Rules-related weird stories: 4016

"Then let's take our time and look for other shelves." Lin Yi took the lace socks and square-toed leather shoes from Li Huiyuan's hands, and then carefully helped her put them on.

Lin Yi got up and helped Li Huiyuan up, then glanced at the shelves with some apprehension, then withdrew his gaze and led Li Huiyuan back to the shelves to look for student commemorative coins.

There were some other shelves nearby, but those shelves were not on the blue "Exit" signposted route.

Now they were at their wit's end, but they couldn't give up, so they had to venture over there.

Just as they turned around, a low and hoarse call suddenly rang out from the shadowy area behind them…

"Lin… Yi… (Li… Hui… Yuan…)"

The two stopped in their tracks, then looked at each other, seeing a hint of astonishment in each other's eyes.

"Did… did you hear that too?" Lin Yi asked.

Li Huiyuan nodded, her face pale.

"Ignore it, let's go find the student commemorative coins." Lin Yi lowered his voice.

"Lin… Yi… (Li… Hui… Yuan…)"

The sound was like the steam rising from a cooked meal in a country cottage, lingering on the roof beams for a long time.

The two dared not respond, supporting each other as they left the blue-marked path and entered the surrounding shelf area.

After entering the other area, Lin Yi realized that leaving the path was not the only option. There were many blue signs in this area, and although these signs were distributed differently, they all pointed in the same direction of departure.

「It seems that the exit of the convenience store is over there…」Lin Yi withdrew his gaze and helped Li Huiyuan through other shelf areas.

A few more minutes passed, and at 17:15, Lin Yi heard a strange noise.

「Thump!」

Lin Yi paused, listening carefully, and then heard the "thump" sound again in his ear. At the same time, he seemed to feel a slight tremor beginning to occur under his feet.

The price tags on the shelves also trembled "da da da da…", and ripples appeared on the water level of the drinks in the beverage area.

「Thump!」

「Thump!」

「Thump…」

In the shadowy area, the faint call that came with such strange noises seemed to be a magical sound piercing his ears, making his mind tremble slightly.

「This sound…? !」Lin Yi seemed to have thought of something, and his pupils shrank slightly, 「Why does it sound like the sound I heard in the employee通道?」

However, compared to that, the terrifying pressure was suddenly weakened a lot.

But Lin Yi not only didn't feel relaxed, but also felt a lot of pressure.

Because such calls were like countless small bugs buzzing in his ears, as if they were trying their best to drill into his brain.

As time went by, the sound gradually amplified, making people feel dizzy.

「There should also be a threshold similar to the depth of contamination in this convenience store. The longer you stay, the greater the impact, so the convenience store notice tells us to leave after buying things!」

「Damn it…」

Lin Yi felt bad, but seeing Li Huiyuan gritting her teeth and constantly searching for the shadow of the student commemorative coin, he calmed down, and then gritted his teeth and said: "Li Huiyuan, let's walk towards the exit while searching the shelves along the way."

Finding student commemorative coins is to maintain one's own safe state, and forcibly staying here to find them, even if you can really find them, if you encounter an accident in the end, isn't that as dangerous as not finding the student commemorative coins?

…

The two walked and searched, and the time quickly came to 17:20, but they still did not find any student commemorative coins on the shelves along the way.

Some shelves didn't even have a price tag for student commemorative coins.

Lin Yi didn't know how much the student commemorative coins accounted for in other commodities, but from this round of observation, the proportion would not be too large.

However, the small proportion is not the key issue at all. The key issue is that there are no student commemorative coins on all the shelves.

Lin Yi felt bad and subconsciously grabbed the commodity in his hand.

"Li Huiyuan!" Lin Yi said in a deep voice, "Go to the snack food area!"

"Huh?" Li Huiyuan was stunned for a moment.

"Something must have happened to the convenience store! At some point before we came, something must have happened to the convenience store!" Lin Yi was quick-witted and almost instantly determined his guess, "Go to the snack food area and just grab a roll of biscuits! Now, immediately!"

The chance of getting a student commemorative coin is too slim. Now we must consider another thing—【At least take one commodity away】.

Considering that the least troublesome thing is the things in the snack food area, and the snack food area is not far away, so in order to be safe, it is better to grab a roll of biscuits or something in your hand first.

"Okay." Li Huiyuan chose absolute obedience to Lin Yi's words.

Two minutes later, Li Huiyuan came to the snack food area with Lin Yi's support and grabbed a roll of biscuits. She thought about it, and then grabbed a piece of bread from the side.

She can take away a maximum of three commodities. If she finds a student commemorative coin later, this will be the third item. If she doesn't find it, she will take two snack foods.

Just as she put the biscuits and bread into the pocket of her pleated skirt, the entire convenience store seemed to be suddenly bombarded by something, making a loud "boom" sound. The arched dome trembled violently, and sand and dust fell "rustlingly" along with the violently shaking incandescent lamps. The turbid cyclone seemed to shuttle between the hazy light and shadow, as if the underground world had suddenly encountered quicksand.

The shelves around Lin Yi all shook "ka da da da…", and a strong sense of crisis instantly accompanied the dust and filled his heart.

「Pa…」

His ears moved slightly, as if capturing a trace of subtle fluctuations in the chaotic noise from the shaking shelves and incandescent lamps.

「Hoo—hoo…」

Then came a heavy breathing sound…

Lin Yi's pupils shrank suddenly. This time the sound was similar to but different from the strange noise in the darkness. Instead, it came from the "normal" area of the convenience store with lighting.

Following this feeling, he turned his head and glanced. What he saw were rows of shelves, but the strong sense of alertness seemed to construct a picture of a monster emerging from its cage in his mind like a "sense"!

At the same time, a faint golden glow flashed in the depths of his eyes. At the moment when the glow passed, his vision quickly zoomed in like an eight-power mirror or a sixteen-power mirror, and constantly penetrated the rows of shelves, finally seeing a door behind the shelves.

The door of the convenience store.

The source of that strange noise.

At this moment, in Lin Yi's vision, the forest-white mist and darkness intertwined, and had already eroded the field that supported the orange-yellow light mist at the entrance of the convenience store.

Amidst the fog, eerie shadows lingered. Despite the considerable distance, Lin Yi could clearly sense the humanoid spider-like green-aproned chef lurking behind the door, watching them with predatory eyes, seemingly ready to burst through the doorway with the fog and invade the convenience store.

"No! Wrong! Wrong, wrong…"

Lin Yi suddenly heard a wind-breaking sound like a train rushing past, and three different scenes flashed rapidly before his eyes, like frames skipping in a film.

One was the scene he was currently witnessing: the flickering fluorescent lights inside the convenience store, and the fog swirling and surging outside the door.

The second was from Mao Feiyang's perspective, with the lights shaking, the fog already pouring into the convenience store, and Night Roamers reaching out their hands.

The third was an apocalyptic convenience store with incessant buzzing alarms and red lights…

In the 24 frames per second, these three scenes flickered wildly, and in these flashing fragments, he seemed to foresee the moment when the fog would break through the convenience store's doorway!

An intense sense of crisis instantly surged from behind the convenience store door like a tide, rushing towards him!

"Hoo…"

The whole process lasted no more than three seconds, and his vision returned to normal, but that prophetic feeling lingered in his mind like a haunting ghost.

"Lin, are you okay?" Li Huiyuan's voice sounded in his ear, with a hint of doubt, "Is there a problem?"

"Not for now…" Lin Yi withdrew his gaze, the golden light in his eyes had long since disappeared.

But just as he shook his head slightly and said there was no problem, the corner of his eye suddenly caught some pure white stains on the nearby floor tiles.

Those stains were as if someone had dipped a mop in white chocolate syrup, then flicked it onto the ground, where it dried and hardened.

"Wait, this is… ketchup?!"

This was what ketchup looked like after it had calcified!

Lin Yi's heart skipped a beat.

The image of Mu Daxian violently killing the grotesque Night Roamer flashed through his mind. In that image, the Night Roamers' limbs flew, ketchup splattered everywhere, and finally, they turned into white sculptural fragments, exactly like the stains in front of him!

"So, what I just saw was a scene unfolding in another layer at the same time?"

"The two layers can be traversed to some extent? So the ketchup splashed over?"

"Or… if the layer is still this layer, did I see something that happened at another point in time?"

Mao Feiyang didn't have a watch, and there was no pendulum clock in the convenience store.

The only way he could make a judgment was to wait until he dreamed at night to see if he could rely on the dream to relive what Mao Feiyang had experienced.

But no matter which guess it was, it indicated one thing—the convenience store could no longer be stayed in!

"We have to leave here immediately!" Lin Yi's face was full of solemnity. He pointed in the direction of the convenience store entrance, "That fog has already submerged the student cafeteria and is about to seep in from the convenience store door!"

Li Huiyuan followed Lin Yi's direction and glanced at the convenience store door. She didn't know what she saw, but her pupils suddenly dilated, filled with a strong sense of fear: "Lin… Lin, run! Run!!!"

Lin Yi was already looking in the direction of the convenience store door, and when he heard this, he glanced over directly.

"Damn!"

With just one glance, it was as if he had been struck by a current from head to toe. His scalp went numb, and he quickly helped Li Huiyuan and ran towards the blue sign.

The convenience store door was gone, replaced by a spreading, pale white fog.

The thick fog was as viscous as paste, and the fluorescent lights along the way flickered like short circuits in the thick fog, then weakly went out, causing that area to be hidden in darkness.

"Shashasha… Shashasha…"

Inhuman students and Night Roamers walked through the fog like a swarm of insects. Some Night Roamers, who had not yet transformed from their plasticine state into human form, crawled on the convenience store's arched ceiling like twisted human skins.

Among these inhuman entities, there were also some green-aproned chefs.

They "harmoniously" mingled in the same team, spreading through the convenience store with the surge of the fog, constantly shrinking the encirclement as the darkness continued to advance.

The convenience store instantly turned into a PUBG-like biochemical poison circle. If they couldn't escape before the fog completely submerged the convenience store, the consequences would be unimaginable.

Suddenly, Li Huiyuan staggered, and her entire weight shifted onto Lin Yi, causing him to stumble as well, almost falling to the ground.

Lin Yi quickly grabbed Li Huiyuan, otherwise, it would be really over if her knees were dragged and scratched: "Are you okay?"

"I… I can't feel my feet…" Li Huiyuan's face was pale, and a dry, bitter smile appeared on the corner of her mouth, "Lin… I feel like I might not be able to run out…"

"Anyway, we didn't find the student commemorative coin, so… so let's just leave it at that."

"You run, you run quickly… Don't worry about me."

"Don't forget, we agreed that I'm cannon fodder."

Lin Yi looked at her face and then at the fog that was surging like a nightmare behind him, and then helped her sit on the ground.

"You rest for a while."

After saying that, he rushed out without looking back.

Looking at Lin Yi's back, even though Li Huiyuan had already prepared herself mentally, when this scene happened in front of her, a strong feeling of sadness still surged uncontrollably in her heart.

Although we had already agreed…

Although…

But she was working so hard to survive…

But… it was really unwilling…

She felt an unprecedented heartache. It turned out that what was more terrible than chronic death was being abandoned alone by a partner you had finally trusted…

But just as her tears were swirling uncontrollably in her eyes, about to blur her vision, she suddenly saw a figure turning back from afar.

Not only did he turn back, but he was also holding a piece of cloth in his hand, panting and running like a caped superhero.

"Lin… Yi?"

Li Huiyuan looked at Lin Yi in disbelief. The other party was holding a bed sheet full of big red flower patterns.