Chapter 43
Chapter 43
“I’ll open the gate!” Huang Xinze said, looking at Xu You.
The moment he finished speaking, thick fog surged up around them. In just a few seconds, the field had returned to the way it had looked when they first arrived.
Visibility was extremely poor in the dim white mist. Even the school gate, practically right in front of them, looked faint and indistinct.
“Everyone, be careful.” Xu You looked into the fog behind them. “Something is coming closer.”
Wei Sen looked at Huang Xinze. “Open the gate, now!”
Xu You grabbed both of Xia Susu’s hands by herself, while Huang Xinze hurriedly pulled out the key and rushed toward the gate in the fog.
But after taking only a few steps, he abruptly stopped. His face filled with terror, as though he had seen something unbelievable.
“Hurry up! Those things are closing in!” Xu You urged anxiously.
Huang Xinze slowly turned back to look at them and said with difficulty, “There are… there are three gates!”
Lin Xiaoxue stepped forward slowly. “How is that possible?”
After fixing her eyes on the scene in the fog, she froze as well. She cautiously moved closer and touched them one by one. “These gates are all real. How can this be? There was clearly only one gate just now!”
Lin Xiaoxue looked at Wei Sen in confusion.
“We’ll have to ask them,” Wei Sen said, her expression grave as she looked in the direction they had come from.
Everyone followed her gaze.
In the thick fog, several figures were drawing closer, little by little.
At the front was Principal Zhang. Flanking him were Skeleton Principal Lin and Wang Mei, the cafeteria auntie dressed in red. Behind them came the vast ranks of every student in Class 2, Grade 3.
There were also the people from Group A and Group C who had died in this Instance, including Zhou Junjie with his intestines dragging across the ground, as well as Wang Wenlei and Zhao Yue, whose limbs and heads had been crudely stitched back together with hemp thread.
“We already know your secret. Aren’t you afraid of breaking the rules by coming to stop us?” Wei Sen asked Principal Zhang, who stood at the front.
“Heh, heh, heh…” Principal Zhang’s laughter echoed across the silent field. His cloudy white eyes swept over everyone before finally landing on the bones on Wei Sen’s back, his gaze unspeakably sinister. “I am not stopping you. The gate is right ahead. You may leave at any time.”
“All three gates can get us out?” Wei Sen asked in return.
Principal Zhang’s head moved left and right with mechanical stiffness. “Of course not. One lets you leave. The rest make you stay.”
Lin Xiaoxue was both frightened and furious. While hiding behind Wei Sen, she pointed at Principal Zhang and scolded, “Y-you’re cheating! We clearly already met the Clearance Condition!”
“You only have one chance. Of course, you may also choose to give up,” Principal Zhang said, completely unaffected.
Wei Sen looked at all the Eerie Entity figures in the fog. It was as though the moment they said no, those things would rush over and tear them to shreds.
Wei Sen raised her hand and checked her Merit Points. Four hundred and ninety-five. She was still short by the final five points, but right now, there was no time at all for her to increase her Merit Points.
Nor could she guarantee that another Card Draw would definitely produce a powerful Anomalous Artifact capable of going up against so many Eerie Entities.
“Sister Sen, what do you think? What do we do?” Xu You asked. Everyone’s eyes turned to her.
“There’s no other way. We gamble,” Wei Sen said.
“Stay. This place needs you. The children in these mountains need you, too.” Principal Zhang took a step forward and extended both trembling hands in invitation.
“Stay… stay…” Xia Susu seemed to have fallen into a trance. She stopped struggling and only kept repeating Principal Zhang’s words.
“Stay… stay…” all the other Eerie Entities said in unison.
Wei Sen looked at everyone and warned them, “Be careful. Don’t let the Eerie Entity power erode you!”
Chen Lin was the first to step forward, her expression exceptionally resolute. “I want to leave! I… I finally obtained the most important thing to me. I can’t stay here!”
Seeing this, Huang Xinze also tightened his grip on the key and stepped forward. “We have to leave! I haven’t even gotten married and had kids yet! What am I supposed to give birth to here, an egg?”
“I want to go back too! I’m still struggling over whether to take the exam for Peking University or Tsinghua University. I haven’t even had time to choose yet!” Lin Xiaoxue stepped forward, the fear from earlier gone from her face.
“Do good, and don’t ask what lies ahead. We’ll go back together!” Xu You nodded solemnly.
Wei Sen looked at them and, for some reason, felt her blood begin to boil.
This hot-blooded feeling was almost like she had wandered into some over-the-top shonen manga…
With that thought, she lowered her head and gave a faint smile. Then she slowly raised her eyes to meet Principal Zhang’s and said coldly, “Go on. We can accept your three-choice game, but I have one condition.”
Principal Zhang slowly stepped forward. “What condition?”
“I choose. You open the doors I don’t choose, and only at the end do we reveal whether my choice was right,” Wei Sen said.
Everyone looked puzzled. If she had already made her choice, wasn’t it just a matter of what order the doors were opened in? Probability-wise, wasn’t it still one in three?
They all fell silent. Although they didn’t quite understand Wei Sen’s reasoning, they believed she must have a reason for doing this.
“Fine. I agree.” Principal Zhang wore a strange smile as he headed toward the school gates.
Wei Sen set Yu Ming down. Seeing this, Huang Xinze stepped forward and smoothly scooped him into his arms. “Leave him to me. Go choose. I believe in you!”
“Okay.” Wei Sen walked firmly up to the three doors.
The three doors looked exactly the same. Although each iron gate had a crack through which one could see outside, right now there was only pitch-black darkness beyond them. There was no way to tell which door was the only safe exit.
“Sister Sen, it’s okay. Even if you pick wrong, I’ll accept it!” Lin Xiaoxue said with a nod.
“Mm. We won’t blame you!” Chen Lin nodded as well.
Xu You and Huang Xinze looked at Wei Sen with equally steadfast eyes.
An invisible strength began to grow in Wei Sen’s heart. She stepped forward and chose the door in the very middle.
Everyone’s hearts tightened along with her choice.
“You can open the first door now,” Wei Sen said, looking at Principal Zhang.
“Hehehe…” Principal Zhang chuckled as he walked to the door on the far left. The moment he reached out, the heavy lock on the iron gate slipped off, and the door slowly opened outward.
Everyone held their breath and stared outside. If this door was the safe exit, then they were all finished. They would be trapped in this place forever.
But if this door was wrong, then the door Wei Sen had chosen would have a much higher chance of being right!
The first gate swung wide open. The darkness outside receded, replaced by thick fog. And within the fog, something was hopping closer and closer in place.
Although it looked extremely eerie, no one could tell whether the outside of this door was safe or not.
“What the hell is that?” Huang Xinze asked curiously, stepping forward and staring fixedly at the thing beyond the gate.
The thing in the fog drew closer. Everyone’s pupils shrank sharply.
The thing outside the door was the man who had followed Xia Susu on the first day, preparing to leave the school!
Only now, the man in the fog had no limbs and no facial features. Like a limbless human torso, he could only hop closer and closer.
“Holy shit!” Huang Xinze was so frightened that he hurriedly slammed the iron gate shut.
Principal Zhang grinned at Wei Sen. “You are destined to stay here.”
Seeing that Principal Zhang was about to walk toward the unchosen third door, Wei Sen got there first. An imperceptible cold smile flashed across her lips. “I want to change my choice. We’ll choose this one!”
Principal Zhang’s gaze instantly turned sharp, and the eerie aura around him became even more chilling.
Wei Sen’s maneuver made everyone’s hearts hang even higher.
“Sister Sen, the odds are fifty-fifty either way. If you switch and get it wrong, won’t we be losing big?” Huang Xinze looked at Wei Sen with some concern.
“I’m not afraid. It’s a gamble either way. But me? I was born lucky.” A cold smile tugged at Wei Sen’s lips.
Principal Zhang slowly walked toward the middle gate, staring at Wei Sen with a sinister look. “Are you sure you don’t want to choose this one?”
“Mm. Open it,” Wei Sen said firmly.
Lin Xiaoxue swallowed nervously and whispered, “Sister Sen can do it. You can definitely do it!”
Under everyone’s watchful eyes, Principal Zhang pushed open the second gate.