Ex-Girlfriend – Chapter 6
by Little PandaBreaking the Cage
Escape 06
Legal Hunting
Xin Lan hung her clothes to dry on the balcony and returned to her bed.
Zhou Mingfang remembered Xin Lan saying earlier that she wouldn’t be back. As for where she had gone during that interval before her return, only Xin Lan herself knew.
Curiosity clawed at Zhou Mingfang’s heart like a restless kitten, but she did not dare ask.
Xin Lan had said there were no permanent teammates. In other words, she could pull out of their group at any moment.
Zhou Mingfang squeezed her clue fragment tightly and huddled closer to the wall.
No one here could be trusted, and danger surrounded everyone.
She did not want to die.
Xiao Chun was the last to get into bed. She switched off her light and curled into a ball, not even daring to fall into a deep sleep. She feared her clues might be stolen while she slept, or that the girl in the adjacent bunk would retaliate against her.
Xin Lan slept soundly, catching the faint sound of a tolling bell.
Xin Lan: Is it twelve o’clock?
Zero Nine: Yes.
Xin Lan drifted back to sleep.
In the dead of night, a faint noise echoed inside the dormitory.
The sound was extremely subtle, almost negligible.
Yet Zero Nine immediately paused the drama series she was binge-watching and began monitoring the source of the noise in the dormitory.
Someone sat up in bed and quietly climbed down.
Her movements were somewhat sluggish. Zero Nine recognized her at a glance as the girl who had been beaten up by Xin Lan that evening.
The girl fumbled around on her desk and found what she was looking for.
A faint, dim light glinted off the blade. It was a fruit knife.
Zero Nine did not know what the girl was planning, nor did she wake Xin Lanβnot until the girl approached Xin Lan’s bed with the fruit knife and stepped onto the wooden ladder of her bunk.
Zero Nine: Host, someone has a knife by your bed!
Xin Lan opened her eyes, her face expressionless.
Zero Nine felt that something was off about her expression, and she clutched her little yellow chicken, not daring to speak.
The gleam of the knife was the only distinct point of light in the dark. Xin Lan sat straight up, grabbed the girl’s wrist, and twisted it hard.
A bloodcurdling shriek woke the other two roommates. With a cold face, Xin Lan picked up the knife that had fallen onto the bed.
The moment the girl felt the sharp pain, she scrambled down the ladder and retreated several steps.
Holding the knife, Xin Lan climbed down from her bed and closed in on her.
Panic-stricken, the girl stumbled backward, colliding with a chair in the darkness and making a harsh, scraping noise.
“You can’t kill me! Hunting time is already over! If you kill me, you’ll be obliterated too!”
The girl’s voice trembled. Surrounded by pitch blackness, she could not see anything around her and had to navigate by relying on her memory of the room’s layout. She could not see what was directly in front of her either, but she could feel an overwhelming, oppressive pressure.
Xin Lan did not say a word. Grabbing the girl’s arm, she roughly shoved up her sleeve and sliced off a chunk of flesh.
The girl let out another hair-raising shriek. Xin Lan, annoyed, snapped at her to shut up.
“If you make another sound, I guarantee that the moment hunting time starts tomorrow, your head will be severed from your body immediately.”
Her voice carried a trace of suppressed fury. Xin Lan tossed the knife onto the floor, returned to her bed, and pulled up her blanket.
Zero Nine did not dare make a sound, well aware that her Host suffered from severe waking grumpiness.
The reason for her anger was likely not that someone had tried to stab her with a knife, but that they had disturbed her sleep.
Xiao Chun and Zhou Mingfang were both awake, but neither dared to get out of bed to turn on the light.
Xiao Chun, however, relaxed slightly. That girl had brought this upon herself, and now that hunting time had passed, she probably wouldn’t do anything to Xiao Chun tonight. Stretching out her legs, Xiao Chun drifted into a deep sleep.
When Xin Lan got out of bed the next morning, she finally saw the bloodstains and the chunk of human flesh on the floor.
Her face was bright and refreshed from a full night’s sleep; she had only a hazy memory of the incident last night.
People always tend to have a fuzzier recollection of things that happen when they are jolted awake from sleep.
Xin Lan remained expressionless as she gathered her toiletries and left the room.
Seeing that piece of flesh made Zhou Mingfang and Xiao Chun feel a bit nauseous. Not daring to look, they averted their eyes and hurried out.
There were quite a few people in the water room, and Xin Lan spotted Shen Shuiyan.
Shen Shuiyan happened to spot her as well and offered her a smile.
Noticing an empty spot right next to Shen Shuiyan, Xin Lan walked over, carrying her washbasin.
“How did you sleep last night?”
Shen Shuiyan asked as she washed her hands.
“Not bad.”
Xin Lan turned on the tap and squeezed toothpaste onto her toothbrush.
“I don’t know who was screaming in the middle of the night, but it woke even me up.”
Shen Shuiyan turned off the tap, her words laden with a testing undertone.
“I’ve always been a heavy sleeper.”
Xin Lan began brushing her teeth, cutting off any further attempt at conversation from Shen Shuiyan.
While Xin Lan was washing her face, someone walked into the water room, their face pale, and announced that someone had died in their dormitory.
The person who died on the first day had been a boy, also found in his dormitory the following morning. He had died silently, with no wounds whatsoever on his body. He looked as though he were simply asleep, but he indeed had no breath left.
What was even stranger was that the corpse had vanished right before everyone’s eyes.
No one knew whether only the corpses of those killed by the rules would vanish, or if any corpse would disappear.
Xin Lan emptied the water from her basin, grabbed it, and followed the crowd toward that dormitory.
The doorway was crowded with people. Xin Lan set her basin down against the corridor wall and squeezed her way inside.
From ground level, it was impossible to see what the person sleeping on the top bunk looked like. Xin Lan climbed onto the adjacent bunk and saw a young girl with her eyes closed.
She was an ordinary-looking girl, appearing as if she were in a deep slumber. Yet her face bore the ghastly pale hue of the dead, and her chest showed no rise and fall.
Xin Lan did not even need to check to know she was already dead.
Xin Lan looked down and happened to lock eyes with Shen Shuiyan in the crowd.
“She’s dead.”
The moment Xin Lan’s words fell, faint, stifled sobs broke out among the crowd.
Only upon seeing the corpse did everyone’s latent terror truly flare up.
Xin Lan did not leave; she remained sitting on the edge of the bunk.
She wanted to see exactly how this corpse vanishedβand whether it truly did.
The person who died yesterday had been a boy, and the word had spread from the boys’ side. None of the girls had actually witnessed a corpse vanishing into thin air before their eyes.
Nevertheless, the transfer of clue fragments was dictated by the rules, which could not possibly be forged. Because of this, it was unlikely that anyone would deliberately move a body. Still, Xin Lan preferred to see things with her own eyes.
A portion of the crowd dispersed, but some remained inside the dormitory.
The other three girls living in the dormitory said nothing either. They merely kept their heads down, not daring to look at that bunk, and busied themselves with their own tasks.
The girl whose bed had been commandeered by Xin Lan only gave her a brief glance before sitting down on a chair.
Class started at 8:00, and no one wanted to be late.
Xin Lan took out her phone to check the time. It was currently 7:30.
Five minutes later, a change occurred in the corpse before her.
Xin Lan watched as the girl’s body gradually became translucent and finally vanished completely.
Xin Lan felt the bed, but her hand met nothing.
The others saw the corpse vanish as well. Some covered their mouths in shock, while others did not dare linger for even a second, turning and fleeing the room immediately.
Xin Lan climbed down from the bunk and walked out.
Shen Shuiyan was nearby and fell into step with her for a couple of paces.
“I recall your dormitory and mine are in opposite directions,” Xin Lan pointed out.
Shen Shuiyan should have been walking back, not forward.
“You seem a bit different from what I imagined.”
Shen Shuiyan previously had thought Xin Lan was merely someone who was reasonably good-looking but a bit foolish.
After all, a long time ago, she had once seen what Xin Lan looked like when she was in love. At that time, before her breakup with Zou Yunfei, she had been clinging to his arm, acting coquettishly1 as she pleaded with him for a weekend date, only to be rejected.
Zou Yunfei’s impatience had been so glaringly obvious, yet she had failed to notice and persisted relentlessly.
Not long after that, Shen Shuiyan heard that Zou Yunfei had dumped her.
It was entirely expected.
However, the Xin Lan she saw now was not quite the same as in her memory, appearing far more composed, bold, and clever.
Although the change was not so extreme as to make them seem like two completely different people, the contrast was stark.
Xin Lan showed no surprise at her words, instead offering a response that was similar yet mirrored.
“You, on the other hand, are exactly as I imagined.”
“How so?”
Shen Shuiyan’s interest was piqued, and she looked into Xin Lan’s eyes.
“Just as clever and beautiful as I thought.”
This wasn’t mere perfunctoriness on Xin Lan’s part. After all, what she knew of Shen Shuiyan from the future plot details was indeed that she was intelligent and beautiful.
Shen Shuiyan was slightly startled, but her surprise was instantly masked by a beautiful smile.
Shen Shuiyan’s beauty carried no sharp edges, resembling a gentle water lily.
“Thank you for the compliment. You are very beautiful too.”
A beauty like a fiery red roseβtempting one to reach out and pluck it, yet leaving them fearful of pricking their fingers.
“If there’s nothing else, I’ll head back.”
“Goodbye.”
Zero Nine: Host, aren’t you supposed to be poaching his girl? Why does it feel like you aren’t being very friendly to the Top Student?
Xin Lan: Have you ever seen a villain go out of her way to recruit a lackey?
Zero Nine: Host, wake up!
Xin Lan: β¦I forgot again. But it’s no big deal. Even without poaching his girl, I can still be the last one to survive and escape.
Zero Nine: But our mission⦠qwq
Xin Lan: I know, I know. Worst comes to worst, at the very end, I’ll dangle the clues right in front of my ex-boyfriend. I’ll tell him we can team up first, and then reveal that I was lying. I’ll make him watch me assemble them piece by piece, letting him experience the slow creep of impending death, knowing that no one can save him. As he sinks step by step into despair, won’t he end up weeping and wailing as he waits to die anyway?
Xin Lan: Doesn’t that count as tormenting both his heart and his body?
Zero Nine was left utterly speechless. Was her Host a demon?
Zero Nine: But didn’t we agree to steal his girl?
Xin Lan: Hmmβ¦
Xin Lan’s steps paused as she walked ahead. Turning her head, she saw Shen Shuiyan still standing in place, seemingly lost in thought.
Seeing Xin Lan look back, Shen Shuiyan offered her a habitual smile.
“What I said yesterday still stands.”
“Alright, I’ll keep that in mind.”
Shen Shuiyan nodded. She had her own plans and had no intention of binding herself to a single team. Having more options meant having more ways out.
The two of them walked in opposite directions, yet they ended up crossing paths again at the entrance of the dormitory building.
They exchanged a glance and, with a silent understanding, fell into step side-by-side.
“I’m in Class 1.”
Neither of their class assignments had changed from before.
“Did you know the one who died today?”
“She was from our class. We weren’t close.”
“I suppose we are about to be classmates.”
Huh she got transferred?