Sweet Home, Cozy Classroom

"......" Trailing behind the trio, ready to strike at a moment's notice, Bai Zhou remained exceedingly cautious, his nerves strung tight. Before the four of them, the dilapidated teaching building stood in utter silence, looming within the churning fog without a single speck of light. Bai Zhou rested one hand quietly against his waist in constant vigilance, watching as if bracing for some hideous, ferocious monster to burst from the pitch-black maw of the teaching building's entrance. The pitiful trio of guinea pigs had not noticed in the slightest that "Senior Zhou," who had been leading the way all along, had somehow slipped behind them. After all, Senior Zhou was masked the entire time; none of them could detect any abnormality in his state. In truth, they were complete strangers. Bai Zhou had no intention of harming them, but neither did he intend to treat them with particular benevolence. When they were besieged by the campus anomalies, Bai Zhou had saved their lives once... Now that he needed them to lend a hand with a few tasks within their power, was that really asking too much? If they truly encountered an anomaly in a moment, Bai Zhou would still be the first to intervene. "What is this?!" A startled cry came from up ahead, making Bai Zhou shudder all over as the cowlick atop his head snapped straight up like an antenna. Here it comes! Bai Zhou narrowed his eyes, instinctively igniting the spirituality within his body, bringing his condition to its peak readiness for battle. "...Is this where Senior attends class?" Stepping up three stairs and setting foot inside the teaching building, Number 9's figure sank halfway into the dark. She carefully poked her head inside, her eyes going wide as she looked left and right. Her voice sounded exceptionally astonished, as though she had just seen something completely unbelievable. "It's so cozy!" "...What?" Bai Zhou froze. This reaction... wasn't quite right, was it? What did she mean by cozy? You call a floor covered in rotting flesh and blood vessels cozy? Girl, aren't you a bit too Khorne-aligned...? Filled with doubt and suspicion, Bai Zhou followed behind the three up the steps, poking his head into the entrance of the teaching building to survey the situation within. Though there were no lights and everything was shrouded in darkness, Bai Zhou ignited the spirituality in his eyes, quickly making out the interior clearly. The long, white corridor was coated in a faint layer of dust, while the pristine white walls were plastered with all manner of handwritten posters in a dazzling riot of color. Outside some classrooms hung certificates of merit and little red flags, some reading "Sanitation Model," others "Discipline Pace-Setter." A row of portraits of great figures from East and West hung along the top of the wall, inscribed with their inspirational quotes, all gazing down at the corridor below with gentle, benevolent eyes. In an inconspicuous corner of the hallway, a dust-covered piano rested quietly, adorned with a little red flower sticker that someone had placed on it. At the far end of the corridor, a banner hung high, bearing four large characters: "Sweet Home." "...It really is cozy." More than cozy, it was outright sweet! Uttering the same sigh of wonder as Number 9, Bai Zhou understood why she had gasped in amazement just now. It was completely different from the dilapidated image of an abandoned teaching building on the outside. From without, it looked like a venue for a test of courage; inside, it was an incredibly warm and loving grade-level hallway. Too tranquil, too cozy, too lovely! In this dangerous realm teeming with anomalies, the normalcy and beauty here seemed unimaginably precious—like coming across an oasis blooming with little red flowers in the midst of a barren, windblown desert. —Yet precisely because of that, every shred of beauty here seemed all the more abnormal! "Something's wrong... Something's definitely wrong!" Where was the mountain of flesh? Where were the blood vessels? Where was the rotting meat? Where was the upside-down girl with a π hovering over her head? How could the terrifying scenes one couldn't even picture in a nightmare have vanished into thin air? Bai Zhou's eyes widened, and he instinctively held his breath, as if terrified of shattering the loveliness and tranquility here, or disturbing certain entities slumbering within. Like a mirror shattering or ripples disturbing the water's surface, a hideous, colossal river demon might leap out at any moment to devour them. Yet as he watched the trio of Number 9 and her companions walk along, their footsteps echoing *tap-tap* down the hallway, nothing abnormal happened. There were no monsters, no corruption, and certainly no writhing mountain of flesh or mysterious upside-down girl. *Did the prophecy go awry, or did I remember the location of the teaching building wrong?* Bai Zhou remained skeptical of this place, yet he also wondered if he had made an error. Remembering the location wrong was entirely possible. After all, similar teaching buildings were everywhere within Yuanmeng Middle School, each old and derelict in appearance, abandoned for who knew how long. Yet it seemed the "students" truly did attend class inside them; after all, the teaching buildings were not real teaching buildings, nor were the students real students. These abandoned, derelict teaching buildings were clearly nests that birthed one anomaly after another! And the one Bai Zhou was looking for was the most wicked and critical of all those nests— Yet he seemed to have taken a wrong turn. Was it because the fog was too thick, causing him to lose his sense of direction? His body stiff, Bai Zhou was stuck on the entrance steps of the teaching building, half his body leaned into the darkness within, half remaining outside in the grayish-white mist. Enter, or pull back? "What's wrong, Senior?" "Isn't this your teaching building? Come on in!" Wearing puzzled eyes, the girl turned around and called out an invitation to Bai Zhou. "I..." Looking at the three who had already stepped into the building and were turning to gaze back at him in confusion, Bai Zhou's expression grew solemn. He had to consider an extreme possibility... It was possible that the moment the three of them entered the teaching building, they had already been replaced by some unknown entity. Right now, it was a demon inviting him to step into a trap. Reaching this thought, Bai Zhou let out an awkward chuckle and pulled back his advancing foot. "I remembered wrong. It's the one next door." Saying so, Bai Zhou shifted his gaze toward the adjacent building. That was also an abandoned teaching building, virtually identical in appearance to the one before him. Bai Zhou recalled the layout of the teaching buildings he had seen in the prophetic vision, finally narrowing the scope down to this vicinity. —If not this one, then that one! Yet when Bai Zhou cautiously poked his head into the entrance of the neighboring teaching building, he was dumbfounded to find that the interior layout was nearly identical to the previous one! It was as if both were completely normal teaching buildings where students attended classes day in and day out. "Senior, you... still aren't coming in?" The trio had walked inside once more, looking at Bai Zhou's bizarre reaction with bewilderment. They were gradually sensing that something was amiss as well, but the quiet, serene surroundings thoroughly threw them off. At first, the trio had wondered whether this was merely a peaceful facade, but at least at the entrance, there truly was nothing. This school had always been fraught with danger; how was it that, upon arriving at the place where he attended class, Senior was the one reluctant to enter? Weren't you quite fond of studying...? "Yeah, give me a moment," Bai Zhou responded, turning around to jog over to the side and squat down, doing who knew what. "What is he...?" The three looked at one another, deeply impressed without understanding in the slightest. With his back turned to the trio, Bai Zhou squatted in a corner, reached behind him, and drew from his pocket... A coin. A standard one-yuan coin ubiquitous throughout the Eastern Federation. Bai Zhou's fingertip traced across the ground, drawing a circle, and then three vertical lines within it. He dotted each vertical line in turn, symbolizing lighting the wicks of three candles. The three candles represented "Question," "Answer," and "Cost." At the same time, Bai Zhou flicked the coin into the air with his left thumb. *Ding—* The coin flipped upward, tracing an arc through the air. A wisp of faint light shimmered from each of the three "candles" on the ground. Fixing his gaze on the arc traced by the coin, Bai Zhou silently repeated the question three times in his mind: *Is it safe to enter this building?* *Clap!* Reaching out to catch the coin, Bai Zhou opened his palm. Tails up: "No." Next, Bai Zhou tossed it two more times, making three in total. After three throws, all yielded the exact same result: tails up. —Not safe! This trip was dangerous! Bai Zhou's brow furrowed slightly. Pondering for a moment, he repeated the trick, divining once more. This time, Bai Zhou phrased the question differently: *Will this journey be a close call that turns out safely?* Heads up: "Yes." Then Bai Zhou asked again: *Is the building before me my destination for this trip?* Heads up: "Yes." "......" Pursing his lips, Bai Zhou slowly rose to his feet. Fine then, time to set out. This was a simple little ritual Crow had taught him during the day before they parted. It could only answer yes or no to a certain extent, and when faced with particularly momentous questions or interference, there was even a chance it might fail or turn chaotic; to call it useful might be an overstatement. Yet it was just right for sweeping away a diviner's hesitation and indecision. Stepping across several stairs, Bai Zhou raised his head, took one final look from outside at this utterly dilapidated building, and let his figure sink into the deep, murky darkness. "......" "Knowledge is power! Such meager academic difficulty cannot even make me take this seriously, graaagh!" The moment Bai Zhou and the other three stepped onto the corridor... The portraits hanging on the wall began to roar at the top of their lungs, their impassioned voices nearly bursting everyone's eardrums and startling the four out of their wits. One moment, a man with big wavy hair named Peiniu was shouting about knowledge; the next, an Aidishidode with a glowing crowbar propped on his shoulder was singing with fervent fervor. "Wherever you fall, crush the stumbling block to dust! Give me a fulcrum and I will flip ten thousand fucking Blue Stars into the sky!" "Fool! Feel the ripple of knowledge! Only weak, pathetic small fry resort to rote memorization!" "Do you believe in gravity? I despise that lucky bastard hit by an apple—what if it had been a lead weight? Can you feel it now, the absolute limit of human brain cells? I'll say it again: accelerate the revolution of your brain cells, exam grinder! Blast right through Blue Star!" "......" Dense, cacophonous roars reverberated throughout the corridor, as though someone were screaming into their ears through a megaphone. Bai Zhou and the other three practically covered their ears as they hurried forward, fleeing the first half of the corridor as if running for their lives. Only when their ears finally regained a measure of peace did they breathe a sigh of relief. "No, wait... what kind of famous quotes are those? And who on earth are Peiniu and Aidishidode?" Number 9's expression was quite a sight. Although everyone knew the Reflected Ruin Realm was grotesque and absurd, Number 9 had rarely encountered a patchwork quite this bizarre. "Feels even worse than that Failing Student Execution Wall from earlier. Top-tier cult classic material..." Number 42, the little fatty, wore a look of lingering dread. "Thank goodness we're all college students familiar with the original quotes here, and not easily misled little kids." Bai Zhou: "?" *So those sentences were actually modified?* He had actually thought they sounded rather reasonable. It was just that there was something wrong with those roaring portraits; listening to them for too long made one's mind reel and head spin. Yet this hidden danger actually set Bai Zhou's mind at ease. If everything had been so wonderfully idyllic throughout, it would have made Bai Zhou all the more anxious, ready to bolt for the door at any moment. There was precedent for this recorded in Wancheng as well. In Wancheng's language and literature textbooks, there was a story about a place called Chrysanthemum Spring. Secluded from the world, it was lovely everywhere; those living within knew nothing of the dynastic shifts or changing seasons of the outside world. Yet when an outsider broke in, the truth of the place was laid bare. A valiant black-robed explorer discovered that behind all that loveliness lurked a massive evil organization. The so-called Chrysanthemum Spring was actually a den secretly exporting forbidden items to Wancheng. In the end, the black-robed organization took decisive action, wiping out this evil den in a single sweep! —This story had been included in the textbook to serve as a warning to posterity of how many temptations and perils lay beyond Wancheng, and how every forbidden item was backed by sinister forces. One had to stand resolutely on the side of the Black Robes, and never get involved with any of that miscellaneous nonsense outside! When it came to this reading comprehension text, Bai Zhou had always scored exceptionally high. Who would have guessed that the ultimate truth proved that the real "Chrysanthemum Spring" was none other than Wancheng itself... "Senior, which grade has class here?" "We shouldn't run into any passing teachers, right?" "What's this?" The three [Explorers] crept about, feeling their way around with great care. Yet in Bai Zhou's eyes, their caution was no different from strutting openly down the corridor. Especially when Bai Zhou saw them casually touching yellowed notices and ancient class plaques on the walls from time to time, his heart nearly leaped out of his chest! Still, it had to be said that the trio truly played their role as guinea pigs to the fullest, helping Bai Zhou clear mines in advance. A yellowed bulletin board would fire scorching rays of light, or a plaque marking a certain class of a certain grade would suddenly crash down with crushing weight. Whenever that happened, Bai Zhou's fist would arrive in a flash, smashing the various traps to smithereens. The guinea pigs only needed to cause trouble; Bai Zhou, keeping his eyes on them constantly, had far more to worry about. He felt more and more like that red-robed grand mage from the Wancheng tales, the master and three disciples journeying west... or more accurately, the battle-hardened red-robed elder and his three troublesome disciples. Bai Zhou, the "master," was busy darting his fiery golden eyes left and right, subduing demons first and capturing monsters later—why on earth were there so many fiends and specters...? An overly hyperactive monkey, an overly foolish pig, and a muscle-bound follower. They corresponded perfectly to Number 9, Number 42, and Number 31. Bai Zhou wished he could draw a golden circle on the ground and lock them inside. He could only pray that their final destination wasn't the Western Heaven... *Clack, clack!* Footsteps echoed through the empty, silent corridor. Passing by vacant classroom after vacant classroom, the group was nearing the stairwell corner at the end. "What's this?" Number 9 let out a soft exclamation and peered intently at the wall. Several lines of slogans were written there. The distinct black printed text was faintly faded, trickling down a few pale black trails as if soaked with moisture, like human eyes weeping tears. [1. Trust your teacher unconditionally.] [2. All students are strictly forbidden from looking into mirrors before nightfall.] [3. The dismissal bell for the final period is 34:35. If you still hear the bell after 34:45, please ignore it.] [4. Making noise in the hallway is prohibited.] [5. If a classmate starts repeating the exact same phrase over and over, please stay away from them.] [6. No whispering during class, and do not stare at the teacher.] [7. Maintain constant competition and jealousy toward classmates at all times. Harmony and friendship are strictly forbidden.] [7. Do not trust your teach— (crossed out with a red line)] [8. Addendum: If any rule conflicts with Rule 1, please follow Rule 1!] "These rules are..." Number 9's crisp voice cut off abruptly. The figures of the three [Explorers] gathered before the rules suddenly stiffened. "What happened to you?" Bai Zhou frowned, keenly sensing that something was wrong. Then. The three of them turned around in perfect unison, as if they were a single person. Their eyes stared dead straight at Bai Zhou, their mouths repeating the exact same sentence over and over: "Making noise in the hallway is prohibited..." "Making noise in the hallway is prohibited..." "Making noise in the hallway is prohibited!!"