Chapter 5
Chapter 5
Mo Yi clutched the pages of the exercise book and his thin knuckles turned white.
There was a buzzing in his ear, and his brain was in chaos.
Suddenly, a vague thought flashed through his mind. Mo Yi turned around and quickly rushed towards the door.
Regardless of how many people he bumped into along the way, he ran down the corridor with amazingly bright eyes and eagerly looked at the graduation photo hanging on the wall: June 8, 1994.
Good.
Mo Yi let out a long sigh of relief. The dates on the photo were still different, which showed that they were not on the same floor but have actually moved to the second floor.
Just then, he heard someone behind him calling out his name, “… Mo Yi, Mo Yi!”
Mo Yi turned his head and looked blank. He saw Shen Lei standing at the door of the classroom, frowning. He said, “What’s wrong? Not feeling well? It’s okay, you’ll get used to it eventually.”
Before he could reply, Shen Lei waved his hand and said, “However, let’s not worry about that now. We have to leave quickly.”
“…Leave?” Mo Yi was taken back.
“Yes,” Shen Lei nodded and replied, “The fog should slowly spread up to this floor, which means we have more than 40 minutes to escape. The more floors we escape to in this period, the greater the chance of survival.”
His voice deepened, and it sounded a little heavy, “… After all, according to the past few games I have experienced, as long as we live for five hours, we will clear this game.”
Something was wrong.
.
Mo Yi straightened and looked around at the various people around him, frowning.
None of this was right.
Reach the top floor and survive for five hours? Are the clearance rules for this game really that simple? If that was the case, then what was the point of the hints before the start of the game?
And this classroom, which reappeared again and again, what did it mean?
“Mo Yi!” Shen Lei’s voice got a little louder and he took a few steps forward, about to say something, but he suddenly stopped. His tone became slightly gentle, “Why does your face look so bad?”
Mo Yi took a deep breath and then succinctly shared what he saw along with his speculations. In the end, he added his own thoughts, “I think we missed too many clues downstairs, and that we shouldn’t just leave now.”
After listening, Shen Lei couldn’t help sinking into contemplation. He looked up at the countdown on the wall and slightly frowned. After a long time, he solemnly opened his mouth, “You have a point, but it’s…too risky. You know, from my experience, if you follow the rules of the game and struggle through the time limit, the odds of survival increases. I have seen several people who wanted to find the truth and to be honest, it didn’t end well.”
Shen Lei paused. There was some struggle and pain in his voice, “I have seen too much. Sorry, I can’t risk my life with you. Even so, have you really decided to stay?”
Mo Yi knew how dangerous it was. His fingers curled up to his lips which were pressed into a stiff straight line, and his heart was wracked with anxiety. Reason warned him: following everyone’s actions was safer, while his intuition shouted in his ear: stay.
Finally, he raised his head to look at Shen Lei and nodded slowly but firmly.
Shen Lei seemed to see the persistence in his eyes, so he no longer tried to persuade him. He reached out and took a spare flashlight hanging from his waist and handed it to Mo Yi, “… Take care.”
He turned and left. Several people stopped to look at Mo Yi, and then followed Shen Lei to the staircase.
Mo Yi closed his eyes and calmed down. Then he went back to the classroom and went to the desk where he had been laying when he woke up.
He reached out and pulled out the chair in front of the desk and began to rifle through the school bag stuffed in the desk hoping to find some clues. Just then he a heard a familiar voice by his ear, “Why are you searching this desk? Is there anything special about it?”
Mo Yi was startled, and he looked up only to see Jiang Yuanbai standing in front of the table with his arms folded, looking at him confused.
“You didn’t follow them?”
Jiang Yuanbai scratched his head and showed a half nervous, half soft smile, “I heard what you and Shen Lei said just now. I think what you said made sense, and …”
He paused and somewhat sheepishly whispered, “And, aren’t we a team? Of course I have to stand by my teammate.”
Mo Yi smiled, lowered his head again, and said as he went through the desk, “I noticed that there was only this exercise book in the entire classroom that was open, and when I was downstairs, I found that the ink in the book was not dry,”
Mo Yi changed the subject too quickly. Jiang Yuanbai froze for a while before realizing that he was the answering the question he had previously asked.
Following Mo Yi’s guidance, he looked around. Sure enough, although the books on the other table were also in stacks, there was no open book or a pen without a cap. Only the table in front of him did.
—- It was like someone was sitting there writing before they entered the room!
Jiang Yuanbai trembled, his face turning pale.
At this time, Mo Yi felt something. He put his hand into the school bag, and then forcefully ripped it. Only when he heard the “shzzz” sound did the lining of half the school bag tear off. He took out a thin notebook which was sewn into the school bag. If one didn’t carefully search, it would have been impossible to find it. No wonder the people who searched the classroom didn’t find it.
Mo Yi reached out and opened the yellow cover of the notebook. On the front page, there were still the small characters written in beautiful handwriting, Zhao Qiulan.
He flipped through the pages. Every page was blank, except for the last one. In large dark red handwriting that occupied the whole page, were the messy and twisted words, “Go to hell!”
After hesitating, Mo Yi grabbed it in his hand, turned his head and said to Jiang Yuanbai who was rummaging through the desk beside him, “I’m going to the corridor to take a look.”
Jiang Yuanbai paused, “Huh? But we haven’t finished searching the classroom. What if we miss something?”
“I have a guess I want to confirm.” Mo Yi held up the notebook and waved it at Jiang Yuanbai, answering as he walked.
Jiang Yuanbai scratched his head and looked at him with a puzzled expression. Seeing that Mo Yi was about to leave the classroom, he quickly put down the things in his hand and followed him all the way to the corridor.
Everyone else had left. The whole corridor was quiet, and only the sound of breathing could be heard. The emptiness was frightening. The place without light at the end of the corridor was like a black hole, making people uneasy.
Mo Yi kept walking towards the bathroom. When he drew near, he couldn’t help but pause and stop.
Jiang Yuanbai had also caught up at this point and he followed Mo Yi’s gaze to the wall opposite the bathroom. He saw a class graduation photo hanging on it, just like downstairs. The only difference was that in this photo, everyone’s face was turned to the side, and their black pupils seemed to be looking directly at him!
Immediately after, he saw them show a strange smile at the same time, and they raised their arms, pointing to the same side together …
“Ah-!!!” Jiang Yuanbai’s back was covered with sweat and he was screaming in horror.
Mo Yi shuddered, looking at him in disdain, “What are you screaming for? You scared me.”
The implication was that Jiang Yuanbai was more terrifying than the photo.
“You… you …,” Jiang Yuanbai couldn’t speak clearly. He held out his hand to the strange photo and stuttered, “It…it…”
Mo Yi opened the notebook and showed the last page to Jiang Yuanbai, “Look.”
Although Jiang Yuanbai had not yet recovered from his fright, he still couldn’t hold back from trying to piece together the information in his head, “…Go to hell? What?” He was confused and racked his brain for a while before finally looking up at Mo Yi, “Other than it being creepy, is there anything else I need to know?”
Mo Yi, “…” This man’s IQ was hopeless.
Pointing at the wall with the hanging picture, he said, “After the class bell rang on the first floor, the exact same words appeared on the wall. So I think there should be some clue here.”
Jiang Yuanbai suddenly realized.
He glanced at the photo, and the people in the photo had been restored to its original state with them smiling brightly and serenely at the camera.
Then, the eerie photo reappeared before Jiang Yuanbai’s eyes. He couldn’t help swallowing his saliva and asked in a hoarse voice, “Then … then the direction they’re pointing at is where we need to go next?”
Mo Yi nodded.
Jiang Yuanbai looked at the end of the corridor.
There was no light there. He didn’t know if there was no lightbulb or if the lightbulb had broken. There was not a hint of light in the darkness. Just looking at it made people uneasy.
“Say … what will be there?” Jiang Yuanbai’s voice grew even quieter, the words almost squeezing out of his clenched throat.
Mo Yi shook the flashlight in his hand, “Won’t you know if you go and see?”