Chapter 25: Dragoncry Middle School (Part 2) Part 1

Sensation gradually returned to his hands, and Yun Xueqing struggled to lift his arm. When he saw the question on the back, he fell even more silent.

At the top was a black-and-white image, so blurry it was almost indistinguishable.

But after staring at it for a moment, it began to play automatically like an old black-and-white film.

In the footage, a man wielded a scalpel, slicing into the person strapped to the operating table. He neatly severed the limbs, then meticulously sliced open the skin, cracked the chest cavity, and extracted the organs inside, stacking them neatly. Finally, he cut off the head and placed it beside the organs.

With that, the surgery was complete. At the end of the footage, the man seemed to notice someone watching him. He smiled at Yun Xueqing, and then everything fell silent again. The image froze on the man’s eerie grin.

Yun Xueqing skipped over the picture and looked at the question below: Using your knowledge, analyze the mistakes made by the man in the image above.

Everyone around him—front, back, left, and right—scribbled away furiously. Even Ye Xuechun, who looked like a total delinquent, wrote diligently. Only Yun Xueqing stared at the question for a long while, utterly unmoved.

He couldn’t move at all. This bizarre question was completely unanswerable.

Treating a dead horse as if it were alive, he picked up the ill-fitting ballpoint pen and wrote in the blank space: The man’s smile wasn’t very nice. It needs improvement.

After finishing that one, he randomly guessed on a few of the previous questions, then began spacing out. He pondered what he would do if the biology teacher dragged him off alone for a “biology” experiment—how could he escape?

Midway through, the biology teacher patrolled and noticed he hadn’t written anything. Malicious eyes lingered on him.

The bell signaling the end of class rang, and the students stopped writing in perfect unison, handing in their papers.

Yun Xueqing followed the crowd and turned in his paper too. As he brushed past the others, he finally noticed they had no faces.

Their smooth faces resembled a ball of kneaded dough—nothing else.

Yun Xueqing calmly withdrew his gaze. He recalled that in the six-armed illusion, the disciple who had guided him also had no face.

Even when creating a Weird Domain, did they have to allocate their Weird Power wisely?

Insignificant minor weirds didn’t get detailed facial features. So those with faces were probably important figures.

He walked out of the classroom, and Ye Xuechun came jogging over to walk beside him. “Let’s go, back to the dorm.”

“Back to the dorm?”

“…Weird, how did I know the dorm number?” Ye Xuechun muttered. “It feels like a bunch of memories got added to my head.”

Yun Xueqing paused for a moment. Fu Wuxuan had once said that Weird Domains would assimilate and pollute them starting from the mental aspect.

This was probably the Weird Domain’s influence on Ye Xuechun—implanting memories that didn’t belong to him until he forgot his true identity.

The longer they stayed, the easier it was to assimilate. They couldn’t linger in this Weird Domain; they had to find the Anomalous Domain Lord and get out as soon as possible.

The two returned to Dorm 224, where a large sheet of white paper was plastered on the door, boldly printed with the words “Dorm Rules” in huge characters.

Yun Xueqing read down the list:

[Lights out in the dorm building after 11 PM. No leaving the dorm at night.]

[After 11 PM, no making any noise to disturb your roommates’ studying.]

[Study diligently even in the dorm—even at night—but make sure to reserve enough energy for the next day.]

Yun Xueqing glanced over it a few times and silently memorized the content, pondering the hidden rules behind these three dorm regulations.

Ye Xuechun stood frozen nearby like a delicate figurine, staring at the rules. “We have to follow the dorm rules, right?”

Ignoring the rules of a Weird Domain might lead to death in ways they couldn’t even predict.

Yun Xueqing nodded and looked toward the blank wall.

Dorm 224’s walls had no colorful wallpaper or posters—just a slogan reading “Time is life” and a clock hanging beside it. The hands already pointed to ten o’clock.

The dorm wasn’t large, with four bunks—thankfully upper bed, lower desk, so no fighting over top or bottom. Each desk had a small nightlight and a pile of books.

Yun Xueqing scanned the room. Seeing the time, he grabbed his toiletries and headed to the bathroom first to wash up.

It was a good thing the Weird Domain had force-fed him some memories; otherwise, he might have embarrassed himself by wrapping the showerhead hose around his neck.

He emerged from the bathroom, drying his hair with a white towel. Ye Xuechun, cherishing the time, hurried in right after.

His hair was half-dry, and there were still thirty minutes until 11 PM. With nothing else to do, Yun Xueqing decided to study the Ten-Sided Die he’d gotten from the Calamity God.

The bone die felt smooth and warm to the touch. He turned it over in his hands but couldn’t figure anything out, so he tossed it onto the desk.

The die slipped from his fingers and spun—but it didn’t stop, maintaining its rotation.

Yun Xueqing mused thoughtfully: “No result, huh?”

Considering the Calamity God’s attribute of disaster, he had a hunch. He picked up the die from the desk and said softly, “I will lose a strand of hair.”

He tossed it again, and this time it landed on ten.

A faint blue light enveloped Yun Xueqing’s body, and a single long hair gently drifted down from him.

Yun Xueqing had roughly grasped the correct way to use this die.

He made another wish: “A grape will appear on the desk.”

The die landed on the desk but kept spinning without stopping.

He couldn’t wish for positive things?

Or did it only work on people?

“I will obtain a grape.”

The die still spun without stopping.

Yun Xueqing experimented again. “I will be hit by a grape.”

The die stopped, landing on one.

Blue light bathed his body again, but nothing happened.

Yun Xueqing analyzed it thoughtfully. He glanced at the metal bed frame and, on a whim, adventurously said, “The bed frame will collapse and injure me.”

The die on the desk spun as if manipulated by the hand of fate—accelerating—then suddenly stopped on five.

Blue light enveloped him, and the bed frame shook, but it ultimately didn’t collapse.

He tested a few more times and roughly figured out the die’s mechanics.

First, the die could only affect bad things—it couldn’t be used for good.

Second, the simpler the wish, the higher the chance of rolling a high number, making it more likely to succeed. But it was still probabilistic; even easy wishes might fail for the truly unlucky. Emperors of luck fared the opposite. Ultimately, it boiled down to luck and probability.

Third, the die couldn’t create something from nothing—like getting hit by a grape when there were none in the dorm. But even a one still offered a minuscule chance.

For instance, it wasn’t impossible that someone outside was eating grapes, bit into a bad one, and, being uncouth, casually tossed it from a height—missing slightly and landing right in the dorm to hit him.

But such odds were astronomically low.

Finally, it only worked on living things.

He figured it could affect humans and probably Weirds too, but not purely inanimate objects.

Having sorted out the die’s rules, he stored it in his Storage Space. Ye Xuechun finished washing up and came out of the bathroom.

He grinned cheerfully. “Feels so good after a shower! The body wash in there smells amazing!”

Yun Xueqing nodded. “Once you’re done washing up, sit down and start studying.”

“Huh? Studying?” Ye Xuechun was stunned. “Xueqing, you’re really planning to play the good student and take the college entrance exam?”

Yun Xueqing shook his head and pointed to the dorm rules, one of which read:

[Study diligently even in the dorm—even at night.]

Ye Xuechun scratched his head. “But the rules also say lights out at 11 PM. Doesn’t that mean we should rest properly?”

Yun Xueqing shook his head again. Even as 11 PM approached, his voice remained calm and unhurried. “The dorm building lights out, but we have small nightlights. They’re there for a reason.”

He pointed to the nightlight on the desk. His fingertip brushed the lampshade—no dust. Clearly, it was used and wiped regularly.

Ye Xuechun took the advice, finding it reasonable. He sat quietly at his desk, opened a book, and read earnestly.

Yun Xueqing checked the clock—one minute to 11 PM—and gave a final reminder: “Something scary might appear. Remember, don’t make a sound no matter what.”

Ye Xuechun nodded vigorously.

Both in the dorm stayed silent, flipping through their textbooks. The room fell utterly quiet.

Yun Xueqing flipped through his biology textbook, finding it fascinating.

The content wasn’t normal—warped by the Weird Domain into bloody, eerie tales more like strange fiction than a textbook. He read it like a storybook, engrossed.

A curved mirror hung on the wall above his desk, reflecting his studying figure. His pale face distorted into something inhuman in the glass.

The clock ticked steadily. In the quiet, the sounds from the tightly shut door stood out sharply.

The door lock rattled as if tampered with, and the blue-green metal door began to shake.

Yun Xueqing didn’t look up, immersed in his “storybook.” Moments later, the door was pried open, and a sinister male voice called: “Dorm supervisor checking rooms.”

Yun Xueqing shifted his gaze from the entertaining “storybook” to the Dorm Supervisor standing in the doorway.

It was less a man and more a mountain of piled flesh.

His body swelled like an inflated balloon—narrow at the top, wide at the bottom—like layers of meat stacked up, with a tiny head.

His sleazy features crowded together: tiny nose, huge mouth, and muddy eyes nearly overlapping, like those of a flounder from the sea.

The flounder-faced figure gloomily scanned the room. Seeing no contraband and both of them properly studying at their desks, his expression brightened with satisfaction. “Time is life; time can’t be wasted on sleep. You’re doing great—keep studying hard.”

Then, somewhat indignantly: “This is how students should be. Unlike the dorm next door—they turned off the lights and went to sleep right at 11!”

“Lazy students deserve punishment,” he said, anger mixing with a hint of relish. “I tore off one of their hands as punishment. If it’s not used for reading and writing homework, it’s useless anyway.”

As he spoke, his large mouth occasionally revealed teeth with bits of fresh blood and flesh stuck between them.

No one looked closely. Ye Xuechun was terrified into silence, playing ostrich by staring fixedly at his book—even if he couldn’t read a word, his eyes wouldn’t budge.

Yun Xueqing remembered the no-talking rule and ignored him.

His plan to bait them into speaking having failed, the Dorm Supervisor’s face darkened again.

Bound by the rules, he said nothing more, closed the door, and moved to the next dorm.