Chapter 124
A ‘click’ sound.
Lin Yi opened the door.
If he and Cheng Yang hadn’t left the classroom early that morning, they would have heard the discussions among participants during the breaks between classes; discussions about the scratching on the door they’d heard last night.
Among them, the one who’d heard it most clearly was Zeng Nannan. Zeng Nannan described the sound as harsh and sharp, as if it were rubbing against a person’s tense nerves.
As soon as the door of Room 203 opened a crack, the sound from outside came rushing in.
The corridor was lit only by a few lamps casting dim yellow light. The bulbs must have been in use for many years and they seemed about to go out. Though obviously on, they didn’t illuminate anything at all.
Lin Yi looked towards Room 202. At this time, the figure blocking the outside of Room 202 was indeed a cat, or rather, cats.
They were piled atop each other. Lin Yi glanced at them but as they were all clumped together, he couldn’t tell how many they were.
He hadn’t made any effort to muffle the sound of the door opening. On the contrary, he’d even deliberately made noise but the cats didn’t even turn to look towards him. They were concentrated on scratching the door of Room 202, as if the door was a special scratching post just for them.
Lin Yi had only taken a glance but a strange feeling flashed in his heart.
There was something wrong with these cats but for the time being, Lin Yi couldn’t tell what the problem was. He just felt like these cats were missing something; just like he always felt that Baoxiang Secondary School was missing something.
But this wasn’t the time to stop and think about this matter. He still had things to do. Cheng Yang was still counting on him to save his life. He didn’t dare dally for too long.
Lin Yi pushed down the doubts in his heart, turned around and ran towards the corridor.
He ran very fast; crossing four to five meters in just a couple of steps. The cats were still scratching the door, so that thing probably hadn’t come yet. He still had time to save Cheng Yang, although this time was running out.
He rushed down the corridor and the sensor lights in the corridor lit up one after another as he ran at full speed, his shadow spreading on the floor.
Soon, Lin Yi got to the end of the corridor. What was left was the distance from the corridor to the public toilet on the first floor. He was so focused on rescuing Cheng Yang that he spent almost no time traversing this distance.
‘Boom!’
Lin Yi pushed open the door of the public toilet and finally breathed a sigh of relief when he saw the litter on the floor.
On the floor of the public restroom lay the scratched up pieces of the parcel.
Because they had ignored the fact that cats scratch open the packages, they only flushed the note down the sewer and threw the package box into trash can.
The note had been sealed in the package and so naturally, the inner walls of the box were also stained with smell.
The cats were still able to follow the smell to the package box they’d thrown away and from that, obtain Cheng Yang’s scent and then lead the way for that thing to Cheng Yang.
We’re sorry for MTLers or people who like using reading mode, but our translations keep getting stolen by aggregators so we’re going to bring back the copy protection. If you need to MTL please retype the gibberish parts.
Lin Yi bent down and picked up the parcel’s torn up fragments off the ground.
Olxf atf ogjuwfcar bo Wlj Lel’r qjmxjuf atja tf’v qlmxfv eq, atfgf kjr yibbv bc atf lccfg rlvf bo atfrf mjgvybjgv ogjuwfcar.
Olc Tl ygbeuta atf qlfmf bo mjgvybjgv ab tlr cbrf jcv abbx j rcloo. Pa kjr atf rwfii bo qjlca jcv yibbv wlzfv abufatfg.
Rbk tf xcfk kts atf qjmxjuf rwfiifv bo qjlca. Sjmt bo atfw tjv atflg cjwf kglaafc lc qjlca bc atf vbbg bo atflg vbgw gbbwr. Ktf ecldef rwfii mbcajlcfv lc atf qjmxjuf mjwf ogbw atf qjlca bc atflg vbgw gbbw vbbg.
“I hope it’s not too late.” Lin Yi murmured.
Without hesitation, he rubbed the parcel’s fragments against his hands, his arms, and his calves. Once done, he didn’t throw away the fragments but stuffed them into his pockets.
After doing so, Lin Yi looked up at the exhaust fan fitted on the upper wall of the public toilet.
He locked the door of the public toilet, then walked to the cubicle closest to the exhaust fan. He placed his hands on the cubicle wall and with a slight pull, he rolled over to the top of the cubicle and sat down.
The wooden boards used to make the partitions were not of good quality and Lin Yi heard the board squeak when he sat on it.
He leaned back so that his arms could be propped back onto another cubicle board. This way, his weight would be distributed and thus prevent him from falling.
After bracing himself, Lin Yi looked at the position of the exhaust fan. He gathered strength and then sent it several kicks.
‘Bang, bang, bang.’
All the facilities here were very old. The exhaust fan could not withstand Lin Yi’s kicks and it was sent flying out of the toilet.
With the exhaust fan kicked away, Lin Yi looked at the resulting hole.
His plan was to climb from the public toilet to the second floor. He was now contaminated with Cheng Yang’s scent. If he returned the same way, he might just run into that thing. If they met head-on, if that thing has eyes, it would immediately recognize that he was not Cheng Yang.
If Lin Yi made his way from here, he only had to climb a few windowsills to reach Room 202. He would then have Cheng Yang go to Room 204. That morning, they had gone to check the door of Room 204. That door was locked and they had been in the dormitory all day. Lin Yi found that the mailroom auntie, unlike the old dorm manager in the 7-7 Rule World, wasn’t tasked with helping the students clean their dorm rooms.
In other words, Xia Hui’s body was still in Room 204.
In the 8-4 Rule World, it was now midsummer. During the height of summer, it would take only about a month for the soft tissues of a corpse to liquefy and disappear, leaving only the bones. Putrescent abdominal distension will appear about 12 hours after death and a putrid vascular network will appear about a day after death, which means that hair would fall out and blisters would appear on the body.
Xia Hui had died last night. After a day, the body must have started to decompose.
Baoxiang Secondary School was a rural school. Flies and mosquitoes were undoubtedly more prevalent here than in the city. If Xia Hui’s body was damaged by flies, the time of putrefaction will be shortened. Not to mention that the body had been dismembered and with the increased surface area from the smaller pieces, the time for it to turn rancid would only go faster.
Cats have a good sense of smell but that meant they couldn’t stand irritating smells.
The putrid smell of Xia Hui’s body could well cover up Cheng Yang’s scent.
With this in mind, Lin Yi did not prolong his stay in the public toilet. He first sent his legs out through the bare window so that he could land easily. With his legs now out, he kept his upward posture and prepared to let his body slip through.
Halfway through, a scratching sound came from the public toilet’s door.
There was that ‘chichi’ sound that he’d been hearing the past two days.
A cat has come upon the scent.
But what made Lin Yi speed up and hurry out was——
‘Thud thud.’
‘Thud thud thud.’
‘Thud thud thud.’
That thing has come.
Listening to the sound, it seemed to have followed the cat to the public toilet.
Just before Lin Yi made it out, he heard the sound of the door handle being pressed down. Luckily, he had locked the door earlier.
The thing outside the door realized it was locked and started knocking.
‘Dun dun dun’
‘Dun dun dun’
After knocking a few times, it stopped.
The public toilet fell into an eerie silence.
Lin Yi knew that this was a ploy. That thing was trying to create the illusion that it had left, waiting for Lin Yi to relax his vigilance before suddenly breaking its way in. He hurried and with a single slide, he got out of the public toilet. After he got out, without pausing for breath, he quickly climbed over from the first floor to the second floor by grasping hold of a window sill.
Room 205 was above the public toilet. Lin Yi climbed up.
Zeng Nannan in Room 205 heard the noise and looked out the window. When she saw Lin Yi, she was momentarily startled. She thought back to how Lin Yi and Cheng Yang had helped her and so, although she didn’t know what was happening now, she reckoned that something must have happened for Lin Yi appear here now.
Zeng Nannan made to open the window to let Lin Yi in.
Lin Yi saw what Zeng Nannan intended to do and immediately shook his head.
He now smelled like Cheng Yang. Lin Yi couldn’t guarantee whether that thing wouldn’t go on a killing spree just based on this smell. If Zeng Nannan opened the window, the smell might be transmitted to Zeng Nannan.
Zeng Nannan stopped and looked at him nervously and fearfully.
Lin Yi didn’t have time to explain anything to her. He had just gotten his foot on the window sill. He carefully hoisted his body up.
He walked to Room 202 very carefully. It didn’t matter if he went a little slower at this time. That thing was still in the public toilet anyway. He just had to make sure he doesn’t fall, otherwise it would only waste more time.
Between Room 205 to Room 202 were still Rooms 204 and 203.
Lin Yi moved slowly and when he reached Room 204, he turned his head and glanced inside to make sure that the method he had envisioned of using the rotting corpse to cover up the smell could be implemented.
With this glance, Lin Yi’s heart suddenly froze.
He even had to stop to calm his heart, which had begun beating violently.
But not daring to delay for too long, Lin Yi withdrew his gaze and continued to Room 202. He passed Room 203.
He hadn’t closed the door when he left Room 203. Through the light in the corridor, he saw those black cats jumping past from time to time.
He continued walking to Room 202. When he arrived at his destination, Lin Yi knocked on the window with one hand to attract Cheng Yang’s attention and pushed the window open with the other.
“Cheng Yang.” Lin Yi knew that Cheng Yang wouldn’t have the courage to look around even if he’d heard the knocking on the window. And so he called out softly. This would save time changing rooms. He could avoid having to push aside the desk and chair to get Cheng Yang out from under the bed.
Hearing Lin Yi’s voice, Cheng Yang raised his head and looked at him.
The two of them had agreed before that if anything happened, they would exchange rooms.
Cheng Yang kept repeating in his mind, ‘it’s over, it’s over’.
Even Lin Yi couldn’t hold on anymore.
But even though he was afraid, he pushed away the desk and chair, got up from under the bed and came to the window.
Just as Cheng Yang approached the window, Lin Yi opened the window fully.
He jumped into Room 202 and said quickly, “Go to Room 204 immediately.”
Afraid that Cheng Yang might confuse the room number, Lin Yi added, “Xia Hui’s room.”
Although he didn’t know why Lin Yi asked him to go to Xia Hui’s room, given the tense situation, he didn’t have the luxury of asking for clarifications nor did it allow him to wallow in the thought that Xia Hui had died there.
Cheng Yang just said “oh” and climbed out the window.
Lin Yi supported him behind him, helping Cheng Yang leave here faster.
Once Cheng Yang was out, Lin Yi was was going to close the window.
He was worried that the thing and the black cat would have broken open the door of the public toilet by now. If he could get out through the gap left by the exhaust fan, even if the thing couldn’t, the cat could certainly do so and cat would certainly even be more agile than him.
Seeing that Lin Yi wanted to stay in Room 202, Cheng Yang held the window with one hand. “You want to stay here?”
“Yes, we don’t have time for questions. I know what I’m doing.” Lin Yi asked Cheng Yang to leave quickly. Cheng Yang didn’t dare to ask any more questions and made to head to Room 204. He believed Lin Yi. Since Lin Yi said so, he must have a way.
After seeing Cheng Yang disappear out the window of Room 202, Lin Yi paused mid-movement to close the window. He opened it again and leaned out, saying to Cheng Yang, “Lock the window immediately after you get into Room 204. And Cheng Yang Xiong, you must remember, no matter what you see or hear in Room 204, you must not make a sound.”
is the room filled with cats? how does this novel managed to make a cat become so cary…
God the author has made room 204 so scary. Imagine only seeing the violent aftermath of the killer through a window, and who knows what this time. Like creepy diorama. And it’s never cleaned up. Eugh.
Thank you for the update ❤️💯
What happened to the corpse ??? Cheng Yang fight oh ..