Sudden darkness plunged the classroom into chaos.
“What’s going on?”
“Why did it suddenly get dark?”
“Where are the lights? Does anyone have the lights on?”
A chorus of questioning voices rose. Zhou Ping was closest to the switch and fumbled to press it.
The lights flickered a few times before going out completely.
“Am I seeing things? For that instant, it didn’t look like our classroom.”
“I saw it too. When the lights flashed, the classroom looked rundown and old, completely different from the one we were just in.”
“What’s going on? Are we experiencing some supernatural event?”
“Watch your words, don’t say that word. I’m scared.”
This time, the voices carried fear, shock, curiosity, and even excitement.
Especially the bolder ones—they were dying of curiosity. Why had the classroom suddenly changed? No matter how bizarre, it shouldn’t transform in the blink of an eye unless they had all collectively lost their memories and been transported from one place to another.
Was that possible?
When all possibilities were eliminated, the most impossible one became the truth.
“I remember—Lin suddenly showed something to the proctor, and then it got dark.”
“Wait, do we even have a classmate named Lin in our class?”
Silence spread invisibly in the darkness.
After a long moment, someone spoke up with a shiver. “I think… we don’t.”
Yes, in their memories, there had never been a classmate named Lin from start to finish—especially not one with long hair that was impossible to ignore and an appearance that was far too outstanding.
If the class had someone like that, they absolutely couldn’t have no impression of him at all.
Outside the window was pitch black too. Darkness bred fear. At first, it was bearable, but soon the more timid students couldn’t take it.
“I want to leave here! I want to go home!”
The word “home” was like flipping a switch.
“Home!”
“Yeah, we should go home!”
Something flashed through Shi Haochen’s mind, and a brief confusion appeared. After snapping back, he felt his cognition—previously blocked by some external force—resurface.
“I remember now. We’re trapped in a loop, endless. Why did my grades suddenly improve? Because I’ve gone through countless loops, doing problems nonstop, over and over. No one could make zero progress under that kind of intense question-sea training.”
His voice wasn’t loud—only the nearby students heard, and doubt rose in their hearts.
“What do you mean ‘trapped in a loop’?”
Shi Haochen didn’t answer. Instead, he groped forward in the darkness based on memory. “Lin!”
“Over here!” Zhou Ping spoke up voluntarily. “Your left, go forward. Under the podium.”
After two steps, he bumped into something. Shi Haochen steadied the desk beside him, and one hand felt something sticky.
Thicker than water—that was his first thought: blood.
Vaguely, he smelled blood.
Once his mind accepted it was blood, the metallic scent clung to him like a persistent plague. It was as if he were at a murder scene, surrounded by blood.
Splattered on the walls, flowing on the floor. Someone was hacking at something with a knife, blood spraying onto his face and body.
In that short distance, Shi Haochen broke out in a cold sweat.
In reality, only a few seconds had passed.
“Shi Haochen!”
His arm was grabbed hard. Shi Haochen snapped out of the hallucination with a shiver. “I just…”
“You were acting really off.” Zhou Ping frowned.
Coming back to himself, Shi Haochen was surprised to find the darkness had lifted.
Dim green light spilled in from the windows. The classroom, which should have been noisy, was deathly silent. He looked around at the dilapidated desks and chairs, the rusty windows, the peeling walls…
No blood. No man hacking at anything.
Just the faint smell of blood.
“Where are the other students? Why are they all gone?” What exactly had happened while he was groping in the dark?
“The moment the green moon rose, they all vanished.” Zhou Ping had wanted to look for them, but seeing Shi Haochen drenched in cold sweat—as if those few steps had been excruciating—he called out first.
“What was wrong with you just now?”
“I smelled blood, like I saw someone hacking at something. Blood everywhere. Where’s Lin?” Shi Haochen hadn’t forgotten—he had an important discovery to share with Lin.
“He’s not with me…” Zhou Ping turned his head. The spot beside him was empty. He cursed, “Fuck!” Panic hit him. “Where’s Lin?”
Zhou Ping hadn’t been that panicked because he knew Lin Juan was nearby. Without Lin Juan, fear was hard to suppress.
In this campus full of dangers everywhere.
“What do we do now?”
The two stared at each other.
Zhou Ping spotted something, his eyes widening in horror. “Behind you…”
“What’s behind me?” Shi Haochen turned as he spoke.
Halfway around, he froze.
Behind him loomed a massive shadow on the wall. The shadow held a cleaver, arm raised high, swinging down hard.
Thud—thud—thud—
The dull sounds of chopping meat echoed in Shi Haochen’s ears.
It was exactly the scene from his hallucination!
His scalp went numb. What he’d seen earlier—was it not a hallucination after all?
It gave them no time to react. The massive shadow detached from the wall like it had come alive, manifesting a solid form.
What shadow? It was clearly a shadow monster!
“Fresh prey.” The monster grinned viciously and slashed at them.
Shi Haochen and Zhou Ping dodged swiftly. Without a word, they bolted out of the classroom together.
The shadow monster pursued.
They didn’t dare stop, reaching the stairs without knowing whether to go up or down.
Shi Haochen decided fast. “I’ll go up, you go down. Whichever of us finds Lin first comes back to save the other as fast as possible!”
“No, I’ll go up.” Zhou Ping refused. Up led to the roof—if the shadow monster didn’t follow, fine, but if it did, it was a dead end.
“No time!” Shi Haochen shoved Zhou Ping toward the downward stairs. In those few words, the shadow monster was already upon them. “Run!”
With that, Shi Haochen turned and raced upstairs.
Heavy footsteps echoed behind him.
He didn’t dare stop. The upward stairs seemed endless. He ran for a long, long time, but looking up, the light at the top hadn’t changed at all.
Even the dullest person would realize something was wrong—not that Shi Haochen was dull.
The stairs might have no end!
Should he stop?
No, he couldn’t wait to die.
Shi Haochen took a deep breath and kept running.
The footsteps behind grew closer.
He felt something cold and sinister sticking to his back.
“Got you!” The shadow monster’s excited voice came from above.
Shi Haochen’s feet left the ground as the monster hoisted him high.
His collar choked his neck, his face turning red from lack of oxygen.
His eyes bulged. He reached back to pry at the hand.
He was about to suffocate.
The massive cleaver swung up. In that instant, every second felt slowed.
Under the threat of death, beyond fear, a refusal to accept fate surged in Shi Haochen.
It was just a shadow! Why die to a shadow?!
Intense unwillingness flooded him. Under extreme conditions, Shi Haochen erupted with immense strength. He twisted his head bit by bit, grabbing the shadow monster’s arm. “If I die, you won’t have it easy either!!!”
His grip tightened, veins bulging on his forehead, eyes locked on the monster. He didn’t notice a deeper change occurring. Under the eerie ghastly green moonlight, his own shadow warped.
It twisted free from him, climbed onto the shadow monster, and constricted it inch by inch, ultimately snapping the shadow monster in two.
Shi Haochen fell from on high, crashing to the ground with utter exhaustion.
It was a soul-deep weariness, incomparable to physical fatigue. He forced himself up on one breath, dragging his heavy body forward.
He saw the bisected shadow monster fading in color until it vanished entirely, leaving only a long, strip-like gray shadow.
His heart pounded like a drum. Black spots danced in his vision. He steadied himself, closed his eyes, and opened them again.
The gray shadow strip remained, slowly wriggling toward him.
It reached his feet and reformed into his shadow.
Shi Haochen’s vision blackened; he nearly collapsed.
Clutching the stair rail, he rested. He was exhausted, eyelids heavy as if they wouldn’t lift again, but he knew he couldn’t sleep. Zhou Ping was downstairs—he had to find him.
And Lin Juan, and the other students.
Shi Haochen ignored the anomaly with himself. After resting, some strength returned. He descended the stairs.
The endless upward stairs led down to the first floor in moments.
Zhou Ping rushed downward. He couldn’t waste the chance Shi Haochen gave him. He soon reached the first floor and stood before the empty teaching building, looking up.
A green moon hung large and round. Was it his imagination, or did he see another faint moon beside it?
Two moons hung low in the sky like a pair of massive eyes watching every move in the school.
A chill ran through Zhou Ping.
Suppressing his fear, he bolted out of the teaching building area.
Faster, faster—he had to find Lin quick and go back to save Shi Haochen.
Lin Juan was searching for the moon.
Night had fallen abruptly. One second he was in the classroom; the next, in the familiar infirmary.
Unlike the daytime infirmary, the nighttime one had a half-destroyed operating room inside. The door glowed red, indicating surgery in progress.
The file in his hand was gone. Lin Juan had a hunch. Ignoring the red light above the operating room, he forced the door open.
Inside, doctors crowded around the operating table. Lin Juan’s entry drew no notice.
He was like a spectator—no one detected him. He walked forward, passing through the doctors like a game glitch, and saw the patient clearly.
It matched the archive from the archives room—the one with the mismatched timeline.
The adolescent boy on the table had his chest cracked open, organs removed one by one. Lin Juan recalled the culture dishes from the previous lab illusion.
The difference: those people were used for weird culture dishes; this boy was being used as an organ culture dish.
Lin Juan frowned. He wanted to stop the surgery, but he and the people in this operating room weren’t in the same dimension—his actions couldn’t affect them.
In frustration, he kicked at something in front of him, and the scene shifted again.
This time, it was a ward.
In the ward, the adolescent boy was bald, much thinner than in the photo. He held a workbook, head down, quietly doing problems.
Lin Juan still couldn’t touch or speak to anyone in this scene.
What he saw was just a massive projection.
Confirming he couldn’t change anything, Lin Juan turned and left without hesitation.
He returned to the familiar classroom.
The classroom was a mess, as if ravaged by war. Lin Juan touched a desk—it moved.
This was no projection.
Lin Juan decided to find people.
Unable to contact them, he had to search the vast campus alone.
Out the door, he saw hack marks on the wall—trailing upward. Lin Juan headed upstairs.
He searched a loop but found no one, so he went down.
Fearless of attracting monsters, Lin Juan shouted loudly the old-fashioned way.
Zhou Ping hid in the collapsed equipment room. After going downstairs, fog rose across the campus. Fog had appeared last time too, before the monster. Zhou Ping was terrified but knew the priority was finding Lin Juan.
They had a chance only with Lin Juan.
Zhou Ping prayed no monster would appear, but things didn’t go as hoped. Visibility dropped below five meters in the thick fog, and the monster emerged.
Zhou Ping fled in panic.
He ran to the familiar equipment room and dove in without thinking, barricading the door with heavy objects.
He cracked the window to peer out.
The monster prowled outside.
Maybe it was his imagination, but this monster from the fog seemed much more aggressive than the last one.
Losing patience, it slammed into the equipment room.
The rundown room wasn’t sturdy like a proper building. After a few hits, it collapsed.
Zhou Ping huddled in the corner, not daring to breathe.
