Chapter 11

Chapter 11

"Ding—"

A sharp, electronic chime pierced the air.

Another alert sounded.

The sudden alert shattered the tense silence.

Sweat trickled down Lin Lin's face.

He didn’t have time to wipe it; his throat tightened as he quickly glanced at the message.

"Caller: Settle the overtime pay first."

"The source of infection 3011 has escaped."

"Head straight to the last contact listed in the report."

An attachment came with it—a short video clip.

The person, burning with fever, mumbled the name "Ye Jishu" in delirium.

Maybe out of spite for a rival, they’d become the first casualty.

"..." Lin Lin froze.

"Caller: Settle the overtime pay first."

"Got it? Move fast. I don’t want bodies piling up in my zone."

"I'll be there in half an hour."

Lin Lin didn’t have time to dwell on the caller’s usual arrogance.

Seeing the name and the time on his phone, his heart dropped, and his arm went numb.

Twenty minutes had slipped by.

To him, the grim thoughts about "Ye Jishu" felt like seconds ago, but his mind had gone blank from the shock, leaving him standing there, lost, as time flew by.

Just the thought of it.

His grip on reality was slipping.

Lin Lin’s chest rose and fell rapidly.

A sharp slap echoed.

He suddenly struck himself hard across the face.

His cheek instantly reddened and swelled.

But the relentless cicada buzz in his ears finally faded.

No matter what—

This was now a crisis that demanded immediate action.

Get moving!

We need to reach Ye Jishu now!

Ordinary people are doomed if they come across the "source of infection."

Even newly transformed "sources of infection" instantly know how to control their infected hosts, like a newborn instinctively crying the moment it’s born, and they hungrily tear through everything around them, driven by an insatiable hunger.

If he doesn’t act fast, Ye Jishu will...

...

Ye Jishu made it back to the dorm.

As he climbed the stairs, his eyes darted to the elevator again, almost involuntarily.

It had a strange pull on him.

The elevator’s green light was on, but it didn’t budge as he passed.

...Who’d even dare to ride that thing?

He shuffled to the dorm door.

The dorm was eerily quiet, not a sound from behind the thin door.

Sometimes it felt like he had the place to himself.

Thinking of his roommate, Ye Jishu hesitated before pulling out his key. He paused, then knocked.

"Hey, I’m back."

After waiting a few seconds.

A frantic rustling came from behind the door.

Drawers were being yanked open and slammed shut.

A sudden explosion of chaos.

About thirty seconds later.

The noise died down.

Finally, a timid voice called out, "...Welcome back. Uh, it’s clean now. Come in."

Ye Jishu fished his key from his coat, unlocked the door, and stepped inside.

He shut the door behind him and locked it.

Ye Jishu shrugged off his coat and hung it by the door.

His eyes scanned the room.

The place was spotless. He had no idea where all that noise had come from.

There was only a sticky liquid on the floor, like a hastily slid mop that hadn’t been wrung out properly, with water trails stretching from the balcony to the roommate’s bed, where they completely disappeared. Looking up, his gaze met a pair of eyes hidden behind the bed curtain.

The roommate was staring at him, as usual, straight on.

"..." Ye Jishu.

Go ahead, look.

If he had been somewhat uncomfortable at first, after a semester, he had completely gotten used to the other’s gaze.

First, he went to the bathroom to shower and tidy up.

Then, he went back to his desk.

"Hey, Jishu, have the results of the modeling competition come out?" the roommate asked.

For some reason, the roommate was really into this too.

In the month before the results came out, the roommate kept asking, seemingly eager to hear from him.

"Not yet."

"Oh, okay..."

"I’m gonna play a game later. Will it bother you?" Ye Jishu asked.

Even though he’d wear headphones, turn the screen brightness down to the minimum, and play a controller-operated game that wouldn’t make keyboard noises, he still asked for permission first.

"No, no... go ahead, don’t worry about me..."

"Okay, thanks."

Ye Jishu turned on the computer.

The laptop booted up slowly, taking a few minutes to start.

The desktop wallpaper showed an aquarium scene.

The deep blue was refreshing. Just looking at it felt like being surrounded by a colorful school of fish. The heat seemed to fade, making it hard to look away from the tiny, finger-sized ripples on the glass.

His hand paused on the mouse unconsciously.

Ye Jishu suddenly remembered Yan Mei’s invitation.

Back then, Yan Mei had asked if he wanted to go to the downtown aquarium the next day, clearly not expecting a no.

Yan Mei wasn’t actually interested in that kind of thing.

He’d probably only invited him because he’d accidentally found out about his interest.

For the past few months, it had been like this. Yan Mei always seemed to be accommodating him, trying to step into his world.

"..."

His hand tightened unconsciously on the mouse.

Suddenly, his phone vibrated, and he suddenly let go of the mouse, the tension in his chest fading away.

It was a reminder he’d set earlier.

Ye Jishu glanced at the bottom right corner of his computer screen.

It was just three minutes to midnight, and he could now log into the game's official website to start the installation.

He clicked the link he’d saved in his notes, taking him straight to the download page.

In the final few minutes, he glanced over the game's introduction again.

The game was titled "Cocoon Room."

The setup wasn’t too complicated.

It followed the typical horror game theme where the protagonist goes to school day after day, only to discover that his once peaceful life is full of strange occurrences—his loving parents, his classmates, and even his childhood friend turn out to be monsters.

The only downside was that the controls were a bit tricky.

But for Ye Jishu, who often played action games, this was just a casual hobby.

He only agreed to play because he owed a fan a favor.

Ye Jishu had always streamed games just for fun, never intending to make money from it.

He was obsessed with mastering game mechanics—he wanted to beat tough games right away without using guides, which sometimes made him replay parts of the game.

He started streaming because his computer was too old to handle hours of recording, and he didn’t have the storage for long recordings. So, he used the platform’s "live replay" feature to save his gameplay.

Because of this, he never talked during his streams.

Unlike other streamers, his streams were completely silent, with only the sounds of defeating enemies breaking the silence.

"Wow, this streamer’s crazy good—he beat that hard level in one try."

"Why isn’t he saying anything?"

"Is my sound system broken? I can’t hear anything."

"Is the streamer deaf or mute?"

...

No matter if the comments were mean or curious, Ye Jishu ignored them all.

He never meant for anyone to watch in the first place.

But unexpectedly, his streaming style attracted a group of fans who admired his skill.

Becoming a well-known streamer was an accident.

One day, his follower count unknowingly surpassed the platform's threshold, and the tipping feature was forcibly enabled.

Although Ye Jishu quickly turned it off, in those few seconds, one fan had already tipped him during the stream.

He didn’t like it.

If Ye Jishu owed something to a stranger, it felt like ants were crawling all over his body, uncomfortable to the extreme.

So he asked what the other person wanted.

The request was straightforward.

Like most comments from fans urging him to play games, but they specifically wanted him to play this newly released game.

"Please, I’m begging you, you have to play it."

"I’ll... keep watching you..."

"Forever..."

"Until you’re safe."

Ye Jishu agreed to it.

As for the odd comments that followed, which seemed like some online voyeurism meme, he just brushed them off.

It was midnight.

Ye Jishu clicked on the download button.

The game’s installation file was pretty big, and it was estimated to take about half an hour, just as he’d expected.

Ye Jishu looked down and pulled out his phone.

He deftly opened the mobile game he’d been playing lately and continued working on the unfinished daily tasks.

All of a sudden, there was a knock at the door.

Ye Jishu: "?"

Who could it be at this late hour?

He got up from his seat and headed toward the dorm door.

He could sense his roommate’s gaze peeking through the curtain gap, following his movements, lingering on his back without moving, though only one eye was visible in the shadows.

Probably just curious about who’d come by so late.

Ye Jishu opened the door.

In the next moment, a face appeared.

"..."

"..."

A few seconds later, the person suddenly stepped back.

Their eyes widened instantly, almost popping out of their sockets.

The hand in a cast waved excitedly in the air.

"You, how could you be here—!"

Ye Jishu: "..."

Good question, he wanted to ask it too.

Though he wasn't good at remembering faces, he had seen this face not long ago, so his memory wasn't that faulty.

Yan Mei's anonymous admirer.

It was the same guy who had tried to bully him in the morning, only to have his hand twisted by him, blurted out "Can I pursue you?", accidentally fell on the desk, and then scrambled away, red-faced and flailing after Yan Mei arrived.

"Don't you study sports?" Ye Jishu said.

"You... who studies sports?! Enough, you can't just say that because I have dark skin!" The other's face turned red with anger, veins in his neck bulging, "I've been in your class for a semester, and you don't even remember having me as a classmate? I'm also in the math department!"

He didn't recall.

My bad.

Ye Jishu thought without any guilt.

After all, they were all just background characters; it's normal not to remember their names.

Ye Jishu had won many math competition awards this semester, not only had his photo and name been posted on the school's official social media and website, but he had also been praised at the school-wide meeting. Yet, everyone who saw him, their first reaction was still "Who is this?", "Does our school have this guy?".

He was used to it.

Snapping back to reality, the person in front of him was still glaring at him.

"I live here as well."

Ye Jishu's gaze fell on the dormitory key in the other's hand, confirming that he was telling the truth.

Oh.

The missing roommate.

Since he was a local.

So he had never been to the dormitory.

"If it weren't for you twisting my hand, I wouldn't be spending the night here." The other muttered, "It's all your fault, I really don't know why Yan Mei chose you as a boyfriend, so aggressive, just a bit better-looking, I mean..."

Blah, blah, blah.

Ye Jishu, expressionless, let the words go in one ear and out the other, stepped back to make way for him.

But the other didn't come in immediately, instead, he suddenly stopped talking.

Then, he frowned and said, "Did you hear that?"

"?"

"A girl's crying." He said, "It sounds... really close."