Ex-Girlfriend – Chapter 8
by Little PandaBreaking the Cage
Escape 08
Legal Hunting
If it was the former, she would need to use this card as soon as possible, or perhaps save it until the very end.
According to Xin Lan’s deductions, there was usually very little infighting in the early stages of this kind of game. Everyone remained cautious, still clinging to their basic human decency. By the mid-to-late stages, however, people would do absolutely anything to survive.
Those who managed to survive to the end would all be shrewd players1, not easily hunted down. Therefore, it was highly likely that the system rules themselves would make a move, though she could not rule out the possibility of players taking action on their own.
If the deceased mentioned on the card referred to the former case, Xin Lan would want to use it as early as possible. But if it was the latter—if multiple people died in a single night—would she receive a clue at random, or could she choose a specific one?
Furthermore, those who died were undoubtedly killed, meaning their clues would end up in the hands of their killers. Even in that case, could those clues still appear in her hands?
Xin Lan’s thoughts spun through countless scenarios. Ultimately, she looked down at her textbook and resumed reading to herself.
There were short breaks during class hours. During one of these intervals, Xin Lan felt numerous gazes falling upon her, but she only met one of them.
Shen Shuiyan did not walk over, but her expression betrayed her thoughts.
“Yunfei, she’s looking at you. Why don’t you go over and ask?”
Chu Lu nudged Zou Yunfei, who was sitting next to him, his own curiosity burning intensely.
“I can’t be bothered to go over there.”
Zou Yunfei rolled his eyes, refusing to even glance in that direction.
Shen Shuiyan laughed to herself when she overheard their exchange. Without even looking, he knows she’s looking at him? Don’t flatter yourself.
Shen Shuiyan had originally thought Zou Yunfei was decent enough, but now he just seemed quite foolish.
Shen Shuiyan tucked her loose hair behind her ear and looked over once again.
The wind outside the window howled. Soon, the bell rang, announcing the end of the morning classes.
As Xin Lan stepped outside, she pulled her clothes tighter around herself. The biting, cold wind disheveled her hair.
She seemed to be the only person without a squad. Sitting alone at the dining table, she was highly conspicuous.
Everyone in Class 1 knew she had obtained something, but no one knew exactly what it was.
Once Xin Lan finished her lunch, she returned to the dormitory to rest.
The girl she had beaten and whose right hand bone she had snapped last night was not there. The chunk of flesh on the floor was still there. Its color had already changed, and a faint, putrid stench wafted through the air.
Xin Lan grabbed a broom and a dustpan, swept the chunk of flesh up, and dumped it into the trash can outside. She yawned, preparing for a midday nap.
Seeing this, Zhou Mingfang swallowed the questions she wanted to ask.
“Um… Xin Lan…”
Xiao Chun called out timidly. Xin Lan looked up, gesturing for her to speak.
“Tao Ling didn’t go to class today.”
Tao Ling was the name of that girl.
Xin Lan nodded with disinterest to show she had heard, then lay down on her bed to start her nap.
Xin Lan fell asleep very quickly. Before long, her steady breathing could be heard.
Zhou Mingfang and Xiao Chun exchanged a glance. Xiao Chun shrank back, but Zhou Mingfang’s gaze drifted toward the pile of clothes not far from her.
Xin Lan had placed her coat and other clothes near her feet. They were close enough that Zhou Mingfang could reach them just by stretching out her hand.
Zhou Mingfang wanted to reach out, but she suddenly snapped back to her senses.
She pinched herself, her face twisting in pain.
There were other people in the room, and even if there weren’t, she wouldn’t dare steal anything when she recalled Xin Lan’s brutal method of beating people.
The evening bell tolled, signaling the arrival of hunting time once again.
Xin Lan proceeded to wash her hair and take a shower. As she was drying her hair with a hair dryer, Zero Nine’s voice rang in her mind. Simultaneously, she spun around and slammed the hair dryer hard against the head of the approaching intruder.
The girl winced in pain and immediately fled.
Zero Nine: …Why did she run so fast?
Xin Lan: She’s just a coward.
She was probably inexperienced at this. The moment her sneak attack failed, she ran for it instead of trying to fight back.
Fortunately for her, she hadn’t tried to fight back. Otherwise, it wouldn’t have ended as simply as a hair dryer to the head.
Xin Lan finished drying her hair, tied it into a low ponytail, and put her washbasin back in the dormitory. After washing and hanging her clothes to dry, she stepped out once more.
This time, there were people in the dormitory hallway, so Xin Lan did not make a conspicuous exit. Instead, she took the stairs.
The selection for this game seemed to be perfectly balanced in terms of gender: two hundred boys and two hundred girls. Even the deaths were balanced; a boy had died on the first day, and a girl on the second.
Each floor from the first to the fifth had ten dorm rooms, meaning all five floors were occupied.
Xin Lan walked down the stairs and exited the girls’ dormitory.
The teaching building had five floors. Xin Lan did not know much about the other floors, but the third floor housed ten classes where everyone’s activities were concentrated.
She began her investigation from the first floor. She discovered that the first and second floors shared the same layout: three classrooms on the left and three on the right, making a total of only six classrooms per floor.
She headed up to the third floor and found five classrooms on the left and five on the right. Stepping inside to inspect, she realized the classrooms had been shrunken; the school’s original architectural layout was indeed like the first and second floors.
Xin Lan climbed to the fourth and fifth floors, only to find their layouts were identical to the first and second floors.
The doors were locked, and the glass windows were securely latched as well.
Xin Lan pressed her face against the glass to peer inside, but it was pitch-black and she could see nothing.
She did not try to force her way in, opting to return to the third floor instead.
Placing her hands on the window sill, she nimbly vaulted inside, landing lightly on a desk. As she stepped down, she wiped away her footprints.
She walked over to the wall and flicked the light switch.
However, another hand covered the back of hers, clearly a step too slow.
Xin Lan turned her head and met an innocent, beautiful face.
“What a coincidence,” Shen Shuiyan said.
Xin Lan nodded without offering a response. The classroom was a public space; anyone was allowed to come here.
She scanned her surroundings, not letting a single corner escape her gaze, yet she found nothing out of the ordinary.
Could it be that there was nothing in this classroom?
Xin Lan cast a glance at Shen Shuiyan behind her and prepared to climb back out through the window.
Shen Shuiyan called out to stop her, a hint of hesitation on her face.
“Why don’t you just go through the door? It’s not locked.”
Xin Lan’s movements froze. She had fallen into habitual thinking again.
Xin Lan calmly stepped down from the chair, patted away her footprint, and pulled the door open.
Stifling a laugh, Shen Shuiyan followed behind her, finding Xin Lan’s expression just now inexplicably cute.
Xin Lan went to wander through the other classrooms, but she came up empty-handed there as well.
“Are you looking for something?”
“No. Just looking around.”
Xin Lan checked all ten classrooms on this floor and found absolutely nothing.
“What made you think to come to the classrooms?”
Confirming there was no one else in the building besides herself and Shen Shuiyan, Xin Lan asked casually.
“I followed you.”
Xin Lan stared fixedly at Shen Shuiyan, who returned her gaze with a cheerful smile.
“But since you were clearly ahead of me, yet arrived after I did, did you go to inspect the other floors?”
“Yes.”
This was obvious enough to figure out with a bit of thought, so Xin Lan saw no reason to hide it.
“Did you find anything?”
Xin Lan shook her head. Shen Shuiyan did not press further.
“I thought you would ask about what happened during the day.”
Xin Lan looked at Shen Shuiyan closely once more. The other girl was clearly very curious as well.
“Would you tell me if I did?”
“I only tell my companions.”
“That means I still have a chance of hearing it.”
Through their brief exchange, they had successfully conveyed their mutual intentions.
Shen Shuiyan prepared to return to the dormitory—sleeping in a bed was much more comfortable, after all—but she saw Xin Lan walking in the opposite direction.
“Where are you going?”
“To look around somewhere else.”
“But the rules state that during hunting time, the only permitted areas we can move about in are the dormitory and the teaching building.”
Shen Shuiyan wanted to stop her. Going out into the unknown was far too risky.
“Then why is there such a restriction? How will we know unless we look?”
Xin Lan didn’t stop. She had never lacked a death-seeking spirit.
Wasn’t a villain supposed to possess this exact sort of death-seeking spirit? When Xin Lan first started out, she had always played low-level bosses. She had known full well that her actions would invite the protagonist’s retaliation, yet she had to do them anyway—that was the duty of a villain.
Shen Shuiyan watched her retreating figure, thought for a moment, and followed.
The boys’ and girls’ dormitories lay on opposite sides of the teaching building. The path Xin Lan was taking led toward the school cafeteria.
This high school was well-landscaped, with trees lining both sides of the path.
Going from the teaching building to the school cafeteria required crossing a small path flanked on both sides by the small woods.
The school did have streetlights that lit up at night, but right now, only the lights along the dormitory path flickered weakly, while the path by the small woods remained completely dark.
Xin Lan stood before the small path. A haze of misty fog seemed to hang ahead, further obscuring her vision in the darkness.
Vaguely, she seemed to hear a sound.
“Can we not walk through?”
Shen Shuiyan caught up. Seeing Xin Lan stop at the entrance of the path and peer inside, she asked.
“Did you hear a sound?”
“A sound? No.”
Shen Shuiyan shook her head, then focused her attention to listen closely.
“No,” she said again, certain she hadn’t heard anything.
“Wait… It seems… someone is singing?”
“Someone is singing.”
Their voices overlapped, adding a touch of eeriness to the dark night.
They exchanged a tense look. Even as they hesitated, the singing grew increasingly clear.
It was a nursery rhyme that everyone was familiar with, but the voices were those of youths.
“Two tigers, two tigers2,
Running fast, running fast,
One has no eyes,
One has no ears,
How strange, how strange.”
There was clapping and laughter, bringing about a very ominous feeling in the silent campus.
Xin Lan’s pupils dilated as she caught sight of the figures emerging from the dark mist.
The ones singing were two individuals—or rather, they could no longer be called human. One of them was someone Xin Lan had seen vanish earlier this morning.
A boy and a girl, the nursery rhyme spilling from their lips.
They clapped their hands, their tone cheerful.
One of them had no eyes, displaying empty, hollow sockets and a wide, split grin that was utterly terrifying. The other had no ears, the sides of their head completely bald, smiling just as wide.
Their gazes locked onto Xin Lan and Shen Shuiyan. Without even taking the time to cry out, Xin Lan grabbed Shen Shuiyan’s hand and bolted back the way they came.
That nursery rhyme was still being hummed, growing clearer and clearer, sounding as if it were ringing in their ears.
Dragged forward, Shen Shuiyan was slightly out of breath.
What should have been a short sprint back to the teaching building felt as if the path itself had been stretched out.
“Two tigers, two tigers,
Running fast, running fast,
One has no eyes,
One has no ears,
How strange, how strange…”
The singing grew increasingly shrill, the final two lines carrying a giggling undertone.
The author has something to say:
Ghost: “Two Tigers…”
Xin Lan: “That sounds awful. Shut up.”
Ghost: “…Give me some face, sister.”
Footnotes
- The term rénjīng (人精) literally translates to 'human spirit' or 'human elf,' used colloquially in Chinese to describe someone who is exceptionally shrewd, worldly, or sharp-witted.
- The nursery rhyme 'Two Tigers' (两只老虎, Liǎng Zhī Lǎohǔ) is a popular Chinese children's song set to the French tune of 'Frère Jacques.' Here, its depiction of tigers missing eyes and ears takes on a macabre, literal meaning.
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