“Dead...”
Zhao Weilai whispered, repeating the words as her tears fell without warning.
She didn't know these two people, had never even spoken to them, and didn't even know what they looked like.
But the reality of death crashed down heavily like this.
Perhaps people who were attending classes, eating, and walking on the same campus just a few days ago were simply gone today.
Who would be next?
Would it be her, Ziwen, or Ding Feifan?
Tears fell onto the back of her hand, icy cold.
Deng Ziwen grabbed her hand, his throat tightening, but he couldn't utter a single word of comfort.
He was terrified out of his wits.
Ding Feifan turned his head away and took a deep breath.
His heart was beating rapidly, and his chest felt so tight he could barely breathe.
Two human lives, gone just like that, reduced to two flimsy lines of text.
Before this, he had still held onto a shred of illusion, thinking this might be a collective hallucination or some kind of new weapon.
Now, it seemed that wasn't the case at all.
This was real.
People really died in the Instance.
...
“Don't think too much.”
Ding Feifan's voice wavered, but he still tried his best to steady his tone. “As long as we successfully check-in, we can leave. There's still a chance... As long as we hurry and search, I believe we'll be able to get out soon.”
He said that, but he had no confidence in his own heart either.
The window-tapping continued, a "pat-pat" sound that felt like it was knocking on everyone's hearts.
Before long, Deng Ziwen's stomach growled, sounding exceptionally clear in the silent room.
He felt a bit embarrassed.
From yesterday afternoon until now, the three of them had gone almost a day and a night without eating.
Having also gone through a life-and-death struggle in the afternoon, their physical strength had long been depleted.
“Let's look for some food,” Zhao Weilai said, wiping away her tears. “In an office this big, there must be something to eat. If all else fails, I'll write an IOU and count it as borrowed. If we keep going like this, we'll starve to death before we're even killed by ghosts.”
The three of them stood up in silence and began searching the office on tiptoe.
The filing cabinets were filled with files and forms, and the drawers contained staplers, paperclips, inkpads, and other office supplies—no food.
Zhao Weilai simply squatted down and turned to rummage through the trash can under the desk.
Fortunately, she was lucky.
In the trash can under one of the desks, there was a half-empty, opened bag of soda crackers, along with two unfinished cups of cold soy milk.
—They were probably left over by some teacher working overtime, who threw them away after taking a bite because they were too sweet.
“There's food here,” she said softly. “In the trash can. Someone probably threw it away.”
Deng Ziwen had a hard time accepting it psychologically. “From the trash can... can we really eat that?”
“It's better than nothing,” Ding Feifan walked over and took a look. “What's thrown in the trash counts as discarded waste, so it shouldn't count as us taking public property. Let's fill our stomachs first. Anything is better than starving.”
There was less than half a bag of crackers left. They were lemon-flavored, slightly damp, and soft.
The soy milk was ice cold and carried a slight raw bean smell, with a thin layer of soy skin congealed at the bottom of the straw.
The three of them sat in a circle on the floor and divided the crackers into three portions.
No one spoke. They all kept their heads down, slowly chewing the softened crackers.
They didn't taste good; they were even a bit unpleasant.
But no one complained.
In a place like this, having something to eat was already a blessing.
“If I had known, I should have brought some snacks with me like Fu Qinqin did.”
Zhao Weilai took a sip of the cold soy milk, which was starting to turn sour. As the icy liquid slid down her throat, her stomach felt a bit uncomfortable.
Beside her, Deng Ziwen noticed her frown and stuffed his portion of the crackers into her hand.
“Eat. When we get back, we'll go to that Thai restaurant you've been wanting to try.”
Looking at the crackers in her hand, Zhao Weilai suddenly remembered how she had been arguing with Deng Ziwen earlier.
She had nagged him for having no ambition, and complained about him wanting to go back to his hometown to take the civil service exam.
Back then, she felt that graduation, work, and the future—any of those things—were monumental issues.
Only now did she realize that just being alive was already good enough.
...
“By the way,” Ding Feifan suddenly spoke up, breaking the silence. “Classmate Zhao, what was up with that... Class you awakened this afternoon?”
Zhao Weilai raised her head. After a moment of thought, she felt there was no reason to hide it.
“A voice suddenly sounded in my head, notifying me that I had awakened the Butcher class. My talent is Butcher's Touch, which has a certain probability of triggering weakness detection.”
“An Instance, classes... it's practically like playing a real-life game,” Ding Feifan muttered. “I wonder if anyone outside has noticed our disappearance.”
“They definitely do. Maybe the police are already trying to figure out how to rescue us right now,” Deng Ziwen said, finding humor in their misery. “Auntie Liu has already made it out. She will definitely call the police.”
Zhao Weilai didn't say anything.
Her fingertips quietly tightened around the object in her pocket.
—It was a small clay doll made of black mud, very ugly and crooked, with its facial features completely blurred together.
Calling it a "clay doll" was actually a bit of a stretch.
At first glance, it looked like a piece of poop that had evolved limbs.
It was something Liu Guilan had secretly stuffed into her hand before disappearing from her arms.
Zhao Weilai hadn't reacted in time back then, and by the time she wanted to ask what it was, Liu Guilan had already vanished.
Thinking about it now, Liu Guilan might have awakened a class as well.
Otherwise, how could a normal cafeteria auntie have such a thing?
But she didn't speak of it.
For some reason, she didn't really want others to know about this.
Perhaps it was out of selfishness, or perhaps because of something else.
She cast a glance at Ding Feifan and quickly withdrew her gaze.
Ding Feifan was still sighing. “Classes are probably awakened at random.”
He paused, looking at the two of them. “Do you think any of the others have awakened too? Like Weng Yang—she was the first to spot the quest trap and reacted so quickly. Could she have awakened as well?”
“I don't know,” Zhao Weilai shook her head. “She didn't say.”
Weng Yang seemed composed. Even if she had indeed awakened something, she wouldn't necessarily talk about it.
“Alright, let's not talk about this anymore.”
Ding Feifan checked the time. “It's almost twelve o'clock. The rules said to sleep as soon as possible after lights out. Let's rest early to gather our strength so we can find the remaining check-in points tomorrow.”
The three of them spread files on the floor to use as mattresses.
The office wasn't large, and the three of them huddled close together, almost shoulder-to-shoulder.
At a time like this, they couldn't care less about privacy. Huddling their warm bodies together at least provided a bit more sense of security.
The window-tapping outside continued, a constant "pat-pat-pat-pat" that seemed like it would never stop.
Zhao Weilai lay beside Deng Ziwen, her eyes wide open as she stared at the ceiling.
In the darkness, the light from the emergency lamp was very dim, revealing only the blurry outline of the ceiling.
Her mind was a chaotic mess—one moment it was the water ghost's bloated face, the next it was the system's cold death notification, and then it was the look in Liu Guilan's eyes when she stuffed the clay doll into her hand.
Before she knew it, she drifted off to sleep in a daze.
Her dreams were filled entirely with dark-green pus and bloated human faces.
...
...
3:30 AM.
Deng Ziwen was woken up by pain.
His stomach was cramping in waves, feeling as if something were twisting inside, pulling down heavily.
A layer of cold sweat instantly broke out on his forehead. He immediately realized it must have been that cup of cold soy milk.
The cold soy milk, combined with the hot weather, had already begun to turn sour. It would have been a miracle if he didn't get diarrhea after drinking it.
He gritted his teeth and endured it for a good while, but the cramping didn't ease up at all; instead, it grew increasingly severe.
No, he really couldn't hold it anymore.
He sat up gently, not wanting to wake Zhao Weilai. But the moment he moved, Ding Feifan beside him woke up.
“What's wrong? Is there a situation?” Ding Feifan asked in a lowered voice.
“Instructor Ding...” Deng Ziwen's voice trembled slightly. “My... my stomach hurts. I need to use the restroom.”
Ding Feifan froze for a moment, then quickly understood.
He glanced toward the door, then looked out the window.
It was past three in the morning, the deepest part of the night. White fog blanketed the outside; who knew what was lingering in the hallway.
“You can't go out,” Ding Feifan whispered. “It's too dangerous. Hold it in a bit longer, wait until dawn.”
“I... I can't hold it...” Deng Ziwen's face was flushed red, and his stomach was churning violently. “If I hold it any longer, I'm going to crap my pants...”
He was both ashamed and anxious, his forehead drenched in sweat.
Doing this in front of his girlfriend and a stranger was the ultimate social death.
But he truly couldn't hold it anymore.
Ding Feifan was also in a bind.
Going out was too dangerous, since they didn't know what was in the hallway.
But if he didn't go out, he couldn't actually let him crap his pants.
He scanned the office, his gaze landing on the empty trash can in the corner.
“How about...” Ding Feifan pointed to the trash can with some embarrassment. “You just... relieve yourself right here. The trash can is empty anyway. We can just throw it out afterward.”
Deng Ziwen's face instantly flushed the color of pig liver.
“How... how can I do that!” He lowered his voice, anxious and mortified. “Weilai is still here!”
Zhao Weilai had actually woken up long ago.
She had heard their conversation and was pretending to sleep with her eyes closed, feeling incredibly awkward.
“What time do you think it is? Why do you still care about that?”
Ding Feifan's tone was very realistic as he spread his hands. “What's more important, your life or your face? Did you forget the water ghost at the Lake-Center Pavilion? If you run into something out there and lose your life, what use is your face?”
Deng Ziwen fell silent. At this moment, the social death of crapping his pants actually overshadowed his fear of death.
His eyes rolled back in anxiety, and his entire body was shaking.
When a person has diarrhea, they are not afraid of death.
The restroom of the administration building was at the end of the hallway, just a few dozen meters away.
—If he ran fast, he could be back in two minutes.
“I'm going,” Deng Ziwen stood up with a tearful face, grabbing the mop handle from the floor. “I really can't take it anymore.”
“Are you crazy?” Zhao Weilai, who had been pretending to sleep, sat up and pulled him back. “Don't you know how dangerous it is out there?”
“It's better than... crapping my pants,” Deng Ziwen gritted his teeth. “I run fast, it'll be fine. You guys wait here, lock the door, and I'll knock when I get back.”
As he spoke, he walked toward the door, his hand already gripping the doorknob.
Ding Feifan wanted to stop him, but looking at his flushed face, he felt a bit of pity.
A distance of only a few dozen meters, logically speaking... it should be fine, right?
But at the exact moment Deng Ziwen turned the lock and was about to pull the door open—
Knock, knock, knock.
Three soft knocks sounded from outside the door.
Very soft, three times, carrying a hint of cautiousness.
It was as if a polite student were standing outside.
The three of them held their breath simultaneously.
Ding Feifan made a shushing gesture and stood up on tiptoe to walk over to the door.
Zhao Weilai slowly controlled her breathing.
Deng Ziwen forgot his stomachache entirely, the hairs all over his body standing on end.
Knock, knock, knock.
Neither too heavy nor too light, the rhythm was precise, as if someone were tapping their knuckles against the wooden door.
Still the same rhythm, neither rushed nor slow.
In the deep of night inside the administration building, it carried an indescribable eeriness.
Who was outside?
At 3:30 AM, how could anyone be walking around outside?
Was it Zhou Shengsheng, who was acting alone?
But how would Zhou Shengsheng know they were here?
Or... had something else come?
Rate on N.U.
