“Ningning, wake up!”
Ye Li’s shoulder jolted. Startled awake as if from a dream, she snapped her eyes open to find herself slumped over a desk next to a wall.
Before her was a face brimming with youthful vitality. A long-haired girl was pulling back the hand she had just used to pat her shoulder. “Hurry up and get up, school’s out!”
Ye Li sat up as told, quietly taking in her surroundings without drawing attention.
It was a spacious, noisy classroom. Desks were piled high with towering stacks of books, surrounded by young students clad in identical blue-and-white school uniforms. The teacher’s chalk handwriting on the blackboard had yet to be wiped away, and on the bulletin board at the back, colorful chalk proclaimed in bold characters: “238 Days Until the Gaokao.”
Ye Li raised an eyebrow, mildly surprised.
The scene before her was an ordinary high school senior classroom from early twenty-first-century Blue Star. No matter how one looked at it, it seemed completely unrelated to any sort of “desperate realm”!
Could it be that experiencing the “hell” of a senior year was her penal reform?
【The first Desperate World has been generated.】
Just as she was pondering this, a cold, mechanical voice echoed in her mind.
【For every day spent in this Desperate World, ten points of the inmate’s basic Sin Value will be deducted.】
Ten points deducted just for surviving a day? Wasn't that base rate a bit high?
Hearing this, Ye Li was even more surprised.
Was this it? The penal reform system that struck terror into the hearts of so many, making countless criminals tremble in fear?
【The completion criterion for this Desperate World is the complete death of the inmate’s assigned character. The specific sentence duration will be arranged at the discretion of the Desperate Realm Review Board.】
Ye Li paused to ponder, asking a question in her mind. “Since there’s a world completion criterion, why is there an arranged sentence duration?”
That was far too contradictory!
【The inmate is advised to explore specific circumstances on their own during the course of the sentence.】
【Wishing you a smooth sentence.】
As the cold voice faded, Ye Li’s mind returned to absolute silence.
“What are you daydreaming about? Hurry up, pack your things so we can grab a spot in the cafeteria! If we’re late, we’ll have to wait forever again!” The long-haired girl’s urging pulled her thoughts back to reality.
“All right.”
Ye Li closed the open textbook on her desk, casually tossed it onto the stack of books, and stood up. “Let’s go.”
“Quick, quick, quick.” Clutching a pile of books to her chest, the girl immediately led the way out of the classroom.
Ye Li carefully navigated past the towers of books and followed her out.
The corridor outside was just as bustling, with students wandering and fooling around in groups of two or three.
Ye Li followed behind the girl while observing her surroundings.
Dusk was falling. The sun was sinking in the west, casting a golden afterglow across the grounds.
They were currently on the sixth floor of the academic building. Looking down from the corridor, one could take in most of the school at a glance.
To the left of the academic building stood two three-story buildings side by side—one was the faculty office building, and the other was a multipurpose building housing laboratories, the library, and computer labs.
The main school gate was to the right of the academic building. On the small plaza in front of the gate stood a towering clock tower.
Ye Li glanced at the clock embedded at the top of the tower; it was around 5:40 PM.
The school’s athletic field and dormitories were behind the academic building, while the cafeteria and campus convenience store were situated between the dorms and the academic building.
It took Ye Li and the girl more than five minutes of hurried walking to reach the cafeteria.
The cafeteria was quite large, capable of seating at least four to five hundred people at once. Since classes had just ended, it was already packed with a bustling crowd.
“Usual drill: you grab a table, I’ll get the food.” The girl shoved her books into Ye Li’s arms and, without waiting for an answer, turned on her heel and hurried toward the long table where the meal trays were stacked.
Ye Li calmly complied with the arrangement, ultimately finding a corner table near the exit to sit down.
While waiting, she combed through the residual memories of the body’s original owner. She learned that the girl was named Ningning, an ordinary high school senior at this fully enclosed boarding school. The long-haired girl just now was her desk-mate and best friend, Tang Qi. The rest of the memories consisted of mundane daily life, offering very little useful information.
Looking at the lively, animated faces bustling before her, Ye Li couldn’t help but grow increasingly curious.
Where exactly was this so-called desperate realm?
After waiting for about ten minutes, Tang Qi finally navigated the sea of people and returned triumphantly with two loaded trays.
“Come on, praise me! They had your favorite sweet and sour pork today, and I carried out my mission to snag some for you!” Out of breath, she didn’t forget to claim credit.
“You’re amazing!” Ye Li praised her generously, reaching out to take the tray handed to her.
The tray held three side dishes and a serving of rice. Aside from the sweet and sour pork, there was braised tofu and stir-fried cabbage.
Tang Qi circled to the other side of the table and sat opposite her. “After we finish eating, let’s stop by the campus mart. I need to buy a few things.”
“Sure,” Ye Li agreed, picking up a piece of sweet and sour pork with her chopsticks.
The meat was golden and glossy, evenly coated in sauce, and smelled sweet and tangy—it looked utterly appetizing.
She wanted to give it a taste.
Yet before she could put it in her mouth, a crisp chime suddenly echoed in her ears.
Dong... Dong... Dong...
“It’s only six o’clock. We got here pretty early today!” Tang Qi said with a grin, chewing on her chopsticks.
Just then, as the sixth chime echoed, every single LED fluorescent light across the cafeteria ceiling abruptly went out.
In the dim lighting, Ye Li’s face suddenly changed!
She watched with her own eyes as the girl across from her began to transform at a rate visible to the naked eye.
First, her fair, delicate skin withered, turning a dull, bruised greenish-blue. Dark brown, web-like veins spread across her flesh like spiderwebs, while dark red, bloody fluid began leaking from her facial features.
Next, the skin all over her body swelled, blistered, and rotted.
Finally, streams of foul, purulent blood poured from bursting sores. Her hair and fingernails peeled away, and through the decaying subcutaneous tissue, grim white bone was faintly visible...
The smiling girl from just moments before had transformed completely into a hideous, terrifying rotting corpse!
What was even more horrifying was that everything in the surroundings was decaying rapidly alongside her in the span of just over ten seconds.
People, food, tables, chairs, walls, ceiling... Not a single thing was spared.
The entire air grew thick with a stifling, rancid stench!
The sudden catastrophe left Ye Li stunned!
In the next instant, the yellowed, cloudy eyes of the corpse in front of her rolled sharply. Snarling with bared teeth, it reached out and lunged straight toward her.
This thing was actually alive!
Without the slightest hesitation, Ye Li dropped her blackened chopsticks and the rotten meat, shooting to her feet. Snatching the stainless steel meal tray off the table, she slammed it violently against the corpse’s head.
Crash!
Rotten matter splattered everywhere!
The blow sent the corpse tumbling backward off its chair, yet it writhed and struggled on the ground, trying to clamber back up.
Meanwhile, the surrounding corpses began to move as well.
Baring their teeth and snarling, they staggered forward on twisted limbs, swarming toward Ye Li in a frenzy. While not blazing fast, their pace was by no means slow either.
Ye Li hesitated no longer. Vaulting over the bench, she broke into a dead sprint toward the cafeteria exit.
Along the way, several corpses tried to block her path, but she swung the meal tray left and right, bashing them aside.
Yet when she burst out of the cafeteria, the outside world had already turned into an entirely different nightmare.
Rate on N.U.
