Volume 11: The Days of Traversing Through the Mirror
Mr. Chen
Eyes… eyes… eyes!!
The strength of one simpleton1 is limited, but when two simpletons with respectable fighting skills come together, their power multiplies.
After nightfall, the guard, Master Mr. Chen2, who had been busy all day, sat down in his chair. He turned on his old television and started watching the news.
A strong wind howled outside the window, and his severed leg throbbed with a dull ache, making him despise those female students.
If it weren’t… if it weren’t for his carelessness, how could he have been taken down so easily by a few girls? Once his wound healed, he would definitely go back and twist all their heads off!
As he thought this, he bent over, his upper body folding tightly against his lower half. He extended a triangular tongue to lick the bloody, mangled wound. The itching sensation of new flesh growing back greatly improved his mood.
The television was reporting on a university student who had committed suicide by jumping off a building due to excessive stress. He glanced at it casually, then closed his eyes indifferently. Leaning his head back against the rocking chair, he began to rock leisurely, tapping his toes on the ground.
“Fifteen drops of moonlight~ rising in the sky-oh~” he hummed an off-key tune, his right index finger curled as he tapped a rhythm on the table for himself, feeling utterly content.
However, this contentment didn’t last long. Suddenly, a loud crash erupted in front of him, startling him so badly he nearly fell out of the rocking chair.
He flailed with busy hands and frantic feet3 to regain his balance and looked up toward the source of the sound. He saw two girls standing shoulder to shoulder in the doorway. One of them hadn’t had time to pull her leg back, while the other held a long wooden plank, watching him, ready and waiting in strict formation4.
He glanced at the lock, which had been torn from the doorframe, and a rage instantly welled up from his heart. He slammed his fist on the nearby table. “YOU—! THIS IS BULLYING PEOPLE TOO MUCH!!”
Shen Maomao: “Don’t be ridiculous. Do you even count as a person?”
Peng Xiaorui charged forward in a single bound, swinging the nail-free side of the plank viciously at the guard’s head.
The guard jerked back violently. His body went limp like a soft towel, his stiff lower half folding up to be parallel with his upper body. Then, using the rocking chair’s momentum, he flung himself next to the television. The TV and the stand it was on all toppled over in a chaotic mess. Only the rocking chair, still swaying with a creak creak, remained completely unaffected.
Peng Xiaorui, undeterred, gripped her plank and charged again.
Shen Maomao, naturally not content to be outdone, immediately joined the fray.
A cacophony of various noises blended together, and the school building was suddenly alive with sound, as if a wild party was in full swing.
The guard was missing a leg, which severely affected his balance. He was quickly subdued by their joint effort and tied to the rocking chair with an item rope by Peng Xiaorui.
His eyes were blood-red, as if soaked in fresh blood. He struggled relentlessly, but Peng Xiaorui’s rope was abnormally strong and would tighten with his every movement. He thrashed for a long time without being able to break free, his range of motion only shrinking until he finally gave up, content to just glare at them with a venomous hatred.
Peng Xiaorui had sustained some superficial wounds—scratches from the guard’s claws. She glanced at the injuries, and after determining they wouldn’t be a major issue, she pulled her sleeve back down. “That was so thrilling!” she said, full of excitement. “Why didn’t I major in physical education back in the day!”
Compared to Peng Xiaorui, who had discovered a whole new world, Shen Maomao was much calmer. She righted the table, picked up a set of keys from the floor, and dangled them with a pleased expression. “How did you get from here to where we were?” she asked him.
The guard bared his teeth, a blackish-gray saliva dribbling from his mouth.
Shen Maomao tried to twirl her dagger like Lou Jingmo but almost sliced her own finger off. She quickly stopped this death-courting5, badass-wannabe6 behavior and, acting as if nothing had happened, made her threat. “I know you can understand me. If you keep playing dumb… well, I’m okay with that, but I’m not so sure the dagger in my hand will be.”
“Jiemei7,” Peng Xiaorui deadpanned, “your line is so cringey.”
Shen Maomao shot her a look.
The guard clenched his teeth, refusing to speak.
Shen Maomao held the dagger over the spot of his philtrum8, her smile exceptionally sweet. “Are you going to talk or not?”
The guard’s entire body was trembling. His eyes were wide as he watched the sharp blade get closer and closer, and his resolve finally crumbled. “I’ll talk! I’ll talk! The mirror on the left side of the second floor can take you back!”
“You’re lying!” Shen Maomao sneered. “We touched that mirror. We couldn’t get out at all.” As she spoke, the dagger dipped a little lower.
“IT ONLY WORKS BETWEEN ELEVEN AND TWELVE AT NIGHT!” the guard screamed. “IT’S ALREADY PAST THAT TIME!!”
Shen Maomao pulled out her phone and checked. It was already past one in the morning. They must have been fiddling with the mirror after midnight, which was why it hadn’t worked.
Still, the guard’s words weren’t one hundred percent trustworthy.
Shen Maomao returned the dagger to her item inventory. “Last question. Have you seen the other two women who were with us?”
The guard shook his head frantically. “NO, NO, SOB, SOB, SOB… YOU’RE NOT HUMAN… YOU’RE HEARTLESS!!”
Shen Maomao took it as a compliment. “Thanks.”
The guard was so angry he nearly coughed up blood.
On the side, Peng Xiaorui said, “I can retrieve the rope remotely. Let’s go. I’ll recall it once we’re a good distance away.”
The two simpletons exited the guard’s room and used the keys to unlock the main doors of the school building.
A cold wind carrying willow catkins drifted in. It was the dead of night. While it wasn’t quite so dark that you couldn’t see your five fingers when stretching out a hand9, it wasn’t far off.
The buildings, arranged like the scales of a fish and the teeth of a comb10, formed a solid mass, their varying heights creating a jagged landscape of black shapes. A huge statue loomed like a monster lurking in the darkness, so intimidating that one would shrink back at the sight of it11, not daring to approach.
Lou Jingmo and Bai Lu might still be in the building. Peng Xiaorui’s rope couldn’t hold the guard forever, and Shen Maomao, worried he might break free and lock the main doors, decided to take the lock with them.
After stepping outside, she glanced back and was shocked to see a light on in a fifth-floor classroom! Two dark silhouettes were projected onto the curtains, and from their movements, it looked like they were fighting.
Shen Maomao’s eyes shot open. She grabbed a dazed Peng Xiaorui. “LOOK! WHICH CLASSROOM IS THAT?!”
“Wocao12, what’s going on?!” Peng Xiaorui looked up. “I think… is that the one we had class in today? Classroom 5… 534?”
“LET’S GO!” Shen Maomao immediately dashed back in, sprinting past the now-empty guard’s room and up the stairs.
Peng Xiaorui hurried to keep up, panting, “The guard’s gone! My rope is gone too!”
Shen Maomao wasn’t surprised. “There are other ghosts in this building. We just haven’t run into them.”
After climbing two flights of stairs, Peng Xiaorui started to fall behind. “Are you an ox or something? How do you have so much stamina? HOLY CRAP, SLOW DOWN!”
From above, Shen Maomao shot her a disdainful look. “It’s only a few floors. If this were Hai Dongqing, I’d be the one who couldn’t keep up with her.”
Although that was all she said, Peng Xiaorui somehow felt like their relationship had just been flaunted in her face.
Two minutes later, they were standing in front of 534.
The door to 534 was shut tight. It was hard to tell from the outside if there was a light on, and they couldn’t hear any sounds from within.
Shen Maomao tried the handle, but it didn’t budge. The door was locked.
She took out the set of keys, inserted one into the lock, and twisted. With a click, the door swung open, revealing a boundless darkness. There was no light inside at all.
A salty, metallic smell assaulted their nostrils. Shen Maomao instinctively held her breath and gently pushed the door all the way open.
In the moonlight, a corpse lay silently on the floor between the desks.
Peng Xiaorui was suddenly overcome with a sense of trepidation. Whose body is it? Is it some kind of monster? Or… someone we know?
She looked at Shen Maomao, who, like a thoughtless fool, walked right over and flicked on the classroom lights.
The incandescent lights buzzed twice, and the room was instantly flooded with light. Patches of blood on the floor were laid bare. The entire classroom looked like a gruesome murder scene, making one’s stomach turn.
The corpse on the floor had long hair, which was splayed out like tangled weeds, obscuring her face.
Shen Maomao whispered, “Be careful. Use your plank to see who it is.”
Peng Xiaorui moved forward as instructed. “Aren’t you afraid it’s Hai Dongqing?”
“Impossible,” Shen Maomao retorted without a second thought. “Hai Dongqing would be fine even if I were dead.”
“You really trust her, huh,” Peng Xiaorui said with a dry laugh. She used the plank to lift the hair from the corpse’s face, revealing the visage beneath. Then she fell abruptly silent.
Shen Maomao came over to look and froze as well. “Why is it her?”
Peng Xiaorui was bewildered. “What is she doing here?”
The corpse on the floor was indeed someone they knew. It wasn’t Lou Jingmo or Bai Lu, but Wu Mei, who hadn’t even come with them.
Shen Maomao crouched down and closed Wu Mei’s eyes. “Then who was she fighting with just now?” she said. “Did she get tricked by an imposter?”
“I don’t know,” Peng Xiaorui replied. “What do we do now?”
“Let’s search the area for now,” Shen Maomao said. “Someone lured us here for a reason. They can’t have left us with nothing, right?”
The two began overturning boxes and emptying cabinets13. After searching the entire room, the only places left were the few blood-stained desks near Wu Mei.
Peng Xiaorui leaned in for a closer look. “Looks like there’s a bag under there.”
Shen Maomao: “Should we try to pull it out?”
Peng Xiaorui: “…Let’s… let’s try?”
They moved closer to the body. Each grabbed one side of a bag strap and pulled hard, slowly dragging a black leather shoulder bag out from under the corpse.
Shen Maomao bent down to pick up the bag, but Peng Xiaorui suddenly yelped, “HOLY SHIT!”
She immediately looked up. “WHAT’S WRONG?!”
Peng Xiaorui pointed at the body, her hand shaking uncontrollably. “EYES… EYES… EYES!!”
Shen Maomao followed her finger and saw that Wu Mei’s eyes, which she had just closed, were somehow wide open again. Her slightly dilated pupils were staring straight at them, as if she would come back to life at any second.
“FUCK! WHAT ARE YOU STARING AT?! RUN!!!”
The author has something to say:
A sudden cold has completely drained me, 55514. My throat feels like it’s on fire, and I couldn’t hold out yesterday and fell asleep.
Slept soundly yesterday, catching up in tears today. So many tears.
Guard Mr. Chen: I may not be human, but you two are real bitches15.
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