Mingqiao suddenly had a bad feeling in his heart. His guess came true, not only the office, but also the cafeteria was not spared.
Shi Xin also saw this notice.
The red color had such a huge visual impact that he even felt that it would spread to the wall behind, dyeing the entire cafeteria building bright red.
Out of professional habit, Shi Xin raised the camera hanging on his chest and took a few photos of the notice. He looked at the notice through the camera and felt that the red color was dazzling, which made him extremely uncomfortable.
He glanced at Ming Qiao and happened to meet his gaze.
Mingqiao felt a stinging pain in his eyes, and his originally dark pupils were dyed a dangerous blood red. But even if he closed his eyes and tried his best to avoid it, the red notice was still lingering in front of his eyes.
Shi Xin turned his head and looked at Ming Qiao, his facial features wrinkled together, and there were only three big question marks on his forehead.
Mingqiao's previous experience and intuition in the office told him that this situation might be more dangerous than in the office. He shook his head helplessly at Shi Xin, but he couldn't retreat.
He rubbed his sore eyes, turned to look at Shi Xin and asked, "Have you finished the interview? Can you leave now?"
"But we've already walked to the restaurant." Shi Xin covered his eyelids with his hands to block the red light. He narrowed his eyes slightly and looked at Ming Qiao: "You don't have to treat me to a meal. I brought money."
Mingqiao took a few steps calmly, trying to push Shi Xin to leave quickly, not wanting him to be involved in this strange incident.
But he pushed hard, but it didn't move. Shi Xin stood there without even moving his feet, as if something was supporting him.
At this time, Shi Xin reacted, cold sweat broke out on his back, and a horrified expression appeared on his face: "Teacher Ming, there is a wall behind me!"
Mingqiao frowned and raised his hand to press beside him. Sure enough, a transparent soft membrane seemed to rise up here. It was soft and elastic when pressed, but as firm as a wall that would not allow them to leave.
Mingqiao's face was frozen, and he couldn't even show shock.
He was "locked up" again, and this time there was no warning, and it was not man-made. The two of them were locked up here for no reason.
Any normal person would not be able to remain calm when repeatedly encountering phenomena that cannot be explained by materialism. He pushed the "wall" in front of him again and again, trying to find a way out, but this thing could be touched but not seen. No matter how hard he punched and kicked, it did not move at all and had no flaws.
He looked at Shi Xin who was standing aside. The man was sweating from pushing the wall, and crystal drops of water flowed from the roots of his hair, across his cheeks, and then dripped onto the ground along his smooth chin line.
"A maze of ghosts?" Shi Xin asked breathlessly.
"...No," Mingqiao said, "but you can't get out."
"There has to be an explanation, right?" Shi Xin raised his hand and wiped the sweat off his face and neck with his sleeve. He smiled bitterly in disbelief, "Actually, I'd rather believe it was a ghost. Especially seeing a ghost in broad daylight is really strange. When I get back to the TV station, I'm going to write a report about this. It will be considered a strange story."
Ming Qiao was amused by Shi Xin's impropriety and smiled faintly. He lowered his eyes slightly, hesitated for a long time, and finally sighed: "Since you are here, can you do me a favor?"
"Go ahead."
"I can't explain it to you very clearly. Believe it or not, there's a problem at school right now, and I'm here to save people. Are you...willing to join us?"
Ming Qiao was prepared to be rejected, but he heard Shi Xin say, "Of course no problem. But, can we save everyone in the school by yourself, even with me? Superheroes?"
"I don't want to be a hero and I can't be one. I'm just an ordinary person." Mingqiao's eyes sparkled as he spoke, and Shi Xin couldn't look away for some reason. "But if I don't do it, and he doesn't do it, then no one can stand up, and everyone in this school will die. I have my responsibilities, and I only do what I can, and I will save as many people as I can."
Shi Xin admired Mingqiao very much, so he gave him a thumbs up.
The two of them reached a consensus. Besides, there was no way out now, so they could only bite the bullet and move forward.
The two walked into the restaurant one after the other, Ming Qiao in the front and Shi Xin in the back. They naturally formed a very safe and suitable formation for moving forward, and slowly moved into the cafeteria.
There was a table on the right side of the cafeteria entrance with a registration book on it. Shi Xin was an outsider. According to the second item of the notice Mingqiao had just seen outside, "Outsiders please register first and apply for a temporary dining card before you can eat at the window of this restaurant." So Shi Xin consciously and cautiously wrote down his basic information on it, and the two continued to walk in.
This time should be the peak dining time, but there was no one eating in the restaurant, only a few food-serving robots at the window were still humming. Mingqiao had experienced something similar before, so he was not as nervous as he was at the beginning, but Shi Xin was nervous and slowed down his pace to observe the surrounding environment.
But apart from the fact that there was no one there, there didn't seem to be anything strange.
Mingqiao whispered, "The notice at the door says in the supplementary note at the end that temporary dining cards can be obtained at window 31 on the third floor."
Shi Xin nodded thoughtfully: "Then let's go to the third floor first."
The stairs leading upstairs were on both sides of the restaurant. When the two were about to walk side by side to the stairs on the left, Ming Qiao suddenly stopped.
"What's wrong?" Shi Xin asked.
"You go first." Ming Qiao took two steps back: "I remembered something, let's go separately."
This action made Shi Xin feel a little flustered. He looked at Ming Qiao and said, "I'll go with you."
"That's fine. Let's try not to act separately." Mingqiao tilted his head, "You come with me first."
Mingqiao was already paranoid. Although the notice was so piercing that it was hard for him to open his eyes, he still saw all the contents clearly. One of the items touched the string in his mind: [Students use student cards, faculty and staff use employee cards.]
Verifying whether he had become a student was one of Mingqiao's reasons for coming to the cafeteria. Now it seemed that using a card that matched his identity would not violate the rules.
So he and Shi Xin came to a window together.
Looking at the card machine in front of him flashing green light, Mingqiao pressed the meal card he had been holding in his hand.
"Ding, employee card. I detected that your identity does not match the card information. I will give you a warning."
Mingqiao pressed it again, unconvinced.
"Ding, employee card. Your identity is detected to be inconsistent with the card information. Warning twice."
Only he himself became a student, nothing else changed.
He didn't know what would happen if he used this card in his current identity, but he didn't want to take the risk.
Shi Xin was confused by his series of actions and quickly pulled him back: "What were you doing just now?"
Mingqiao struggled with his words and said, "I seem to have become a student."
"Ah?" Shi Xin stared at him in amazement: "What do you mean?"
"Literally."
"So you put the card up there to verify that you are now a student?"
"Yes."
"...Okay." Shi Xin scratched his head. Weird things kept happening to him one after another, making him dizzy and disoriented. He agreed to go with Ming Qiao to rescue people in a daze. This was the most impulsive decision he made today.
They were silent all the way until they reached the third floor, and Mingqiao's face still didn't look good.
Shi Xin saw that Mingqiao was not in a good state, so he found the so-called window No. 31 and knocked on the glass of the window gently: "Is anyone there? I want to apply for a card."
After waiting for a long time and no one came, Shi Xin was about to raise his hand to knock for the second time when a hunchbacked old man came out from under the counter.
His hair was almost completely white, so short that it was almost stuck to his scalp, his face was dark and wrinkled, and only his eyes were barely recognizable. He stared at Shi Xin with his cloudy eyes, and it felt like a worm covered in slime was crawling over him.
The first sight of him was not of weathered appearance, but of horror and terror.
Shi Xin held his breath unconsciously and looked at Ming Qiao who was standing beside him as if for help.
"I haven't seen him in school." Mingqiao whispered. He took a deep breath and asked the old man carefully: "He is an outsider, can you help him get a temporary meal card?"
The old man's eyes slid from Shi Xin's face to Ming Qiao's face. He was silent for a while, then slowly took out a card from under the counter, raised his hand and pressed it on the card. His voice was hoarse as if he had a mouthful of sand, and he spoke with a barely recognizable accent: "Give me the money."
While Shi Xin was busy flipping through his phone to scan the code, Ming Qiao took the lead and took out a fifty-dollar note from his pocket and handed it to him. The old man took it and looked at it and touched it, making sure it was real money before pushing the temporary card in front of the two men.
Shi Xinkong swallowed and picked up the card from the table.
The card that looked pure white and clean felt extremely greasy to the touch. Shi Xin rubbed the two fingers that had just pinched the card together and found that they still felt sticky.
This made him feel sick. When he thought about what this card might have been through, he felt sick to his stomach.
When they looked back, the old man had disappeared. Even if they wanted to change the photo, they couldn't find him.
Mingqiao stood there, feeling sick for a long time. He saw with his own eyes that Shi Xin's hands had become shiny and glossy, and there was a slight resistance when he rubbed them. He especially thought of that old man, who was somewhat similar to the "mutated" Lao Jiang.
"Let's go, now that the card is ready, let's go downstairs to eat first." Ming Qiao calmed himself down as he and Shi Xin walked downstairs, "Perhaps, finishing this meal will be the way out of here. When the door opens, you go first, and I'll go find the other people trapped here."
“No, no, no.” Shi Xin was so disgusted that his eyes and mouth were not eyes and mouth were not mouth, but he still waved his hand at Ming Qiao: “I promised to help you save people, I will accompany you.”
Ming Qiao was speechless. He didn't want to drag down Shi Xin, and he didn't know what the upper limit of danger was in the restaurant, but Shi Xin's frankness and enthusiasm really made it impossible for him to refuse. He hoped that all this was just a dream, and everything would end as long as he woke up from the dream.
But he knew clearly that this was the truth. He, this unlucky reporter, and probably countless others in every corner of the school were experiencing this together.
The two of them went downstairs together, and Shi Xin used his temporary meal card to buy a rice set meal for each of them.
The warm and fragrant food comforted them a little. The food at No. 1 Middle School was always good, with a good combination of meat and vegetables, which made people's appetite grow.
Shi Xin shoveled the last mouthful of rice into his mouth and rushed to the outside of the cafeteria impatiently.
However, he rushed out suddenly, but was bounced back and fell to the ground.
The wall is still there.
He returned dejectedly and stood in front of Ming Qiao, leaning on the table and looking down at him: "Teacher Ming, didn't you say that we can leave after dinner?"
Mingqiao was thinking about this question when Shi Xin went out just now.
Did they miss something again?
There are six notices in the restaurant. The first one is about card payment, which requires you to use your own ID card. Mingqiao was cautious and didn't dare to use his employee card. Instead, he used Shi Xin's card, so he shouldn't have violated the rules.
The second rule is that outsiders must apply for temporary meal cards, which is not a violation.
The third article is about the dining time. Mingqiao looked at the time. It was one o'clock in the afternoon. The stipulated time was between 11 and 14 o'clock, and they did not violate it.
The fourth rule requires queuing, but when they entered the cafeteria, they didn't see any students, so they didn't need to queue.
The fifth is to pay attention to hygiene in public areas.
This might be a problem. Mingqiao sent the two people's plates to the counter and wiped the table clean. He thought the two had violated this rule, but Shi Xin ran out again and was still blocked back, indicating that this was not the problem.
That is the last one: saving food.
They didn’t waste…wait.
Isn’t it wasted?
Mingqiao looked at the windows not far away.
The delicious food was still lying quietly on the large plate, but the programmed and stereotyped smile on the face of the food-serving robot became frustrating.
It's over.
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