Chapter 7 | The Crazy Persona Must Not Collapse

Le Jun shuddered violently. He turned his head stiffly, his gaze locked onto the iron door.

“Bang, bang, bang!”

The noise rang out again, as if someone were violently pounding on the door from inside, accompanied by the approach of chaotic, dense footsteps.

Le Jun’s heart began to thud violently against his ribs.

“Bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang...”

Immediately following that, the entire iron door began to tremble madly. Rust flakes rained down, and the wooden stick wedged against the door rattled incessantly, clattering loudly against the iron frame and railings...

They were here!

It was those monsters—man-eating monsters!

Overcome by sheer terror, Le Jun felt a dense chill shoot straight up his spine from his tailbone. His scalp prickled and his entire body shook. Every single cell screamed at him that danger was near and he needed to run, yet his legs felt as if they were nailed to the floor, too stiff to move an inch.

He instinctively glanced at the girl beside him, only to find her standing quietly by the railing.

Her gaze was fixed unwaveringly on a spot below. Aside from cold detachment and calm, not a trace of fear showed on her small face.

Like spotting a light in the dark or salvation amid despair, Le Jun swallowed hard and quickly moved a few steps closer to Ye Li.

If not for her previous warning, he would have pressed right up against her.

“Wh-what are you looking at?”

His voice was dry and hoarse. Trying hard to feign calm, he leaned forward to glance downstairs, only to be frightened weak-kneed by the chaotic swarm below.

“Look.” Ye Li raised a hand and pointed at the clock on the bell tower below. “The clock is still ticking!”

Le Jun reflexively followed her finger. At the top of the dilapidated bell tower, on that battered old clock, the slender minute hand had already shifted past the number 12. Looking closely, one could see it was still slowly moving.

“What's going on?” Le Jun was momentarily stunned.

Whenever six o'clock in the evening arrived in this damn place, everything seemed to lose all life, leaving behind only ruins, decay, and a horde of rotting, man-eating monsters.

So why was this clock alone intact, ticking away just as it always had?

“Interesting!” Ye Li curled her lips, a spark of keen interest rising on her face.

Le Jun, who was scared nearly out of his wits: “...” What on earth was interesting about this?

The rattling against the iron door grew louder and louder. Its rusted components were loosening, looking as though it wouldn't hold out much longer.

“What should we do now?” Le Jun instinctively asked Ye Li.

Without realizing it, this girl, who looked so delicate and frail, seemed to have become his pillar of support.

“Wait out the time!” Ye Li pursed her lips.

“Wait out the time?” Le Jun didn't understand.

“Right!” Ye Li said. “The clock is still ticking, which means time in the ghost domain is still passing. Every time we die, we return to the starting point of the loop. But have you ever considered what happens if we never die?”

“Never die?” Le Jun’s pupils contracted slightly as he caught on. “You mean... wait for the loop's endpoint?”

“Exactly!” A rare look of appreciation flickered in Ye Li’s eyes.

Talking to smart people really saved effort.

In any loop, the endpoint was the starting point, which then proceeded from the starting point back toward the endpoint.

Since the starting point of this loop was fixed, how was the endpoint defined?

What they knew so far was that as long as they died, they returned to the start, but that didn't guarantee “death” was the only endpoint!

What if they never died? Would the loop not reset?

Since time was passing, it showed that everything was still changing.

And the timing in this space seemed to follow specific points.

They woke up at their respective specific times, and the school turned into a ghost domain at six o'clock sharp...

Could it be inferred from this that the loop's endpoint also had a specific time?

“But how can we stay alive?” Le Jun furrowed his brows, his expression grim.

Looking at the iron door already teetering on the verge of collapse from the bashing, he felt in every way that this was an impossible task!

“Take it slow,” Ye Li said nonchalantly. “Worst case, we just die a few more times. We'll find a way eventually!”

Le Jun: “...” Good grief, he had never seen anyone so unafraid of dying!

“Let's go.”

Ye Li called out, turning around and walking straight toward the iron door.

Le Jun, his legs shaking, asked, “Where are you going?”

She wasn't going to just open the door and feed them to the monsters, was she?

Ye Li pointed up at the roof over the iron door. “This door probably won't hold much longer. We'll climb up there first!”

The roof stood three meters above the floor. They could climb up along the adjacent wire mesh fence; surviving a little longer was better than nothing.

Hearing that, Le Jun hurried to follow.

With his long limbs, he scaled the vertical bars by the fence in just a few moves.

Though Ye Li was small, her agility gave her an edge, making the climb easy.

The two of them quickly reached the roof one after another. The commotion in the stairwell was so intense that they could feel the vibrations even standing on top.

On top of that, the surroundings were completely open, and the freezing wind howled violently. Ye Li's face was nearly twisted out of shape by the gusts, and her footing wobbled unsteadily.

She simply squatted down, pulling up the hem of her oversized school uniform jacket to wrap entirely around her curled-up legs.

Watching the girl squatting there like a giant mushroom, the corner of Le Jun's mouth twitched. He silently shifted behind her to block the wind, then squatted down as well.

“Is there any place in this school that's relatively secluded with few people around after class?” Ye Li asked.

These rotting corpses were too ferocious. They couldn't outfight them or outrun them; taking them head-on was out of the question. To survive, they had no choice but to lay low.

Coming back to the rooftop was definitely out; they needed to find another secluded and sturdy hiding spot.

Le Jun gave it some serious thought and replied, “The gymnasium.”

Even though he had lost his life there the first time, that was mainly because it had happened so suddenly and he had been completely unprepared.

Normally after school, aside from a few student athletes, only members of the sports teams went to the gymnasium—at most, no more than fifty people.

Moreover, the gymnasium was spacious, and the doors between the various courts and rooms could be locked. Relatively speaking, it was the safest place he could think of.

“Sounds good. We'll try the gymnasium next time!” Ye Li agreed without objection, making the decision on the spot.

Before the two “mushrooms” had squatted for long, the iron door below finally gave way under the corpses' relentless onslaught, crashing to the ground with a loud clang.

All at once, like a bursting dam, countless mutilated, grotesque monsters surged inside in a flood. Wave after wave, densely packed and jostling against one another, they crammed the empty rooftop full in the blink of an eye.