Ex-Girlfriend – Chapter 23
by Little PandaBreaking the Cage
Escape 23
Legal Hunting
As for Shen Shuiyan, she soon crossed paths with Zou Yunfei.
When Zou Yunfei saw her, a flash of joy crossed his face, which then quickly settled into a somber expression.
“Did you come alone?”
“No, they’re in the restroom. I said I’d check the classroom first. Is there no one else here?”
Shen Shuiyan and Zou Yunfei were currently in the Class 1 classroom, which was the farthest one from the restroom.
“No one.”
“Here’s another one. Keep it safe. Since you’re all on your own now, you’ve got to stay safe.”
Shen Shuiyan handed another hand-drawn clue fragment to Zou Yunfei. Of course, this one was a fake as well.
“Yeah, I will.”
Remembering his two fallen brothers, Zou Yunfei felt a pang of grief, and the rims of his eyes turned slightly red. Shen Shuiyan’s actions and her caring expression brought a wave of warmth to his heart. Thank goodness Shen Shuiyan was still by his side. Otherwise, how could he have endured this alone?
“Yanyan…”
Zou Yunfei took a step forward, opening his arms to embrace her.
Just then, Shen Shuiyan stepped back, casting a vigilant glance toward the doorway. Hearing Zou Yunfei call her name, she turned her head back to him.
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.”
Zou Yunfei awkwardly withdrew his hands and shook his head.
The two stared at each other as the air fell silent.
“The number of survivors seems to be getting smaller and smaller.”
“Yes, but that also means we’re close to escaping. Once we gather enough, we can leave.”
“What if I can’t steal them from her?”
“It’s fine, we’ll find another way.”
Zou Yunfei’s expression was tender, filled with a trace of deep affection. If they ultimately had no way out, then dying here together wouldn’t be so bad.
To die alongside the girl he loved—Zou Yunfei felt that even if they couldn’t escape, it wouldn’t matter.
“I’ll head out first so she doesn’t get suspicious.”
Now that Shen Shuiyan had finished fooling him, she didn’t want to spend another second around him. He’d actually wanted to hug her just now—how ridiculous.
That face of his, which he clearly thought looked profoundly devoted, was an utter joke when contrasted with how he had treated Xin Lan before.
“All right. I’m sorry for making you suffer.”
In Zou Yunfei’s eyes, Shen Shuiyan was enduring immense humiliation and playing subservient to Xin Lan solely to obtain clue fragments for him.
“For you, this is nothing.”
Shen Shuiyan uttered the hypocritical line, sneering inwardly.
Zou Yunfei was even more deeply touched, wishing he could hold Shen Shuiyan and kiss her hard.
“Yanyan… actually, my feelings for you…”
“She might be coming. Let’s talk next time we meet. We don’t have much time left.”
Zou Yunfei’s confession ended up stuck in his throat, and he had no choice but to swallow it back down.
Shen Shuiyan stepped out of the classroom and headed toward the restroom.
She had spent seven or eight minutes talking to Zou Yunfei, so Xin Lan should be finished by now.
Just as she reached the restroom door, she heard Xin Lan speaking.
“Savor this feeling. Dying in a girls’ restroom is quite an honor for you, isn’t it?”
What was going on?
Before Shen Shuiyan could step inside, she saw Xin Lan walking out.
“Is someone else inside?”
“Just a little bug. It’s nothing important.”
Xin Lan spoke dismissively. There was no need to detail such matters, and there was no reason for Shen Shuiyan to go in and look, lest she be frightened.
Since Xin Lan put it that way, Shen Shuiyan didn’t ask further. It was just an insignificant person, anyway.
“There’s no one else on this floor besides Zou Yunfei. Where are we going now?”
Shen Shuiyan had observed the other classrooms while walking back and forth along the corridor.
“Back to the dormitory. We’re going to take those people’s clues.”
Xin Lan planned to sweep through the girls’ dormitory first before making a move on the boys.
At this rate, it would probably take less than two days for this mission to end.
Neither Shen Shuiyan nor Xu Deng had any objections; they simply followed whatever Xin Lan said. Thus, the three of them walked toward the stairs, preparing to head down.
Normally, a flight of stairs took less than a minute to descend, but the three of them had been walking for well over a minute and were still on the same flight.
Xin Lan looked up. The turn of the banister was right in front of them, as if they could reach it in just a few steps.
She continued forward. The three of them walked for another minute, yet that turn remained just ahead, unchanged.
Zero Nine helplessly pointed out the phenomenon Xin Lan had encountered before: spatial extension.
“Is this staircase endless, or are we just walking in place?”
Shen Shuiyan felt as though she was moving at a constant pace, yet relative to her surroundings, she appeared completely stationary.
“There’s always a trigger condition. What did we do this time?”
They hadn’t violated any restricted zones, damaged public property, or slept in class. Why did this staircase suddenly act up? It had been perfectly normal when they walked up earlier.
So, why were they pulled in?
Furthermore, there was no prompt this time. At least during the previous punishment game, someone had explained the reason.
“I don’t know.”
Shen Shuiyan was also in the dark; this had happened without any warning.
“Could it be an extra step?”
Xu Deng suddenly spoke up.
Xin Lan asked, “What extra step?”
“Like the extra step in school ghost stories, or the Fox Stairs1 in horror movies,” Xu Deng replied.
“The extra step in school urban legends usually has specific triggers, like walking up one by one at midnight,” Shen Shuiyan noted. “And the Fox Stairs require you to close your eyes and count. Besides, that one’s for making wishes—even though the outcome’s terrible—so neither of those fits our current situation.”
Xin Lan raised an eyebrow. “Are you two sure you want to tell ghost stories about stairs while we’re actually stuck on a creepy staircase?”
A gust of cold wind swept past, seemingly piercing through to their bones and making them shudder.
Seeing this, Xin Lan grabbed Shen Shuiyan’s hand. As expected, it was ice-cold again.
Her brow furrowed as she opened her mouth to speak, but she ultimately remained silent. Instead, she pulled Shen Shuiyan’s hand and tucked it into her own pocket.
Shen Shuiyan was quietly amused by the gesture. She stopped worrying about how bizarre and eerie these steps were. With her Little Tiger by her side, she feared nothing.
Xu Deng stood beside them, feeling incredibly lonely and helpless.
With no one to hold her hand, she could only hold her own.
So she held her hands together—even though it was just her left hand holding her right.
This gesture felt a bit too goofy, so Xu Deng quietly tucked her hands into her pockets instead.
“What do we do now? Just keep walking forward?”
“The rules definitely wouldn’t be so boring as to just trap us here; there must be a way out.”
This prank-like game world consisted of various mini-games, but no matter what, every game had an end or an exit. If they were merely meant to spin in circles endlessly, it would contradict the design of the previous games.
“In the world of the Red Queen, you have to keep running just to stay in the same place,” Shen Shuiyan proposed. “We’ve been maintaining a constant relative position to the walls and the banisters. Since they move when we walk, what if we run? Will they be able to keep up with us?”
With that, the three of them immediately started jogging down the stairs.
The flight of stairs seemed limitless, but just as Xin Lan and the others were about to slow to a stop, the space in front of them shifted abruptly.
The walls vanished, the banisters disappeared, and they found themselves suspended in a pitch-black void. The steps beneath their feet were no longer made of marble, but glowed with a faint, pale light, making their true texture indiscernible.
The scene looked like something straight out of an anime or a video game. The glowing stairs floated in mid-air. Whether they looked up or down, the steps seemed to extend infinitely, stretching into the boundless dark.
“What the hell is this?”
Xu Deng was dumbfounded. Xin Lan and Shen Shuiyan were still standing on the same step, while she stood just behind them.
“Should we stay still, or go up or down?”
Shen Shuiyan looked at Xin Lan, their hands still tightly clasped.
“Look up. Down is our only option.”
The stairs above them were dissolving into thin air, step by step, and the collapse was already drawing close to where the three of them stood.
With no other choice, the three hurried downward. Beyond the glowing steps lay nothing but an absolute void. Looking down for too long induced a wave of dizziness, as if they were on the verge of falling.
The steps behind them were vanishing faster and faster. They had to pick up their pace to keep from falling into the abyss.
Sensing a sudden draft, Xin Lan instinctively recognized the danger. “Heads down!” she yelled, pushing Shen Shuiyan’s head low.
A gust of wind went whoosh right over their heads, slicing off a few stray strands of hair.
“Watch out for the wind, it’ll cut you!”
“What kind of garbage place is this?!”
No matter how calm Xu Deng usually was, she couldn’t help but curse. What kind of garbage place was this? It was bad enough that they had to run down without stopping, that the stairs behind them were constantly dissolving, and that they had no idea what lay beneath them. But now they had to face attacks too? Was this place that eager to see them dead?
To keep from falling, they had to keep pushing forward, but their path was constantly disrupted by the wind.
Xin Lan leaned back to dodge the wind. Having seen her action, Xu Deng quickly followed suit, leaning back just in time to evade a wind blade sharp enough to sever her head.
A loud whistling sound came from nearby. Sensing danger, Xin Lan accelerated into a full sprint.
The three of them ran for their lives. Xin Lan could have run much faster on her own, but she was pulling Shen Shuiyan with one hand while keeping an eye on Xu Deng behind them.
Suddenly, a step directly ahead vanished without warning. Caught off guard, Shen Shuiyan stepped into empty air and slipped downward.
Xin Lan gripped her hand tightly, keeping her from falling all the way down.
Shen Shuiyan was suspended in mid-air, her legs buffeted by the icy wind howling from below. She tried desperately to reach for the steps with her free hand, but she’d fallen so abruptly that she couldn’t find any purchase.
“Lan-jie, hurry! It’s almost here!”
Xu Deng glanced back. The dissolving edge of the staircase was closing in, right on their heels.
“Leap across first.”
The gap between the steps wasn’t particularly wide; crossing over would be fine.
“But what about you two…”
“Don’t worry about us!”
Gritting her teeth, Xu Deng leaped across. But how could she truly leave them behind? She reached out and grabbed Shen Shuiyan’s other hand too.
At this point, only ten steps remained behind Xin Lan. In less than a minute, they’d be completely gone.
“Xin Lan, let go!”
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