Chapter 18
Standing on the platform where the notices were posted, one could see the closed main entrance of the school building below.
The group quickly reached a consensus with a glance and went down to check.
Through the glass double doors, the deep night outside was clearly visible, as well as the sturdy padlock on the outer handle.
Shen Wu and Liang Shu took turns pushing and pulling a few times. The glass door shook slightly, opening a narrow gap at most. The padlock outside didn’t budge.
And they were inside the main entrance. Even if they found the key through clues, they couldn’t reach out to unlock the padlock on the outside.
This most obvious way out was clearly a dead end.
Suddenly, a crackling sound of electricity echoed in the quiet and empty first-floor hall.
Then it was replaced by a sobbing male voice, repeating over and over, “I’m sorry, teacher, I was wrong, I won’t do it again…”
Everyone was startled and looked around in a panic, but found nothing.
The audience in the live broadcast room also held their breath.
The image in the cameraman’s lens was a bit brighter than what the guests saw with their own eyes. An eagle-eyed viewer suddenly noticed something was wrong.
[Wait, in the upper right corner of the screen, is that a person…?]
[Ahhhhhh, holy crap, it seems to be real, ahhhh]
On site, Xia Fanxing swallowed and pointed with a trembling hand, “There, is there something there?”
[Ahhhhhh, bullet screen protect me—]
[What is the show doing in the middle of the night! Look how scared our Xingxing is!?]
Reminded by Xia Fanxing, the remaining few people all turned their heads to look.
The unknown creature hidden in the darkness, once discovered, no longer hid its tracks and suddenly accelerated, rushing towards them.
This was obviously an NPC played by a staff member, but the special effects makeup was superb.
The person rushing over had a face as pale as paper, with crisscrossing purple bruises. His split mouth was as red as blood. His clothes were dirty and tattered, and a pair of cracked glasses hung crookedly on his face.
His body was in a twisted posture, but his running speed was not slow at all.
“Ahhh!!!”
It was unknown who screamed first, but like the sound of a starting gun, everyone suddenly came to their senses and started running.
Xia Fanxing was closest to the “ghost.” His mind went blank in an instant, and he subconsciously turned and ran towards the dark depths of the corridor.
With him taking the lead, the others followed closely behind.
Shen Wu was stunned for a moment, then suddenly realized that running into the corridor would inevitably lead to a dead end, and he didn’t know if there were any rooms to hide in there.
Understanding this, he quickly went to pull Meng Huaizhi’s arm to prevent him from following blindly.
But his worry was unnecessary.
Meng Huaizhi hadn’t moved an inch and also reached out to him. The two hands collided in mid-air, and both of them were stunned for a moment.
In the few moments of daze, the terrifying “ghost” was already close at hand.
The two of them exchanged a glance, withdrew their hands, and reached a silent understanding. Without much hesitation, they narrowly dodged the “ghost’s” outstretched hand, turned a corner, and ran upstairs.
Liang Shu and the others had run a certain distance with Xia Fanxing. When he looked back, he was surprised to see Shen Wu and Meng Huaizhi going upstairs.
The six of them had split into two groups and were running in different directions. The “ghost” seemed to hesitate and paused for a moment.
Liang Shu suddenly realized that this was an opportunity and quickly shouted, “We can’t run into the corridor, we’ll get caught. We have to go upstairs!”
Hearing this, Lin Yanran and Nan Dengwei both chose to take the risk with him and rushed towards the “ghost” standing at the bottom of the stairs.
Shen Wu and the other were far ahead. As they turned a corner, they glanced down.
They saw Liang Shu and the other two also going upstairs. The “ghost” feinted to the left, then to the right, and didn’t catch a single one of them.
After the three of them successfully passed him and got on the stairs, the “ghost” looked left and right, and decisively chose to give up on the majority who were going upstairs and went to chase after Xia Fanxing, who had already run far away.
Xia Fanxing was running towards the dead end of the corridor, the easiest prey to catch.
Shen Wu and Meng Huaizhi climbed three floors and chose to hide on the fourth floor, which was farthest from the first floor and had a floor above as a retreat.
Shen Wu pushed open doors as he walked. After passing several locked doors, he finally heard a “creak.” An old wooden door opened inwards. He quickly said, “Huaizhi-ge, here.”
A simple form of address was uttered, and the bullet screen suddenly exploded.
[What did I just hear? Huaizhi-ge???]
[It’s just one extra word, ‘zhi’, but why does the atmosphere feel so different?]
[Whether it’s different or not mainly depends on who’s saying it (doge)]
Fans usually called Meng Huaizhi “Huai-ge.”
[They really seem to have known each other for a long time, and their relationship looks very good. May Huai-ge and Wuwu’s friendship last forever~]
The solo stans tried to do damage control.
Shen Wu belatedly realized his slip of the tongue. He unconsciously raised his finger to rub the tip of his nose and corrected himself, “Ahem, Teacher Meng…”
[Ahhhhhhhh, Teacher Meng]
[So good, so good, so good!]
[Aiyo, what a clumsy attempt to cover up. If you hadn’t cleared your throat, I wouldn’t have thought anything of it~]
[If the younger one doesn’t call him ge, his thoughts are a bit much. If the younger one calls him gege, his thoughts are a bit wild.]
[LMAO, so you can ship them no matter what, right?]
[The younger one is the best!!!]
[The older one’s party will never admit defeat!]
[A six-year old fan of Huai-ge is here. Shipping is fine, but Huai-ge must be the 1.]
[Stop pretending, you scheming CP fan!!]
Compared to the lively bullet screen, Meng Huaizhi stood still, not saying a word.
It was as if he was still processing that “Teacher Meng.”
Shen Wu saw a dirty patch on the sleeve of Meng Huaizhi’s white shirt and took the opportunity to change the subject. “Did you get caught by the ‘ghost’ just now?”
Hearing this, Meng Huaizhi looked at the obvious stain on his forearm and couldn’t help but frown.
On his face, even an expression of annoyance and disgust was extremely faint.
He thought for a moment, undid his cufflinks, and neatly rolled up the plain white sleeves three times, revealing two sections of toned, fair forearms, and the cyan “M” tattoo on the inside of his left wrist.
Shen Wu waited for him to finish tidying up and continued to search the classroom. He suddenly paused. “There’s a class roster here!”
Meng Huaizhi also looked over. A moment later, both of them were stunned.
On the dense list of names, their own names were included.
“I actually became your classmate,” Shen Wu still had the heart to joke.
Meng Huaizhi was four years older than him. Just as he had told Xiang Zixu before, when he was in kindergarten, Meng Huaizhi was in elementary school. When he was in middle school, Meng Huaizhi was already in high school.
Although the two of them had been in the same middle school for two years, they had almost no chance to meet.
And between middle school and high school, there seemed to be an insurmountable gap. High school students probably saw middle school students as even more childish than university students saw high school students.
Meng Huaizhi carefully observed the class roster, looked back to confirm, and then said, “This roster is the same as the classroom layout, six rows and five columns. The positions on the roster might correspond to our seats.”
“That’s right,” Shen Wu’s eyes lit up. “Then I’ll go find my seat.”
Meng Huaizhi’s seat was in the first row by the window, and Shen Wu’s was in the last row by the door, at opposite ends of a diagonal line.
The two of them split up. Meng Huaizhi arrived at his seat first.
The desk was very clean, but among the pile of textbooks and workbooks in the drawer, there was an out-of-place notebook with his own name written on the cover.
He opened the notebook, but it wasn’t any homework or exercise, but the sheet music and lyrics for “Vexation.”
The show’s team was very thoughtful, even using handwriting, as if he had written it in the notebook himself.
This song was written in his third year of high school, when he was eighteen. At that time, Shen Wu was fourteen and in his second year of middle school.
The sheet music and lyrics were indeed for “Vexation,” but the title was blank. At the end of the sheet music, there were a few cryptic letters: To.W.
He glanced at it briefly, his expression unchanged, and casually closed the sheet music.
The cameraman behind him hadn’t had time to take a close-up shot, but was forbidden by the rules to make a sound, so he had to retreat to his original position dejectedly.
The bullet screen was puzzled.
[What was written in that notebook just now? Did anyone see it?]
[It seems to be the sheet music and lyrics for ‘Vexation’.]
[What does this hint mean? Is it to prove that they used to go to school here??]
Meng Huaizhi turned around and saw Shen Wu at the other end of the classroom, looking at something with full concentration.
On Shen Wu’s side, the textbooks in the drawer were all brand new props. He took them out one by one and piled them on the desk, finally finding a notebook pressed at the very bottom.
The staff in the control room saw that Shen Wu had found a key clue and timely switched the main camera to his side.
Shen Wu opened the notebook and was instantly stunned.
The hint in his notebook was straightforward, filled with the same name.
He couldn’t hide it even if he wanted to.
The live broadcast room instantly boiled over, the bullet screen so full it was about to overflow.
[Damn, you kid, you’re having a secret crush, aren’t you!!!]
[It’s all Huai-ge’s name, ahhhhhh]
[The show is leading the way in shipping CPs. It would be rude of me not to ship them now.]
[Ahhhhhh, he’s so in love!!]
[So was there a similar hint in Huai-ge’s notebook just now?!]
[Someone is clearly also super in love, you think I wouldn’t know just because you hid it?]
Meng Huaizhi came to the back of the classroom from his side of the aisle, silently approaching Shen Wu from behind and to the side, taking in the contents of the notebook.
The clear and cold aura was not very obvious in this gloomy environment. Shen Wu was a beat slow before he snapped the notebook shut.
The loud noise was a dead giveaway.
Shen Wu turned his head and looked into Meng Huaizhi’s dark and silent eyes. The guilt of having his secret exposed grew even stronger.
Meng Huaizhi didn’t say a word about it and made a reasonable deduction, “This should be some kind of clue.”
Shen Wu nodded with a straight face, “…Right.”
But he was still thinking to himself, even if he had a secret crush, he wouldn’t be so blatant about it, writing someone’s name all over his notebook, as if he was afraid of not being discovered.
With that thought, Shen Wu had a sudden realization. “Could this clue be hinting that… we used to have a puppy love in this high school?”
Meng Huaizhi: “Mm, it seems so. That’s why we were chased by the ‘ghost’.”
Shen Wu: “I remember that ‘ghost’ was wearing a striped polo shirt, loose-fitting trousers, and was a bit bald, a bit like my high school dean of students. Maybe he’s the ghost of the dean, and he’s chasing us because we had a puppy love.”
[Ghost: Are you being polite?]
[Ghost: Don’t I have any face?]
[Hahaha, I thought this was a horror game. Don’t make me laugh.]
[To the person in front, be careful of a slap in the face when the ghost comes out later, hhh]
Shen Wu was a little dissatisfied. “I was just thinking, I’ve never broken any school rules, so I should be safe. Xia Fanxing was chased because he had a puppy love.”
[Xia Fanxing: I’m not, I didn’t, don’t talk nonsense!]
[That’s right, Xingxing’s puppy love was with me (wears sunglasses)]
[Hahaha, so does Shen Wu mean he’s never had a puppy love? Why don’t I believe him~]
[He clearly has! The evidence is written all over the notebook!!]
[A reality show is still a variety show. Please don’t bring the show’s setting into reality!!!]
The bullet screen in the live broadcast room was lively, on the verge of a war, while the two people in the classroom were immersed in their own world, analyzing the current situation.
“There are six of us, so it’s possible that we’re exactly three couples,” Meng Huaizhi said. “Everyone will be caught. The first one was Xia Fanxing… maybe because he was too noisy and attracted the ‘ghost’s’ attention the most.”
Just as he mentioned Xia Fanxing, a broadcast sound came on.
A monotonous mechanical voice announced, “Xia Fanxing, a third-year student, was in a relationship on campus, seriously violating the school rules and regulations. He is now given a public criticism. All students are advised to take this as a warning and focus on their studies.”
Shen Wu and Meng Huaizhi were both stunned.
“Did he get caught by the ghost?” Shen Wu asked.
“Possibly.”
Shen Wu sighed with some frustration. “Then the clue that we’re in a relationship seems to be useless…” All that work for nothing.
The onlookers are always the clearest. The audience in the live broadcast room was confident and revealed the truth.
[It’s obvious that this clue is just the show’s way of leading the CP shipping (doge)]
[Can you guys focus on the show!?]
Before long, the broadcast announcement sounded again, like a bucket of cold water, extinguishing the impending bullet screen war.
“Will Nan Dengwei, a third-year student, please come to the dean’s office on the fifth floor? Will Nan Dengwei, a third-year student, please come to the dean’s office on the fifth floor…”
The two of them held their breath and waited for a long time, but the broadcast kept repeating the same name. As it was being read, the flat mechanical voice seemed to have a rising and falling intonation, like some kind of uncanny valley effect.
Even the onlookers felt a chill, let alone the person being mentioned.
Shen Wu frowned and murmured, “Why is it Xiao Nan?”
“A puppy love can’t be done by one person, just like us,” Meng Huaizhi analyzed. “They might also be a couple… set up to be a couple.”
Shen Wu nodded. “If one person is caught, their lover is the ghost’s next target.”
Meng Huaizhi: “Mm.”
“But Xia Fanxing, like us, probably didn’t know who his lover was before finding the clue. There’s no way he sold the other person out,” Shen Wu unconsciously tapped the tip of his nose, the light-colored mole appearing and disappearing. He thought as he spoke,
“So this is a kind of… symbiotic relationship?”
You live, I live. You die, I die. This is not a healthy state for a relationship.
Shen Wu thought for a moment, then looked at Meng Huaizhi and asked seriously, “Can we break up now?”
Meng Huaizhi’s expression was blank as he refused flatly, “No.”
