Ex-Girlfriend – Chapter 12
by Little PandaBreaking the Cage
Escape 12
Legal Hunting
The boy who had spoken first was named Teng Lin, the other boy was Wang Wen, and the remaining girl was Zhou Liwen.
No one volunteered the reason why they had been sent here; there was no need.
“Do the rules say anything else?”
Xin Lan asked. She wondered why Teng Lin knew the rules of the game and the reasons behind it, while she and Shen Shuiyan were completely in the dark, left without a single hint.
“The rules didn’t tell me,” Teng Lin said. “I figured it out myself.”
“Figured it out? You’ve been in here more than once?”
Xin Lan caught his choice of words, slightly surprised.
“Yeah. I can’t help sleeping in class, so I’ve been sent here twice before. Today is my third time. The setting is different every time, but there are always five people, and you can leave once you find the exit.”
“Is the exit hard to find?”
Zhou Liwen asked.
“Depends on your luck.”
Teng Lin shrugged.
“Is there some kind of reward for getting out of here?”
“Are you out of your mind? This is a punishment. You’re lucky just to survive.”
Teng Lin snapped, his expression somewhat hard to read.
“Stop wasting time. Let’s get moving.”
Teng Lin rose from his seat and walked toward the classroom door.
“It’s so dark out there.”
Zhou Liwen murmured, shrinking back the moment she saw the pitch-black corridor.
Teng Lin ignored her and stepped out on his own.
Xin Lan scanned the classroom once more.
It was a small room with four ceiling fans. The doors and windows were shut tight, and a faint smell of dust hung in the air.
There were very few desks and chairs in good condition—most were broken. A broom in the corner, thick with accumulated dust, showed just how long this classroom had been abandoned.
Zero Nine: Spatial dimension scan complete. This is a three-story teaching building, and we are currently on the second floor.
Hearing this, Xin Lan looked toward the window.
Looking out, there was only the heavy, oppressive darkness of the night.
Xin Lan walked over and touched the windowpane.
“There’s no dust.”
Shen Shuiyan spoke up, voicing exactly what Xin Lan was thinking.
The classroom smelled of dust, and everything else was coated in it. How could the windows be so clean?
Xin Lan: Can you detect if there are any exits in this building?
Zero Nine: There is a main entrance and a side door. The side door is on the right side of the first floor.
“Let’s go out and take a look.”
Xin Lan said to Shen Shuiyan. After all, the exit couldn’t possibly be inside this classroom.
The corridor outside was indeed dark, with an abnormally eerie pitch that felt as though it could swallow a person whole.
“Why make things so complicated? If we want to get out, why not just go through the window?”
Wang Wen tapped on the window, pushed it open, and peered outside.
Moonlight filtered down outside, casting a blurry outline of the trees below.
“Is that really a good idea? Don’t the rules say we have to find the exit?”
Zhou Liwen was extremely hesitant.
“Why wouldn’t this count as an exit? As long as we get out, who cares?”
Wang Wen turned on his phone’s flashlight, leaning his head out to shine the beam downstairs.
“It looks like it’s only the second floor. Going down from here is completely fine. Are you guys coming or not?”
Wang Wen pocketed his phone and asked the three girls behind him.
Zhou Liwen shook her head. Xin Lan and Shen Shuiyan felt things were definitely not that simple, so they cautiously shook their heads as well.
“You girls are just timid, afraid of this and afraid of that.”
Wang Wen rolled his eyes, rotated his ankles to loosen them up, and climbed onto the windowsill.
The three of them watched in silence as he jumped from the windowsill. A jump from the second floor should have resulted in a quick landing, but Xin Lan didn’t hear the expected sound.
Two seconds later, a heavy crash echoed, sending a jolt through their hearts.
Xin Lan was startled. She rushed to look out the window. The sound was wrong. A jump from the second floor shouldn’t have made that kind of noise, nor should it have taken several seconds.
But it was pitch black outside. She couldn’t see anything clearly except the elongated shadows of the trees, which looked like mottled phantoms.
“Did… did something happen to him?”
Zhou Liwen’s face turned pale, and she didn’t dare go near the window.
Shen Shuiyan’s expression didn’t look good either. Why did she feel that the sound was so… like someone jumping off a building?
Shen Shuiyan switched on her phone’s flashlight, casting the beam toward the ground below.
There seemed to be a prone figure on the ground, likely Wang Wen, who had just jumped down.
“How could this happen?”
Xin Lan frowned. In theory, jumping from the second floor shouldn’t be fatal. At worst, a person might end up crippled, unless they landed on the back of their head. But judging by Wang Wen’s posture, he had clearly landed feet-first.
Unless this wasn’t the second floor.
The so-called ‘rules’ that could drag them into the alternate dimension space possessed the ability to stretch spatial dimensions—such as an elongated road, or an elongated tall building.
It looked like the second floor, but it could actually have been stretched to the eighth or tenth floor.
That was why it took two seconds to hear the impact, and why the sound was very loud.
Without a doubt, he was dead.
“Let’s close the window first.”
Shen Shuiyan said. Xin Lan straightened up and let her close the window.
“Let’s go out and take a look.”
Teng Lin, who had gone out first, was the most experienced, indicating that the exit should be outside.
“Can I follow you?”
Zhou Liwen asked timidly.
“Suit yourself.”
Xin Lan and Shen Shuiyan took the lead, stepping out of the classroom.
Shen Shuiyan held up her phone, but the beam of the flashlight couldn’t reach the end of the hall.
She unconsciously grabbed the sleeve of the person beside her. Sensing the tug, Xin Lan simply took her hand in hers, feeling Shen Shuiyan’s tension.
“Are you scared?”
“Aren’t you?”
Shen Shuiyan tightened her grip on that warm, soft hand, asking in return.
Xin Lan smiled in the dark, her eyes completely unreadable.
Shen Shuiyan, however, took her silence as tacit consent, and couldn’t help but squeeze her hand as their silent comfort to each other.
—Drip
Xin Lan stopped, and Shen Shuiyan paused in her tracks alongside her.
“Did you hear something?”
They were still on that long, dark corridor, and Xin Lan heard the sound of a dripping faucet.
“No.”
Shen Shuiyan shook her head.
—Drip
It wasn’t Xin Lan’s imagination. In the quiet night, that sound was very clear.
The air seemed to stagnate. Xin Lan continued forward, her ears straining to pinpoint the source of the sound.
Zero Nine frowned in the system space. She could only see a long corridor that clearly had boundaries, but as Xin Lan walked, those boundaries were extended infinitely.
She couldn’t provide any support to her host, and there was nothing she could do either.
As they walked, a thought suddenly struck Xin Lan.
“The girl following behind us… are her footsteps gone?”
Shen Shuiyan felt her skin crawl at her words. She turned her flashlight backward; it was empty, with nothing there.
“She’s gone.”
This kind of unknown situation indeed made one feel terrible.
Exactly when had Zhou Liwen behind them vanished?
Had she left on her own, or had she run into something else?
There was no one to give them an answer.
All of a sudden, their only light source died.
“It seems to have broken.”
Shen Shuiyan looked at her phone.
They stood on the pitch-black corridor, as if situated in a boundless darkness.
A breeze blew over, sending a chill through their entire bodies.
“There’s a breeze. There must be an exit ahead. Let’s go.”
Xin Lan felt the hand she was holding was ice-cold, presumably because Shen Shuiyan was frightened.
She pulled her forward, finally reaching the so-called end, which looked like a restroom.
The light in the girls’ restroom suddenly lit up, its dim yellow glow illuminating the grimy walls.
Just as Xin Lan was about to turn her head, she heard Shen Shuiyan’s voice.
“Xin Lan!”
The voice came from behind her. Which meant…
Xin Lan rapidly flung off the hand she was holding, unable to resist wiping her palm on her side.
At this moment, she also clearly saw the person beside her—perhaps they couldn’t even be called a person.
The girl’s face was bumpy and pitted, as if chewed on by something.
Yet she could still see familiar traces in her features; it was indeed Zhou Liwen, whom they had met in the classroom earlier and who had suddenly disappeared while following behind them.
Zhou Liwen smiled at her, making that face look increasingly terrifying.
Xin Lan frowned, looking at Shen Shuiyan as she ran up from behind.
She had clearly been holding Shen Shuiyan’s hand all along without letting go; when did the person beside her change from a human to a ghost?
Panting slightly, Shen Shuiyan walked over to Xin Lan’s side.
“Just now when the light went out, you suddenly vanished from my side. I saw you appear in front of me, still holding someone’s hand. I shouted to you loudly, but you didn’t hear, so I had to chase after you from behind.”
And chasing them was exhausting; Shen Shuiyan had run almost the entire way because, for some unknown reason, the person in front was moving too fast, and she could only run non-stop just to keep Xin Lan’s back in sight.
Xin Lan’s thoughts were a bit disorganized. She warily watched the female ghost; beside them was the lit girls’ restroom, which they didn’t know if they could enter, while the corridor was still dark, and they couldn’t even see where the stairs were. The female ghost was only a few steps away from them.
In the very next instant, Zhou Liwen lunged violently at Xin Lan.
Reflexively, Xin Lan lashed out with her foot, kicking the lunging thing away, and the female ghost slammed against the wall, making a loud ‘thud’ of impact.
Shen Shuiyan, witnessing all of this: …
Zhou Liwen let out a piercing shriek that made their heads throb.
Her head had crashed into the wall, and the blood flowing out smeared across her chewed-up face. Her eyes, almost entirely white, glared at Xin Lan.
Xin Lan met her gaze calmly, cracking her knuckles.
Zhou Liwen quickly pounced over again, but this time she veered halfway and bit toward Shen Shuiyan.
Shen Shuiyan leaned back to dodge her ghost claws, and Xin Lan saw the opportunity to kick her stomach.
This space was limited, and the female ghost kept closing in. Although Xin Lan could fight, it didn’t mean she wanted to be caught by a ghost, and she didn’t have any handy weapon nearby.
“She’s forcing us into the restroom!”
Shen Shuiyan saw through it and shouted as Xin Lan pulled her left and right to dodge.
The place illuminated by the dim yellow light seemed very safe, but neither of them dared to enter rashly.
The female ghost was thrown against the wall, vanishing instantly.
Shen Shuiyan raised her head, sensing something, and saw the female ghost preparing to pounce down from the ceiling. Her pupils dilated, and she subconsciously shoved Xin Lan to safety, while she herself was tackled to the floor by the female ghost.
The author has something to say:
I’ve changed the update schedule. From now on, it’ll be fixed at 9:00 AM every morning. Don’t forget!
Today there’s no mini-theater, but here is an author trying to flirt and interact with readers ♂!
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