Ex-Girlfriend – Chapter 23
by Little PandaVolume 1: Breaking the Cage
Escape 23
Legal Hunting
Shen Shuiyan quickly encountered Zou Yunfei here.
When Zou Yunfei saw her, his face lit up with joy, but his expression quickly became subdued.
“Did you come alone?”
“No, they’re in the bathroom. I said I’d come to the classroom first to check things out. Is there anyone else here?”
Shen Shuiyan and the others were now in Class 1’s classroom, which was the farthest classroom from the bathroom.
“No.”
“This is another one. Keep it safe. You’re on your own now, so be careful.”
Shen Shuiyan gave Zou Yunfei another fragment drawing, which was, of course, fake.
“Yes, I will.”
Zou Yunfei thought of his two lost brothers, feeling heartbroken with reddening eyes. Shen Shuiyan’s current actions and caring expression made him feel a warmth in his heart. At least he still had Shen Shuiyan; otherwise, how would he manage to carry on alone?
“Yanyan…”
Zou Yunfei stepped forward, his arms positioned for an embrace.
Shen Shuiyan happened to step back at that moment, vigilantly glancing at the doorway before turning her head back when she heard Zou Yunfei calling her name.
“What is it?”
“Nothing.”
Zou Yunfei awkwardly withdrew his hands, shaking his head.
They looked at each other as the air grew quiet.
“The number of people alive seems to be getting fewer and fewer.”
“Yes, but this also means we can leave soon, as long as we gather everything.”
“What if I can’t get it from her?”
“It doesn’t matter, we’ll think of another way.”
Zou Yunfei’s expression was gentle, filled with deep affection. If they couldn’t escape in the end, he thought dying here together would be fine too.
Being able to die with the girl he loved, Zou Yunfei felt that even if they couldn’t escape, it wouldn’t matter anymore.
“I should go now, to avoid raising suspicion.”
Shen Shuiyan, having finished deceiving him, didn’t want to stay with this person any longer. He had just tried to hug her, which was ridiculous.
That self-perceived passionate face, coupled with his previous attitude toward Xin Lan, was simply ironic.
“Alright, sorry for putting you through this.”
In Zou Yunfei’s view, Shen Shuiyan was enduring humiliation by acting subservient to Xin Lan, all to get the clue fragments for him.
“For you, this is nothing.”
Shen Shuiyan said hypocritically, laughing coldly inside.
Zou Yunfei became even more moved, desperately wanting to embrace Shen Shuiyan and give her a passionate kiss.
“Yanyan… Actually, I…”
“She might be coming soon. Whatever you want to say, let’s save it for next time. We don’t have much time left.”
Zou Yunfei’s confession got stuck in his throat, and he had to swallow it back.
Shen Shuiyan walked out of the classroom, heading toward the bathroom.
She had spent about seven or eight minutes meeting with Zou Yunfei here, and Xin Lan should have finished using the bathroom by now.
Just as she reached the bathroom entrance, she heard Xin Lan speaking.
“Feel good about staying here. Dying in the women’s bathroom should be considered your honor, right?”
What was happening?
Before Shen Shuiyan could enter, she saw Xin Lan walking out.
“Is there someone else inside?”
“Just a little bug, nothing important.”
Xin Lan said dismissively, feeling there was no need to elaborate, and Shen Shuiyan didn’t need to go in and look, to avoid frightening her.
Since Xin Lan put it that way, Shen Shuiyan didn’t ask further, since it was an unimportant person anyway.
“There’s no one else on this floor except Zou Yunfei. Where should we go now?”
Shen Shuiyan had observed the other classrooms while walking through the corridor.
“Back to the dormitory. We’ll go get those people’s clues.”
Xin Lan planned to sweep through the girls’ dormitory first, then deal with the boys.
Looking at it this way, the task would probably be finished in less than two days.
Neither Shen Shuiyan nor Xu Deng had any objections. Whatever Xin Lan said went, so the three of them walked toward the stairs, preparing to go down.
One flight of stairs usually takes less than a minute to walk down, but they had been walking for over a minute and were still on the same flight.
Xin Lan looked up; the stairway railing’s turn was still in front of them, seemingly just a few steps away.
She continued walking forward, and after another minute, the turn was still before their eyes.
Ling Jiu helplessly explained the situation Xin Lan had encountered before – spatial extension.
“Are these stairs endless, or are we walking in place?”
Shen Shuiyan felt she was moving at a constant speed, but they appeared to be in relative stasis.
“Every time there’s a trigger condition. What did we do this time?”
They hadn’t gone to any prohibited areas, hadn’t damaged public property, or slept during class, so why did the stairs suddenly become abnormal? When they came up earlier, everything had been normal.
So, why did they enter this situation?
Moreover, there was no prompt this time. At least during the last punishment game, someone had told them why.
“I don’t know.”
Shen Shuiyan was also confused; this was completely unexpected.
“Could it be the extra step?”
Xu Deng suddenly spoke up.
Xin Lan: “What extra step?”
Xu Deng: “Like in school ghost stories, the extra step, and the fox stairs in horror movies.”
Shen Shuiyan: “The school’s extra step has trigger conditions, like walking up one step at a time at midnight, and the fox stairs too – you have to count with your eyes closed. Although that one’s for making wishes, even though the outcome isn’t good, none of these match our current situation.”
Xin Lan: “Are you sure you want to tell ghost stories about stairs while we’re on these weird stairs?”
A cold wind blew past, chilling to the bone, making them shiver involuntarily.
Seeing this, Xin Lan grabbed Shen Shuiyan’s hand, which was indeed ice-cold.
She frowned, wanting to say something but held back, instead putting Shen Shuiyan’s hand in her pocket.
Shen Shuiyan was amused by her action and stopped thinking about how strange and bizarre the stairs were. With her little tiger beside her, she wasn’t afraid of anything.
Xu Deng stood beside them, feeling very lonely and helpless.
No one held her hand, so she had to hold her own.
She held hands with herself, though it was just her left hand holding her right.
This action was actually a bit silly, so Xu Deng quietly put her hands in her pockets instead.
“What should we do now? Keep walking forward?”
“The rules can’t be so boring as to just trap us here. There must be some way out.”
In this game world full of pranks, there were all kinds of mini-games, but no matter what, games always had an endpoint or exit. If they were just meant to keep going in circles in the game, it would be inconsistent with the previous game settings.
“In the Queen of Hearts’ world, constantly moving forward means staying still. We’ve been maintaining our position relative to the walls and railings – when we walk, they move too. If we run in, will they keep up with our speed?”
Shen Shuiyan proposed a hypothesis, and the three immediately started jogging down the stairs.
The stairs seemed endless, but just as they were about to stop, the space in front of them suddenly changed.
The walls disappeared, the railings vanished, and they found themselves in complete darkness. The stairs beneath their feet were no longer marble but emitted a faint light, their exact appearance unclear.
This scene was like something from an anime or computer game, with floating stairs extending endlessly whether looking up or down, with no visible end.
“What the hell is this?”
Xu Deng was stunned. Xin Lan and Shen Shuiyan remained on the same step, with her behind them.
“Should we stay still, go up, or go down?”
Shen Shuiyan looked at Xin Lan, their hands still tightly clasped.
“Look up. We can only go down.”
The stairs above them were disappearing one by one into the air, and they weren’t far from where the three were standing.
The three had no choice but to keep going down. Beyond the steps was complete darkness, and looking down gave them a dizzy, vertiginous feeling of being about to fall.
The stairs behind them seemed to be disappearing faster, forcing them to increase their speed to avoid standing on disappearing steps.
Xin Lan felt a wind blow past and instinctively sensed danger, shouting “Duck!” while pushing Shen Shuiyan’s head down.
A gust of wind whooshed over their heads, cutting off a few strands of flying hair.
“Be careful of the wind, it can hurt you.”
“What kind of weird place is this!”
Even the usually calm Xu Deng had to curse now. What kind of place was this? Having to run down continuously was bad enough, the stairs disappearing behind them with an unknown bottom was one thing, but now there were attacks too – were they afraid they wouldn’t die quickly enough?
To avoid falling, they had to keep moving forward, but the path forward was constantly interrupted by wind.
Xin Lan leaned back to dodge the wind, and Xu Deng, seeing her movement, immediately copied her action, avoiding a wind blade that could have taken off their heads.
A whooshing sound came from not far away, and Xin Lan knew it wasn’t good, accelerating her sprint forward.
Everyone ran forward as if their lives depended on it. Xin Lan could actually run very fast on her own, but she was holding Shen Shuiyan’s hand and had to consider Xu Deng behind them.
Suddenly, a step in front of them unexpectedly vanished, and Shen Shuiyan, unable to react in time, stepped into empty air and slipped down.
Xin Lan grabbed her hand, preventing her from falling.
Shen Shuiyan was practically suspended in mid-air, her legs below being assaulted by cold wind, her other hand trying desperately to reach the steps, but the fall had been too sudden, and she couldn’t reach them.
“Sister Lan, hurry, it’s almost here!”
Xu Deng looked back and saw the continuously disappearing stairs approaching their position.
“You cross over first.”
The gap between the stairs wasn’t particularly large; crossing over would solve the problem.
“But you two…”
“Don’t worry about us!”
Xu Deng gritted her teeth and crossed over that step, but how could she not worry? She also grabbed Shen Shuiyan’s other hand.
At this point, there were only ten steps left behind Xin Lan, and in less than a minute, they would all disappear.
“Xin Lan, let go!”
LP: Re-translated on November 23, 2024
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