Chapter 7

Chapter 7

“Silent Middle School” was my most profitable book.

It was also the one where the comment section flamed me the hardest.

This was because the Dungeon had only one core restriction from beginning to end: no human voices. Anyone who violated this would be “taken away,” though no one knew by whom or where they went. Back then, readers loved guessing who the final boss was, but I never wrote the answer because I intended to save it for the grand finale.

Now, the answer had come looking for me.

As the school gates slammed shut, the System rules materialized:

1. After entering the school, it is forbidden to make human sounds, including singing, coughing, screaming, and whispering.
2. Upon hearing the school bell, you must enter a classroom within three minutes.
3. When the proctor asks a question, you must answer.
4. Blank test papers must not be removed from the examination hall.
5. If you see an extra person in a mirror, please pretend you haven’t.

After reading the third rule, Xu Zhibai nearly collapsed. “You can’t speak, but you have to answer? Isn’t that a total dead end?”

I shook my head and wrote two words in her palm.

*Write it.*

Human voices were banned, but that didn’t mean the exchange of information was prohibited. I’d actually made this loophole quite obvious during the serialization, but the readers were too busy calling me disgusting to actually parse the wording. Now, it was the Dungeon’s turn to suffer for that oversight.

Just as we entered the teaching building, the bell rang.

It wasn’t the sound of metal striking metal; it sounded like countless fingernails slowly scraping against glass, making one’s scalp tingle. All the classroom doors swung open simultaneously. There were no teachers inside, only rows of students in school uniforms sitting with their heads bowed, a test paper placed on every desk.

I chose Class 2-3.

I picked it because there was a crack in the bottom-left corner of the blackboard here, and hidden behind that crack were the supplementary rules for this Dungeon. I had specifically written them in to allow the protagonist to turn the tables later in the story.

Sure enough, as soon as everyone was seated, a proctor in a black suit walked through the front door. He wore white gloves, and his face was as thin as folded paper, but his eyes were exceptionally bright.

At first glance, I knew the Rule Hunter had arrived.

It was different from other monsters.

Other entities usually possessed a certain “sense of character,” as if they were playing a part in a story. This thing, however, was like a blade forged specifically for finding faults. It carried no extraneous emotion-only a sense of order.

It walked to my desk and leaned down to look at me.

“Please answer,” it spoke, its voice sounding somewhat similar to the System’s broadcasts. “Does an author have the right to revise a published text?”

It was a trap.

The third rule required me to answer, but if I used writing to respond, it would decide I was exploiting a loophole. If I opened my mouth, it could execute me instantly.

I stared at it, then suddenly flipped my test paper over. I wrote a line of text on the back and held it up for the creature to see.

“Please define ‘published’ first.”

Every student in the classroom looked up at once.

The Rule Hunter also paused for a second.

I knew I had gambled correctly.

It was responsible for enforcing the rules, but it was equally bound by them. Since it could ask a question, I could demand that it complete the premise. A proposition without a clear definition does not constitute a valid judgment.

The crack in the bottom-left corner of the blackboard began to slowly pull open at that very moment.