Chapter 16: The Way to Survive

Chapter 16: The Way to Survive

Chapter 16: The Way to Survive
"What? Eliminate attention...? What does that mean?" Wei Liang's eyes widened with a question mark hanging on his forehead.

Lin Yi explained: "Just try to find a way to stop him from staring at me."

"Oh, that's what you mean!" Wei Liang said as if he suddenly understood something. "Now that you put it that way, I understand. Let's divert his attention!"

"Yes, that's what I mean." Lin Yi nodded and said, "You've been here before, have you ever encountered something similar? Or heard of similar rumors?"

"No." Wei Liang said without hesitation, paused, and added, "To be precise, even if there was, I would have pretended not to hear it... just like what happened just now."

Wei Liang's words made Lin Yi stunned for a moment, and then he immediately came to his senses. Wei Liang was pretending to be ignorant and had deceived himself.

"But can we complete the seven-day experience just by doing this?"

Wei Liang shook his head and said helplessly: "So even though I really want to help, I can't do anything about it."

"but……"

"But what?"

"But if you really want to think about the problem, you can try it." Wei Liang stared at Lin Yi and said very seriously.

"Hmm?" Lin Yi narrowed his eyes, "What do you mean?"

Wei Liang smiled mysteriously: "When you were thinking about problems before, didn't you fall asleep? So I can keep an eye on you, and if I find that you show signs of dozing off, I will wake you up quickly."

"how are you feeling?"

"I can't understand how you feel when you're being stared at, but I think you feel really bad..."

"If you really feel like you're in a desperate situation, would you like to... give it a try?"

"This..." Lin Yi hesitated, then said frankly, "If I try, will I... die?"

Wei Liang did not evade the question, but said seriously: "If he wakes up, it's fine. If he doesn't wake up, he will die."

"The key now is that you've been targeted by that person. Once the lights in the classroom go out again, it's hard to say what will happen."

Lin Yi was silent.

The air suddenly became quiet, and Wei Liang did not urge anyone. The only sound in the silent classroom was the sound of the incandescent lamp hanging from the ceiling swinging under the long iron chain.

Lin Yi stroked his watch, closed his eyes, and took a few deep breaths.

There were gusts of wind outside the window, fine raindrops hit the window, and the cold air spread into white mist.

The rustling sound of the quartz watch's hands ticked along with Lin Yi's breathing.

On one side are students whose ability to act depends on the environment and whose behavior patterns are still unpredictable;
On the other hand, once you think deeply, you will feel an indescribable feeling of being pulled into the abyss...

It seems that there are problems with both paths!

Lin Yi suddenly felt as if he was racking his brains to choose a way to die.

Obviously... neither of these two options is what he wants.

If he wanted to survive and get the 30,000 yuan experience bonus to subsidize his grandmother's medical expenses, he couldn't take any risks, especially fighting such an unknown and hopeless battle.

"All the thoughts I had before were unintentional, so I was able to withdraw from them in time with Wei Liang's help."

"If you think proactively, will you cross the red line of the rules in this environment?"

Everything is unknown.

"The only way to solve the problem is to follow the rules. Complying with the rules is the only way to protect yourself!"

"Although the process just now was extremely dangerous, in the end, it was because I followed the rules that I escaped."

"Once you break the rules, the consequences are unimaginable."

Lin Yi let out a long breath, opened his eyes, and under Wei Liang's expectant gaze, he shook his head and denied it:

"Forget it. I can't afford the gamble."

"This is not a game. If something goes wrong, we, no, I don't have the chance to reload the game."

"Then I have no other choice." Wei Liang felt both regretful and happy. "But I believe you can find a solution yourself. Come on!"

"Yeah." Lin Yi nodded.

Wei Liang consoled him, "Besides, the lights in the classroom may not go out until dawn, right?"

"You can talk..." Lin Yi said helplessly.

Wei Liang always spoke in line with his decision. One second he had the feeling that he would fight tooth and nail and be reborn as a new person if he failed, and the next second he was comforting him seriously...

"Ryoko can only play in a favorable situation..."

Lin Yi gave up the idea of ​​seeking decisive opinion from Wei Liang.

He glanced at his watch.

23: 55.

Five minutes to midnight.

0:00 is a very delicate time point. Especially in a strange environment, it is easy to make people think of metaphysical rules such as not looking in the mirror.

The more something is wrong with a place, the more likely it is to have an aura of horror.

Invisibly, Lin Yi also felt a double sense of oppression from time and classmates.

"Lao Lin, I can't do this. I'm a little sleepy. I need to read a book to refresh myself. Tell me if you have anything to say. Don't do it alone." Wei Liang reminded him and then flipped through the comic book in his hand.

Lin Yi nodded and said nothing.

"First of all, let me make sure of one thing... it's okay to think about problems, but you can't think about things that are 'unreasonable'..."

"Especially problems that conflict with all the rules I know."

"So... I have to find out the reason why that classmate is focusing on me within the scope of the rules, and I have to find a way to resolve this crisis before things get worse."

Lin Yi recited the student rules one by one in his mind, looking for all the contents related to the teaching building...

In the end, he found only one rule, which was the last one:
[Please pay attention to your physical health. If you find yourself experiencing symptoms such as dizziness, blurred vision, nausea, etc. during school, please find the dormitory manager or class teacher before staying overnight. He will take you to the infirmary, and the school doctor will take you to the school gate. ]

But the building rules also state:
[After 21:00, you are not allowed to leave the classroom. Please study on your own until 7:40 the next day. During this period, if you see anything unusual outside the window or someone calls you outside the door, please ignore it. ]

"Another conflict between the rules...?"

At times like this, he couldn't help but want to understand the connection between the rules, but having suffered losses several times, he decisively chose to prioritize compliance with the teaching building rules based on his current location - the teaching building.

But apart from that, he couldn't find any other rules from the official side, that is, the school.

All that was left for reference were the class teacher's few words and the brief few minutes of conversation with Xu Shunkang and Xie Huayang.

"There are two key points in Xu Shunkang's words. The first is to follow the rules, and the second is not to think..."

"I already understand the meaning of your words about following the rules, and as for not thinking, it should be what I understand as not thinking about 'problematic things'..."

"There is obviously nothing wrong with thinking like this. Xu Shunkang didn't explain it clearly in order to avoid leading me to think in a certain way..."

Just like when A is talking normally, he keeps emphasizing in a negative way that B should not buy a blue pen, but in the end B buys a blue pen.

If you want B not to buy a blue pen, the easiest way is to not even tell B about the blue pen.

Xu Shunkang's approach is similar.

If you don’t have time to explain something, just don’t explain it, so that people won’t think too much because they have heard too much, which may lead to unexpected events. “Then there is the words of the homeroom teacher… The most important point in the homeroom teacher’s words is actually “ignore”.”

Ignoring seems simple, but it is actually very difficult to do. People like Wei Liang were able to do it because they put their talents into those tricks.

"So, if we combine the limited clues together, what we get is—"

"Don't think about it, ignore reality in your actions... and follow the emergency rules when something unexpected happens, and you can get a "safe" environment!"

When he came to this conclusion, Lin Yi suddenly looked at Wei Liang who was reading the comics with great interest beside him, and a capital letter "服" slowly rose from the bottom of his heart.

"This is... isn't this what Liangzi does?"

Wei Liang's subconscious reaction was exactly the same as the survival method that Lin Yi figured out after unraveling the mystery!
Chang Wei, you still say you don't know martial arts?!

Wei Liang felt Lin Yi's burning gaze and trembled subconsciously.

"What's wrong, Lao Lin? The look in your eyes makes me feel uneasy..." He shrank his neck.

"Nothing..." Lin Yi said.

"Is Ryoko really very wise but appears foolish... or is she really very wise but appears foolish? Is this really such a coincidence?"

"But, I always feel like something is not right..."

Lin Yi felt that the phenomenon was like this, but the principle was not like this. There should be some kind of logic in it, and he was just going around the surface.

He wanted to think deeply, but he felt that if he did so even a little bit, that strange and indescribable sense of terror would invade his will, and then... induce him to think deeply!
Can't think too much...

He clearly had to keep thinking, but there seemed to be a shackle within the range of thinking, forcing him to reason only within a limited range and not be able to think beyond the limit.

"Oh shit."

Lin Yi shook his head slightly, unwilling to give up the half-baked conclusion he had drawn. He reapplied the entire incident after the lights flashed in the classroom, and simply reviewed the situation to see if he could find the reason why he was targeted.

At this moment, Lin Yi suddenly discovered that the light and shadow in the classroom flickered again.

"?!!" Lin Yi's heart skipped a beat and he quickly raised his head to look at the ceiling.

But this time he stared at the ceiling for a full half minute, and still didn't notice any of the incandescent lamps flickering.

Just when he was feeling confused, the light in the classroom flickered again!
His pupils shrank suddenly, and he reacted instantly: "It's not the lights in the classroom that are flashing! It's... the corridor!"

He turned his head and looked towards the corridor, and sure enough, the lights in the corridor were flickering at a strange frequency.

"How many lights would have to flicker at the same time to affect the light in the classroom?"

Just when Lin Yi felt frightened, a slight wave passed through the wall tiles of the classroom and reached the soles of his feet.

In the water dispenser behind the circular lecture hall, a slight ripple also appeared on the water surface.

“Boom…”

“Boom…”

“Boom…”

It seemed like something was colliding outside. Every collision would cause the entire classroom to tremble slightly, and the incandescent lights in the corridor would also jump.

He looked at the classroom window. Because of the temperature difference between inside and outside, a layer of white vapor covered the window glass.

Through the vapor, he could only see a gray mass. Under the light from the corridor, the thick fog slapped against the window glass like surging waves.

The whole classroom became more and more like a ship sailing in the deep sea fog on a stormy night, and it seemed that it would capsize at any time.

Suddenly, he saw something standing up from the mist, and the light from the corridor cast its shadow on the vapor-filled glass.

Suddenly, the rules of the student code came to his mind:
[During this period, if you hear any unusual noises or see any unusual figures outside the window, please ignore them, especially if they are calling you outside the dormitory or classroom. ]

He quickly withdrew his gaze and buried his head in reading the comic book at hand.

He flipped through the pages casually, but his mind couldn't help but recall the scenes he had seen before.

The shadow seemed to be formed by some creatures fighting each other, and the "dong dong dong" sound was very much like the sound of stones hitting each other.

Every time the sound of collision sounded, it seemed to spread out like a shock wave...

"Old Lin, you hold the book upside down." Wei Liang's voice rang in his ears.

Lin Yi was stunned for a moment, then suddenly came back to his senses.

Wei Liang's voice continued to ring in my ears: "Alas, this is in the mountains outside the suburbs after all. It is normal to have some small rolling stones in abnormal weather. Just don't think too much about it."

"Rolling...stone?"

"The kind of tremor just now was just a rock rolling in the mountain. Don't think too much about it. The night is long and the only things to keep you company are comics. Let's read a book!" Wei Liang said.

Lin Yi thought about it for a while before he finally understood what Wei Liang meant.

His expression became serious and he immediately straightened the comic book in front of him. He stopped thinking about the situation outside the classroom and slowly began to flip through the pages.

At this moment, Wei Liang pushed a book in front of Lin Yi and said seriously:

"Your copy of 'Dragon x Tiger Fight' is not the first volume. The plot will be very uncomfortable to read. Come on, try mine. I just finished reading the first volume, so I'll give it to you..."

Lin Yi took it and looked at it. The cover of the book was a nurse posing seductively...

His eyebrows raised slightly and he looked at the title of the book.

"Night Ward (Hardcover Edition)".

“Night in the Ward tells a pure love story between a patient and a nurse. Although the painting style is old, it looks good. The most important thing is that it allows you to put aside your worries and immerse yourself in the story... The most important thing is that this is a hardcover edition.”

Lin Yi opened it doubtfully, the corner of his mouth twitched, and he said hesitantly: "H comics...?"

Wei Liang said disdainfully, "You are looking at it with tinted glasses. This kind of comics should be viewed dialectically. We should start from the painting style and plot to think about what kind of philosophical ideas the author is expressing through such a story, etc., okay?"

“Rather than being obsessed with the picture itself.”

"Forget it. You won't understand even if I tell you this. Just flip through it casually!"

After Wei Liang finished speaking, he lowered his head and started reading again.

Lin Yi was stunned, nodded, and watched silently...

Not long after he flipped through the book "Night Ward", he was affected by the flickering lights and the shaking ground in the corridor.

A fierce battle seemed to have broken out outside the classroom, and powerful shock waves hit the classroom like ocean waves.

“Swish! Swish! Swish! Swish…”

In the classroom, those strange classmates seemed to sense something. At the same time and with the same action, they turned their heads in unison and focused their gazes on the window glass.

X023年5月7日，0:08，B组2班。

Outside the classroom, terrifying figures were tumbling in the fog, and the terrible shock waves seemed to destroy everything.

In the classroom, more than thirty strange classmates were staring at the shadows on the window like puppets, with a different light flowing in the depths of their empty eyes.

Desire, obsession, madness, or...

fear!

(End of this chapter)