Volume 11: The Days of Traversing Through the Mirror
Broken Mirror
Hacking1
Shen Maomao was the closest and reacted the fastest. While the others were still stunned, she moved with sharp eyes and quick hands2, slamming the person back into the multimedia screen with an elbow.
After a loud clang, the whites of Number One’s eyes rolled back, and she fainted on the spot.
Peng Xiaorui, her heart still with lingering fear, took several steps back, only breathing a sigh of relief when her back hit the blackboard. “What’s going on… That was terrifying.”
Lou Jingmo said flatly, “Do we still need to save her? She’s probably already been assimilated by the ghosts.”3
Shen Maomao looked at her and hesitated. “Is there any chance she can return to normal?”
Lou Jingmo answered truthfully, “As long as she can escape the game, it’s possible.”
Hearing this, Shen Maomao felt they should still try. She couldn’t just leave the person behind—besides, it wasn’t as if they lacked the ability to carry someone with them now; they were just afraid of the trouble.
Lou Jingmo smiled. “I knew you’d choose this.” She extended a hand toward her. “Give her to me.”
Shen Maomao wore a suspicious expression. “Can you handle it?”
Lou Jingmo shot her a sidelong glance. “A woman can’t say she can’t do it.”
If the one who might get hurt was Lou Jingmo, Shen Maomao would start to hesitate. “But… what if she wakes up and hurts you? AH! SO LET’S HAVE PENG XIAORUI CARRY HER!”
Peng Xiaorui, who was suddenly cued, “…??? I WON’T GET HURT?!! CAN YOU TWO LOVEBIRDS NOT DRAG AN INNOCENT BYSTANDER INTO YOUR CONVERSATIONS?”
But if Maomao hadn’t saved her just now, she’d probably be missing an ear by now…
With that thought, she compromised. “Alright then… I’ll carry her. Xuejie4, could you please help me tie something around her mouth? I’m still a little scared.”
Bai Lu nodded, tore a strip of cloth from her own clothes, and gagged Number One tightly.
Peng Xiaorui looked thin and weak, but she was surprisingly strong, carrying a whole person with remarkable ease.
After the preparations were done, Shen Maomao started to walk out. But as soon as she opened the classroom door, she found that several red-eyed people had appeared outside at some point.
These things could no longer be called human. Their bodies showed varying degrees of mutation. The milder cases just had faces covered in dark brown, seaweed-like cracks, while the more severe ones had festering skin and swollen joints, unable to even stand properly.
She didn’t recognize them, but every single one of them was staring at her, muttering endlessly, “So hungry… so hungry… so hungry…”
Shen Maomao only regretted not bringing snacks with her. Otherwise, she could have just tossed a handful, and all her problems would meet the blade’s edge and be solved5. Wouldn’t that have been great?
She and Lou Jingmo each took out a dagger. Peng Xiaorui, behind them, contributed her wooden stick to Bai Lu, while Gan Ze pulled out her handgun and said, “I only have one bullet left. I want to save it for a critical moment. Do you guys have any spare weapons I can borrow for self-defense?”
Lou Jingmo flicked a dagger over her shoulder, which embedded itself in the wall beside Gan Ze. A quarter of the blade sank into the wall. It could be pulled out easily, but Gan Ze was in poor health—her heart had a surplus, but her strength was not enough6. She could only carefully protect Peng Xiaorui, who was carrying a burden.
The battle would go off with a single touch7. The first to charge was Lou Jingmo.
Like a wolf that had stumbled into a flock of sheep, her dagger was like a kitchen knife chopping cabbage and radishes, cutting the enemies until they were seven scattered and eight fallen.8
These things were all replicas from the mirror. They had no blood, only that black, flocculent substance, so there was no psychological pressure in cutting them down. Shen Maomao followed her rhythm, finishing off the fish that had escaped the net9. The two coordinated like heavenly clothes with no seams10, carving a bloody path11 through the horde of monsters, barely needing Bai Lu to intervene.
But monsters continued to pour out of the classrooms, source after source, not cut off12, joining the ranks of those chasing them. So they kept moving downward, not getting entangled with them for too long.
The three in the back quickly followed the path the two had cleared, making their way from the eighth floor down to the third. But as they continued down from the third floor, they encountered two unexpected people.
It was Wu Mei, who was supposed to be dead, and the little rookie who had gone mad.
As the four of them headed down, those two were climbing up. The six of them met face-to-face, and Wu Mei shouted, “DON’T GO DOWN! THERE’S SOMETHING BEHIND US!”
In such a short time, Shen Maomao couldn’t determine if the people in front of her were real or fake. She could only suppress her suspicions for the moment and reply, “WELL, ISN’t THIS A COINCIDENCE! THERE’S STUFF UPSTAIRS, TOO!”
Lou Jingmo decided and cut at the crucial moment, immediately turning around and running down the corridor to the other side. “INTO THE MIRROR!”
The now-expanded group sprinted down the hallway, quickly arriving in front of the mirror on the left side of the second floor.
That was the world Gan Ze had been in before, a relatively normal world.
Five of them instinctively held hands. It was inconvenient for Peng Xiaorui, who was carrying a person, so Bai Lu had to grab her clothes to keep her from getting lost.
Wu Mei and the little rookie also wanted to join hands. Lou Jingmo, at the very end of the line, smiled gently and extended her right hand to the two of them.
A light flashed in Wu Mei’s eyes, and she immediately reached out her hand.
But in the next second, Lou Jingmo lifted her leg and kicked her squarely in the chest, sending her flying into the approaching monster army and buying them enough time.
Wu Mei scrambled up, her breath urgent and spirit defeated13, wearing an expression of incredulous hurt. “HAI DONGQING, WHAT ARE YOU DOING? WHY WOULD YOU DO THIS TO US?!”
Shen Maomao glanced back and saw that the monsters hadn’t even touched a single finger on them. She immediately cursed, “ARE YOU ACTING YOUR MOTHER?14 CRAWL AWAY FOR THIS DADDY!!”15
With that, she grabbed Lou Jingmo and dove into the mirror.
After a brief moment of spinning, they first heard the sound of a school bell signaling the end of class, and then they appeared in a bathroom.
All the bathrooms in the academic building looked the same, so Shen Maomao couldn’t tell which floor they were on.
Peng Xiaorui had entered a step ahead of them and hadn’t seen what happened at the end. Seeing that Wu Mei and the rookie hadn’t followed, she couldn’t help but ask, “What about those two?”
Shen Maomao explained, “Those two were fakes. Hai Dongqing kicked them out.”
Lou Jingmo said, “Let’s go blow up the elevators first, then we’ll figure out the other mirrors.”
Gan Ze, at the doorway, pulled the door open for Peng Xiaorui. As Peng Xiaorui looked up, her eyes met with a wide-eyed boy outside.
The boy looked at them, then tilted his head to look at the sign on the wall, beginning to doubt his own eyes.
Peng Xiaorui cursed, “Shit,” and squeezed out with a red face. “Sorry, sorry, wrong bathroom.”
The boy was silent for two seconds.
The group quickly scrambled out of the men’s bathroom. Bai Lu said, “What are you looking at? Just go take your piss.”
Peng Xiaorui: “Xuejie, you’re so badass!”
The boy: “…YOU GUYS ARE PSYCHOS!”
Only after they got out did they realize this wasn’t the College of Humanities, but the more distant College of Science and Engineering. They had been teleported far away again.
Not daring to delay, the group sprinted to the College of Humanities and waited for the elevator to come down on the first floor.
With only a ten-minute break between classes, not many people would take the elevator downstairs, which worked out perfectly for them.
Shen Maomao held the elevator doors to keep them from closing, and Bai Lu also contributed some items, stacking them high inside the elevator.
The moment the elevator doors closed, all the small explosive balls were detonated, creating a roar that shook the ears as if to make one deaf.
The two elevators swayed violently. One of them, unable to bear the heavy burden, crashed straight into the basement with a massive boom. Students from the first floor were already running out of their classrooms. A teacher-like woman in high heels ran out, asking, “WHAT’S GOING ON?!”
The chaotic crowd created an opportunity for them to escape. The group slipped away quickly, dashing upstairs in the blink of an eye.
The next step was to deal with the mirrors in other places. The academic building had eight floors in total. Each floor had two side stairwells and two restrooms, which were further divided into men’s and women’s, and each of those had a mirror inside.
So, they simply decided to blow them up floor by floor. Fortunately, the small explosive balls could be stacked into a single inventory slot16; otherwise, they might not have had enough.
After climbing to the eighth floor, Bai Lu, worried that Peng Xiaorui was tired, offered to carry Number One for a while, but was refused.
Peng Xiaorui smiled. “I used an item, I’m fine! Don’t worry about me.”
So Bai Lu didn’t insist and started making explosives with Shen Maomao and Lou Jingmo.
Excluding Peng Xiaorui, the four of them each took one side, acting simultaneously. They agreed on a time to detonate together to avoid accidentally harming any NPCs.17
The distance between the four of them wasn’t great, so if any problems arose, a single shout could be heard by everyone. They bombed their way through smoothly and without obstruction, creating a grand and lively commotion that drew everyone on every floor out to see what was happening.
However, after bombing a mirror, the group would check the damage and then immediately run, blending into the crowd, so they weren’t discovered.
But after bombing just three floors, someone noticed the pattern of the explosions and went downstairs to block them off in advance. Their actions were hindered, and they could only gather together to travel through a mirror again.
As they headed downstairs toward a mirror, Shen Maomao heard a sharp voice coming from a nearby restroom, which sounded like someone cursing.
Seeing her pause, Bai Lu said, “Don’t manage idle matters.”18
Shen Maomao thought she had a point and was about to leave when she heard the woman over there say loudly again, “What are you pretending for? Who are you trying to scare? You can’t take a couple of shoves? Who are you trying to look so fragile for? Zhan Xin, I’m telling you, THIS SCHOOL HAS YOU OR ME, NOT BOTH! LET’S SEE WHO CAN OUTLAST WHO!”
Shen Maomao instantly perked up. “It’s Zhan Xin! Should we go take a look?”
It was indeed part of the main plot, and taking a look wouldn’t delay them. Lou Jingmo nodded in permission, and Shen Maomao immediately ran, spreading her legs like a ‘Y’.19
This restroom seemed to be the one where they had first met Zhan Xin. The door was blocked from the inside with something. Shen Maomao kicked it, and amidst the screams and surprise of the girls inside, she revealed a roguish smile. “Yo? What are you sisters20 up to in here?”
A group of girls with clear facial features turned their heads. One of them started breathing rapidly upon seeing her, but she quickly lowered her head again.
Shen Maomao took it all in. She looked at the group and said playfully, “What’s this? Playing games in broad daylight? What are you playing? Let me join in, huh?”
Peng Xiaorui whispered to Lou Jingmo, “Tell me the truth, are you two in the mafia?”
Lou Jingmo: “…” Shen Maomao and her dramatic flair with no place to put it.21
The author has something to say:
I really… can I write six a day… How about I just send out red envelopes to solve this? (feebly)
How about I post a poll in the group chat later to ask?
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