Volume 11: The Days of Traversing Through the Mirror
Phone Call
Bai Lu
If this instance were compared to a giant maze, then the different worlds inside the mirrors would be the maze’s different branches.
Their goal was clear: to cross the maze’s many obstacles to reach the end. So, Lou Jingmo simply chose to destroy the maze’s walls, smashing one whenever she saw one——when all obstacles vanish, the end will naturally appear before their eyes.
But the problem now was: they still had teammates also inside the maze. If the maze’s branch entrances were destroyed, the path for the others to return would vanish.
To accommodate the feelings of the two scaredy-cats, Shen Maomao and Peng Xiaorui, they could only choose the most troublesome method: touching the mirrors one by one.
Before touching the mirrors, there was another relatively important thing to do: confirm that there were no other players inside this mirror.
Gan Ze said, “I’ve always lived alone. No one has come looking for me during this time.”
If Bai Lu were here, there was a high probability she would return to the dorm to check things out, but the possibility that Gan Ze went to class couldn’t be ruled out, so this couldn’t be used as a standard for judgment.
Besides that, there was the dorm next door.
Shen Maomao pressed her ear to the door next door and listened for a while. Confirming someone was living inside, she pulled back her leg and switched to knocking: “Hello, is anyone there?”
“Coming! Who is it?” The door opened in response. A girl holding a lipstick stared at her in bewilderment for two seconds, then asked, “Who are you looking for?”
Shen Maomao’s pupils experienced an earthquake1—a magnitude eight earthquake—shaking her until she was stupefied.
Another girl poked her head down from the bed: “Zhang Xiao, who is it?”
Zhang Xiao turned back and said, “Can’t you look for yourself?” After speaking, she turned back around: “Classmate? Why aren’t you speaking?”
Shen Maomao: “You… why do you live here?”
Zhang Xiao: “Huh? I’ve always lived here…”
The girl sitting on the bed said, “Don’t talk nonsense, you won’t be living here soon. I really don’t know what you’re thinking. Clearly she was the one who did something wrong, and she even got physical with you…”
“Ahem.” Zhang Xiao coughed dryly twice, called out the girl’s name, then said, “Who exactly are you guys?”
Shen Maomao glanced at her. It seemed that in this flash of lightning and flint fire2, she understood something. She mumbled, “It’s nothing… You look very much like someone I know, so I was a bit surprised.”
Zhang Xiao said, “So what are you actually here for?”
“Uh… We…” Shen Maomao couldn’t think of an excuse for the moment and got a bit stuck.
“We are exchange students,” Lou Jingmo immediately followed up. “The Daoyuan3 said the Class Monitor lives next door to us and told us to get on good terms with her.”
Zhang Xiao paused for a moment, then smiled: “I am the Class Monitor. My name is Zhang Xiao. You guys are exchange students? Which school? How come the Daoyuan didn’t tell me at all?”
“Maybe they haven’t had time to notify you yet.” No flaw could be seen on Lou Jingmo’s face.
Zhang Xiao believed it. She capped the lipstick, put it in her pocket, and enthusiastically greeted the two: “Then are you guys going to class in a bit? Do you know where the classroom is? Do you need me to take you there?”
Shen Maomao hurriedly refused: “No need, no need. We don’t have class right now, so we won’t trouble you.”
Zhang Xiao: “It’s fine, we’re all classmates. If you need anything, just come to the dorm to find me.”
Shen Maomao asked, seizing the opening: “I heard you’re going to move dorms? Which dorm should we go to find you in the future?”
Zhang Xiao said, “It’s not decided yet, but it seems only Building 16 has empty beds. I might move there. I’ll contact you guys then.”
Shen Maomao said, “Then you guys stay busy! We’ll head back first, won’t disturb you anymore.”
Zhang Xiao: “Okay, bye.”
Shen Maomao shot Lou Jingmo a look, hurriedly pulled her back to their own dorm, and the first thing she did upon entering was to shut the dorm door tight.
The two inside the room looked at them curiously. Peng Xiaorui said, “What’s wrong with you guys? Why are you acting like thieves?”
Shen Maomao said mysteriously, “Guess who we met next door?”
“Who?”
“It’s Zhang Xiao!”
Gan Ze said in confusion, “What’s so strange about that? Zhang Xiao has always lived next door.”
She had no memories, but Peng Xiaorui was clear about the ins and outs, and said in shock, “So Zhang Xiao was someone from the dorm next door from the start? What exactly is her relationship with Wu Huiling?!”
Shen Maomao: “I heard something from her roommate. The current timeline should be after she reported Wu Huiling for cheating. The person who fought with Wu Huiling was also her, but later it seems only Wu Huiling received disciplinary action.”
“Oh!” Peng Xiaorui suddenly realized. “In that case, Wu Huiling’s timeline is cleared up. The only thing unclear now is the true cause of her death.”
“Mhm, but this doesn’t affect us much.” Shen Maomao said, “Next, we need to go find the others.”
Speaking of this, she sighed, “Sigh——if only we could contact them.”
Beside her, Gan Ze leaned over and asked, “Contact who? Don’t they have cell phones?”
Shen Maomao: “They do, but these phones are no different from bricks. Messages won’t go out.”
Gan Ze took out her own phone and took a look: “My phone works. How about you give me their numbers, and I’ll try contacting them?”
Peng Xiaorui dug out Bai Lu’s phone number: “Call this one first, call this one first, see if it works.”
Gan Ze dialed the number and put it on speaker.
Lou Jingmo sat on Shen Maomao’s bed, watching the other three circle around the screen, opened a bottle of mineral water, and took a sip.
Du——4
Du——
After ringing twice, the phone was actually picked up!!
“Wei5? Gan Ze?” A hoarse voice came from the other end of the phone. “How were you able to get through to me? You’re okay? Where are you right now?”
Gan Ze raised an eyebrow, lost in thought, and her trust in Shen Maomao and the others deepened a bit.
“Xuejie6!!!!” Peng Xiaorui screamed, “Where are you right now?! Can you come to our dorm! We’re all in the dorm!”
“You guys? Who all is there?”
“There’s me, Maomao, Hai Dongqing, and Gan Ze!”
Bai Lu said, “I’m right downstairs at the dorm! Wait for me!”
The call wasn’t hung up. The three listened to the sound of her climbing the stairs, then the sound of a key inserting into the lockhole.
Unfortunately, there was no movement on their side, and the dorm door didn’t budge an inch.
Gan Ze: “You guys aren’t in the dorm.”
Peng Xiaorui said, “Xuejie, which mirror did you enter? I’ve had such a hard time looking for you…”
Bai Lu: “Oh, oh, oh, are the worlds behind different mirrors different? No wonder I didn’t see you guys. After we separated, I went back to the dorm and touched the mirror on the left on the first floor.”
The two mirrors downstairs in the dorm had been off from the very start; it was understandable that Bai Lu would think they were the exits from the mirror.
Peng Xiaorui didn’t want to wait a single moment and wanted to go downstairs to find her immediately, but Shen Maomao was afraid there might be other people in this mirror. So, she arranged for Bai Lu to wait for them on the first floor of the dorm and told her that they still needed to notify the others first.
Bai Lu agreed readily. Peng Xiaorui remembered to remind her to be careful of imposters, then hung up the phone.
In the following half-hour, Gan Ze used her phone to call the four people from the dorm next door and the new rookie individually. All the calls went through, but only one was answered: Bed Number One from next door.
Bed Number One was also inside a certain mirror, but she seemed injured, and her mental state wasn’t very optimistic—like she had suffered some shock—but she could still communicate with them.
The mirror she entered was in a classroom on the top floor of the teaching building, but she couldn’t move right now. She was hiding in a classroom below and needed them to rescue her.
After finishing the conversation with her, Gan Ze called the other four people individually, but until the busy signal sounded, no one picked up——these four had likely already been killed.
Peng Xiaorui said anxiously, “Then let’s go save Xuejie first?”
None of them had any objections, so they went downstairs together.
It wasn’t time for class yet, and people were coming down from upstairs one after another. The dorm matron had been switched to a different one; right now, she was sitting behind the large window of the guard room watching the people coming and going. The supermarket sold breakfast, and some students would buy breakfast directly there to save trouble, so the first floor was quite lively right now.
Their appearance didn’t attract others’ attention. Because they weren’t sure about the left and right in the mirror world, Shen Maomao asked Gan Ze to call Bai Lu again to ask about the specific details of the mirror.
Gan Ze looked at the mirror and described, “The mirror I came in through has a round sticker on it. The sticker is a trademark, written with…”
Peng Xiaorui said, “Found it! On our side, it’s the right one!”
Bai Lu said, “You guys be careful. You never know where you’ll be when you teleport in. The statues outside here can all move. Watch out for your safety!”
Shen Maomao rotated her ankles: “Grass7, I knew there was something wrong with the statues, daring to smash this old master8, I’ll smash them all in a bit.”
Saying that, the four held hands, with Peng Xiaorui at the very front reaching out to touch the mirror.
Guji guji.9
A burst of sticky, slimy water sounds emerged from the mirror, and in the blink of an eye, it swallowed Peng Xiaorui halfway.
A nearby student let out a scream, evidently frightened badly by this scene, and the ground floor of the dorm instantly fell into chaos.
Shen Maomao glimpsed out of the corner of her eye that someone was already preparing to reach out and yank them. She hurriedly had Lou Jingmo hold onto her, then shoved Gan Ze and Peng Xiaorui inside with all her might, squeezing into the mirror before anyone could touch them.
After a bout of the world spinning, the four of them appeared together inside a teaching building. Three of them fell into a heap, squeaking and hollering chaotically. Lou Jingmo picked Shen Maomao up and helped pat the dust off her body.
Judging by the environment, this building was obviously not the Humanities School building. Shen Maomao looked at the mirror behind her; there was a line of words on it: “Gift from the Entire Graduating Class of ’18, Chinese Pharmacy.”
“It’s the School of Pharmacy, above Humanities,” Lou Jingmo said.
As soon as her voice fell, a loud bang came from outside the building. Immediately after, a gigantic, golden face appeared outside the window, its bronze-carved eyes looking at them inside the room.
Shen Maomao: “! Fuck10! Isn’t this too fucking11 big?!”
The author has something to say:
By the way, you guys don’t be in a hurry to end it _(:3」∠)_
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