Free Web NovelChapter 175: Room 175
His gaze tried to land on the open spaces in the distance.
First, he looked to the north:
"At Baichuan University Affiliated Middle School, there are many ghost stories about the high school dormitory, the most famous of which is probably the disappearing dormitory. Based on superstitious beliefs, there is no room number 404 in the dormitory numbering. Rooms 403 and 405 are connected, but legend has it that at 4:04 a.m., some abnormal sights can be seen in both dormitories. Of course, what I’m saying is only typical; you might find many similar school ghost stories."
Paranormal events in the apocalypse?
If this was his past life, it wouldn’t be easy to explain, but outside the tower, it’s quite simple to do so—the disappearing dormitory must be related to some kind of space-time rule disturbance?
Bai Wu temporarily suppressed his desire to explore and looked to the east:
"The ghost stories from the east are relatively few. As is customary, let’s talk about the most typical one: we all know that humans like to label from a young age, and it’s like some schools like to separate good students from bad ones. This place is a gathering spot for troublesome kids. Their goal is not to get good grades but to cause as much trouble as possible, which is why the Evil Fallen don’t like to wander to the east—the Evil Fallen there are too barbaric. They are so wild that they have taken over the entire teaching building area."
A violent district? If there are no special ghost stories mixed in, this area might actually be the simplest one.
Bai Wu looked to the south:
"How can you miss the teacher’s office building if you want to find out what happened at Baichuan University? The secrets of missing students, the origin of ghost stories, numerous evil deals—all may not be found. But if you don’t look, you’ll definitely discover nothing. Of course, there might be a few tough customers in there guarding the place, and maybe someone you know."
The note reminded Bai Wu of something—who said disciples must be students? What if they were teachers?
It seems that the reasons for this middle school to become a red zone are a bit more complicated than imagined.
Finally, Bai Wu looked to the west.
"This area can be called the most dangerous area in the whole school; it has already been distorted by resentment. Entering it, you may see various psychological manifestations, like the angels you saw in the hospital, but here in the school, you might encounter demons. Stay away from this place unless you’ve made enough choices in other areas."
The angels seen in the hospital?
That must certainly be Hong Yin, who absorbed the resentment and pain of many test subjects in the hospital and became an aggregate.
But deep down, she’s kind-hearted.
Could there be something similar in the school?
Directions can only provide general information. Bai Wu is confident that there are many more stories like the gym’s that haven’t been mentioned in these directions.
After roughly understanding this school, Bai Wu estimated that this exploration might take a while, and he didn’t know if he would be able to make it to the Married Women’s Manor gathering in time.
Now he faced the first multiple-choice question: which side to choose first.
Bai Wu didn’t ponder for too long and quickly decided on the direction of the student dormitory.
"Teachers can be quite cunning and aren’t necessarily going to hide things in the teaching building, but a student’s dorm is like an open safe."
There are a total of six dormitory buildings in the Baichuan University Affiliated Middle School dormitory area. Bai Wu noticed that the school was quite superstitious about the number four, so he directly chose the fourth dormitory.
"It’s a pity it’s not the famous paranormal scene, Boys’ Dormitory 17."
The dormitory area belongs to the northern part of the campus, not far from the gymnasium, just behind the sports field. Judging by the gymnasium and the soccer field, this school should be one of the top institutions in Baichuan City.
As he passed by the cafeteria, Bai Wu could feel the Evil Fallen queuing up inside to buy food.
In the distant teaching buildings, although they were filled with ferocious Evil Fallen, one could still hear some sounds of reading.
Details such as the Evil Fallen playing soccer on the field suggested that the school seemed to be able to enforce certain student-like behavioral habits on the Evil Fallen.
But these habits had all undergone apocalyptic processing.
For example, on the sports field, the soccer-playing Evil Fallen were kicking human heads, and the food in the cafeteria might be something disgusting; also, the students sitting in the classrooms were perhaps dominated by some immense fear...
There were many places worth exploring. Thinking about these questions, Bai Wu quickly crossed a row of steps behind the cafeteria and arrived at the dormitory area.
The fourth building of the boys’ dormitory, when looking at the dormitory, the information provided became a bit more specific—
[Suicides, thefts, supernatural pen games—and some secrets hidden by the school’s teachers, they’re all in this building. Terror is a lock, and with this lock, many are afraid to approach the truth; but you’re different, you’re a professional locksmith, and so am I~]
Bai Wu stood outside the dormitory and extended his perception, discovering that there were not many Evil Fallen in this building.
There were six dormitory buildings, each with eight floors, and each floor had twenty-two dorms.
Bai Wu entered without much hindrance.
"The Traveller’s list mentioned that there are one thousand Evil Fallen in this school, with nearly one Evil Fallen in every dorm. What exactly is this school?"
Bai Wu had already felt that something was not quite right.
"The signs of the apocalypse were all too evident, and Lin Rui and others from Food City, who were also students, had already begun to form scavenging teams to scrounge for supplies. How could it be that all the students from Baichuan would still obediently gather at school to study?"
The first floor of the boys’ dormitory building four.
Bai Wu began to check each room one by one.
[A dorm that once housed two men in a homosexual relationship.]
[A dorm that housed four damned heterosexuals.]
[A dorm that housed four glorious ones devoted to paper.]
[A dorm that housed four single dogs, the next one too, the one after the next, and the one after that, and the one after that... omitting until you find a clue.]
[Oh! You finally found an interesting dorm— a dorm where playing the pen spirit game eventually led to the mysterious disappearance of four heterosexuals. Let me give you a hint on the time, 2123.]
A pen spirit game, and all four disappeared?
Bai Wu pushed open the door of this dorm, which was a normal layout for a four-person university dorm—a bathroom, a wash basin, and four student beds each with a small loft, computer desk, and study desk.
A table, with a piece of paper on it.
"A half-burnt candle, this thing still remains here... that’s outrageous. If four students disappeared, then the parents of the students would definitely come to the school to make a scene, and the police wouldn’t fail to investigate. Even if they were preserving the crime scene, they wouldn’t leave supernatural items here. It feels like they are just going through the motions. Or are you saying that after the four went missing, this room was really kept sealed?"
"In the year 2123, from the information I’ve received before, anomalies began to appear in the city, but overall it hadn’t reached absurd levels. Most people were disturbed, yet still believed the apocalypse would end," he said.
"It’s not strange for students to attend classes at this time. But this makes their disappearance even more peculiar."
"Baichuan City... What other strange incidents have occurred here before?"
Bai Wu noticed that the eyes described various school mutants as "bizarre tales." The term naturally carried a sense of the supernatural and ghostly.
He began to examine the piece of paper on the round table. Written on it were four characters: Yes, No, Live, Die.
There were two circles above Yes, and one circle above Die.
"They asked three questions, and ’Pen Immortal’ gave two affirmative answers. They also asked a question relating to life and death, most likely about themselves, and ’Pen Immortal’ indicated that they would die."
"This kind of game is likely to have one person playing tricks, but it mainly depends on the questions. I need to search for clues to figure out what the question was."
Since everything here was well-preserved, Bai Wu had reason to believe that there might be some clues hidden in this dormitory.
He began to rummage through cabinets and drawers.
The books in the bookcase, the pages in the books, notes, pillows, bed boards, walls, even under the bed.
Bai Wu’s actions were gentle and patient, searching bit by bit, not leaving any spot unchecked.
Finally, in one of the shoes under bed four, he found a crumpled piece of paper.
After smoothing it out, Bai Wu found some content written on the paper:
"2123.04.04."
"Kai insisted we play this game, saying that if we followed the steps, spirits wouldn’t bother us, that we shouldn’t ask questions we shouldn’t, not inquire about the cause of a spirit’s death, then nothing would happen."
"After Xiaolin went mad, she was sent to the mental hospital... I wanted to visit her because I always felt she hadn’t gone mad. But how do we prove someone isn’t mad? When someone screams desperately, ’I’m not mad, I’m not insane,’ doesn’t everybody around tend to think the opposite?"
"I know Kai wanted to ask about that incident... three years ago... that terrible event. It seems all the strangeness originated from there..."
"Strange things in school have become more frequent, none of those who disappeared have returned, I’m really not a coward, I’m just cautious... If you see my note, please be sure to hand it over to the school authorities."
A contemplative expression appeared on Bai Wu’s face.
Based solely on this note, the information was sparse. Bai Wu sorted through the clues: freeweɓnøvel.com
"Strange incidents have already started happening in school one after another... But is it because the entire city is experiencing continuous anomalies that no one is dealing with the school?"
"A female student named Xiaolin is considered mad by everyone, but the person who left the note thinks she isn’t mad..."
After a careful search, Bai Wu found no other information.
This student had some sense of crisis, but ultimately was too bold, playing certain games with roommates that shouldn’t be played.
Bai Wu didn’t think there was a problem with the game, but whether or not someone could take advantage of the façade of the game to do something horrifying was unknown.
The note ultimately wasn’t delivered to the school’s leadership in time, and this was presumably an intentional cover-up by the school authorities.
"Not investigating the disappearance of four students because there are too many supernatural incidents, and simply assuming it’s some mystical force because the students happened to be playing a supernatural game? That doesn’t make sense. They didn’t even search this room, which is very suspicious."
Bai Wu tucked the note away carefully, returned everything else to its original place with great care and time, until he was sure everything was identical to when he had entered the room. Then, he began heading towards the fourth floor.
Without any delay, there were plenty of strange tales about the entire fourth building, but Bai Wu’s target was the non-existent Room 404, between Rooms 403 and 405.
The mutants were at rest on the second and third floors, and it was highly likely that the ones here were Intelligent Evil Fallen. Bai Wu decided not to provoke the Evil Fallen, feeling that they seemed to have forgotten many things. Even if he asked them, it would be difficult to get any information, and he might even inadvertently alert them.
The Evil Fallen who used his head as a ball gave Bai Wu a feeling of foolishness, and all the Evil Fallen on campus seemed to follow some behavioral pattern.
This was something Bai Wu couldn’t figure out for the moment, so he chose to collect some information first without alerting the Evil Fallen.
He quickly arrived at the fourth floor.
On the fourth floor of Building 4, the gap between Dorms 403 and 405 was just over a meter.
Bai Wu looked at the door of one of the dorms, but the pop-up message included information about both dorms.
[The residents of 403 and 405 all claimed to be very brave, disbelieving in ghosts and evil spirits, thinking that the school’s supernatural incidents were all coincidental events that fit into scientific patterns. You know, typical horror movie protagonist thinking, and they experienced something out of a Japanese horror movie~ One night, one disappeared in a mirror, another in a toilet. Since then, the remaining people started getting paranoid. Let me tell you something—identical actions can lead to identical outcomes. You might want to try solving the mystery of Room 404.]
Bai Wu opened the door of Room 403.
The structure of the dorm was identical to those he’d entered on the first floor, but what was different in Room 403 was that there was a stone statue for warding off evil on the laundry basin.
These students were still scared, after all.
Bai Wu began rummaging as usual.
At that moment, a bell rang in the distance—the end-of-class bell.
Through the window of Room 403, Bai Wu looked towards a corner of the academic building, and at that moment, the note’s information changed:
[School’s out! Goodbye, teacher! You should also prepare to say goodbye, my old pal. Soon, this dorm will fill up with Evil Fallen: a level seven dormitory supervisor who’s a Mutant, four level eight security team members, and floors teeming with Evil Fallen are about to come. However, the rooms you’ve just explored, including these two, are empty due to so-called supernatural events—perhaps you can try spending the night in a building full of Evil Fallen? Let’s see who finds you first, the ghosts or the Evil Fallen.]
The last sentence was probably a warning, but Bai Wu found it quite interesting.
"It looks like the entire dormitory building will soon be filled with Evil Fallen... A level eight security team, a level seven dormitory supervisor, and the brainless level five I just encountered... Yes, this feels real."
"Theoretically, as long as I stay in this room, other Evil Fallen won’t bother me. There are currently three urban legends associated with this room; why not give it a try."
Bai Wu checked the time, hoping his first negative attribute wouldn’t be too outrageous.
Because tonight... it would probably be his first time spending the night alone outside the tower.
And tonight was destined to be an exciting night.
