Chapter 76: Terrifying Campus, Sunny Doll (14)

Someone suddenly spoke in a low voice.

“When the avalanche comes, not a single snowflake is innocent. When Tang Mo was bullied, we all just stood by and watched.”

...

Yingying Wei glared angrily and realized it was Xiujuan Fei contradicting her.

Yingying Wei was instantly furious.

She retorted sharply, “I’m the one about to die! Not you! Of course you can gloat here!... And you say not a single snowflake is innocent during an avalanche... When you watched me about to die, weren’t you just coldly standing by too?”

“I don’t want to stay in this wretched school any longer! Who cares about the so-called elite middle school entrance rate, who cares about these stupid exams, I’m done! I want to leave this awful place!”

She cursed and complained, making it clear she wanted to leave. Naturally, no one tried to stop her.

But when she reached the school gate, she found it locked. The dormitory warden who was usually stationed at the entrance was nowhere to be seen.

No one was there to open the gate for her.

Yingying Wei didn’t give up. She stepped onto the iron bars of the gate, climbing up rung by rung.

Just as she was about to climb over—

Suddenly!

Her foot slipped.

With a sickening “squelch,” her neck was impaled on the sharp iron spike atop the gate.

Like a skewer of meat.

Blood streamed down the spike, pooling on the ground.

The entire sixth grade, class two, stood frozen and silent as they witnessed this.

No one knew how much time passed.

Finally, someone whispered timidly, “Don’t you think it’s been eerily quiet since the power went out? I feel like, apart from our class, you can’t hear anyone from any other class.”

Prompted by this, everyone suddenly realized the whole campus was unnaturally silent.

“Maybe we should go check? I’ll go with Haoyu Qiu to look at the classrooms from the first to the sixth floor. The rest of you check the dorms. Maybe because of the blackout, everyone’s hiding in their rooms, not in the evening self-study classrooms...”

As for Yingying Wei, impaled on the iron gate—

No one wanted to look at her or accept the reality. They just couldn’t bear to see it.

“No, no!” The girls shook their heads frantically, on the verge of a breakdown. “We’re scared, we don’t want to be separated from you boys!”

“Just let a few boys stay here. As for the ones who... Pei Lübo, Wen Anyi, and Liu Yuanming, you three stay put. As long as you don’t move around, nothing strange should happen.”

“But... Mingzhe Wei didn’t move either. And his head was sliced off by the falling fan. We...”

“Then let’s go to the sports field,” someone suggested. “It’s more open there. As long as we stay put, we should be safe. Alright, we’ll go check the classrooms and dorms. We’ll tell you what we find when we’re back.”

Lixuan Tang pulled Haoyu Qiu and slipped into the darkness.

The timid classmates could only watch their backs, trembling in silence.

No one knew how long the quiet lasted.

Finally, Pei Lübo spoke up in a small, fearful voice, “Shouldn’t we head to the sports field now?”

Wen Anyi didn’t want to go. Her name was on today’s headless talisman list. She was painfully aware that she, Pei Lübo, and Liu Yuanming were the next targets.

She felt it was safer to stay put. After all, they’d been standing in the hallway for quite a while, and nothing strange had happened, right?

“Let’s just stay here. We’ll be fine.”

“But there are electric wires in the hallway,” Pei Lübo pointed out, glancing at the decrepit wiring in the corridor and the body of someone who had just been electrocuted. “I don’t want to be the next to have my neck strangled and die from electric shock.”

A shock of 220 volts—if you let go quickly enough, you might survive, but continuous contact is certain death.

“But, but...”

“Let’s just go to the sports field?” Liu Yuanming agreed. “I don’t want to be around dead bodies anymore.”

At that moment, they almost wished that odd, sarcastic cleaning lady was still around. At least she was alive—and would take care of the bodies.

Even though they were scared out of their wits, as long as they weren’t sharing space with corpses, they could manage. It wasn’t the first time, after all.

When “Tang Mo” died, hadn’t everyone already seen all there was to see?

“Two against one,” Pei Lübo declared. “We’re going to the sports field.”

Decision made, the three of them didn’t linger on the sixth-floor hallway. They crept quietly down the dark stairwell, feeling their way to the ground floor.

The boys were braver, after all.

If they wanted to go to the sports field, they’d go. Wen Anyi, however, refused to move an inch.

“Isn’t it too dangerous for the two of them to just go like that...” she began, but before she could finish—

A sudden scream!

Something heavy tumbled down the stairs, followed by frantic footsteps.

“What happened?” Those still on the sixth-floor hallway shouted into the shadows.

No response.

Not until Liu Yuanming’s figure dashed from the ground floor onto the sports field did everyone realize that Pei Lübo, while descending the stairs, had missed a step and tumbled all the way down.

As for whether he survived, no one knew.

No one dared check the darkness of the stairwell.

They could only see Liu Yuanming.

From the sixth floor, everyone shouted to Liu Yuanming, “Where’s Pei Lübo?”

Liu Yuanming was silent for a long time.

He didn’t answer.

His silence spoke volumes. Everyone fell silent.

Now, it seemed, only Liu Yuanming and Wen Anyi were left.

If they didn’t survive to see the dawn...

Terror pressed down on class two of the sixth grade, smothering any sound.

No one spoke first. No one dared.

No one knew how long passed.

The faint sound of a girl sobbing began in the crowd.

No one tried to stop her.

The weeping grew louder and louder.

Under this oppressive fear, Wen Anyi finally broke down. She crouched, hugging her knees and her head, utterly overwhelmed by terror.

“Why? Why did I come to this school? Suddenly, a regular elementary school seems fine. Even if I don’t get into the best middle school, it’s still alright... At least I’d be alive.”

She cried out her grievances, tears flowing down her face, snot bubbling at her nose.

“I don’t want to die, I really don’t want to die, I want to live!”

Seeing Wen Anyi cry, no one knew how to comfort her.

After all, everyone held their own headless talisman. If they made it through today, what about tomorrow?

If tomorrow, their name was next on the death list, what then?

Who would be there to comfort them?