need to be so polite!”

“The files in the Principal’s Office can’t be taken away in any form. I took photos just now, so they tried to kill me. Looks like this is a Hidden Rule.”

“Fuck!” Huang Xinze couldn’t help cursing. “This goddamn place already has so many rules, and now there are Hidden Rules too? It really wants to play us to death!”

“Class is about to end. You should go back to the Security Booth first. I’ll wait for you in the cafeteria at 12:00.” Wei Sen glanced at the time on her watch.

“Heh, okay.” A strange confidence once again colored Huang Xinze’s smile.

Seeing this, Wei Sen added, “And the others from Group B.”

When Huang Xinze heard that, he only became even happier. “Great! Heaven really treats me well. Everyone in our group is a beauty! I swear I’ll protect you all with my life!”

“…I’m leaving.” Wei Sen turned and walked away.

“See you later!”

There were still a few minutes until 11:30. Wei Sen began circling the field to check the school’s building layout.

Just inside the main gate was the Security Booth. Turn left after entering and walk forward to reach the cafeteria. Past the cafeteria was Teaching Building B, with Teaching Building A right beside it. Between them stood the podium, followed by the Gymnasium, the Infirmary, and the faculty dormitory.
The overall layout was fairly simple. On the first day, however, the thick fog had made it impossible for everyone to tell east from west or north from south.

Wei Sen arrived at the rostrum. It was completely empty except for a single rusty microphone.

She remembered the photo from the school history display. It should have been taken from this very spot.

Wei Sen continued forward until she reached the entrance of the Gymnasium. The Gymnasium doors were shut tight, with a seal pasted across them that read, “Under Construction. Keep Away.”

A huge pile of sand sat outside the Gymnasium as well, along with shovels and other tools the workers had left behind.

But after two days at the school, she had yet to see a single worker come to repair the Gymnasium.

Wei Sen quietly noted down the suspicious detail, then went to the Infirmary. Through the window, she saw a boy sitting on the sickbed while Xu You took Red Special Medicine for him from the medicine cabinet.

Wei Sen did not disturb them. She circled the entire school once and found nothing new.

By then, it was already 11:30. She privately messaged everyone in Group B except Xia Susu, then headed to the cafeteria ahead of the others.

When Wei Sen arrived, she first observed the situation at the two windows.

At Window 1 was the cafeteria auntie, Wang Mei. She was still dressed in blue.

At Window 2 was Xia Susu, and she was actually wearing blue too!

But Xia Susu had clearly suffered Contamination that morning and put on red clothes. If no one intervened, a contaminated person should sink completely into the Inner World and become this world’s Eerie Entity.

So someone had helped Xia Susu!

Wei Sen walked up to Window 2. The dishes for lunch were perfectly ordinary home-style food. Xia Susu held a ladle in her hand and raised an eyebrow at Wei Sen.

“What do you want?”

“You can talk?” Wei Sen asked in return.

A flicker of confusion passed through Xia Susu’s eyes. “You know my rule?”

“No. But I know you broke a rule this morning,” Wei Sen answered calmly.

Xia Susu spread her hands and smiled. “So what? I’m fine now, aren’t I?”

“How did you do it?”

Xia Susu raised an eyebrow. “You want to know? But why should I tell you?”

“I know how to leave this Instance. I can trade that information with you.”

“Haha, what a coincidence. I know too, so that information is useless to me.” Xia Susu smiled smugly, clearly with no intention of telling the truth.

But Wei Sen already understood.

From the first day they met, Wei Sen had known Xia Susu was unreliable. Naturally, she had never truly planned to trade information with her.

She had deliberately mentioned the method to leave the Instance only to test Xia Susu.

Sure enough, Xia Susu’s smug claim that she also knew how to leave proved exactly that the person who had helped her return to normal was Bai Xue.

Bai Xue was the director of the Academic Affairs Office. She had a way to help people resist erosion by Eerie Entities, and she had used that method to save Xia Susu.

Then she had used the same “Red Door lie” she told Wei Sen that morning to deceive Xia Susu, all for the purpose of gaining Xia Susu’s trust and using her.

Once Wei Sen figured out what had happened, she had no intention of saying more. Since Xia Susu was perfectly willing to be used, that was her own choice. Wei Sen turned and headed toward Window 1, stopping in front of the cafeteria auntie, Wang Mei.

After confirming that there was still nothing wrong with the color of Wang Mei’s clothes, Wei Sen took the initiative to strike up a conversation. “Auntie Wang, I haven’t seen Uncle in a long time. Where is he?”

Wang Mei woodenly raised her head and stared straight at Wei Sen. She revealed a mouthful of ghastly white teeth and smiled. “He went home.”

“Why hasn’t he come to the school anymore?” Wei Sen continued asking.

“He went home.”

Wei Sen did not keep asking.

These Eerie Entities seemed to share certain common traits, yet they were not quite the same.

When she had questioned Principal Zhang, Principal Zhang had clearly known everything, but had found an excuse and refused to tell her.

But when she questioned the woman before her, the woman only repeated the same sentence mechanically, more like an emotionless NPC.

They were both Eerie Entities. Why was there such a difference?

Wei Sen rubbed her forehead. Ever since arriving here, there had been far too many things she could not make sense of.

But compared to the secrets she had discovered in the real world, everything here seemed so insignificant…