Chapter 89 Old Campus "If we don't work hard the day after tomorrow, where will we get clothes to wear..."
The exterior of the teaching building remains the same, appearing white and blue in the darkness, the white and blue blending together, giving it a gray hue like dark clouds from a distance.
But even before entering, just from the doorway, one could see sparkles inside—many tiny, scattered sparkles, like diamonds swirling with cross-shaped rays of light; others were longer, trailing across the walls and corridors like moonlight.
Once inside, I realized it was full of mirrors.
The checkered floor, with a textured marble slab next to a mirror, is like a chessboard. Standing on one of the slabs, you can see your own face every few slabs, which is quite strange.
The upper two-thirds of the walls are mirrors. The calligraphy and paintings on the left wall, as well as the introductions of outstanding alumni, are all posted on the mirrors. You can see them by looking into the mirror on the right wall. The calligraphy and paintings are fine, but the portraits are like looking at another version of yourself from afar.
There are no mirrors on the ceiling, but all the lights are encased in mirrors, so when the lights are turned on, the overhead lights create a bizarre kaleidoscope effect.
The elevator door was also half-mirror, and there were four mirrors on the small table at the reception desk, facing the four empty seats like memorial tablets.
Walking a few steps in such a large hall could drive you insane with fear. Any change in the reflection in any of the mirrors would be hard to spot at a glance. This ground floor, neither too big nor too small, could harbor countless ghosts.
Xue Chao rolled his eyes around and saw many different angles and parts of himself and Fang Tailai, and he suddenly felt a little creeped out.
He'd suffered from mirrors before, this was the third time in a row. The dance studio had all sorts of mirrors, big and small, and he'd seen the uncanny valley effect on his own face. He should be used to it by now, but what was different this time?
Fang Tailai thought he was horrified because she herself was horrified: "Putting a mirror anywhere seems to silently expand a space. How many layers would it have to be folded out here?"
"Do you feel like someone is watching us?"
Upon hearing his question, Fang Tailai's cool demeanor shifted, and he looked around suspiciously, "Don't scare me... wait, I think I also..."
You wouldn't expect it if you didn't mention it, but once you do, you feel like there are eyes everywhere. When she looks at the "half-fans" that blend into various places, these mirrors seem to really expand the space by a small amount, as if they are filled with several pairs of prying eyes.
The only standout display board on the left is still the same display board.
"That board isn't in the mirror."
As Fang Tailai said, the board could not be seen in any mirror, as if it did not exist.
Xue Chao remembered that this was the list of top students, but now the board was being carried around.
He went around to the front of the board, which was still in the pyramid layout, but now it was all missing person notices. Familiar names were immediately visible: Wu Anyao, Minmin, Sheng Hong... The photos, as always, only showed the area below the neck, not the head. Some were old, some were still very new, and Sheng Hong's photo was the newest, as if it had just been printed and pasted on.
As he looked at the photos, the feeling of being stared at intensified. He turned around and saw that in the mirror on his right, the display board suddenly appeared as if a magic cloth had been lifted. In the place where the photos were, there were pieces of human heads, with long hair covering the entire board. From a distance, they looked like countless white faces growing out of a clump of black hair, twisted and squeezed together, staring at him beautifully yet bloodily.
When the faces are put together, they are all beautiful; when viewed separately, he remembers many of the "parts."
After a brief moment of shock, Xue Chao noticed that only the area in Sheng Hong's photo was missing its head.
Because she already burned the items from the third unit?
In the blink of an eye, the display board disappeared from the mirror again. When Xue Chao turned around, strands of hair were hanging down the top edge of the photo. In the photo, the upper bodies of all the missing students were bent over, as if they were standing in front of a camera and about to bend over.
Xue Chao led his men away, glancing back in between. In the mirror, he saw many classmates' student ID photos with their heads crammed together, their eyes darting around, scrutinizing them from head to toe.
That look was very uncomfortable, like someone opening a stone to examine its quality, or browsing a shopping mall to see which one looked the best. If you looked any longer, they would be better off lying on the shelf.
Upon reaching the upper floor, the corridor had changed, yet it had reverted to its former state. The original corridor resembled a red carpet for a ceremony, but now it had returned to the neat and tidy appearance of a school corridor. The love letters pasted on the walls outside the classrooms were open, and bunches of red roses sprouted from the envelopes, the bouquets connected, their redness both delicate and glamorous, exuding a rich fragrance.
At the base of the wall beneath the red roses, dolls were piled up, like corpses in a mass grave.
Fang Tailai had just stopped to catch his breath after running when he inhaled a mouthful of incense and almost fainted: "Escort... Ugh... There's an assassin... Ugh..."
Xue Chao pinched his nose, glancing at the cold expressions around him: "Does Your Majesty have any other remarks?"
"I'm already in good health as long as I didn't die on the spot..." Fang Tailai was happy to have someone to keep her company and ease her tension, but when she looked up, she saw Xue Chao surveying her without making a sound. She felt that he was probably even more nervous than she was. Could he be suffering from neurasthenia? "My dear minister, is there anything amiss?"
"Your Majesty, I still feel that someone is watching us."
Without the paranoid mirrors, Fang Tailai no longer had the opportunity to scare himself. Instead, he comforted Xue Chao: "If those mirrors wanted to climb up, they would have to dig themselves out of the ground first. You might as well worry that the ghosts would just climb out of the mirrors and chase after you. That's a better chance."
Xue Chao's hand had already reached deep into the bouquet of roses, searching carefully, not afraid that it might be a man-eating flower that would split open a mouth and bite him.
Fang Tailai was worried that his hand would be bitten off when he came out, but then he saw Xue Chao take out a small black object.
You can only see it clearly when you get close; it's a pinhole camera, only half the size of your little fingernail.
A chill ran through her, even more so than when she had encountered the ghosts in the mirror in the hall. She stared at the roses, which, once exposed, adopted an arrogant "I'm not pretending anymore" attitude. Every flower in every bunch, every petal of every flower, had a small hole split in the fine thread, black, smooth, and slightly reflective.
For the first time, she realized that the camera looked just like a person's dark eye.
The corridor was filled with countless bouquets, each piled with hundreds of pinhole cameras, looking from a distance like countless tiny holes gnawed by insects, a patch of rotting roses.
Xue Chao gathered the roses and lifted them up. The sealing wax that had been blocked was now inlaid with a painted camera. Noticing Xue Chao's gaze from below, it "lifted" itself up a little.
Fang Tailai glanced at the dolls under the roses with a keen eye and was horrified to find that no matter where the dolls were placed or how they were stacked, their two round black eyes were always sticking out.
It's also a pinhole camera.
Fang Tailai had just felt physically nauseous from the fumes, but now he felt purely psychologically nauseous from the disgust.
But there's something even more outrageous: the corridor has turned back into a school corridor, but when you open the door, the classroom has become a hotel room.
It wasn't a regular room, it was a couples' room. The ambiguous pink light bathed every corner, and the heart-shaped bathtub was just a short distance from the window. A few glasses of red wine were placed next to the bed on the white porcelain table.
A large white bed sits in the center, with pink curtains hanging from the four corners. A teddy bear sits in front of the pillow, and a striking red rose is placed in the middle of the bed.
The design itself is passable, but the thought of the dolls and roses in the corridor, and the fact that this was originally a classroom, makes Fang Tailai feel so disgusted that he could vomit up the food he ate the day before yesterday.
After looking around the entire floor, all the couple's rooms were exactly the same. When he got to the last room, Xue Chao held up the photo that was only half there, which blended perfectly into the room.
"So this is evidence that the protagonist of this unit was violated by a beast? ... How come all these protagonists are so miserable? I think the mission name would be more appropriate if it were changed to 'A Collection of Abused Protagonists'."
Xue Chao compared them again: "This photo is sandwiched among the evidence of the organ trafficking incident, which shows that the beast is related to the organ trafficking incident."
Fang Tailai: "Regulars at the bar or their hired executioners."
Xue Chao glanced at the corridor outside the door that read, "Knowledge changes destiny, hard work creates the future": "The bar is right next door, but the rooms are located in the teaching building, so it's probably for the school's teachers."
Going up to the next floor, the roses and dolls disappeared. The walls on both sides were normal, but in the middle of the floor, there was a row of mirrors every other tile. All the doors also became mirrors. Two silver rods were installed high on the walls, like curtain rods, and were covered with all kinds of knives and scissors.
Just as Fang Tailai was about to investigate, Xue Chao recognized it as a clothes rack and pulled her away. However, the dressing mirror door opened, and with a flick of her sleeve, she wrapped it around Fang Tailai's ankle, easily tripping her up.
Fang Tailai also had to go to the broadcasting station, and Xue Chao couldn't leave her behind. With a helping hand, the doors opened one after another, and she was surrounded by a stream of clothes.
They recognized Xue Chao, and without saying a word, they tied him up with several pieces of men's clothing, gagged him, and threw him into the house like cargo, then locked the door.
“…It’s quite a ‘fairytale’.” Fang Tailai, who was left behind, said with a sullen face.
A magical girl dress with a large bow jumped playfully in front of her, a shimmering plastic wand touched her hair, and she shook the hem of the dress with dissatisfaction.
Fang Tailai didn't understand. She touched her chin-length short hair and wondered if they were going to pull her hair out of the fabric since they didn't have a matching wig.
However, she was overthinking it. Not only was the person not tempted, but they were also disgusted. Seeing that she didn't understand, a maid in a maid outfit handed her a megaphone. The magical girl in the bubble gloves held up the megaphone and placed it where the head should be. The megaphone then spoke: "Why don't you have long hair?"
Fang Tailai was stunned. He didn't expect that monsters these days would have aesthetic standards. Then he saw another puffy princess dress gracefully twirling and floating in. He took the megaphone and said, "The hair quality isn't very good either. It has no shine. Even when it grows long, it's dry and frizzy, like a head full of weeds."
...It's one thing to be scary or deadly, that's within the scope of business, but why is it considered an attack on appearance? What kind of quality do monsters have these days?
Fang Tailai hesitated: "So I cut my hair."
"But long hair is beautiful." This statement, blaring from a loudspeaker, sounded less like an opinion and more like a promulgated law, a pronounced truth, authoritative and cold, established and unassailable. Yet, it added a seemingly friendly remark, condescending to explain to a child who had made a mistake, "When a person moves, long hair and a flowing skirt complement each other, that's beauty. How can your ugly hair match my cake-like skirt... What do you say?"
Fang Tailai hates ghosts asking questions the most. If you go along with them, they're probably setting you up. If you talk back, they'll go berserk. If you don't answer, they'll grab you by the neck and force you to answer. They're even harder to please than the Empress Dowager. So she said sincerely, "The female ghost's hair is so long that it can trap people."
This was met with a few seconds of silence. Suddenly, a lace glove wrapped around her waist from behind: "Your waist is thick, and your legs are a bit thick too. Can you squeeze in? Don't stretch me!" The hand moved up, "Just put some of your flesh here. You can't fill out the places that need to be. How much do you weigh?"
Without her answering, a string of numbers suddenly appeared on the mirror at her feet, and the numbers in the other mirrors rose in sync; it turned out to be a scale.
If she weighs over 80 pounds, she's marked red. When she reaches 113 pounds, an alarm goes off in the entire corridor, as if something's on fire. The girls in the clothes startled, but there was only one loudspeaker, so it was a silent uproar. They relied entirely on physical gestures, so exaggerated that Fang Tailai felt like she was about to be plated and served as a main dish.
"You're not fair-skinned enough to begin with, and you're not tall either. If you don't work harder, what clothes will even look good on you?"
The loudspeaker then shifted to a tight-fitting, rhinestone-studded fishtail dress: "Your shoulders and neck aren't straight, and your feet seem a bit big..."
A pair of small-sized red-soled high heels clattered to her feet. Sure enough, they were a little too big. She turned away with a disdainful twitch of her stiletto heels and strode away again.
The crowd immediately sighed deeply. If this were a hospital, the diagnosis would already be "notify the family."
Fang Tailai looked them over again before he noticed the key point: these women's clothes were indeed "signature"—the chests were empty, but the shape was very full; the waists were very cinched, almost like corsets; if there were shoulders or sleeves, they would be straight and narrow, following the most beautiful curves; the skirts were very long, only tall people could carry them, otherwise they would drag on the ground; most of them were skirts, and if there were pants, the legs were also long and straight, all of them had figures like those in comic books.
She thought they were just nitpicking and was prepared to be labeled "unqualified" and thrown into the warehouse as raw materials. But instead, they gathered even closer and evaluated the clothesline several more times. The line hanging on the clothesline slowly extended, and all sorts of knives and scissors fell into their hands.
"The waist and legs definitely need to be shaved, the feet should be cut smaller, the spine straightened, some bone added under the shoulders to make the collarbones more prominent, the same goes for the joints of the hands and feet, wrist bones are needed for definition, oh right, the hands also need to be shaved, to make them 'slender hands', as for the chest and hips, add more flesh, if the shaved flesh isn't enough... isn't there another person in the room?"
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com