Chapter 63, "The Old School Days," was meant to let everyone know about this classmate...
The school building, which originally only had a few haunted spots, suddenly had a large number of people, bustling about. Students could be seen in the classrooms and corridors. Some students were leaving school with their backpacks, while the remaining students were studying, resting, eating snacks, and gossiping. The midnight campus suddenly had a lively atmosphere, which made it even stranger.
Xue Chao pointed to the moon in the sky: "Is it night now?"
“Junior high and senior high students get out of school very late, so it’s not surprising to see the moon.” Jiang Ming yawned. “But I think it’s intentional, to create a scarier atmosphere. The first two episodes were during the day, at most at dusk, and I’m tired of them… What, are you afraid of the dark?”
Xue Chao ignored him, but Jiang Ming was sometimes annoyingly perceptive. He seemed to be able to hear the soul's self-talk in any silence: "I feel like you quite like this sky."
"Without stars, it's not so annoying to look at."
Jiang Ming smiled and agreed, "It would be even better if the moon wasn't there either."
With their good composure, they naturally blended into the crowd. Passing students curiously peeked at the handsome guys they'd never seen before, wondering if they were celebrities recording a TV show.
Xue Chao was also observing them. The students wore blue and white school uniforms with the school emblem of "Ninth Middle School" embroidered on their chests. Their heads were surprisingly uniform, all wearing white full-face masks with a texture like stone masks, but with human eyebrows that were clearly defined and softly attached to the polished mask. The noses were sculpted according to the material, and the positions of the eyes and lips were hollowed out.
Listening to their conversation, it was revealed that there would be extra tutoring after school. Some students did not participate, and class would start in ten minutes. However, after searching through all the classes, they could not find any information about the existence of "Deng Dayun".
Jiang Ming complained of being tired after searching two classrooms. When the other two returned from the left and right sides after searching, he immediately collapsed against the screen window, pretending to be out of breath: "Are you really a student here?"
Deng Dayun glanced at Xue Chao with a meaningful look. Xue Chao knew that he suspected that this was the timeline after "Deng Dayun" died, so there was no trace of him. However, Xue Chao did not think so. He pointed to a classroom at the end of the line: "Class 2, Grade 2, let's go."
"What's wrong with that classroom..." Jiang Ming, who was the first to walk into the classroom, immediately understood. There were more students left in Class 2 of the second year than in other classes, as well as other students who were not wearing the Ninth Middle School uniform. Among the white masked heads, the book head sitting on the far left and the rose head on the far right were very conspicuous.
Although not the main character of the episode, he is still a player in the dungeon, and sitting in this classroom, how could this not be a "film set"?
The rose-shaped head kept staring at the book-shaped head, ignoring everyone else. But as soon as Xue Chao entered, her "gaze" immediately shifted to him, following his every step.
Masters probably all have this quirk: when someone they look down on turns the tables on them, their squint suddenly disappears, and they can look people straight in the eye again. Then they become extremely focused, as if being remembered and then dying is an honor.
Xue Chao nodded politely, and Jiang Ming asked in surprise, "You didn't recognize her?"
"I know, Divine Weapon."
"Keep your voice down, she heard everything... she's practically burning you with glare."
"She has no eyes."
"Too."
"Now she wants to scald us both to death."
They chatted back and forth in front of him, displaying the same annoyingly relaxed attitude. Deng Dayun was already familiar with their nerves. As soon as he entered, he went to his desk. The group always had to get down to business and follow the main storyline.
Jiang Ming wasn't a student at No. 9 Middle School, nor was he there for tutoring. His persona didn't allow him to have that kind of spare money, so he went out and brought back a box of snacks and drinks. He started selling them whenever he had a spare moment, and sure enough, they were popular. He was immediately surrounded by his classmates.
Xue Chao grabbed a handful of books and bribed the girl's deskmate, who quickly left to chat with her friends. Xue Chao sat down next to the girl and watched her take notes: "English class, what are you doing here, you're from another school?"
The girl opened her book, and neat handwriting appeared on the clean notebook paper. At the same time, Pu Fengchun's voice rang out: "The homeroom teacher of this class teaches English. He's very good. Many students from other schools also seek his tutoring."
Xue Chao understood: "Your mother is just full of energy... Do you know anything about that Red Rose?"
Pu Fengchun glanced at him and said, "They came for tutoring right after me."
"Sent by your parents?"
"He came by himself, and he kept staring at me, but I didn't dare to look at him for long."
"Is she really a student taking extra classes? She didn't even bring her books; there was only a Hello Kitty makeup mirror and lipstick on the table."
Her attire was also different. While the other students wore loose-fitting school uniforms, she wore a white blouse with a sleeveless knitted sweater, a brown pleated skirt, carefully gathered white lace socks at her ankles, and a pair of shiny little leather shoes. Her outfit was the kind of "student uniform" that only existed in beauty videos.
"The class monitor didn't point out any problems with her when checking the list."
"That's the persona you've created."
The red rose head stared at them. Pu Fengchun was nervous at first, but after being stared at for a while, he gave up. Xue Chao took it as the other party admiring his handsome appearance and ignored such "audiences". He looked thoughtfully at Deng Dayun, who was standing awkwardly in place.
Deng Dayun couldn't find his desk.
Pu Fengchun gestured for him to remind him: "You can sit anywhere during tutoring time, after all, there are people like us from outside the school here."
Xue Chao, however, was not optimistic: "He should be a student from Class Two."
He stopped the class monitor and traded a dozen bottles of sweet milk for the list. Deng Dayun's name was not on it, but strangely, the names were sorted alphabetically by last name, and there was a blank line in the "D" section, which was very abrupt.
There was indeed a student here, but their existence has been erased.
It wasn't that we wanted to hide this student's existence, but rather to let everyone know that this student "didn't exist."
The preparatory bell rang, and the students hurriedly returned to their seats. Jiang Ming used all his remaining supplies to bribe the class monitor, who turned a blind eye to his "unregistered" status. He happily squeezed into the empty seat behind Xue Chao, but before he could utter a witty remark, Xue Chao glanced at him and said, "You already have a seat..."
Jiang Ming: "?"
He immediately felt wronged and followed Xue Chao's gaze with a resentful look. All the students returned to their places, and Deng Dayun, who was lingering in the aisle, became noticeable even though he was usually inconspicuous.
When the official bell rang, the teacher would enter the room. Even if Deng Dayun was as slow as a mule, he would know to first find a seat at random and ask, "Hello, classmate, may I sit next to you?"
The student remained unmoved, his face blank, and continued tidying his desk.
Deng Dayun was embarrassed and had to ask someone else. Just as he finished asking, another student's mask head fell off and took over the chair next to him. When it broke, blood splattered from the cavity, staining Deng Dayun's face red. He was instantly stunned.
"..." After being repeatedly rejected, he learned his lesson and didn't ask any questions. Once he confirmed that there was an empty seat, he sat down directly. However, the chair disappeared out of thin air, and he fell heavily to the ground. His knee hit the corner of the table, and he curled up like a shrimp in pain.
The students who had completely ignored him from beginning to end seemed to suddenly notice that there was such a person. The white masked head turned in all directions, and suddenly, pairs of soft human lips grew out of all the positions of the eyes, nose, lips and other facial features, embedded in the mask, curving into a "smile".
With their mouths agape, they burst into a cacophony of laughter.
After laughing, they each turned back, their lips disappearing one after another, as if they had never existed.
Deng Dayun lowered his head and slowly got up. A pair of long legs encased in black casual pants passed by him. He heard the man ask lazily with a smile, "Excuse me, is anyone using this set of desks and chairs?"
Being handsome is convenient, but the girl was a little shy: "No one's here, you can sit down..."
"Thanks." Xue Chao picked up the table and chairs and left, neatly placing them behind the last row by the window, clearing a separate row for Deng Dayun. "Aren't you coming over? Shall I carry you up?"
Deng Dayun silently followed, wanting to take the table and chairs, but Xue Chao glanced at him, causing his hand to freeze and retract. The girl realized that the table and chairs were for Deng Dayun to use. Suddenly, pairs of human eyes opened on the hollowed-out features of the masked head, staring at Xue Chao as if he were an ungrateful freak.
The other students also opened their eyes wide, all their gazes converging on Xue Chao, as if it were an ultimatum, a rule that was unseen and untouchable in this classroom.
Is this some kind of rule-based ghost story?
The players were watching the show, and Jiang Ming was the most entertained, but he seemed reluctant to let it go and reminded them, "They mean they won't lend it to you."
Xue Chao leaned against the table and chair, his curly hair falling slightly in front of him: "Then I can only sit on the podium. As for your teacher, as long as he doesn't mind, that's fine."
The whole class: "..."
Jiang Ming smiled helplessly.
All the students' eyes disappeared as they went back to their own business. The girl who borrowed the desk and chair glanced at him, as if she had no idea there was a set of desk and chair next to her. Pu Fengchun's deskmate naturally returned to his seat. A boy went to the cabinet at the back to find a book and walked straight toward Xue Chao. Xue Chao did not avoid him and saw the boy pass through his body as if he were passing through a sheet of air.
He ceased to exist in their eyes, becoming a second ghost.
Rose raised her head, wanting to see his joke more clearly, only to see Xue Chao calmly dragging a chair over the back door and sitting down next to Deng Dayun, covering his face with his coat and resting.
Xue Chao was naturally relieved. Being blocked by everyone, no one cared that he didn't have a tutoring spot. He still hadn't found his identity in the third unit, and was even more of an "unregistered resident" than Jiang Ming. He was just thinking about how to deal with it, but now he didn't have to worry. He could openly sleep and no one would care.
Deng Dayun sat down in silence. The empty desk was like a key prop that triggered the plot. It reloaded, and the desktop showed deep and shallow engravings, cheat sheets left by senior students over the years, wild scribbles, and ink splatters. There was also a stack of books and notes in the desk, as well as a pencil case.
He pulled out an English book; the cover had his name on it, just like his handwriting. The characters were loosely structured, sometimes with a large top and a small bottom, and sometimes with the radicals separated. It looked more like drawing than writing.
Deng Dayun did indeed love to draw; the gaps in the book were filled with his drawings of little people... ghosts, eyeballs, phantoms, thin ghosts, etc., with dark lines and messy ink blots. His hobby was quite niche.
The English teacher, with a bee-like megaphone head, entered the room as the bell rang and began the lesson. Deng Dayun was flipping through a book when his hand suddenly stung. There was a cut on his hand, and blood was flowing down a white line that had appeared on the desk at some unknown time. The desk was split in two by the white line.
His hand tentatively crossed the line, leaving another wound. A muffled laugh came from ahead. When he laughed, laughter echoed around him. A circle of people grew fresh, red flesh from the stone sculpture, opening and closing repeatedly. The arcs they rose were not like smiles, but like scimitars.
The boy burst out laughing, revealing a deformed desk. The desk gradually changed shape from a round piece of wood until the edge became a sharpened blade, dripping blood.
Deng Dayun knew where he was really sitting; the boy in front of him was his deskmate.
Their desks were supposed to be side by side; the white line was drawn by their "good deskmate" as a dividing line.
The teacher asked questions, starting with the students at the door, and the first round was about classroom knowledge. When it was almost Deng Dayun's turn, he had just stood up when the next student stood up to answer. The teacher nodded and then explained, and everyone on and off the stage tacitly skipped him.
Deng Dayun sat down with his head down. The second round of reviewing the test paper assigned yesterday was underway. Deng Dayun searched through his desk but couldn't find it. When he looked up, he saw the test paper pasted onto the head of another boy's mask, perfectly integrated with the stone sculpture, like a specially made pattern on the mask, with his name written on the corner.
He suddenly had a bad feeling. Sure enough, it was his turn this time. The next student did not stand up. The teacher waited for a moment and asked, "Whose turn is it?" Everyone, including the teacher, looked at Deng Dayun with wide eyes.
The gazes from all directions seemed tangible, like a net covering the sky and the earth. For a moment, Deng Dayun felt those eyes breathing, exhaling and inhaling onto his face, clogging all his pores. The unease, anxiety, fear, and other emotions were trapped in his closed shell, burning his gloomy face red, revealing a charcoal-like ashes.
This feeling... is like when he entered the first instance, the unseen camera was like the eyes of a god three feet above his head, coldly recording and scrutinizing from above, and then the "kind" host pulled him to look at the camera and told him that behind this merciless eye, there were more merciless eyes watching his every move, "expecting" his joys and sorrows.
He stiffly lowered his head, trying to avoid the omnipresent eyes, but the white line on the table suddenly cracked, and a huge human eye that had grown into the wooden table stared straight at him, engulfing him in a chilling gaze.
The moon happened to hide behind the clouds, and the classroom lights gradually dimmed.
"..." Deng Dayun stood up with a forced smile. "Teacher, I'm sorry, I..."
"Who are you talking to?" Xue Chao pulled down his coat, looked at him suspiciously, then glanced around as if ignoring nothing in the air, before finally looking back at him like a lunatic. "What are you standing there for?"
Deng Dayun was interrupted, and his mind, which was deeply immersed in fear, slightly snapped out of its daze. He was a little confused: "Uh, the teacher called on me to answer a question..."
"...Where's the teacher? There are only the two of us in the room."
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