Chapter 122 Honghuai Iron Triangle

Chapter 122: The Honghuai Iron Triangle

Zhang Pan, from Class 2 of the senior year at Honghuai No. 1 Middle School, was a well-known figure in his grade—not for his academic achievements or family background, but simply because of his large build.

While Honghuai No. 1 Middle School students were academically among the best in Honghuai City, not every student's personality or mindset matched their grades. This was especially true as the pressure of the college entrance exams mounted, making it common in senior classes to seek out jokes, gossip, or targets for playful teasing.

Zhang Pan was the "fat guy" who was teased wherever he went.

Fortunately, Zhang Pan had two wisecracking friends who stuck by him no matter what: Zhou Qingshou, who called himself the "skinny guy," and Ai Xiaojia, who called herself the "shortie." The three of them consistently ranked at the bottom of their senior class academically. They spent their days hanging out, entertaining themselves, ignoring the teasing from others, and seemingly unburdened by the tension their peers felt.

Even nicknames like "fat guy" gradually evolved into harmless inside jokes among them.

Occasionally, when others teased them as "Honghuai's Three Stooges," as long as the trio continued to play and hang out together, they simply didn't care.

However, even the "Iron Triangle" sometimes encountered minor issues.

Like now.

“Fat guy, skinny guy, I’m a little scared,” said Ai Xiaojia, the only girl in the Iron Triangle. Despite her petite stature, she was known in the grade as a tomboy. Her love for horror games was what brought her and Zhang Pan and Zhou Qingshou together, but standing in the midnight campus of Honghuai No. 1 Middle School, she couldn't help but feel a pang of fear.

For some reason, Ai Xiaojia felt that Honghuai No. 1 Middle School at midnight was profoundly different from its daytime counterpart.

This difference wasn't merely due to the campus being almost entirely dark—it was something else entirely…

“Fat guy, skinny guy, is the moon supposed to be this red tonight?” Ai Xiaojia stared blankly at the crimson moon in the sky. Its color was so intensely red it was unsettling.

“Was there anything about it in the news recently?” The tall and thin Zhou Qingshou pushed his glasses up his nose, frowning in thought. “Could it be a special phenomenon, like a total lunar eclipse?”

“It must be. It couldn't be ghosts, could it?”

As soon as Zhang Pan finished speaking, the three of them fell silent.

The campus was eerily quiet. When none of them spoke, the only sounds they could hear were their own breaths. There were no car noises from outside the school, no faint chirping of birds or insects, not even the sound of the wind. This unsettling silence, combined with the strange red moon in the sky, made the trio realize that something was very wrong.

“Fat guy, do you really need that thousand yuan so badly?” Zhou Qingshou’s voice trembled slightly. “How about we just go home and sleep?”

“Let’s go!” Zhang Pan didn’t hesitate, grabbing Zhou Qingshou and Ai Xiaojia and heading towards the wall, ready to climb back over.

The three of them were just ordinary students who enjoyed slacking off and possessed absolutely no sense of adventure. Faced with such an unsettling and unknown situation, the best course of action was to leave this strange place and return to the warmth of their beds at home!

They believed that after a good night’s sleep, Honghuai No. 1 Middle School would return to its usual dull and boring self by the next morning.

That’s what they thought as they scaled the wall. But when they dropped to the ground on the other side, they found themselves not on the busy main road outside the school, which was bustling even in the early hours, but… still within the eerily quiet Honghuai No. 1 Middle School campus, bathed in the red moonlight.

Yes, they had clearly climbed over the wall, yet they were still inside the campus!

“How is this possible? Did we climb in the wrong direction?” Ai Xiaojia stared, dumbfounded, at the campus under the red moonlit night. Despite being a girl, she agilely scrambled back over the wall in a flash, her movements surprisingly nimble, and jumped down again.

Before Zhou Qingshou and Zhang Pan could even blink, they watched as Ai Xiaojia, who had just climbed out, reappeared in front of them.

“A ghost wall!” Zhang Pan couldn’t help but exclaim.

There was no other way to explain why they couldn't leave this wretched school. Only the legendary ghost wall could account for why they had clearly climbed over the school wall, only to find themselves back inside the campus the next second.

“What do we do?” Though their lips were pale with fear, the "Fat, Skinny, Short" Iron Triangle were, after all, hardcore horror game enthusiasts. They had even visited haunted houses and played supernatural mystery games many times during holidays, so they weren't so terrified that they fainted on the spot.

“Let’s head to the school gate first. If we can find the security guard… at worst, we’ll get scolded and reported,” Zhou Qingshou said, the calmest of the three and the group's strategist. He was also the highest academically ranked among them—though that meant he was only third from the bottom.

“Will we really find a guard?” Zhang Pan looked around at the deathly silence, not daring to hope for such a good outcome. Even if there was someone in the guardhouse, Zhang Pan worried it might be a zombie or something.

Just as the three unlucky students were at a loss, a flashlight beam and unfamiliar voices suddenly appeared nearby.

“Who’s there?”

Hearing what sounded like a normal human voice, the trio turned around in surprise and relief. They saw three men approaching with a flashlight. Unlike these schoolkids, the three men looked older but didn’t resemble teachers. It was unclear why they were in the eerie campus at such an hour.

The reason Zhang Pan and his friends didn’t think they were teachers was that they had never seen “teachers” appearing at midnight in school, carrying large swords and giant axes strapped to their backs.

After getting a clear look at the strange weapons, Zhang Pan pulled his two friends back a few steps, their eyes growing wary.

“Are you players too?” The man in the middle holding the flashlight was about to step forward when his teammate stopped him.

“Look closely. They’re wearing the same school uniforms, and the school name on them matches the name of this haunted school scenario,” the teammate carrying the large sword whispered. “They must be ghosts, right? But they seem dazed—maybe wandering spirits?”

“You’re the ghost!”

“You’re the dazed one!”

“What’s a wandering spirit?”

The trio had no particular talents, but their hearing was exceptionally sharp. They were used to overhearing the teasing remarks of their classmates in corners.

“Wandering spirits aren’t this lively, are they?” The teammate carrying the axe pondered. “So these three kids are players too? Is this a six-player difficulty game?”

“Players?” Zhang Pan and his friends exchanged confused glances. “Are you players of some game? Did you come to our school in the middle of the night for an online meetup?”

The two groups faced each other, talking past one another.

To Zhang Pan and his friends, the three men carrying oversized weapons seemed like role-playing game enthusiasts who had inexplicably come to their strangely transformed school for a midnight meetup.

Meanwhile, the three men seemed to alternate between thinking the students were ghosts and considering them fellow players.

“Who are you?!”

All six of them asked in unison.

Their voices were the only sounds echoing through the eerily empty campus. The only light came from the flashlight held by one of the role-playing “players” and the faint glow emanating from the library in the distance.