Xi Nian was walking ahead and looking around calmly but suddenly the lights above his head abruptly dimmed. Then there was a burst of heart-piercing cries in his ears, which was accompanied by the sound of a sharp weapon cutting through the fabric and piercing into the flesh. Moreover, the radio was blaring, but what he read was a news report from many years ago.
“At around 8 o’clock on x/x/19, an incident of killing occurred in Sheng’an Primary School in Changping City. A murderer broke into the school with a knife and committed an attack, resulting in the death of 8 people and 16 were injured. The police preliminarily estimated that he had a history of mental illness…”
The icy narration suddenly stopped at this point, and the tone became eerie and strange: “…the mental patient was wandering around the campus with a sharp knife in his hand. Please rescue the real survivor and don’t be chased by him…don’t be chased by him…”
The broadcast ended with one word.
“Him,”
Along with there was a sound of footsteps coming from afar behind, accompanied by the man’s sickly low smile. Suddenly, the door of Room number 2 was knocked with a clanging sound, as if it was about to fall.
Here we go…
Xi Nian never thought that they would be so lucky that they would bump into NPC directly. Instinctively, Qiao Zhi attempted to turn around and run away but due to fear her legs turned into jelly. Therefore, with a thump, she fell onto the ground on her knees, so she held onto Xi Nian’s thigh and did not let go. She was scared and cried, “Wuwu Wuwu, don’t go, don’t go, I’m afraid. If you want to go, take me with you, please, Big Boss!”
She hugged too tightly and was dragged along by Xi Nian on the ground for a while, and appeared a lot miserable. However, the sound of impact from behind the door became louder and louder, and the lock was already shaking.
Xi Nian abruptly broke away Qiao Zhi’s hand, and then pulled her up from the ground: “I’ll run first, you cover from behind!”
Qiao Zhi’s shocked face: “?!!!”
Brother dei, please speak human language!!!1Brother dei is a common Internet slang recently, which also means brother. It had popular on the Internet, and players would call their teammates brothers (brother dei) in the game. And [人言否] means: listen, is this person really speaking human language? This is a humorous way on the internet to refer to someone whose words do not make sense.
Not to mention that they could be considered friends in their previous life, however, dead friends did not harm poor people2Dead friends did not die(harm) poor people, this proverb is a Taiwanese phrase and might be a little hard to comprehend because of various altered interpretations. However, briefly put, this proverb means that: as long as I am good, the life and death of others is not my business. was now fully demonstrated between them. Qiao Zhi saw that Xi Nian had run out of sight in just a blink of an eye, and tears of hatred came out in an instant. She quickly followed behind and chased after him, saying: “Xi Nian, Fuck you! Are you a man or not!”
Xi Nian thought to himself that he had to ask Lu Xingzhe about this question. Lu Xingzhe knew best whether he was a man or not.
The rapid footsteps echoed in the corridor, originally just two people, but at some point, they quietly turned into three. As Xi Nian ran, he quickly tried to push open the tightly closed doors around him. As he turned the corridor, a corner of his eye caught up to Qiao Zhi, who had already caught up to a perverted man in a blue and white hospital uniform, covered in blood. The dagger in his hand was gleaming coldly, and the liquid was still dripping down.
The man had a morbid smile on his face, his face was covered with blood and his facial features could not be seen: “I found you…”
The knife was raised in the right hand, and there was a human head held under the armpit of the left arm.
Qiao Zhi was frightened and went crazy: “Ah, ah, ah, ah, ah!!!!”
Classroom No. 4 was just around the corner. When Xi Nian about to push the door open using force, but just as he applied a little force, unexpectedly, it opened with a squeak. He was about to go in to hide when a dark shadow suddenly rushed over from the corner of his eye and directly knocked him aside to enter.
Almost knocked him to death…
Qiao Zhi exploded with an astonishing speed at the moment of life and death3[shēng sǐ guān tóu] An important juncture of life and death/ a moment when one’s fate hangs in the balance.: “Get out of the way! Don’t get in the way of this old lady!”
After finishing speaking, she rushed into the classroom first, then with a clang, she closed the door with her backhand. Xi Nian saw that the mentally ill person had already caught up, so he simply pushed open the window and jumped inside, then quickly closed the window.
Hearing a muffled “bang”, the mental patient threw himself directly into the window in the next second. He stared at Xi Nian with gloomy eyes, the blood on his face was now smudged all over the glass, and he tapped the window with a dagger. And the sound of his voice was sharp and sickly, mixed with a low laugh: “Come out, come out, I saw you…”
He hit the glass hard, and the whole window shook twice. When he got closer, it could be seen that half of his face was rotten, and a pair of dark eyes were distorted and crazy. He stared at them and said, “If you don’t come out, I’ll come in and find you guys…”
Xi Nian was gasping for breath as he ran. Upon hearing this, he pressed his index finger onto his lips and made a silent posture: “Shh–”
He said: “Don’t make a sound, you look too frighteningly ugly.”
Qiao Zhi leaned against the door, so tired that she couldn’t speak. Upon hearing Xi Nian, she nodded frantically in agreement.
Mental patient: “…..”
The entire program team saw the scene of them tearing each other4Tearing each other/mutual tearing is a buzzword on the Internet, which means not giving each other any face (consideration/respect). through the monitor and laughed uproariously. The director said: “I didn’t expect Classroom 4 to be discovered by them too soon, and opening the second chapter of the plot.”
The classroom was originally dark, but as Xi Nian took the time to regain his strength, his head turned toward the noisy conversation.
“… Please turn the book to page seventy-six… What we are going to study today is…”
“…Wang Jia’an…why are you distracted…you come up to answer this question…”
“…Teacher…I…I don’t know..”
The muffled sound of the pointer falling on the body was followed by the female teacher sternly scolding: “Everyone else knows it, but you don’t. You must solve it! Otherwise, you can’t go home today!”
The sound of the radio was suddenly interrupted by the cry of the child, and then the lights in front of the podium flickered. Then, faint light came on, reflecting a short figure, wearing a school uniform and a red scarf, clearly a student. It was only then that Xi Nian realized that there was also a child in the classroom.
Qiao Zhi was already scared, but now she jumped to Xi Nian’s side, “Where did you come from, little brat child5Pinyin: xiǎopìhái, this literally translates to little fart child, which is a derogatory term referring to mischievous and immature children.!”
The child had his back on them, but he turned around slowly when he heard the words. His face was pale and bloodless, his eyes were dark, like a ghost doll, and he was holding half of a piece of chalk in his hand: “Can you help me solve the problem?”
Suddenly, a child’s weeping sounded in the classroom, one after another, which made people’s scalp numb.
Qiao Zhi, who was poached by a film scout to become a star when she was in high school, didn’t even finish her studies. How could she know how to solve problems? Hearing this, she cried and shook her head: “No, no!”
Xi Nian didn’t move, he looked at the little boy and asked aloud, “Who are you?”
The little boy said sternly, “I am Wang Jia’an from Class 3, Grade 5.”
Xi Nian asked again: “Are you a survivor?”
Qiao Zhi who hid behind him, said: “Do you need to ask, of course, he is a survivor! Little brat, hurry up and follow us, we will rescue you.”
The little boy shook his head, and stubbornly passed the chalk in his hand forward, and the crying sound continued around them: “This question is too difficult, can you help me solve it?”
Xi Nian glanced at the empty blackboard, then took the chalk: “Where is the question?”
The voice of the little boy just cried and cried his heart out: “The topic is on the blackboard.”
No matter how Xi Nian asked, he kept repeating the same sentence. Qiao Zhi suddenly remembered that there was a blackboard in the first room they entered, and there were some things written on it, but she didn’t remember much. So, she said to Xi Nian with a constipated (troubled) facial expression: “It’s over, we may have to go back and copy down the question in the first secret room.”
But the psychopath outside was still wandering in the corridor and had never left.
Xi Nian nodded in agreement, then walked up to the podium, wrote a question on it with chalk, and turned his head to look at the little boy: “Is this the question?”
The little boy nodded.
Qiao Zhi was shocked: “Damn it, when did you write it down?!”
The crew wouldn’t write something for no reason, and Xi Nian was mindful of this. So, when he walked into the first classroom, he noticed that the words on the blackboard above didn’t look like a random scribble, and made a note of it.
Fortunately, he noted it down, otherwise, if they had to turn back now, they would definitely be hacked to death by the psychopath outside.
Qiao Zhi really wanted to leave this ghostly place: “Good child, we wrote down the question for you, can you go with us now?”
The little boy shook his head, and said with the same monotonous line, accompanied by sobbing: “This question is so difficult, can you help me solve it?”
Moreover, it seemed that the mentally ill wandering in the corridor seemed to have received some kind of order and suddenly started banging on the door frantically. Bang bang bang一the sound resonated and it seemed to pull at people’s hearts. Qian Zhi jumped in fright and urged Xi Nian: “You quickly solve it for him, fast fast fast!”
Xi Nian thought that this girl Qiao Zhi was really a person to stand and talk easily without getting hurt.6[zhàn zhe shuō huà bù yāo téng]: which literally translates to ‘standing and talking without back pain.’ In other words, it means: it’s all very well to talk, but getting things done is another matter. Some people stand on the sideline and criticize others without doing or helping in anything. He held the chalk and thought about the question carefully, but found out that it was a classic geometry question. He was silent for a while, then turned to look at the little boy: “… …Are the questions you did in the fifth grade of primary school so difficult now?”
Little boy: “……”
Qiao Zhi listened to his words while standing beside him, her heart turned cold: what did he mean? He couldn’t do it?
The mental patient hit the door harder and harder, and the door began to shake. The little boy finally changed his line and said in a faint voice: “As long as you solve the problem, I can leave with you.”
The collar of his school uniform was stained with blood, and the red scarf was tied tightly around his neck.
Qiao Zhi rolled up her sleeves viciously: “Let’s just carry him away.”
Xi Nian stared at the topic, and while quickly making a draft with chalk, he asked aloud, “Do you know what you look like now?”
Qiao Zhi was stunned: “What do I look like?”
Xi Nian: “A kidnapper with a hideous face.”
Qiao Zhi was stunned for a second, and then she slammed the wall angrily: “A hideous face? I have a hideous face?! Look at the one outside the door, okay! He’s the one with a hideous face!”
As soon as she finished speaking, Xi Nian had already calculated the answer. He wrote down a 6 in front of the equal sign, then turned to look at the little boy: “The answer is six.”
The little boy suddenly smiled and clapped his hands: “You got the answer right, you got the answer right, take me away, take me away.”
Qiao Zhi’s face was shocked the whole time, but Xi Nian glanced out of the window from the corner of his eye, only to see the mental patient smiling at them through the glass, holding a human head in his arms. Even under the cover of blood stains, his facial features could vaguely reveal some familiarity.
At that moment, something flashed through Xi Nian’s mind, but it was too fast to catch. He looked slowly at the little boy, only to see blood stains on his collar and a red scarf blocking his neck tightly.
The reminder given by the radio began to echo in his mind again.
“… Please rescue the real survivors…”
“…the real survivors…”
the real——!
With a click, Xi Nian broke the chalk in his hand. He retreated to the door without a trace, and then asked the little boy, “If I don’t solve the problem, you won’t come with us?”
The little boy nodded, clapping his hands and laughing: “But you have already solved the problem, take me away quickly, take me away quickly.”
Xi Nian said, “You should stay here!”
After he finished speaking, he took advantage of the mental patient’s violent impact on the back door and with a sudden big stride opened the front door, then whispered to Qiao Zhi, “Quickly, run!”
