Chapter 49

Chapter 49

No matter what Lin Juan said, the three students, leaning on each other for support, already regarded him as a celestial being who had descended to save them.

Especially with Lin Juan’s perfect face and flowing long hair, he truly looked like an immortal.

"But we've never seen you before," the boy to Xiao Ping's left stammered nervously.

Perhaps from running too long, or maybe because Lin Juan was simply too handsome, the boy's cheeks flushed crimson, and he couldn't bring himself to look directly at him.

"Immortal, ah no..." Xiao Ping fumbled for words. How should he address him?

Just as Xiao Ping was about to speak, Lin Juan, recalling something, interrupted him: "Hold on a second. I need to confirm that those monsters are no longer a threat. Are there any others besides these few?"

He didn't want any new monsters suddenly charging out of the mist while they were talking.

"There aren’t any others. These are the ones that have been chasing us the whole time."

Lin Juan nodded and headed toward one of the monsters that had crashed into the pit.

Xiao Ping and the others were a mix of fear and curiosity. Ultimately, curiosity prevailed. They exchanged glances and, without a word, began to edge closer to Lin Juan.

They didn’t dare get too close, stopping at a slight distance and craning their necks to peek.

The monster’s sheer weight had created a deep pit where it crashed. It lay at the bottom, twitching faintly.

Lin Juan jumped into the pit and landed two solid punches. The monster stopped moving completely.

He used the same method to incapacitate the other monsters.

The three boys watched with growing awe. If the situation had allowed and they weren’t afraid of annoying Lin Juan, they would have rushed over to cling to his leg in admiration.

So strong. So cool.

The three thought in unison.

After confirming the monsters were completely unconscious and wouldn’t suddenly attack, Lin Juan and the class monitor followed the three boys to a disused equipment room.

"We hid here earlier. It’s relatively safe," one of the boys said. The room was dusty, and the boy used his sleeve to wipe a chair clean before enthusiastically offering it to Lin Juan.

Lin Juan accepted the gesture. Under the boy’s anxious gaze, he sat down.

The boy’s tense expression visibly relaxed.

There weren’t enough chairs, so the others simply sat on the floor around Lin Juan, looking up at him.

Under the gaze of several pairs of earnest eyes, Lin Juan cleared his throat and spoke, "I didn't spot you in class during the day. Where were you?"

He didn’t directly reveal that he was a rescuer from outside. This was a Class A Anomaly zone—he needed to first figure out if these students knew they were trapped. If not, blurting out the truth might alert the anomaly.

He wasn’t afraid of rousing the anomaly, only worried it might go berserk and harm the students. After all, his main mission was to safely escort all 35 trapped students out.

Xiao Ping shared a look with his companions, then looked at the class monitor.

The monitor touched her cheek. "Why are you all looking at me like that?"

Instead of answering directly, Xiao Ping asked vaguely, "Why are you out so late, Monitor?"

The monitor put her hands on her hips, showing annoyance at being questioned. "What, are you allowed to roam around in the middle of the night, but I’m not allowed to step out to look for someone?"

This reminded the monitor of her original purpose—she had come out to look for Hui Mei.

"Has someone gone missing?"

Xiao Ping’s expression suddenly turned serious. The monitor’s frustration faded. "It’s Hui Mei. During dorm check, I noticed she wasn’t there. I asked her roommates, and they all said they hadn’t seen her, so I came out to look."

"What about you? What’s your situation?" The monitor’s mind felt foggy for a moment. "Lin Juan said he hadn’t seen you. Weren’t you in class during the day?"

Why didn’t I have any memory of it?

Not just her—the other classmates and teachers hadn’t shown any signs of abnormality either!

Realizing this, the monitor was seized with alarm.

This wasn’t normal at all!

Under normal circumstances, even one student missing a single class would spark discussion. It would never go unnoticed like it did today, without causing any ripple in the class.

If she hadn’t run into them by chance today, when would she have finally remembered that several classmates were missing?

Besides these three and Hui Mei, were there other students missing from the class?

The monitor’s face turned extremely pale, fear unmistakable in her expression. She instinctively turned to Lin for help. "Lin, I didn’t remember at all during the day that three students were missing from our class…"

She held her head. "I’m the class monitor. How could I forget how many students are in the class? How could I not know when someone is absent? This isn’t right…"

It was all too wrong.

Catching a glimpse of the truth, the monitor’s head throbbed with intense pain.

The more she thought, the more severe the pain became.

It felt like someone was drilling into her brain with an electric drill.

A loud roaring sound exploded in her ears, as if her soul were being torn apart.

"Don’t think. Empty your mind."

In her extreme pain, a heavenly voice sounded beside her ear. The monitor obeyed, clearing her mind.

The pain gradually subsided.

"I feel like I’ve forgotten something," she said, tears streaming down her face from the physical strain. "I must have forgotten something very important."

Outside the window, the moonlight intensified, turning an unusual shade of green.

It shone through the window, eerie and deathly still.

Xiao Ping and the others stayed silent for a long time. Finally, as if having made some resolve, Xiao Ping spoke. "Monitor, it’s normal that you don’t remember us. Because from the moment we broke the rules, the school erased all traces of us. If you could remember, if you could notice we’ve been absent for days, that would be abnormal."

"Why?" The monitor grew even more bewildered. She felt as if she had stepped into a world she never knew, her entire understanding undergoing a massive shift.

"This school is very abnormal," Xiao Ping steadied himself. Speaking of this, his expression filled with fear. "It’s stuck in an endless cycle—the same exams over and over, the same lessons repeated again and again. We’re trapped in a time loop, unable to break free."

The first to realize something was wrong with this world was Xiao Ping’s friend, the class’s bottom-ranked student, Shi Haochen.

Shi Haochen scratched his chin, somewhat embarrassed. "I’m the worst in the class. My dad pulled strings to get me in. My grades are barely average at Upward Middle School. I know exactly what my usual scores are like. But this time, I got a mock exam score far beyond anything I could have imagined."

A score of 637 was unimaginable for Shi Haochen, whose highest score had been 520.

Sitting in the exam hall, his pen moved as if divinely guided—questions he would normally give up on were solved smoothly, yet Shi Haochen had no memory of how he had learned those problem-solving techniques.

It was as if some knowledge had been forcibly shoved into his head through some unknown means.

At first, Shi Haochen didn’t think much of it and simply thought he was lucky. But later, during classes, the teacher’s explanations gave him a sense of having experienced them many times before. Shi Haochen couldn't chalk it up to coincidence anymore.

He shared his discovery with his roommate and good friend, Zhou Ping.

Putting their heads together, they realized there were many weird things happening—for example, they could accurately predict the next day’s cafeteria menu, or accurately predict when the teacher would be called away for an unexpected meeting. There were many such things that weren't supposed to happen.

One incident could be dismissed as a fluke, but what about three, five, or even ten?

When something happens not just once but repeatedly, it’s enough to suggest there’s something hidden behind it.

They tried to figure out what was going on.

By the time Shi Haochen’s exam scores had stabilized around 650, after who-knows-how-many tests, they still hadn’t found the exact source of the strangeness.

Until one late night, when their roommate Zhu Zhihui suddenly had a stomachache. The two, who were still awake, accompanied their frightened roommate to the bathroom outside.

Outside the dorm, they saw a strange green light.

“What is that?” Shi Haochen, waiting outside, nudged Zhou Ping.

Zhou Ping looked out the window. The green light was just a dot, not too far away, but not too close either. “Is it my imagination? I feel like the green light is moving toward us.”

At 2 a.m., with an eerie green glow and having read countless ghost stories, the two teenagers broke out in a cold sweat.

“It’s not imagination—I noticed it too,” Shi Haochen said, his voice trembling. “Tell him to hurry up! Let’s go back to the dorm.”

They called out a few times, but there was no response from the restroom.

“Are you there? If you don’t answer, we’re coming in!”

Still no response.

They exchanged a glance, steeled themselves, and pushed open the restroom door.

The restroom was empty.

Where was their roommate?

He couldn’t have fallen into the toilet, could he?

It was a toilet—there was no way someone that big could have fallen in.

“Maybe we should go back first?” Zhou Ping stammered, thoroughly spooked.

Shi Haochen glanced again at the green light outside the window and suddenly grabbed Zhou Ping’s arm. “Look down there!”

Down below, a figure was walking toward the green light.

“Is that Zhu Zhihui? When did he go down?” Shi Haochen pressed against the window to get a better look.

They were on the second floor—not too high, but you couldn’t just climb out the window.

When had Zhu Zhihui gotten down there? Why didn’t they hear anything?

"How unfriendly! Why didn't he tell us before going out? We've been waiting here in vain all this time."

"Should we go check it out?"

"If we find him, we'll come right back."

After making the decision, the two went downstairs.

It was pitch black downstairs.

"Are we really going?" Zhou Ping hesitated at the dormitory building's entrance.

Shi Haochen pushed up his glasses. "Do you remember what we discussed earlier about the school being strange? We've been everywhere during the day and found no signs of anything unusual, but is everything truly normal?"

Zhou Ping steeled himself. "Just because the school seems fine during the day doesn’t mean it’s the same at night. No matter what, I don’t want to stay in this creepy school any longer. How about you?"

"Me neither."

Without needing to say more, they both stepped out of the dormitory building together.

They didn't see the pale green characters on the dormitory wall behind them begin to glow softly:

As they left the dormitory, suddenly fog formed, reducing visibility to just five meters. Everything around them became indistinct, with only the green glow acting as a guide in the mist.

Since they had come this far, there was no reason to turn back.

"The fog is too thick. We can’t see where we’re going, so we have to head toward the green light. We thought maybe Zhu Zhihui had also gotten lost in the fog and headed toward the green light."

They did find Zhu Zhihui—otherwise, there wouldn't be three of us now.

After finding him, the three realized they couldn’t go back.

The mist vanished, and the campus appeared normal again, but the sun never rose for them again. They were trapped in an endless night.

"We tried to return to the dormitory, but the one we went back to was completely deserted."

Not just empty—their dormitory had recently been renovated, with new walls, doors, and windows. The dormitory they entered looked no different from the daytime version from the outside, but inside, it was dilapidated and full of signs of age.

The further they went, the more nervous Shi Haochen felt. They eventually reached Room 201 and opened the rusty door. Inside was no longer the familiar environment but a clearly abandoned space.

The bed boards were scattered, the walls were stained, the windows were broken, and the iron beds were rusted. Everything indicated they had entered a world completely opposite to the daytime one.

"We were freaked out at first." That devastation was beyond words, as if they had been abandoned by the entire world for no reason or cause.

"We thought maybe things would be better once it was daylight."

"But that wasn’t the case. We never saw daylight again. We were trapped in the nighttime campus."

Being teenagers with pride, the three never talked about how crushed they felt upon realizing this, nor the fact they almost had a falling-out, let alone their own embarrassing reactions.

In any case, after a brief period of breakdown, they pulled themselves together and began looking for a way out.

High school students had all read some online novels, so Shi Haochen said, trying to lighten the mood, to Zhou Ping and Zhu Zhihui, "Maybe we’re the chosen ones, and it’s up to us to save our classmates!"

Feeling more hopeful, the three began searching for clues.

Since they had entered the night version of the campus, there had to be a way out.

"We searched many places and tried to leave warnings for other students not to leave the dorms at midnight. We don’t know if anyone found the traces we left behind."

"Someone did notice," the class monitor, who'd been listening quietly, spoke up. "We found words someone carved on the wall, saying, 'Don’t go out at midnight—you’ll encounter monsters.' When you left those clues, had you already encountered those monsters?"

"That's right," Shi Haochen said with excitement, continuing to answer the monitor’s question. "At the time, we spotted some shadowy figures but didn't dare approach. Last night was the first time we actually encountered a monster."

"Where did you encounter the monster?" Lin Juan asked.

"In the dormitory."

Since they had entered this world through the dorm's main entrance, they wondered if they could go back the same way.

"We came out from here," Shi Haochen said, taking Lin Juan to the dorm entrance and pointing ahead. "We’ve gone in a few times but never returned to the normal world. It wasn’t until yesterday, when we encountered a monster inside, that we didn't dare go further."

The monster was two meters tall, with long arms and legs and sharp claws. As ordinary high school students, the three of them were no match for it.

Although they said they might be chosen by heaven as protagonists, they valued their lives too much to take on the monster directly.

"We just came here today, planning to check things out from outside. We didn’t expect the monster inside to spot us and chase after us all the way here."

"It’s strange. Before, the monsters only moved around inside the dormitory. Whenever we left, something seemed to block them and couldn’t follow. This time, we thought it would be safe to observe from outside, but the monster actually chased us out."

It was a memory they didn't want to relive.

Running at full speed, with the monster right behind them, it felt as if no matter where they fled, they couldn’t escape its grasp.

Their adrenaline surged to its peak, and the lack of oxygen made their breathing became frantic. Zhou Ping tripped over a stone and went sprawling.

In that moment of extreme fear, he couldn’t even feel the pain.

As the monster drew closer, he could smell the foul, rotting smell emanating from it, making him feel sick.

"Get up! Run!" Shi Haochen shouted when he saw Zhou Ping fall.

Zhou Ping tried to stand, but his limbs wouldn’t obey him. The more he tried, the harder it became.

"I can’t get up," Zhou Ping said, his voice choked with tears. "Just go! Run, don’t let it catch you!"

Shi Haochen couldn’t abandon his best friend. He looked around, picked up a stone, and threw it at the monster as it lunged toward Zhou Ping. "Asshole! Come after me if you dare!"

Enraged, the monster turned and went after Shi Haochen.

Seizing the opportunity, Zhu Zhihui helped Zhou Ping to his feet, and they continued running.

They kept running, not daring to stop.

If it weren’t for Lin Juan, they couldn’t imagine what would have happened if the monster had caught them.

The thought made them shudder with fear.

"I’ll go in and take a look," Lin Juan said. To leave this domain, they had to find the source of the strange phenomenon. Only by resolving it could the domain be dispelled.

Lin Juan hadn’t expected that on his first day at school, he’d accidentally discover something strange about it.

"Are you coming with me?"

After asking, Lin Juan heard their immediate, unanimous answer.

"Together."

Staying outside alone felt much more dangerous than sticking with Lin Juan. After all, if monsters could emerge from the dormitory, who knew how many more were hiding outside?

What if a monster appeared the moment Lin Juan went in?

At the very least, they had witnessed Lin Juan’s terrifying combat skills—he took on monsters like they were nothing.

"It’s safer if you stay close to me," Lin Juan said, heading inside first.

The dormitory was exactly as Shi Haochen had said. To put it nicely, it was showing its age. In reality, it was run-down and dirty, and it stank terribly.

It smelled like mold and rotting corpses.

Lin Juan covered his nose. "Did it smell like this when you came in before?"

Zhou Ping also covered his nose, his voice sounded stuffy. "No, it didn’t."

If it had, they would have mentioned it. The stench was overwhelming, it hit them right in the face. If they had to sleep there, they’d likely be knocked out by the smell rather than fall asleep naturally.

Cobwebs were everywhere. Shi Haochen waved away a strand drifting toward his face. "The difference between the dormitory during the day and at night is way too different."

"Could it be that what we’re seeing now is the dormitory’s true appearance?" Zhou Ping said, looking pale at the thought.

"Possibly," the monitor said, also looking grim, purely from the stench. "Based on my experience reading infinite flow stories, the new dormitory we see during the day is likely the illusion."

"So we’ve been living in a dump all along? Ugh—" Zhu Zhihui couldn’t hold back a gag.

"There’s something here!" He put his hand against the wall, feeling some raised patterns under his palm. Moving his hand, he saw what was carved into the wall.

"This is how we carved our warnings too. Could this be from someone who encountered the same situation as us?" Shi Haochen moved closer, squinting to examine the marks closely.

"What does it say?" Lin Juan walked over.

Upon seeing the marks, Lin Juan’s expression turned serious.

Rather than carvings, they were more like scratches—deep scratches made with frantic force.

"What is this carved here?"

"I can’t make it out. It’s too messy."

"Can you tell what it is?"

"I can’t."

The four of them discussed it but reached no conclusion. Finally, they turned to Lin Juan. "Can you tell what these marks mean?"

"These aren’t words. They’re claw marks," Lin Juan said without hiding the truth.

"Claw marks?!" Shi Haochen and the others were shocked. "How could there be claw marks? How much force would it take to leave such deep scratches?"

The bigger question was, why were there such deep claw marks on the dormitory wall? Who made them? Under what circumstances?

What had happened in this dormitory that they didn’t know about?

Lin Juan also needed to know this information. Before entering, his focus had been on rescuing people, and his understanding of Upward Middle School was limited to the information Director Liu had provided.

He knew that this was an old school established fifty years ago, which had produced countless students who got into top colleges. Countless parents sent their children here to study intensely, just to achieve good grades and get into top universities.

Due to the outstanding academic performance of its students, Upward Middle School had a very good reputation among parents. According to the information Director Liu provided, there was nothing that stood out.

In an instant, many thoughts crossed his mind—could it be that the school had experienced some unknown incident?

"Have any of you heard of any secrets about the school?" Unable to contact the outside world now, Lin Juan could only get clues from the students.

"Secrets? No."

All four said no.

"Where exactly did you see the green light before?" Lin Juan changed the subject.

"Over here."

The four of them went to the restroom area and looked out through the broken window, just in time to see the green moon suspended in the air outside.

"Wait? Right here—was what we saw that day actually a green moon?"

Lin Juan remembered that Shi Haochen had mentioned they left the dorm to look for Zhu Zhihui. He turned to him and asked, "Zhu, did you also go out because you saw the green light? How did you get down from the toilet?"

He scratched his head: "When I opened my eyes, I found myself standing outside, mindlessly following the green light. I don’t know how long I walked, but when I heard Zhou Ping and the others calling me, I suddenly woke up and realized something was wrong."

"I even suspect he was sleepwalking when he called us to accompany him to the toilet," Shi Haochen said in annoyance.

The moment they found him, he had asked Zhu Zhihui, but Zhu Zhihui couldn’t answer anything. As the person involved, he was even more bewildered than they were.

"Then, did you have any dreams?" Lin Juan continued to ask.

Zhu Zhihui thought carefully: "I think I did. In my dream, I saw a pair of eyes—very large eyes, like car lights. And oh, those eyes were green!"

"I also saw green eyes—they flashed by, and I thought it was just my imagination," the class president said, instantly realizing that those green eyes were not just his imagination.

"Did Lin see it too?"

Four pairs of eyes turned to look at Lin Juan in unison.

"I saw the green moon," Lin Juan mused. "It seems the key to entering the night campus likely lies with the green moon."

Whether it was the moon or eyes, it was highly likely related to the supernatural.

"Let’s get out of here first."

Although Shi Haochen and the others didn’t understand why Lin Juan suggested leaving without investigating further, they had an almost blind trust in him. When Lin Juan said to leave, they followed closely behind him.

"Thud—thud—thud—"

Heavy footsteps echoed from all directions. Lin Juan paused in his steps.

The four behind him stopped as well.

"Something’s coming," Lin Juan said before they could ask.

They were at the stairwell. The footsteps were chaotic and coming from all directions. For safety, Lin Juan kicked open the nearest dormitory door, quickly searched inside to confirm there was no danger, and said, "Stay here for a while."

Shi Haochen and the others also heard the footsteps.

The footsteps were heavy, and it wasn’t hard to guess that whatever was coming had an astonishing weight.

"Lin..."

"Don’t be afraid," Lin Juan pushed the last person inside. "I’ll guard the door. I won’t let them get near you."

As he spoke, massive figures emerged from the bottom of the stairs and the depths of the corridor.

These were even larger monsters than the ones Lin Juan and the others had seen outside. Their skin was bluish-gray, their heads bulged, and their bodies were covered in fleshy growths. The closer they got, the stronger the putrid smell became.

Lin Juan was utterly fed up with this world—almost every supernatural entity he encountered stank.

As the first one appeared, a second, a third... approached from all directions.

The monsters’ eyes bulged out of their heads. Their bodies were ungainly, with thin, long limbs, resembling giant, magnified toads.

The four monsters Lin Juan had taken down outside at least retained humanoid forms, but these had completely lost any semblance of humanity.

Lin Juan’s fingers twitched slightly. The moment the monsters drew near, he charged out.

His movements were extremely fast; the four inside could only see a blur.

Wherever he went, piercing screams followed.

Looking at the monsters knocked out all over the ground in an instant, the four who should have been terrified found it hard to feel fear.

Who could understand the thrill of seeing monsters defeated before they could even attack?

After finishing the round, Lin Juan retreated to the dormitory door.

Not far away, two monsters had just appeared. Seeing their companions littering the ground, they quickly scampered away.

Lin Juan stepped forward: "Chase them."

The four followed closely behind, watching the monsters fleeing for their lives ahead, their hearts racing.

So satisfying!

These monsters deserved to know how it felt to be hunted!