Rules-related weird stories: 4016

“Song Rentou checked into the school on the 2nd of last month in the afternoon. He participated in the roll call at 9 p.m. that evening and attended roll call normally for the next three and a half days. However, he was missing for two days and only re-signed in on the morning of the seventh day, before leaving the campus that afternoon.”

“Sounds normal, but those three and a half days when he didn't sign in are a big problem…” Tian Bufan said thoughtfully.

Lin Yi nodded and said, “Yes, but unfortunately, the homeroom teacher at the time seemed to know nothing about his whereabouts during those three days either.”

“You're being too quick to judge,” Tian Bufan refuted. “The homeroom teacher definitely wouldn't tell you everything. She was probably willing to share Song Rentou's sign-in records because you provided the clue about the paper scraps.”

“After you leave the office, she will definitely check some records or something.”

“So far, we haven't seen anyone in the teaching building area besides the homeroom teacher who can be held responsible for the students' behavior. So, I boldly speculate that among the homeroom teacher's many methods and measures, the sign-in list may just be the most basic record-keeping tool…”

A look of realization dawned in Lin Yi's eyes.

Tian Bufan continued, “Let that bullet fly for a while and see how the homeroom teacher handles Song Rentou's matter… Let's talk about other things. Do you have any other progress to report?”

Lin Yi glanced at Wei Liang and said, “Yes… it's related to H-manga.”

Wei Liang stared at his nose, acting as if we didn't know anything.

Seeing this, Lin Yi continued, “H-manga hides clues to the past Gray Mist invasions, but they're a bit disorganized…”

He explained the specific interpretation method, and Tian Bufan nodded slightly after listening. “I'll try it this afternoon.”

Lin Yi said, “Okay, but it's easy to drop a layer if you accept too much information at once. Be careful.”

“Okay, I know my limits,” Tian Bufan replied.

Lin Yi asked in return, “Do you have any discoveries?”

Tian Bufan said, “Information is limited. I originally planned to chat with the sports students again, but unfortunately, none of the sports students came to class. It seems that the situation over there might be very serious.”

“So, I spent some time circling the teaching building, mainly to check out Block D, the areas above the fifth floor, and the basement.”

Lin Yi asked in confusion, “Can you access them even when the weather is normal?”

Tian Bufan pondered and said, “I have a new hypothesis… That mountain has always been there, but we just can't find the path to enter it, so we think there is no mountain. But, the mountain is there, and sometimes you don't necessarily have to enter the mountain to see it.”

Lin Yi was inspired and couldn't help but say, “You mean… even during the day, Block D always exists, but we just can't see it?”

Tian Bufan raised his hand: “This is the real world.”

“There's the back of the hand, and there's the palm.”

“But for some reason, in our perception, the world is like this…”

He made a fist.

“When the layers are abnormal, the fist becomes a palm, and the path from the back of the hand to the palm extends.”

“Plus the moss distribution problem you mentioned earlier, I reverse-engineered the way Block D is folded in space…”

Lin Yi exclaimed in surprise, “What did you conclude?”

“I found the approximate location of Block D of the teaching building and the areas above the fifth floor, but there's no way to get there,” Tian Bufan said. “Seeing the mountain and entering the mountain are indeed two different concepts.”

“But interestingly, the Night Walkers seem to possess some kind of power to traverse layers…”

Lin Yi quickly asked, “How so?”

Tian Bufan said, “I caught a few Night Walkers and threw them onto the bridge I deduced to be in Block D.”

“Then what happened?”

“They burrowed towards the location of Block D at a super-fast speed, like a puddle of liquid encountering the sewer grate and seeping in.”

“Of course, it's a pity that they were killed by the sunlight before they could succeed.”

“Wait, how did you catch Night Walkers to experiment on?! ” Lin Yi was a little confused. Wasn't this reversing the situation? Weren't they avoiding them before? How did he start taking the initiative?

Tian Bufan said calmly, “Snakes are indeed scary, but if you find the right method, snake meat is still delicious.”

“Of course, I also found some interesting things…”

As he spoke, he took out a petrified sphere the size of an egg waffle from his pocket and threw it into Lin Yi's hand.

Looking at the sphere in his palm, Lin Yi's eyeballs almost popped out, and he exclaimed in a lost voice, “Damn, isn't this a light bulb?!”

Tian Bufan shrugged: “According to your description, I also spent some time searching for the location of that 'battlefield'. I don't know if it's a coincidence or something else, but that location is near Block D, which is the library. This is the residue I found nearby.”

“Look closely, if you put it in the sun, you can clearly see it absorbing sunlight.”

Lin Yi quickly held it up to the sun.

A magical scene appeared. When it faced the sun, the whole thing actually became transparent. The stone-like surface seemed to disappear, replaced by a crystal-like, transparent, and pure spherical gemstone.

When it absorbed sunlight, a layer of glazed-like shimmering light appeared on the surface…

Just then, Lin Yi heard that familiar rapid wind sound of 「kuāng kuāng kuāng」 again, his vision began to flash, black, white, and gray with some fragmented colorful light spots, like an over-rendered two-dimensional animation frantically jumping in front of him. The gemstone in his hand seemed to turn into a blazing ball of light at this moment, and the concentric golden patterns seemed to become scorching red-gold like a heated tungsten wire…

「kuāng kuāng kuāng kuāng kuāng…」

Lin Yi's vision flickered, and in the shattered countless lights, a pair of eyes seemed to slowly open!

Were those the eyes of an angel?

Or… the eyes of “He - I”?!

Lin Yi subconsciously loosened his grip on the light bulb, and the light bulb fell to the ground with a thud, but the crisp sound seemed to hit his feet heavily like a hammer.

As his palm loosened, everything in front of Lin Yi quickly disappeared, and his vision returned to its original state.

“Huff, huff, huff…” His face was pale, and he greedily breathed, as if he had forgotten to breathe in that moment just now.

“What did you see?” Tian Bufan patted Lin Yi's back and asked with concern.

“It's not what I saw, but… something saw me!” Lin Yi's forehead was covered with sweat as dense as soybeans. He swallowed a mouthful of saliva, his eyes flickering uncertainly, “I'm sure I've been targeted by an angel…”

“Don't be nervous. Didn't the homeroom teacher suggest that you go to the gymnasium after dinner to solve the problem as soon as possible?” Tian Bufan supported Lin Yi and comforted him.

"Things have come to this," Lin Yi said, squatting down and reaching for the light bulb.

But just as his palm touched the bulb, a pair of black rubber boots appeared in his line of sight. At the same time, a dry voice slowly rang in his ear: "Don't move..."

With the appearance of the voice, an indescribable sense of powerful oppression pressed down like the ceiling collapsing, instantly tightening his body.

But strangely, apart from the oppression, he didn't detect any malice.

So after a moment of愣了一下, he looked up slightly.

The next moment, a backlit figure appeared in his field of vision, startling him.

"You... Old Mo?!"

He's still alive...?!

Lin Yi was incredibly shocked.

But the current Old Mo was different from what he remembered.

His shoes had been replaced with long rubber boots made of the same material as his black bib, and his chef's uniform, although spotless, exuded a terrifying aura that was repulsive and unsettling. The blue bib he used to wear had been replaced with a black one again.

He was holding a pig-slaughtering knife in his hand. A viscous liquid seemed to be dripping from the blade, but strangely, the liquid seemed to exist and not exist, flowing down the blade like liquid nitrogen, but vaporizing into illusory white mist as it dripped...

Old Mo's attention was focused on the light bulb. Hearing his name called out in surprise, he was slightly moved, and a trace of brilliance flickered in his hollow eyes.

Old Mo bent down, leaned close to Lin Yi, and sniffed him gently.

"Your... body... has his... smell..."

As Old Mo spoke, his hands reached past Lin Yi and picked up the light bulb from the ground.

He held the bulb, closed his eyes, as if sensing something.

Lin Yi's vision was slightly distorted, and he unconsciously entered the "My Vision" state. Immediately, he saw the sunlight condensed in the bulb, like golden hair, drilling into Old Mo's palm and gradually dissolving into his arm.

The power in the bulb quickly dissipated, becoming devoid of spirituality.

After doing all this, Old Mo slowly opened his eyes and reached out, handing the completely petrified light bulb to Lin Yi's side.

"Give it... back... to you..."

His movements had a mechanical feel, especially when he reached out to Lin Yi and opened his fingers one by one, revealing the light bulb.

Lin Yi looked at Old Mo in shock. If he hadn't learned about Old Mo's origins through his dreams, he would have definitely treated Old Mo as a super evil chef.

"Uh, okay... okay," he said, reaching out to take the bulb from Old Mo's hand.

But at that moment, Old Mo's stiff movements suddenly became as swift as if he had been reborn. Before Lin Yi could react, his wrist was firmly clamped by Old Mo's hand.

Lin Yi was shocked and subconsciously wanted to pull his hand away, but found that Old Mo was as immovable as if he were cast in steel.

"Don't move... I'll only... say... it once..."

Old Mo's voice rang in Lin Yi's ear, still without any malice, only a sense of oppression as strong as a mountain.

At the same time, Old Mo's other hand, holding the pig-slaughtering knife, suddenly moved...

His gaze passed Lin Yi's body, staring at the shadow behind him, and then raised the pig-slaughtering knife high.

"I... see... you..."

There was no expression on Old Mo's face as he swung the pig-slaughtering knife down. At that moment, Lin Yi seemed to feel a cold aura spreading out from Old Mo as the center...

"This feeling...?!" Lin Yi's heart trembled. He felt something similar every time he crossed layers!

Old Mo seemed to be using physical contact to pull him into his own layer?!

"This...?!!"

Lin Yi subconsciously moved aside, his gaze following Old Mo's blade to his own back.

He didn't know until he looked, but when he did, he was instantly terrified!

There was no shadow behind him at all!!

There was only a dark gateway!

No, more precisely, the gateway was fused with his shadow. The shape of the gateway was the outline of his shadow, and even when he turned his head, the outline of the gateway changed with the shadow!

And in the depths of that gateway, there was another kind of terror hidden within the layers!

The dark rainy night, the alternating white and black stairwell of the teaching building struck by lightning, the grinning angel with wet feathers folded...

The terror in the dream was projected into reality, appearing in the dark world behind that gateway!

The grinning angel infiltrated the layers, did it lock onto him simply through his imagination?!

No, no, no... Perhaps it was the result of a combination of factors such as his unintentional imagination and the pollution transmitted by Maozi, but no matter what, he was locked on by the grinning angel!

Locked on by a grinning angel who theoretically specializes in hunting art students!

But at that moment, the gateway seemed to sense Old Mo's threat and stirred up waves like a lake hit by a stone. Before Old Mo's knife could strike the gateway, it dissipated.

Under the sun, only Lin Yi's shadow remained.

Old Mo's pig-slaughtering knife hung in mid-air, and his movements froze there. It seemed that at this moment, he had returned from the killing god to a stiff, puppet-like existence.

Old Mo released Lin Yi's wrist.

As physical contact ended, Lin Yi felt the warmth of the sun envelop him again, and the cold layer receded like water.

He had the feeling of surfacing.

"Huff..." He had almost forgotten to breathe, and only now did he quietly exhale.

Old Mo glanced at him and instructed, "Before you have... power... hide it... well... don't... charge... it... will... attract... misfortune..."

"Otherwise... throw it... away... or take it... to the... gymnasium..."

"They... will still... come... looking for... you... that kind of... mark... can only... be... erased... at the... gymnasium..."

Thanks to book friends "usjdnshhs" and "琳skylark" for their rewards!!