The three invigilators stood like statues, stationed at the front and back corners of the classroom and the podium. Their faces were pale, their eyes hollow, with dark circles underneath. They moved like machines, programmed to follow a strict set of rules.
“First warning, candidates, do not look around.”
Listening to Sun Ye’s pitiful cries for help, the students began to gather their belongings, hesitant but ready to move. In situations like this, someone usually needed to take the lead, but no one wanted to be the first.
Chu Shiyu, her face tense and pale, clutched her ID and admission ticket tightly in her palm. She glanced to her left and right, as if trying to gather her courage before suddenly standing up and striding towards the door.
Seeing someone take the initiative, the rest of the students followed suit, leaving their seats one after another, walking past the ominous figures standing by the windows.
As more people got up, another kind of tension filled the room. It seemed like whoever was the last to leave would be the most unfortunate, and so they all rushed toward the door, congregating around the storage rack near the entrance. The deep red bloodstain and the nearly decapitated corpse near the door made everyone shudder, even though they had some idea of what they needed to do. Confronted with the bloodthirsty hunters wielding weapons by the windows, their legs felt weak, and all they wanted was to flee.
“Hurry up! We only have three minutes…” someone urged, voice trembling.
“Damn it! Why do we have to go through this crazy shit!”
“Complaining now won’t help! Someone needs to make the first move!”
Maybe because Chu Shiyu had been the first to leave, all eyes turned toward her in desperation. Her already pale face grew even whiter, as if she’d swallowed a fly. “Why are you all looking at me?!”
“Hurry, there’s not much time left,” Tong Yang lazily reminded them from her perch on the rooftop of the building across the way.
Chu Shiyu shot her a glare. “It’s easy for you to stand there and say that!”
“What’s wrong, Missy, are you scared?” Tong Yang smirked. “By the way, Sun Ye’s running too fast. Two hunters lost track of him and are heading your way.”
The moment they heard this, the students’ tension skyrocketed.
Chu Shiyu bit her lip. Not wanting to be looked down on by Tong Yang, she forced herself to pick up the bloodstained iron bar from the floor. Steeling her nerves, she approached the nearest hunter. Hesitating for a moment, she gritted her teeth and plunged the iron bar into its abdomen. Blood gushed out, coating her hands as it flowed down the iron bar. Chu Shiyu, who had never seen such a sight before, almost vomited on the spot.
Despite having been stabbed, the hunter merely stared at them with its dead eyes, showing no sign of pain or resistance.
Seeing this, the others gained a bit of courage and started grabbing weapons, attempting to strike the still hunters themselves.
“Hey… are we going to end up in jail for this?” someone asked nervously.
“I wanted to become a civil servant… what now?”
“Screw it! We’re the victims here! And look at this place—it’s totally different from when we came in!”
“These things don’t even look human anymore…”
“To hell with this! We’ve worked our asses off for three years, only to deal with this crap during the gaokao! Screw these monsters, they can all die for all I care!”
“Exactly! Do you know how long I’ve waited for this day? Die, you bastards!”
“Screw your damn death game. We’ll kill you first!”
The students’ confusion and fear gave way to anger. Each grabbed whatever they could use as a weapon and began attacking the motionless hunters. In no time, the hallway outside exam room 1209 was splattered with blood.
Since the hunters were still bound by the rules, they offered no resistance, which made the students feel like they weren’t even dealing with living beings. As a result, their strikes grew fiercer, and any hesitation vanished.
Watching their frenzied attacks from across the rooftop, Tong Yang shrugged. See? The rage of stressed-out high school students was no joke.
Blood splattered the walls, and the students were drenched in it. To anyone else, it would have looked like they were the killers.
“They’re coming up from the left,” Tong Yang reminded them.
The now-bloodthirsty students, their fear seemingly gone, turned toward the stairwell, ready to pounce on the approaching threat. Their morale was high—if one hunter died, they could handle another.
Two hunters charged up the stairs, axes raised, eyes bulging with fury. But the students, no longer scared, swiftly overpowered them. Having already taken down most of the hunters in the hallway, these two posed little threat.
“Bastards! Come at me! If I don’t kill you, I’ll jump off this building myself!”
“I’ve already killed so many of you, what’s a couple more?”
The hunters, unfazed by the students’ numbers, charged forward, swinging their axes wildly. But the high schoolers, armed with makeshift weapons, stabbed the hunters before they could get close.
“Aren’t you supposed to be tough? Come on, kill me!”
“I don’t care what you are, you’re dead!”
Even after being impaled, the hunters continued to move, their blank eyes staring unblinkingly at the students. Ignoring their wounds, they stumbled forward, heads tilting at odd angles, their pale skin now covered in blood, making them look even more horrifying.
—The three minutes were up.
“Watch your backs,” Tong Yang casually warned from her safe spot.
Still riding high on their adrenaline, the students turned to look.
To their horror, the blood-soaked, mutilated hunters they’d thought were dead began twitching and writhing on the floor. Like zombies, they slowly pulled themselves up, dragging their broken bodies forward. Some had their guts spilling out, others had their limbs barely attached by thin strips of flesh, and one had an eyeball hanging by a thread. Despite their grotesque injuries, they gripped their weapons tightly and shambled toward the students.
“Holy crap…” someone gasped.
The grotesque scene shattered the students’ earlier bravado. Their anger was quickly replaced by nausea and terror.
“Why… why won’t they die?!”
Their confidence evaporated in an instant, and they instinctively huddled together in fear, watching the monsters stagger toward them.
“Help… someone, help…”
“Ugh—” someone dry-heaved.
“AAAAHHHH!!!”
When one student couldn’t take the pressure any longer and bolted for the stairs, the others snapped out of their trance and started fleeing as well.
With all 1209’s students out of the exam room, the remaining hunters joined the chase. Despite their injuries, they relentlessly pursued the fleeing students, leaving trails of blood and bits of flesh along the hallways, filling the air with a thick stench of iron.
Screaming, the students scattered in all directions. As they ran downstairs, they collided with Sun Ye, who was still being chased by several hunters.
“Help me…” Sun Ye cried, his eyes welling up with tears when he saw the familiar faces. But they ignored him, terrified of whatever was following close behind.
“Don’t come this way! Run the other way!” Sun Ye yelled, panic setting in.
“Screw running!” someone yelled back.
“Get out of here! Don’t come over!”
“Wait! There are hunters behind me—” Before Sun Ye could finish, he saw what was chasing the group. Crawling out of the stairwell were blood-soaked, mangled creatures, their bodies barely holding together. Sun Ye’s face went pale. Compared to the relatively intact hunters chasing him, these bloodied monsters looked far more terrifying.
One of the creatures, a pile of bloody flesh, rolled down the stairs, crawling across the floor with its remaining limbs.
Without hesitation, Sun Ye spun on his heels. But just as he turned, several knives came flying toward his face, casting a dark shadow over him.
“AAAAHHHH!!!”
Before the hunters could reach him, the other students kicked them aside and bolted, clearly more afraid of the nightmarish abominations chasing them.
Relieved, Sun Ye quickly followed suit, running with the others toward the cafeteria.
Back on the rooftop, Tong Yang leaned against the railing, watching the chaotic game of cat and mouse unfold below with a satisfied grin. She started pondering how to permanently deal with these creatures. But just then, a loud crash echoed from behind her. Whirling around, she saw a pale hand reaching through the gap in the iron door, shoving aside the furniture blocking the way.
It seemed that one of the hunters had silently made its way to the rooftop.
Unfazed, Tong Yang glanced down. Several bloodied monsters were already crawling toward the building.
“This place isn’t safe anymore,” she muttered, stuffing her phone back into her bag. Picking up her makeshift spiked club, she approached the door.
The hunter pounded on the door, its pale hand reaching through the gap, trying to push aside the chair wedged against it.
Without hesitation, Tong Yang brought the spiked club down on its hand, smashing it into a bloody mess. Blood and fingers splattered across the floor, exposing bone. But even with its hand destroyed, the creature continued to reach for her, swinging a knife with its other hand.
Tong Yang smashed that hand too, sending the knife clattering to the ground. She bent down, picked up the knife, and opened the door before the other creatures could arrive. As soon as the door opened, the armless hunter lunged at her. Tong Yang raised the knife and sliced through its neck in one clean motion.
Blood spurted everywhere, and the hunter’s head hit the ground with a dull thud.
“Disgusting,” Tong Yang muttered, kicking the decapitated corpse aside and carefully avoiding the bloodstained mess on the floor as she left the rooftop.
Meanwhile, Sun Ye and the others had taken refuge in the cafeteria. They quickly pulled down the metal shutters at the entrance, temporarily safe from the hunters.
Covered in blood and panting heavily, they scanned the room, finally feeling a small sense of relief.
“Is everyone here?” someone asked.
“Yes.”
At the same time, Chu Shiyu and Sun Ye seemed to remember something, exclaiming in unison, “Tong Yang is still out there!”
At that moment, the window above them shattered with a loud crash. Everyone flinched in terror, looking up just in time to see a bloodied knife fall to the floor.
A figure, drenched in blood, crawled through the broken window.
“Shit… these monsters can climb through windows too…”
The girl crouched on the window ledge, glanced at them, and wiped the blood off her face.
“It’s me,” she said.
Before she could finish speaking, a bloodied hand appeared behind her, reaching for her bag.
“Tong Yang, look out!” Chu Shiyu screamed, pointing in horror at the thing behind her.
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