Chapter 53 "Other" Channel
Chapter 53 "Other" Channel
But at this moment, he suddenly thought of something!
He stared at the sign intently, and then before his whole body became limp and powerless, he pounced on it like crazy.
“Boom…”
He fell heavily to the ground, his body unable to even make one final leap!
But he grabbed the sign pole.
“I…I got it! I got it!!”
"Drink-"
He summoned up the last bit of his strength and dragged himself under the sign pole.
He held the pole tightly with one hand and reached into his pocket with the other hand!
After groping for a while, he finally found a thick booklet.
He tried hard to control his shaking hands, took the booklet out of his pocket, and then tremblingly opened the last part - the campus map.
Before his vision completely dimmed, he found the signboard and the location of the cafeteria on the map -
"That's right! That's right!! The cafeteria is right here! Right here!"
He slowly moved the map away from his eyes, as if he was scratching off the anti-counterfeit ink on a scratch-off ticket.
The scenery behind the sign reappeared before his eyes.
The cliff disappeared, and a square cafeteria lay quietly in the afterglow of the sunset.
The cafeteria is always there.
The cafeteria is always there.
And he was still holding onto the pole of the sign.
Lin Yi's tense body suddenly relaxed, and he felt that the heavy burden that had been pressing on him had instantly dissipated.
He let go of the pole and lay down on the cobblestone road. He looked at this normal, innately regular and logical world before him and breathed a long sigh of relief.
He gasped for breath, letting the air mixed with the fragrance of earth tell him that the crazy, depressing, and twisted world that was full of extreme malice towards him was nothing but an illusion!
That indescribable feeling of terror disappeared completely along with his gasp.
It was not until that feeling completely disappeared that he was absolutely certain that he was back, he was really back.
"I found it! I found it!"
"My idea is right! It's right!"
"References are relative. The distorted pebbles can no longer serve as a reference. The only real signboard that has never been distorted is the absolutely correct reference!"
Under Wei Liang's incomprehensible gaze, he covered his face and burst into laughter.
"Hahahahahaha..."
He laughed so hard that he tired himself.
Then, he saw the golden sky and yellow clouds. Under the clouds was Wei Liang's face, looking down at him with a look of deep confusion.
"Liang...zi?" He was stunned on the spot, and these two words popped out of his mouth.
Wei Liang looked down at him with a puzzled look on his face: "Ah, it's me, what the hell happened just now?"
"Uh... just now..." Lin Yi supported himself on the ground and sat up again. He took a deep breath, blew away the dust on the campus map, folded it carefully and put it at the end of the student code of conduct, and put it in his pocket.
Then, he looked at Wei Liang and said seriously: "You definitely don't want to know what I just went through."
He stood up, holding onto the pole of the sign.
Seeing Lin Yi's embarrassed and weird appearance and strange behavior, Wei Liang's expression changed from puzzlement to seriousness. After three seconds of keeping a serious expression, he finally shrugged his shoulders, frowned and asked with concern:
"Lao Lin, are you... okay?"
"What you did just now was very strange."
"Oh?" Lin Yi showed some curiosity about his behavior just now, "In your eyes, what did I do just now?"
Wei Liang wanted to say something naughty, but the atmosphere didn't allow it, so he said seriously: "You just fell behind me, and then inexplicably crashed into the sign."
"Your appearance scared me. If I hadn't reacted quickly and stopped, you would have taken half of my combo today."
Lin Yi's mouth twitched when he heard this: "Uh...was I like that just now? No, I mean...just like that?"
Wei Liang held his forehead and said speechlessly: "No way, what do you want? You don't even know what you are doing?"
Lin Yi lowered his eyes and looked at the cobblestone road under his feet.
The roads are normal.
He looked around again.
All around is normal.
"So...what happened just now?"
"Oh, never mind!" Wei Liang waved his hand, then punched his chest, interrupting his thoughts, "Let's eat!"
Wei Liang said as he walked to the shelf below the notice board, grabbed a copy of the cafeteria rules and put it in his pocket, then walked straight to the entrance to the student passage.
Lin Yi glanced at Wei Liang's back and his brows gradually furrowed.
He suddenly thought of something and looked down at his watch.
17: 20.
“Three minutes…”
He narrowed his eyes.
He didn't know if it was because he was teetering on the edge of madness and confusion, but he felt like he had just experienced an extremely long and obscure period of time.
But this period of time was only 3 minutes.
"It was too short..."
It was short and long, just like... eternity was cut into a slice, and he fell and sank in that slice.
……
X023年5月7日，17:21，食堂告示牌前。
Lin Yi took a copy of the cafeteria rules from the shelf near the notice board and put it in his trouser pocket. Then he stood there and looked at the cafeteria again carefully and seriously.
His expression was extremely focused and solemn, as if he wanted to imprint the appearance of the cafeteria into his soul.
After watching for more than ten seconds, he realized that he was really going to fall behind, so he quickly raised his feet to catch up with Wei Liang's back.
However, after he crossed the signboard and took a few steps, the vague feeling of resistance that he had almost forgotten came again like a devil's claw poking out from the shadows and gently scratched his body.
He stopped and turned his gaze back to the cafeteria.
He felt that this cafeteria...might be a little different for him.
In other words, his attitude towards the cafeteria has changed...
The cafeteria in the afterglow of sunset was stained with a thin layer of red, like a tower in the old times that had been baptized by weapons in wars and was rooted in a deep pit.
The woods surrounding the canteen were tinged with a faint red glow, as if they were planted with maple trees all over the mountain. The evening breeze drove the mist out of the woods and gradually poured towards the canteen.
"Hmm? This basement floor... is foggy?"
Lin Yi suddenly noticed that the underground first floor of the cafeteria had accumulated a layer of fog because it was built in a pit...
It was as if someone had pushed the fog out of the forest and forced it into the underground first floor. "Is it because of the geographical location?"
He narrowed his eyes, but his reason told him not to think about this problem from a "normal" perspective.
"Let's finish the meal first, and then discuss this issue with Mr. Tian in the evening." His intuition told him that in Tian Bufan's "cognition", there must be more secrets that he didn't know and that he urgently needed to know.
He then trotted after Wei Liang's back.
But he found that Wei Liang was standing not far from the entrance of the student passage, his eyes fixed on something not far ahead.
"Liangzi?"
With some experience, he did not pat Wei Liang on the shoulder, but called him first.
Wei Liang's body trembled, as if he was interrupted in the middle of his thoughts.
"Lao Lin, I'm fine." Wei Liang said.
"Ah? What happened to you just now?" Lin Yi asked back.
"Emm...it's okay, nothing happened." Wei Liang affirmed.
He paused, then shook his head and said, "Even if there is, it has nothing to do with us. You can see for yourself..."
Lin Yi immediately looked in the direction of Wei Liang's finger - he saw classmates in groups of three or four, with their heads huddled together and walking at a leisurely pace, into an unmarked passage.
Lin Yi's eyelids twitched fiercely: "Other passages?"
He immediately understood what Wei Liang meant and quickly retracted his gaze.
"I was careless. I should have walked with my head down like before!" Wei Liang muttered in a low voice, his tone full of regret. "I fucking saw a little more this time!"
Lin Yi didn't pay attention to what Wei Liang was muttering. The first thing that came to his mind was the content of the cafeteria rules:
[Students entering and exiting the cafeteria should use the student passage to the first-floor restaurant (there are clear student passage signs at the entrance and exit of the passage). Do not use the staff passage, and do not use passages without any signs.
If you find someone entering a passage other than the student passage and there is a security guard nearby, you can inform the security guard immediately or choose to ignore it. 】
At this time, it is undoubtedly better to choose to ignore it.
But when he turned his gaze back, he suddenly realized one, no, many problems.
First, while he was having lunch, he watched Xu Shunkang and Xie Huayang enter the cafeteria through another passage.
According to the gymnasium rules, he got another piece of information: sports students do not have student ID cards.
However, the sign in front of the cafeteria clearly states: [No entry to the cafeteria without a student ID! ]
and so……
"Athletes are actually the type of people who 'enter the cafeteria without a student ID'."
"Their behavior clearly violated the warnings on the sign, but... nothing happened to them!"
"This... does that mean that athletes don't have to follow the cafeteria rules?"
He remembered that Xu Shunkang had specifically emphasized before that he didn't need to take the canteen rules.
"Or... the students walking in the student passage are 'students', and the athletes are no longer 'students', but 'others', so they use the 'other passage' to enter the cafeteria?"
"Or... 'No entry to the cafeteria without a student ID', does it really mean 'Students are not allowed to enter the cafeteria without a student ID'?"
"Because only students have student ID cards."
"So the sports students don't follow the canteen rules, or rather, they follow a different set of rules for entering and leaving the canteen... maybe it's related to other passages."
"But……"
Those who just took other passages were not all athletes.
The sports students all wore the same blue and white striped sportswear, even the eldest one was no exception.
But those people just now... were obviously not wearing sportswear.
Lin Yi briefly recalled the appearance of those people and found that they indeed did not have the energy of athletes, and were somewhat different from the classmates who went to physical education class together.
They gave him a strange feeling, as if they were dull and numb from constantly thinking about problems, or as if they were in a trance from suffering some kind of blow.
Overall, they are clearly not normal.
He thought of the girl wearing a hairpin and a sailor suit that he saw at noon. He remembered that girl also took another passage.
And that girl... was one of the people who followed the fake female teacher away in the fog!
"They are not athletes, and they are not normal students, but they still need to go to the cafeteria to eat!"
"Can I eat in the cafeteria without a student ID?"
"Wait! So... people without student ID cards can enter the cafeteria through other passages, while 'students' with student ID cards enter the cafeteria through the 'student passage'!"
"Student ID! Student ID?"
Lin Yi suddenly thought of something, and a picture suddenly flashed through his mind. When he obtained his student ID and the building rules, his head teacher told him very seriously:
[“This is your student ID card. Remember to keep it safe. If you lose it, please come to me as soon as possible.”
"This booklet is the 'Teaching Building Rules'. You can take your time to read it when you get to the classroom."
"Remember, for your own safety, both the student rules and the building rules must be followed. Any time you encounter conflicting rules, use your own judgment based on your current identity and situation."
……
"You don't need to know my name, you just need to remember this badge and uniform."
"From now on, your homeroom teacher will not be me, but the person wearing this badge with the number 'Homeroom Teacher-B2-039'."
"And you, Lin Yi, you are not my student either. My student is the person holding the student ID in your hand."
"So remember my words. From now on, please keep your student ID card safe. You can talk about your student ID card with others, but never hand it over to anyone else."
"Do you understand?"]
It was not until this moment that he suddenly woke up and completely understood the meaning of the head teacher's words.
It was obvious that in this school, identity was not as simple as it seemed on paper - and certainly not as simple as he had initially predicted.
[The school will continue to provide you with corresponding assistance to solve your problem until you get your student ID card back or confirm that you cannot get it back. ]
During the seven-day trial period, Lin Yi will spend it as a "student". Once he loses his student ID, he will no longer be a "student" but... "someone else"!
Therefore, the three channels to enter the cafeteria actually correspond to three identities - normal students with student ID cards, "employees" with employee ID badges in the cafeteria or campus, and "others" who do not have any identification!
And “others”… this broad and vague concept seems terribly complicated.
Thinking of this, he couldn't help but recall the heavy echo coming from deep in the employee passage, the kind of echo that even Xu Shunkang seemed to be affected by.
Could it be that when a person whose identity does not match the passage arrives at the wrong entrance, it will cause such a horrible change?
"That's probably the case!"
Lin Yi recalled the appearance of the cafeteria auntie. In his preconceived impression, let alone the cafeteria auntie, even if it was King Kong Gourd Boy, he would probably be slapped in the face if he walked into the employee passage.
If it wasn't for a specific "identity" that could get certain protection in the corresponding occasions, he couldn't understand how the cafeteria auntie could enter such a scary employee passage.
Unless she's not human.
(End of this chapter)