When leaving the café, Officer Lin meaningfully patted her shoulder.
“Head back to school, see you tomorrow.”
“Take care, both of you.”
After parting ways with them, Tong Yang turned and headed back to school.
Due to the peculiar circumstances of the Ye Wen disappearance case, all the police involved knew the situation was complex.
Tong Yang provided an abridged account, omitting certain details, about how Tong Le had once vanished for two days without explanation. However, to avoid complicating matters by dragging Tong Le into it, she only mentioned that upon his return, Tong Le couldn’t recall anything that happened during those two days.
Officers Lin and Wan exchanged looks silently after hearing this and gravely instructed her to visit Hailin International School at 10 a.m. the next morning. Tong Yang naturally agreed, as this aligned with her intentions.
Back in her dorm, she called Ye Huai to inform him of this development.
“What are the police planning to do tomorrow?” Tong Yang asked.
Ye Huai explained, “Personnel from Division 749 will be surveying the site tomorrow, and others familiar with similar incidents, like you, will be there as well.”
Tong Yang nodded, not particularly surprised; she was aware that she wasn’t the only one privy to the existence of parallel worlds, and this might be a good opportunity.
After hanging up, she headed to the gym, maintaining her usual routine.
The next day, July 20th, she left the school in full attire at 8:30 a.m.
On her way to the subway station, she encountered a girl with a guide dog. Tong Yang noticed her because as a pet dog passed by inviting the guide dog to play, the girl gently said, “Sorry, he’s working right now.”
The guide dog disdainfully glanced at the pet dog and continued walking proudly forward.
After entering the subway station, she found herself on the same train as the girl. Despite it being the weekend, the subway was packed, and the guide dog had to stand by the handrail as no seats were available.
Despite designated seats for the disabled, the passengers occupying them didn’t notice the girl.
Tong Yang was pushed next to her, and when the train jolted into motion, the girl stumbled into her. Tong Yang steadied her.
“Thank you,” the girl whispered.
“It’s nothing.”
Tong Yang looked down to see the guide dog staring unblinkingly at a passenger with a rolling suitcase, its tail accidentally trapped under a wheel. Despite the pain, trained as it was, the dog didn’t react in a way that might disturb its owner.
Tong Yang noticed disdain in the dog’s eyes, almost as if it regarded the clumsy passenger as a nuisance.
“Your tail is under his wheel,” Tong Yang tapped the shoulder of the passenger, who quickly apologized and moved the suitcase.
The guide dog curled its tail in, licked Tong Yang’s shoes in gratitude, and the girl smiled warmly. “Thank you.”
“It’s no problem.”
“What breed is he?”
With nothing else to do, Tong Yang gently tapped the dog’s paw.
“He’s a Labrador, named Lion.”
“Lion?”
Hearing their conversation, other passengers glanced down at the dog.
“He’s very smart, picked his own name.”
Several stops later, the girl was guided to a seat. Tong Yang stood by, and they learned that they would be getting off at the same subway station.
With twenty minutes to spare before their 10 a.m. appointments, they exited the station and said their goodbyes.
Tong Yang walked towards Hailin International School. As she approached, a bus passed by and stopped nearby. The girl with the guide dog got off at this stop.
Tong Yang was surprised to see her again. Lion seemed to recognize her and silently flicked his tongue out at her before leading his owner toward the school.
This girl was also headed to Hailin International School?
Tong Yang hurried to catch up, just as the girl stopped and turned slightly toward her, smiling. “Are you the girl from the subway?”
Tong Yang, taken aback, responded, “How did you know?”
The girl explained, “You have a scent of lemon-scented laundry detergent dried by the sun on you. It’s quite pleasant.”
“Really?” Tong Yang sniffed her clothes but couldn’t smell anything.
“Are you also going to Hailin International School?” Tong Yang asked.
The girl’s expression became reserved as she nodded.
“Let’s go then.”
“My name is Xu Junyue, what’s yours?”
“Tong Yang.”
Together, they reached the locked main gates of Hailin International School, chatting briefly without divulging the reasons for their visits.
Tong Yang called Officer Lin, and soon, she emerged from inside, surprised to see them together.
“Do you know each other?” Officer Lin inquired.
“We just met on the way here.”
Nodding, Officer Lin didn’t probe further.
“Since that’s the case, let’s go inside.”
Following Officer Lin into the school, Tong Yang looked around at the advanced facilities, including omnipresent electronic screens and robots.
Officer Lin didn’t lead them to where Ye Wen had vanished but straight to the principal’s office.
As they passed through a glass corridor connecting the canteen and the teaching building, Tong Yang looked up carefully. There were five such corridors, each about six to seven meters apart. Ye Wen had disappeared from one on the third floor.
Stopping outside the principal’s office, Officer Lin knocked on the door.
“Dr. Wu, they’re here.”
“Come in.”
Tong Yang and the others entered, seeing seven or eight people inside, including Ye Wen’s parents, Ye Huai, a few police officers, and two individuals in lab coats.
“Please, have a seat.”
Tong Yang and Xu Junyue found seats, and Officer Lin closed the door.
“Aunt Bai, Mr. Ye,” Tong Yang nodded to Ye Wen’s parents.
Aunt Bai looked haggard, her eyes rimmed with tears, clearly having not rested well these past few days. She nodded back weakly in response.
Mr. Ye, upon seeing Tong Yang, became infuriated, slamming his hand on the table. “Did you and Ye Huai conspire to kidnap my son?!”
“I always found it odd why you kept trying to keep Xiaowen at home. So, this was your plan all along!”
“I tell you, if anything happens to Xiaowen, I will never let you off!”
Ye Huai frowned slightly and said, “Dad, don’t make a scene, the police have already said it’s not man-made.”
“Say that again?!” Mr. Ye turned a shade of blue with rage, pointing at Ye Huai, about to strike him but was restrained by a police officer.
“Mr. Ye, please calm down, we’ve already investigated, and your son stayed home because he didn’t want to go to school.”
“Nonsense! It must be them! It must be…”
Tong Yang impatiently interjected, “Officer, can we really proceed with such an irrational parent here? Maybe have him step outside to cool off?”
Her incendiary remark drew sidelong glances from everyone, and Officer Lin shot her a look to not add fuel to the fire.
Dr. Wu scanned the room, saying sternly, “Alright, Mr. Ye, if you continue to disrupt, we’ll have to ask you to leave.”
Dr. Wu seemed to be the most authoritative among them. Mr. Ye’s face still stormy, he ceased his outburst but glared venomously at Tong Yang before sitting back down.
Tong Yang thought Mr. Ye had definitely lost his senses, wondering how someone like him managed to become the chairman of White Horse Group.
“Officer Lin, let’s discuss the real matter,” Dr. Wu prompted.
Officer Lin nodded and stood up to address everyone, “Regarding the mysterious disappearance of Ye Wen, the police have formed a preliminary conclusion.”
“The place where Ye Wen disappeared has no other exits; it’s as if he vanished into thin air. This is not only an unnatural phenomenon, it couldn’t possibly be man-made, so we’ve brought two people who have experienced similar incidents.”
Officer Lin gestured to Tong Yang, who repeated the details she had shared the previous day, though she omitted any mention of herself appearing from a parallel world.
Dr. Wu listened, then fell into thought.
Xu Junyue spoke up, “A year ago, I was walking home on my usual route and suddenly smelled a strong scent of blood, which disappeared after a few minutes. Since then, I occasionally encounter this situation, even at home. I’d look everywhere for Lion, who never leaves my side, yet he would vanish and then suddenly reappear.”
Tong Yang looked at her; it seemed Xu Junyue had entered parallel worlds multiple times without sight, but had not encountered other people or been harmed.
Dr. Wu asked, “Miss Tong, does your brother know where he was during those two days?”
Tong Yang shook her head, “He said he was sleeping at home all the time, but I couldn’t find him.”
Dr. Wu nodded thoughtfully, then turned to Xu Junyue, “Miss Xu, have you noticed any other anomalies?”
Xu Junyue thought for a moment and replied, “Each time, I would smell a hint of blood.”
Hearing this, Dr. Wu fell silent, and everyone else watched him, unclear on the implications.
After half a minute, Dr. Wu sighed and stood up, “I apologize for not introducing myself earlier.”
“I am Wu Xueping, a member of the Supernatural Research Agency, Division 749. We now suspect, Mr. and Mrs. Ye, that your youngest son, Ye Wen, due to some catalyst, has entered a parallel world.”
Aunt Bai was stunned, “Parallel world?”
Mr. Ye clenched his teeth as if at his limit, “What nonsense are you spouting? If you can’t solve the case, are you blaming it on some superstitious nonsense? I thought you were some kind of expert, but it turns out you’re just a fraud! A supernatural research agency? Are you kidding me? Better to arrest Ye Huai and that woman for interrogation; maybe that’ll help find Xiaowen quicker!”
“Mr. Ye, please calm down and cooperate with us. If you continue this way, you will no longer be involved in the proceedings.”
Ye Huai stood and bowed to everyone, saying, “Sorry for the embarrassment. Dr. Wu, please ignore my father’s words and continue.”
Mr. Ye’s face turned green with anger as he abruptly stood, kicked his chair, and glared viciously at Ye Huai before storming out.
Aunt Bai hesitated for a moment before following him out.
“Now that the disruptive element is gone, please continue, Dr. Wu,” Tong Yang said.
Dr. Wu narrowed his eyes, looking at the trio, surprised at their calm demeanor, and asked, “Aren’t you surprised at all?”
Ye Huai replied, “There are many things in the world that science can’t explain.”
“That makes sense.”
“Right.”
The police officers looked at each other; they had struggled mentally for days, repeatedly reviewed the surveillance footage, and reluctantly accepted this as an unnatural incident, even worrying about the psychological impact on these young people. Yet here they were, accepting it so readily.
Tong Yang asked, “Dr. Wu, how did you discover the parallel world?”
She wasn’t planning to share her own experiences just yet, unsure of their intentions. As long as she could be involved, that was enough for her.
Dr. Wu looked at her, pondered for a moment, and said, “Through the phenomenon of mirages.”
“Mirages?” Tong Yang frowned, “Isn’t that a natural phenomenon?”
Dr. Wu explained, “Miss Tong, I hear you’re good at physics, so you should understand that rather than calling it a natural phenomenon, it’s more like a ‘supernatural’ natural phenomenon. Although the scientific community has verified mirages through various methods, there are still aspects that science can’t confirm. It indeed is a natural phenomenon, but at the same time, it’s a supernatural one. If we view it as a parallel world, or a place that exists in a different dimension from ours, doesn’t that explain it?”
“So you haven’t actually found the parallel world? It’s all just a bold guess?”
Dr. Wu nodded, “Of course, we have other evidence, but we can’t disclose it to you.”
Tong Yang nodded, “So, what’s the purpose of gathering us here today?”
“We want to explore the parallel world.”
Tong Yang lowered her lashes; this aligned perfectly with her thoughts. Rather than entering the parallel world passively, finding the conditions to enter and having some control over it would change the dynamic.
“However, it might be dangerous, and you are free to refuse.”
“I’m willing to help you,” Tong Yang said.
Xu Junyue hesitated for a moment, “I can help too…”
Ye Huai asked, “What should we do?”
Dr. Wu and the man in the lab coat beside him exchanged glances before replying, “Tonight, from 11 p.m. to 1 a.m., is a good opportunity. We need to be at the spot where Ye Wen disappeared.”
“No problem.”
“Officer Lin, please ensure that no one else stays in the school tonight, including all police officers.”
Hearing this, Ye Huai furrowed his brow, “Why?”
“Because if we find the entrance to the parallel world, it must be restricted. Both Miss Tong’s brother and Miss Xu encountered the parallel world alone.”
Tong Yang’s pupils narrowed slightly. She and others from room 1209 entered the parallel world without restrictions, perhaps because they hadn’t actively tried to enter at the time.
Dr. Wu said he needed to make some preparations and advised them to manage their own time until the evening when they should return to the school.
Ye Huai then took them to inspect the glass corridor where Ye Wen had disappeared.
The glass corridor looked just like the one Tong Yang had seen in the surveillance footage, with only two exits at either end.
Tong Yang stood at the entrance of the corridor and looked down, Xu Junyue and Lion joining her side.
“Tong Yang.”
Tong Yang turned to look at her, saying, “You really don’t need to get involved.”
Xu Junyue pursed her lips, smiling slightly, “Thank you, but I want to know if the parallel world really exists.”
“It’s dangerous.”
Xu Junyue smiled faintly, “Don’t let my appearance fool you, I’m not as fragile as you might think.”
Ye Huai, facing the sunlight at the edge of the glass corridor, appeared contemplative before speaking, “I’ll show you the surveillance from just before and after Ye Wen’s disappearance.”
Tong Yang hesitated but agreed.
Ye Huai led them to the security room, explaining their purpose to the security staff, and reset the surveillance to noon on the 15th.
Xu Junyue, unable to see the screen, stood quietly to the side.
The surveillance footage was identical to what had been shared in the gossip group. Tong Yang watched it through once and then checked the cameras from the second and fourth floors’ glass corridors at the same time. Due to the angle of the cameras, they could capture a meter of space at either end of the glass corridor, and through the glass, one could vaguely see reflected shadows and blurred images.
In the footage from the fourth floor near the cafeteria, a fleeting shadow made Tong Yang pause. She furrowed her brows and dragged the footage back a second because from the fourth-floor glass corridor, the angle allowed a view of nearly half a meter more than the third-floor camera, but the clarity of the glass combined with the camera lens only allowed a vague glimpse of a shadow.
“What’s wrong?” Ye Huai asked.
Tong Yang paused the footage on the shadow disappearing from the glass, syncing it with the moment Ye Wen walked into a blind spot in the third-floor corridor surveillance, the timing not exceeding 0.01 seconds.
“Ye Wen disappeared 0.01 seconds after entering the camera blind spot.”
Ye Huai bent down to view both monitors, “You’re right, if you don’t look closely, you won’t notice this shadow.”
Tong Yang added, “But this only proves that Ye Wen’s disappearance wasn’t man-made.”
Continuing to view the surveillance seemed pointless, so the three left the security room.
As night fell, they took a nap before entering Hailin International School at 10:30 p.m.
Per Dr. Wu’s instructions, the police cut the school’s power and cleared the building, leaving only Dr. Wu, his assistant, and the trio inside, with the police stationed outside, keeping a walkie-talkie to ensure their safety.
The walkie-talkie naturally remained with Dr. Wu.
He led them to the cafeteria on the third floor where Ye Wen had disappeared, handing black blindfolds to Tong Yang and Ye Huai, instructing them to wear them. Xu Junyue left Lion with the police before entering.
The biting night wind, combined with their obscured vision, heightened their other senses. Tong Yang suppressed the unease the darkness brought, standing alone at the entrance of the third-floor glass corridor. Dr. Wu took Ye Huai and Xu Junyue to similar positions on the first and second floors, then he and his assistant went to the fourth and fifth-floor glass corridor entrances.
Five glass corridors, five people each stood at an entrance.
Tong Yang had asked why this was necessary, and Dr. Wu had explained it similarly to the “Elevator Game” theory that had gone viral online, suggesting that by moving back and forth in a confined space, they might disrupt the spatial order and thus enter the parallel world.
They wore earphones prepared by Dr. Wu. Although they couldn’t speak directly, they could hear his instructions.
As the clock struck midnight, a faint electrical sound came through the earphones, followed by Dr. Wu’s voice.
“Take eight steps forward at your normal pace.”
The area was silent, the cold wind brushing past as Tong Yang tightened her grip and stepped forward into the glass corridor.
She counted her steps in her mind while reflecting on everything that had happened today.
From the moment Dr. Wu mentioned the mirage theory, she felt something was off.
Reaching her eighth step, the wind around her became noticeably stronger.
She stood still, sensing for any changes in her surroundings in the darkness.
About a minute later, Dr. Wu instructed again, “Please do not turn around. Step back four steps.”
Tong Yang followed his directions, stepping back four steps, feeling the situation resembled her experience in the parallel world on the morning of June 8th, moving forward or backward to achieve a certain goal. The difference was that they had been able to see and use their phones for simple communication then.
After standing for another minute, the earphones came to life once more, “Please move forward twelve steps.”
Tong Yang did as instructed, though she had her doubts about the “mirage” theory and even questioned whether Division 749 of the Supernatural Research Agency truly existed.
How could a professional supernatural research organization so easily involve ordinary people in such matters? Moreover, apart from her, Ye Huai had a heart condition, and Xu Junyue was blind. Letting them attempt to enter the parallel world without any preparation or understanding of the dangers seemed highly unreasonable.
However, Tong Yang chose to comply with Dr. Wu’s request.
Perhaps by doing so, she could truly enter the parallel world.
Dr. Wu had stated they had never actually seen the parallel world, but Tong Yang had.
Thus, Dr. Wu’s actions and words were contradictory, but they aligned with Tong Yang’s goal—she wanted to enter the parallel world.
“Please do not turn around. Step back four steps.”
While unsure of Dr. Wu’s identity and intentions, as long as she could enter the parallel world, it was enough for Tong Yang.
Before this, she had already warned Ye Huai and Xu Junyue, but to avoid alarming anyone, they had decided to participate, although Tong Yang couldn’t guarantee their safety.
Ye Huai had agreed readily, likely because the victim was his brother, and he seemed confident he wouldn’t suffer a heart attack during the operation.
But why Xu Junyue would risk her life to participate, Tong Yang wasn’t clear if she had any other motives or plans.
“Please move forward twenty steps.”
This time, the number of steps to advance was relatively large. Tong Yang calculated in her mind, subtracting the steps she had retreated; she had now walked thirty-two steps. Her stride was approximately 0.6 meters, so thirty-two steps should cover about nineteen meters—the glass corridor was twenty-one meters long, meaning she was just two meters shy of leaving the corridor and entering the teaching building.
“Please do not turn around. Step back ten steps.”
As she heard this, Tong Yang’s brow furrowed slightly. She wasn’t sure if it was just her imagination, but as she moved forward and backward increasingly, she distinctly felt the temperature around her dropping.
After completing the ten steps backward, Tong Yang stood still, the surroundings eerily quiet, almost to the point of being unable to hear even the wind.
At that moment, Tong Yang felt a clear touch on her right arm, as if someone had brushed past her, their clothes rubbing against hers.
“Where are you going?”
Tong Yang’s body tensed as a strange woman’s voice sounded to her right.
At this moment, there should only be five of them in the school, and only she and Xu Junyue were women. Moreover, she hadn’t heard any footsteps. Who was this woman speaking from her right, and when had she appeared?
Were the others experiencing the same situation?
“If someone else appears beside you, do not engage in conversation.”
“Because she is most likely not human.”
Dr. Wu’s voice again came through the earphones.
Because she was blindfolded, unlike the feeling she had experienced in the third middle school playground, this unseen and intangible unknown easily stoked fear in her heart.
Even though Tong Yang had encountered numerous bizarre incidents before, being blindfolded still induced a sense of unease.
“Young lady, where are you going? I’ll come with you.”
The woman seemed to move closer, a cold breath clinging to Tong Yang’s right shoulder.
“Please step back two steps, or move forward twenty steps.”
Tong Yang pondered for a moment; she was now twenty-two steps from the starting point. If she moved forward twenty steps, she could leave the glass corridor and reach the teaching building on the other side. Given the current situation, it seemed unlikely anyone would choose to remain in the corridor.
Thus, Tong Yang decisively chose to move forward twenty steps.
At the same time, Tong Yang felt someone stepping along with her.
“Please remove your blindfold.” The girl’s voice rang in her ear.
“Do not remove your blindfold!”
Dr. Wu’s voice came through the earphones, somewhat urgently.
Tong Yang paused for several seconds before finally reaching up to remove her blindfold.
She slowly opened her eyes, the long-absent light spilling into them, silver moonlight stretching across the glass corridor. At the exit just half a step away, a man in a lab coat was suspended by a belt in mid-air, blocking the connection between the glass corridor and the teaching building.
Tong Yang immediately turned to look, and a woman with a sinister smile stood outside the railing.
“Congratulations, you chose correctly.” Her tone carried a hint of satisfaction. “If you hadn’t removed it, I could have killed you.”
Then, she spread her arms, staring intently at Tong Yang, and leaned back, falling directly from the third floor.
A loud “thump” followed as the woman’s body struck the ground.
Tong Yang looked around; aside from the hanging body, the environment seemed unchanged, leaving her uncertain whether she was in the real world or a parallel world.
Tong Yang walked to the railing and looked down; the woman’s body lay still on the ground, blood spreading outward from beneath her, yet neither Ye Huai nor Xu Junyue were visible on the glass corridors of the second and first floors.
Tong Yang looked up again, finding no activity on the two glass corridors above either.
“Is anyone there?” Tong Yang called out, the vast school silent and dark, with no response to be heard.
“Ye Huai?”
“Xu Junyue?”
Tong Yang furrowed her brow, the earphones silent.
She had no choice but to walk to the hanging body, grabbing the trousers to rotate it, revealing the face.
By the moonlight, Tong Yang recognized him; this man was Dr. Wu’s assistant.
“Figures, he wasn’t some doctor from Division 749.”
Tong Yang bypassed him, walking through the deserted corridors to the second floor of the teaching building.
No one was there, neither Xu Junyue nor Ye Huai.
Perhaps their final choices differed?
Tong Yang had chosen to move forward; had they chosen to step back? Or, Tong Yang had chosen to remove her blindfold, while they had opted to heed Dr. Wu’s words?
However, that was indeed a possibility.
Tong Yang had decided to remove her blindfold because she was certain the woman came from a parallel world, and she was likely already in a parallel world, which is why she chose to remove it.
“But why?” Tong Yang muttered to herself, frowning.
She went downstairs to check on the woman, who was no longer breathing.
Who exactly was Dr. Wu? Was he deliberately leading her into a parallel world with ulterior motives, or was it all coincidental?
But since she had already entered the parallel world, it meant Ye Wen was also here. Finding him and bringing him back would suffice.
She was unsure if others were in the school, or where Ye Wen might be.
Tong Yang searched the teaching building room by room, floor by floor. Most were empty, and unlike the third middle school, the objects here remained the same as in reality.
After searching the classrooms on the first and second floors, Tong Yang returned to the third floor. She stood outside a classroom on the balcony, her peripheral vision catching a fleeting figure across the glass corridor.
“Who?” Tong Yang was startled and immediately gave chase.
Reaching the third-floor cafeteria, she saw a figure enter the staircase corner. Tong Yang sprinted after it but found only the empty, dark corridors, with no one in sight.
“Is anyone there?”
Tong Yang called out in confusion, half-expecting it to be Ye Huai or Xu Junyue.
Tong Yang didn’t hesitate for long, turning to continue her search in the teaching building. Just then, she noticed the classroom closest to the third-floor glass corridor had its lights on!
However, the body of the assistant hanging at the end of the corridor was gone.
Tong Yang’s expression darkened as she approached the lit classroom.
She also realized something unusual; this experience differed from previous encounters with parallel worlds.
She couldn’t be sure of Dr. Wu’s identity, but his goal seemed clear: he wanted Tong Yang to enter the parallel world, despite the plan being full of holes. Tong Yang had decided to go along with it.
But unlike previous times, when entering the parallel world was passive, this time it was through a method similar to the “Elevator Game,” actively entering a different dimension.
Did that mean the implications of “active” versus “passive” entry were different?
If Dr. Wu was from a parallel world, their entry into the real world was restricted by Tong Yang’s presence as a “time anchor,” thus limiting their ability to invade on a large scale. Moreover, when pulling Tong Yang and others into the parallel world, they too were subject to “rules.”
Could it be that by luring Tong Yang to enter the parallel world actively, they faced fewer restrictions?
With these thoughts, Tong Yang crossed the glass corridor to the classroom with the lights on.
The classroom doors were open both front and back, and Tong Yang peered in to see a boy and a girl sitting in the second-to-last row, their backs to the blackboard.
Upon closer inspection, Tong Yang realized it wasn’t as it appeared.
Rather than saying they were sitting facing away from the blackboard, it was more accurate to say their bodies were facing the blackboard, but their heads were twisted 180 degrees to the back. Logically, such a twist wasn’t possible for living people.
But in a parallel world, people seemed to bleed, suffer injuries, and indeed die just like those in the real world.
Without a doubt, these two children, with their bodies and heads twisted in such a manner, were long dead.
“Could it be Ye Wen?” Tong Yang muttered to herself.
To ensure the deceased children weren’t Ye Wen, Tong Yang decided to check for herself.
She walked through the neatly arranged desks to the second-to-last row.
Looking down, Tong Yang shivered involuntarily, swearing, “Shit!”
Although ghost stories often depicted such scenes where both the front and back of a head were visible, seeing it in person was much more shocking than reading about it on paper.
But this wasn’t a ghost story; it was reality in another dimension.
In other words, it was man-made.
Tong Yang carefully inspected and indeed found black stitches embedded in the flesh between the two back-of-the-heads, sewing the scalp together inch by inch, with the ears likely cut off directly.
Seeing the stitches interwoven with flesh, Tong Yang frowned, reminded of the skinned and hollowed corpses she had seen on Nameless Hill. Were all the people from the parallel world insane?
Tong Yang walked to the window, yanked the curtains down forcefully, and covered the two children with them. Then, she looked around the classroom, unsure who was causing the trouble.
But finding Ye Wen quickly was more critical than figuring this out—what if those psychopaths turned him into something like this?
Even if it wasn’t about the money, Tong Yang didn’t want to see anyone she knew turn into such a ghastly sight.
Thinking to leave through the back door, Tong Yang suddenly heard rustling behind her.
“Ow… it hurts so much…”
Tong Yang stiffened, turning around in disbelief.
The curtains that had covered the children were now on the floor, and the two back-of-the-head children staggered towards her, likely blind as they reached out into the air.
“Help us…”
“Ow… it hurts…”
Their voices sounded as if muffled by a thick mask, very dull.
“Mommy… mommy…”
“It’s so dark… ow…”
Tong Yang took a deep breath and asked, “Can you hear me speaking?”
“It hurts… ow…”
“Daddy… we were wrong…”
They seemed unable to hear Tong Yang, just sensing someone nearby based on the curtain that had fallen on them.
“I’m so scared…”
“Daddy… why… why…”
“Why do this to me…”
Tong Yang watched them silently for a moment, then bent down to pick up the rope used to tie the curtains, approaching one of the children and wrapping it around his neck.
After strangling both, she re-covered their bodies with the curtains.
Leaving the classroom, Tong Yang’s expression was very grim.
Before seeing these two children, due to the “Tong Yang” from the parallel world and Ye Huai’s gentle father, Tong Yang had almost believed not every person from every parallel world deserved to die.
But now, she fully understood, just as “Tong Yang” had said, everyone who survived in the parallel world was stained with blood, or like these two powerless children, tortured beyond human recognition.
Since they were determined to invade the real world, Tong Yang was resolved to eradicate them all, including her parallel self!
Tong Yang didn’t linger in the teaching building; she crossed the glass corridor back to the cafeteria, climbed into a display cabinet, and rummaged through the cabinets for several easily carried fruit knives before preparing to leave.
But as she turned around, the cafeteria lights suddenly flared on.
Caught off-guard by the abrupt light, Tong Yang instinctively closed her eyes, raising her hand to shield them. As her vision adjusted, she saw a man standing outside the cabinet.
He had visible stitching marks on his face and looked directly at Tong Yang, his gaze not numb but filled with accusation.
“Why did you kill my children?” the man asked in confusion.
Tong Yang paused, then leapt onto the counter, grabbing the gap under the serving hatch to propel her body out, and kicked the man in the chest.
The man slammed into a table, but before he could react, Tong Yang grabbed his hair and with her right hand wielding the fruit knife, swiftly drew a line across his neck.
His pale skin parted like a mouth, and a torrent of bright red liquid gushed out.
Before the blood could splash onto her, Tong Yang released the man, stepping back.
The third-floor cafeteria was larger than all four cafeterias of the third middle school combined. Even with the lights on, except for the man lying motionless at her feet, there was no one else.
Tong Yang kicked the body at her feet, annoyed at herself for losing her temper and killing him before she could ask where Ye Wen was.
“Bad luck.”
Swearing, Tong Yang pocketed several fruit knives and left the cafeteria.
Back on the glass corridor, Tong Yang stood at the railing, overlooking the area below, feeling that continuing this search methodically wasn’t working, but also aware she couldn’t make too much noise to avoid attracting more of those damned creatures, as she was alone.
“Hee hee…”
Suddenly, Tong Yang heard laughter behind her.
She turned to see a girl facing the wall, crouched in the corner, blood dripping continuously from beneath her.
Tong Yang clenched the fruit knife and approached cautiously, looking down at the girl from above.
The girl was holding a man’s arm, her mouth bloody, devouring it greedily.
