Zhao Zhenzhen was becoming hysterical. She thought she had been clever, finding allies and clinging to powerful players, yet the person sleeping right next to her had died without a sound.
Could it be... that she had almost died too?
Zhao Zhenzhen’s face turned deathly pale, but no one paid her any mind. Nan Yue had already pushed open the door to the dance studio.
The curtains in the studio were drawn, and the red fabric cast a damp, eerie crimson glow onto the polished floor, looking like a floor covered in blood.
In the dim studio, a woman stood sideways. She was balanced on one leg, with the other bent so her toes touched her thigh—a standard ballet pose.
Her neck was long and her arms were elegantly raised. It should have been a beautiful sight.
Except... the expressions of everyone at the door were hideous.
Shi Yu’s face and movements were completely reversed.
Her limbs and joints had been snapped and twisted behind her back to strike that pose.
To achieve such a position, the joints had to be completely dislocated, with only a layer of skin remaining to hold the reversed limbs in place.
This manner of death could never have been caused by a human.
Xu Yuan didn't even dare to enter. Jiang Xi Cheng and Gu Xiang Kai exchanged a look before going in to take Shi Yu’s body down. After examining her, Gu Xiang Kai looked up.
"She likely died between two and three in the morning."
Zhao Zhenzhen didn't dare look at Shi Yu’s state. Just hearing the time of death sent her into a state of a bird startled by the mere twang of a bow.
At that moment, Director Wu and the others arrived.
Seeing that Shi Yu had clearly not died of natural causes, all three of them looked alarmed. However, compared to Teacher Gao’s genuine terror, the other two seemed to harbor a faint sense of schadenfreude.
"Now we’re short one dance teacher."
Director Wu licked her lips, her gaze circling the group before stopping on Zhao Zhenzhen.
"You go. Take over Teacher Shi’s position."
Zhao Zhenzhen’s face turned an ashen grey, her pupils trembling violently.
"No... no! I don’t want to! I won’t be a teacher, I won’t!"
Zhao Zhenzhen’s fragile nerves were completely snapped by Shi Yu’s wretched death. She screamed with bloodshot eyes, having lost all reason.
Director Wu stepped back a few paces in disgust. However, she didn't force her as the others expected. Instead, she looked at the other life teacher.
"Then you go."
Guan Qing pursed her lips and nodded in agreement.
To be honest, given the current situation, she would rather be paired with Zhu Xi Ning than Zhao Zhenzhen.
Even after Director Wu left, Zhao Zhenzhen continued to mumble in a panic.
"No, I won’t go. Why did Shi Yu die? It was clearly Zhu Xi Ning who broke the rules."
If Nan Yue had felt some inclination to look after this newcomer at the start, she now felt no sympathy or pity at all.
She looked at Shi Yu’s body and said coldly with downcast eyes.
"That just proves that the person who put water on the floor to make Xiaodie slip yesterday was Shi Yu."
She looked at Zhao Zhenzhen with pointed intent. "Don’t think you can get away with anything just because you think no one is watching. This is a mission."
Engineer Yang directed Xu Yuan and Gu Yun to carry Shi Yu’s body away. Since breakfast time had already passed, everyone had to head to class.
The first period was drawing. The others looked at Bai La La and Zhou Zhou with a mix of fear and curiosity.
After all, the content of the drawing class could now be used to determine a manner of death.
If that was the case, could they avoid certain fates in advance?
Bai La La and Zhou Zhou began their class, but as they drew, they realized something was wrong.
The background of the drawing was hard to make out, but it seemed to be a classroom, featuring props like chalk.
The two exchanged a look, both feeling a sense of dread.
Could it be that the one dying today was a teacher?
Bai La La sat quietly, copying materials to show the students the brushwork for coloring, but Zhou Zhou was restless.
The two finally endured until the end of class and shared the news with the others who were about to teach.
Nan Yue had no reaction, but Chi He reacted strongly. Beyond him, Xu Yuan and Xie Qi Qi also looked troubled.
"Do we... have to go to class alone?" Xie Qi Qi whispered. "I’m a bit scared."
Though she felt a bit embarrassed, she felt it wasn't so bad since Chi He was next to her with eyes already red from fear.
Nan Yue shook her head. "Nothing will happen in the classrooms. Otherwise, Director Wu wouldn't have arranged for us to teach alone."
"Even if the NPCs harbor malice, they must follow certain rules. Otherwise, the scavengers would be at too much of a disadvantage."
"It’s only if we violate the rules that things go wrong."
"Just remember, try not to act alone outside of class hours."
The others nodded and left with heavy hearts.
Because the lesson had ended, Bai La La and Zhou Zhou didn't notice a mysterious gust of wind blowing through the empty drawing room, flipping open the sketchbook on the table.
The drawing of the classroom was flipped over by two pages. The two pages that had been blank were now filled with drawings.
The drawings on both pages were identical, depicting an empty washroom.
Like a hand-drawn manuscript produced by a photocopier, they exuded an inexplicable eeriness.
...
Nan Yue found that her textbook had been updated today. As usual, she had the children stand and read, while she firmly memorized the content of several pages.
It was a ghost story with an old-fashioned style.
It told the story of a protagonist named Xiao Li who lived in a shared apartment. He was an average guy who was only on nodding terms with his roommates.
Recently, however, he always felt something was off, as if someone was constantly watching him.
At first, he thought it was just a hallucination caused by stress, but later he found that even when he went home, he could feel that omnipresent gaze.
He asked his roommates, but no one else felt it. He had a sense of unease, feeling that the thing would one day appear before him.
Finally, on the day he was about to be driven mad, a sharp doorbell rang in the early hours of the morning.
He trembled with terror. Only he knew that their door didn't even have a doorbell.
That sharp ringing continued incessantly. He didn't dare open the door and hid in his room.
The thing eventually got in. It knocked on his door from outside the room, and he crawled under the bed.
Why couldn't anyone else hear it?
With such a loud noise, why did no one hear it!?
At that moment, the knocking suddenly stopped.
And Xiao Li finally realized something.
The story ended abruptly, leaving Nan Yue confused.
Realized what?
Why did the knocking stop?
Nan Yue had the children stand up and speak, asking for their thoughts on the ending of the story.
Some children said it was just a story the author couldn't finish, while others actually provided some ideas.
"Could it be that he realized the thing had already come inside?"
Nan Yue pursed her lips. That was exactly what she was thinking.
To them, this wasn't just a story, but an omen of death.
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