As Lu Ren spoke, he walked toward the Science Building No. 3, followed by Qian Huan and the others, all seemingly indifferent to Ke Su's decision.
Ke Su glanced at them with indifference and followed. After all, his purpose for coming here was to retrieve his documents, and he had no intention of leaving empty-handed.
He could sense that these people had something planned, and it only made him feel annoyed.
What a hassle. He initially thought he’d just come to get something, but now it seemed like he might have to fight.
Ke Su expressionlessly rubbed his wrist, mentally preparing for a round of hand-to-hand combat.
In his previous life, during his downtime, Ke Su had trained in mixed martial arts to stay in shape. He was confident that he could handle these university brats and had no fear as he followed the group, curious to see what tricks they were up to.
It was noon, and most of the students were heading to the cafeteria for lunch, leaving the campus unusually quiet. Ke Su glanced around at the surrounding paths and confirmed they were on the way to Science Building No. 3. However, the road was much emptier than he remembered from the original owner's memories. The sidewalks were piled with fallen leaves, and no one had bothered to clean them up.
Halfway there, the group ahead started talking about the school's ghost stories.
“Hey, have you heard? Not long ago, a girl died in Science Building No. 3. They say her spirit still haunts the corridors, wandering around looking for someone to take her place!”
Li Lanlan walked beside Qian Huan and, as planned, started telling ghost stories to scare Ke Su, who was walking behind them.
Qian Huan watched Li Lanlan with satisfaction, then exaggeratedly described the terrifying appearance of the dead girl, as if he had witnessed it firsthand.
The others joined in, their voices growing louder and their gestures becoming more dramatic.
Ke Su, following behind, listened with a puzzled expression, unsure why they had suddenly raised their voices and were speaking in such an overly theatrical manner.
He massaged his forehead, disdainfully keeping his distance, slowing his pace so he wouldn’t have to deal with these clearly mentally unbalanced people.
But to those ahead, this was a sign that Ke Su was afraid of the ghost story and was too scared to come closer, reinforcing Wang Yun’s earlier claims that Ke Su, this coward, was indeed afraid of ghosts.
Wang Yun also glanced at Ke Su from the corner of his eye, his gaze filled with contempt.
He despised homosexuality, and having been confessed to by Ke Su in the past made him even more disgusted. When Ke Su had confessed to him, he had cursed him out on the spot.
Because of this, many people had gossiped about Wang Yun, saying that his true nature had been exposed and that he lacked the elegance he once displayed. They said he was excessively homophobic. Outwardly, Wang Yun didn’t seem to care, but secretly, he resented it deeply. He believed that his tarnished reputation was entirely Ke Su’s fault, that disgusting homosexual.
So, he had egged on Qian Huan, a ruthless rich kid, to teach Ke Su a lesson. Everything had gone according to plan—Ke Su had dropped out, and people at school had forgotten the incident. Wang Yun’s reputation was restored, and he was swimming in scholarships. He believed he had done the right thing.
By now, Wang Yun’s pent-up frustration had mostly been vented, but punishing a disgusting homosexual could never be too much. Why not enjoy it? Hence, he came up with this new idea.
Wang Yun took pleasure in seeing Ke Su, this repulsive person, suffer. It was his form of entertainment.
Soon, the group arrived at Science Building No. 3. Lu Ren led them to the elevator and up to the corridor on the 14th floor, with Ke Su following behind.
Qian Huan walked to the side, looking maliciously at Ke Su, his voice lowered in the quiet corridor, giving it a sinister air.
"Ke Su, do you know? This corridor is where that girl committed suicide. Look, there’s still bloodstains on the floor!"
Qian Huan spoke with glee, watching Ke Su closely, expecting to see his face pale and filled with fear.
However, Ke Su paid him no mind, not even lifting his eyelid as he walked past Qian Huan, who was left with a twisted expression for a moment.
“This is the place. Go in!” Lu Ren walked ahead, using a key to unlock the office door.
As a class committee member, the teacher had given Lu Ren a spare key for handling class matters. Now, it came in handy.
Ke Su stood at the doorway, glanced inside, and confirmed it was indeed the teacher’s office. But he wasn’t sure where his files and documents were kept.
Seeing Ke Su hesitate at the entrance, Lu Ren grew anxious and pointed inside, saying, “It’s on the desk! Go get it yourself! Hurry up!”
Expressionless, Ke Su walked in, guessing they intended to lock him in. As expected, the moment he stepped inside, Lu Ren tried to slip out, but Ke Su grabbed him by the collar.
“!!”
Lu Ren hadn’t expected Ke Su to react so quickly. In the blink of an eye, he was yanked back by the collar and could only watch helplessly as the door slammed shut in front of him.
“No! Qian! I’m still inside! Don’t lock the door! Please, don’t!”
Click—the door locked.
Ke Su looked speechlessly at this fragile camaraderie, letting go of Lu Ren’s collar as he watched him frantically bang on the door, shouting for help.
“Brother Qian! Wen Wen! Open the door! I’m still in here! Damn it!”
Ignoring Lu Ren’s cries, Ke Su walked to the desk and searched for the file folder but couldn’t find it.
He suspected that his documents might not be here at all, his eyes narrowing with frustration. He wasn’t happy about coming here in the first place, and now, dealing with these people had only made him more irritable.
Boom—
As if sensing the ancient god’s irritation, a silent rumble echoed. In the deepest layer of the world, countless horrifying fleshy masses writhed in terror. They thrashed violently across the entire blood-soaked world, eventually locating a file folder within the flesh-covered campus.
Rustle—countless tentacles layered over one another, surging forward like waves, carefully delivering a brown file folder. They cautiously opened a drawer in the office and placed the file inside, waiting for the inner and outer worlds to align.
Scritch—
Suddenly inspired, Ke Su opened the drawer and found his file folder.
After checking the contents and confirming they were correct, Ke Su looked up to find the door wide open, with Lu Ren and the others nowhere to be seen.
“…Such a childish prank.”
Ke Su walked out of the room, holding the file folder. He didn't care where the others went. He had what he came for, and now it was time to leave.
------------------------------------------------------------
Bang, bang, bang!
"Open the door! I'm still in here!" Lu Ren pounded on the door, nearly in tears. He never expected the group to be so heartless—they closed the door on him while he was still inside! This was too much!
As Lu Ren kept banging, he suddenly noticed how eerily quiet it had become. Even Ke Su, who was supposed to be claustrophobic, hadn’t made a sound. Lu Ren knew Ke Su couldn't possibly stay this calm while being locked in a room, so why was there no noise? He turned around, and the sight scared him out of his wits—he was the only one left in the room!
"What...what's going on? How...how is this even possible?" Lu Ren’s eyes widened in disbelief. He quickly ran to the window to check. From the 14th floor, there was no way Ke Su could have jumped out, and besides, the window was locked with no signs of being opened.
In such a sealed environment, how had Ke Su disappeared?
The more Lu Ren thought about it, the more frightened he became. He turned back and pounded on the door even harder, trying desperately to get his companions to open it. But outside, there was only dead silence, with no one around. Only the floor beneath him began to slowly turn red, as a mass of writhing flesh started to grow.
"Lu Ren is still in there! Why did you close the door?" Qian Huan furiously slapped one of his underlings on the head, his face red with anger.
"Open it now!"
The underling was just as shocked. He’d been so tense from doing something shady again after all this time that he accidentally locked the door. In a panic, he fumbled to insert the key and unlocked the door.
But the empty room that greeted them left everyone dumbfounded.
"Where...where are they?" Qian Huan stammered, bewildered.
Everyone else was equally stunned, staring into the vacant office. After a quick search, they realized that the two people who were supposed to be in the room had vanished without a trace.
"What the hell? Did we just see a ghost?" one of the underlings blurted out, immediately recalling the urban legends about female ghosts haunting this building.
"Shut up! There’s no such thing as ghosts!" Qian Huan barked, his veins bulging in frustration. Seeing the growing unease on his underlings' faces, he quickly shouted, "Enough of that nonsense!"
"But this really seems strange. How could they have just disappeared?" Wen Wen pouted, trying to look cute, which irritated Li Lanlan, who shot back from Qian Huan’s side, "Maybe there’s a hidden passage somewhere!"
"Pfft! I'd rather believe in ghosts than that!" Wen Wen sneered.
The two women, who already couldn’t stand each other, immediately started glaring daggers. Meanwhile, Qian Huan was too busy quelling the chatter about ghosts to notice that outside the door, in the dimly lit corner, a mass of flesh was slowly and densely growing.
Woooooo woooooo—
Police sirens echoed around the City of Li University campus, filling the air with noise.
As the alarms blared, countless confused students poured out of the university gates, escorted by the police to safety. The whole school was being evacuated, leaving the students puzzled and speculating among themselves. Some whispered that a terrorist had planted bombs on campus, while others claimed there was a murderer on the loose. Theories ran wild.
A short distance away, near the stream of students flooding out of the gates, Zhou Shi, a seasoned enforcer, sat inside an armored vehicle, smoking a cigarette. He watched the university with a deep frown.
The magnetic field fluctuations had reached an A-grade level, yet everything here seemed calm. It didn’t make sense.
Soon, a young enforcer, Xiao Wu, returned after checking out the situation inside the university. He saluted Zhou Shi before reporting.
Xiao Wu had inspected all the exits and questioned many students, but no one had encountered anything unusual. Everything on campus seemed perfectly normal, with no signs of change.
"Hmm..." Zhou Shi exhaled a cloud of smoke, his face etched with concern as he listened to the report. "Xiao Wu, if that's the case, let's stay outside for now. We’ll wait until the students have all cleared out before making any moves."
Xiao Wu nodded, sitting down next to Zhou Shi as instructed. He, too, found the situation at the school bizarre and wanted to explore further, but with his senior’s command, he decided to abandon the thought.
For a long time, Zhou Shi remained silent, his expression grave. Finally, he spoke, "You know what I was reminded of when I heard your report?"
Before Xiao Wu could answer, Zhou Shi continued, as if speaking to himself, "I remembered a file I once saw back at headquarters. It was also about an incident classified as A-grade, and to this day, no one has been able to resolve it. Eventually, the site was sealed off... Do you remember the 33rd Federal Protection Zone from years ago?"
The 33rd Federal Protection Zone was an area that had been declared off-limits to humanity following a supposed nuclear leak over a decade ago.
"That place... it’s a true hell on Earth. A strange magnetic field divides it into two worlds—an outer world and an inner world. During the day, the outer world is calm, with no danger in sight. But when night falls, the inner world descends, and all the demons from the inner world emerge to slaughter freely. Humans are completely powerless, and because the two worlds exist on different planes, attacks from the outer world can’t harm the monsters from the inner world."
Humans had spent years researching all kinds of tools, but nothing worked. The only solution was for someone to enter the inner world and sacrifice themselves, never to return, in order to kill the monsters. But even then, an individual’s strength was far too limited to eliminate all the creatures.
Xiao Wu listened, utterly confused, not understanding what Zhou Shi was talking about. Seeing the young enforcer’s puzzled expression, Zhou Shi smiled wryly and grabbed two pieces of paper. On one, he wrote "outer layer," and on the other, "inner layer." Then, he placed the two sheets on top of each other.
"Sometimes, space is layered. We exist in the outer layer, the real world, while those terrifying monsters are in the inner layer." Zhou Shi squeezed the papers together, watching the words overlap as a complicated look crossed his face.
"I really hope this time isn’t as bad as that."
Author's note:
The concept of the inner world is inspired by the horror movie Silent Hill.
Bang, bang, bang!
"Open the door! I'm still in here!" Lu Ren pounded on the door, nearly in tears. He never expected the group to be so heartless—they closed the door on him while he was still inside! This was too much!
As Lu Ren kept banging, he suddenly noticed how eerily quiet it had become. Even Ke Su, who was supposed to be claustrophobic, hadn’t made a sound. Lu Ren knew Ke Su couldn't possibly stay this calm while being locked in a room, so why was there no noise? He turned around, and the sight scared him out of his wits—he was the only one left in the room!
"What...what's going on? How...how is this even possible?" Lu Ren’s eyes widened in disbelief. He quickly ran to the window to check. From the 14th floor, there was no way Ke Su could have jumped out, and besides, the window was locked with no signs of being opened.
In such a sealed environment, how had Ke Su disappeared?
The more Lu Ren thought about it, the more frightened he became. He turned back and pounded on the door even harder, trying desperately to get his companions to open it. But outside, there was only dead silence, with no one around. Only the floor beneath him began to slowly turn red, as a mass of writhing flesh started to grow.
"Lu Ren is still in there! Why did you close the door?" Qian Huan furiously slapped one of his underlings on the head, his face red with anger.
"Open it now!"
The underling was just as shocked. He’d been so tense from doing something shady again after all this time that he accidentally locked the door. In a panic, he fumbled to insert the key and unlocked the door.
But the empty room that greeted them left everyone dumbfounded.
"Where...where are they?" Qian Huan stammered, bewildered.
Everyone else was equally stunned, staring into the vacant office. After a quick search, they realized that the two people who were supposed to be in the room had vanished without a trace.
"What the hell? Did we just see a ghost?" one of the underlings blurted out, immediately recalling the urban legends about female ghosts haunting this building.
"Shut up! There’s no such thing as ghosts!" Qian Huan barked, his veins bulging in frustration. Seeing the growing unease on his underlings' faces, he quickly shouted, "Enough of that nonsense!"
"But this really seems strange. How could they have just disappeared?" Wen Wen pouted, trying to look cute, which irritated Li Lanlan, who shot back from Qian Huan’s side, "Maybe there’s a hidden passage somewhere!"
"Pfft! I'd rather believe in ghosts than that!" Wen Wen sneered.
The two women, who already couldn’t stand each other, immediately started glaring daggers. Meanwhile, Qian Huan was too busy quelling the chatter about ghosts to notice that outside the door, in the dimly lit corner, a mass of flesh was slowly and densely growing.
Woooooo woooooo—
Police sirens echoed around the City of Li University campus, filling the air with noise.
As the alarms blared, countless confused students poured out of the university gates, escorted by the police to safety. The whole school was being evacuated, leaving the students puzzled and speculating among themselves. Some whispered that a terrorist had planted bombs on campus, while others claimed there was a murderer on the loose. Theories ran wild.
A short distance away, near the stream of students flooding out of the gates, Zhou Shi, a seasoned enforcer, sat inside an armored vehicle, smoking a cigarette. He watched the university with a deep frown.
The magnetic field fluctuations had reached an A-grade level, yet everything here seemed calm. It didn’t make sense.
Soon, a young enforcer, Xiao Wu, returned after checking out the situation inside the university. He saluted Zhou Shi before reporting.
Xiao Wu had inspected all the exits and questioned many students, but no one had encountered anything unusual. Everything on campus seemed perfectly normal, with no signs of change.
"Hmm..." Zhou Shi exhaled a cloud of smoke, his face etched with concern as he listened to the report. "Xiao Wu, if that's the case, let's stay outside for now. We’ll wait until the students have all cleared out before making any moves."
Xiao Wu nodded, sitting down next to Zhou Shi as instructed. He, too, found the situation at the school bizarre and wanted to explore further, but with his senior’s command, he decided to abandon the thought.
For a long time, Zhou Shi remained silent, his expression grave. Finally, he spoke, "You know what I was reminded of when I heard your report?"
Before Xiao Wu could answer, Zhou Shi continued, as if speaking to himself, "I remembered a file I once saw back at headquarters. It was also about an incident classified as A-grade, and to this day, no one has been able to resolve it. Eventually, the site was sealed off... Do you remember the 33rd Federal Protection Zone from years ago?"
The 33rd Federal Protection Zone was an area that had been declared off-limits to humanity following a supposed nuclear leak over a decade ago.
"That place... it’s a true hell on Earth. A strange magnetic field divides it into two worlds—an outer world and an inner world. During the day, the outer world is calm, with no danger in sight. But when night falls, the inner world descends, and all the demons from the inner world emerge to slaughter freely. Humans are completely powerless, and because the two worlds exist on different planes, attacks from the outer world can’t harm the monsters from the inner world."
Humans had spent years researching all kinds of tools, but nothing worked. The only solution was for someone to enter the inner world and sacrifice themselves, never to return, in order to kill the monsters. But even then, an individual’s strength was far too limited to eliminate all the creatures.
Xiao Wu listened, utterly confused, not understanding what Zhou Shi was talking about. Seeing the young enforcer’s puzzled expression, Zhou Shi smiled wryly and grabbed two pieces of paper. On one, he wrote "outer layer," and on the other, "inner layer." Then, he placed the two sheets on top of each other.
"Sometimes, space is layered. We exist in the outer layer, the real world, while those terrifying monsters are in the inner layer." Zhou Shi squeezed the papers together, watching the words overlap as a complicated look crossed his face.
"I really hope this time isn’t as bad as that."
Author's note:
The concept of the inner world is inspired by the horror movie Silent Hill.
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