Shang Nan stood where he was waiting. Not long after, the faces of everyone around him turned back into those of the people from the beginning, their expressions exactly the same as before.

It was also possible that Shang Nan hadn't looked closely at their expressions before.

Their expressions were dull, stiff, formulaic, and monotonous. Their faces were flat, their gait was extremely unnatural, and the backs of their heads were flat and shriveled, as if crushed by some heavy force.

When those few boys bumped into him again, Shang Nan seized the opportunity to grab one of their wrists. The other party didn't struggle and continued looking at Shang Nan with a laughing expression.

"Is something wrong?" It looked at Shang Nan woodenly.

Pitch-black eyeballs, charcoal-black long eyebrows slanting up to the temples, crimson lips, and exaggerated corners of the mouth pulled to the very edges of the cheeks.

Shang Nan lowered his head to look at the wrist in his hand; it felt hard and icy to the touch. His breathing hitched, he hurriedly let go, and panicked as he took a few steps back, his lower back hitting the balcony railing.

But disregarding the pain, he held onto the balcony.

Looking up at the classroom before him: snow-white walls, piercing lights, students and teachers lingering inside, male and female classmates walking in the corridor—all with the same pale, eerie faces, the same dull, wooden expressions.

The cheerful music that usually followed the dismissal bell had turned into a slow, low-pitched nursery rhyme. The broadcast stuttered occasionally, mixed with intermittent static noise.

'—Looking, looking... looking for a friend, found a... good friend...'

There was an echo in the corridor. The elongated tune didn't sound like a nursery rhyme at all; it sounded more like a repeated chant of a dirge.

Inappropriate scenes, inappropriate music, inappropriate characters—combined, it was like an absurd and bleak dream.

The faces shuttling through the corridor were hurried, looking as if they were here to see someone off. This teaching building was a luxurious spirit house, with lights on and funeral music playing. The people shuttling through the corridor and staying in the classrooms were attendants, servants.

Shang Nan looked around. He was in the teaching building, yet not in the teaching building. More accurately, it was as if he were at some grand ceremony.

[14: It's an illusion. It wants you to see something.]

[14: There is no danger around.]

[14: But that doesn't mean you can walk out unscathed without doing anything. It created this thing, so it definitely has its own motive. However, we don't know exactly what that motive is, so there is also a certain possibility that we will be trapped forever in this spirit house created by the environment.]

"We?" Shang Nan hesitated.

[14: Yes, we. This ceremony was created by it to trap you. It doesn't objectively exist in some place in this world. Since I reside in your consciousness, if you are trapped, I naturally cannot get out either.]

[14: Nannan, save me... na~]

Shang Nan exhaled, pulled his coat tighter, and watched the "students" all heading in one direction. After thinking for a moment, he said, "Let's follow them and see."

"I should be able to follow, right?" Shang Nan placed his fingers on the balcony railing, sliding them along as he moved.

As a System, 14 could not interfere with the host's choices or hinder them. In reality, it didn't have the ability to interfere or hinder anyway.

The data 14 obtained required the host's support. The host's task progress in the world was also its process of acquiring the world's plot.

Even if the host was rushing towards death at this moment.

But the problem now was that it was trapped in this illusion together with the host.

This wasn't 14's first time being a system, but it was the first time the mission target was non-human. When it drew this mission, its colleagues had expressed their sympathy and stated that if it couldn't come back, they would divide the points in its account among themselves.

It had previously taken on the popular Scum Abuse System. Not every host could successfully escape from every world. The mission targets of the Scum Abuse System were full of charisma; most hosts abandoned their missions during the process, allowing themselves to sink into depravity. Even if they knew their fall would cause their immediate death in their original world, they didn't hesitate.

The human heart is unpredictable; this was a point the Main System mentioned repeatedly at the annual meeting every year.

But how could a monster's heart be even more unpredictable than a human's?

14 pulled up Yu Zhibai's data. There was no sign of his blackening value rising. So, why exactly was this happening?

The nursery rhyme kept humming in Shang Nan's ears, melodious and winding.

If it were a normal melody and rhythm, it might have alleviated Shang Nan's fear to some extent. But the slow and shrill voice only intensified the terror in one's heart at night.

Along the corridor, Shang Nan noticed the "people" around him becoming fewer and fewer. From crowded to empty, until even the echo of the singing gradually vanished. The surroundings fell silent, and at the corner ahead appeared a boy with his back to Shang Nan.

A white T-shirt, a lean figure. He turned his head to look at Shang Nan. Unlike the stiff, wooden faces from before, the person before him was... was Yu Zhibai from his middle school days.

Shang Nan was uncontrollably startled. He couldn't help but take a step back and tripped on the stairs. Fortunately, he was quick-eyed and deft-handed enough to grab the iron railing under the handrail, but the fall still hurt.

Shang Nan looked at Yu Zhibai in front of him uncertainly.

Yu Zhibai smiled shyly at Shang Nan and mouthed, "Hello."

The fair-skinned youth was introverted and bashful, like a white gull resting on the shore.

Several boys came up from the corner, carrying steel pipes as long as arms. Before Shang Nan could see who they were, a steel pipe swung up and smashed horizontally onto Yu Zhibai's arm. At the sound, Yu Zhibai's body was knocked down by the violent force. He covered his injured left arm with his right hand, lifted his eyes, and his gaze passed through the people blocking him to land on Shang Nan's face.

Shang Nan held onto the stair railing and stood up with difficulty. His waist had hit the steps; it would definitely be bruised.

"He had all his books torn to shreds."

"He had his arm broken."

14 had told him. It had told him what Yu Zhibai had been through. Even as a Paper Person, even if he couldn't feel the pain of a broken arm, the bullying was an objective act.

The steel pipe was swung repeatedly, smashing onto Yu Zhibai's left arm over and over.

When it landed on the body, it didn't sound like it was hitting human flesh. It sounded more like it was hitting some kind of hollow object—very crisp, very loud.

"Bang!"

"Bang!"

The one attacking was Lu Yang. Lu Yang's facial features were crafted very sloppily: his eyes were different sizes, his nostrils flared like a water buffalo's, and the corners of his mouth were split open, revealing a scarlet oral cavity.

Seeing Lu Yang's face clearly, Shang Nan's hair stood on end.

Yu Zhibai kept gazing at Shang Nan, calm and gentle.

Shang Nan steadied his mind and, with almost no hesitation, rushed down the stairs. He grabbed Lu Yang by the collar and dragged him backward. The weight in his hand was unexpectedly light; Shang Nan tossed him lightly, and Lu Yang flew out, rolling stiffly down the stairs.

Shang Nan looked at his own hand, then slowly looked downstairs. He saw Lu Yang lying face down on the ground, motionless and completely cold.

Just... like that?

Before Shang Nan could recover his senses, Lu Yang, who had stopped moving, slowly crawled back up. He held a knife in his hand, the blade refracting a chilling light.

He turned back, grabbing Yu Zhibai's head in his hand. The blade pressed against Yu Zhibai's scalp, moving from front to back, from back to front. Yu Zhibai's fingers clawed at Lu Yang's wrist as he tilted his head up, gazing at Shang Nan standing on the steps.

Shang Nan didn't know what was going on. His back was already soaked with sweat, feeling waves of coldness.

He didn't know if this was the monster's prank or if he was having hallucinations in this world. Under Yu Zhibai's gaze, his mind was in turmoil.

In just a brief interval, Yu Zhibai suddenly gave a muffled groan. The blade changed color, turning red from high heat—Lu Yang pressed the red-hot blade firmly against Yu Zhibai's left cheek. Wisps of white smoke rose, and Yu Zhibai's legs kicked painfully against the ground. The smell of burnt flesh filled Shang Nan's nose.

Shang Nan was completely stunned.

It was so real that it didn't feel like an illusion at all.

[14: It is letting you watch. Letting you see what it has experienced, which is what I told you at the very beginning.]

Lu Yang and the others left triumphantly, their footsteps chaotic and brazen. None of them saw Shang Nan; only Yu Zhibai kept calmly gazing at him.

The nursery rhyme babbled in his ears through the broadcast again. The people in the corridor slowly increased in number, but Yu Zhibai, huddled in the corner, seemed invisible to everyone. No one saw him, and no one stopped for him.

Through the chaotic footsteps, Yu Zhibai looked at Shang Nan sorrowfully. "Can you hug me?"

Shang Nan stood at the corner. The place where Yu Zhibai was wasn't very well-lit. A breeze blew over. His hair had been shaved off, his left arm hung limply at his side, his face was a crisscross of bruises, and his left cheek was burned into a blur of bright red flesh. One could vaguely see two branded characters. It occupied a small half of Yu Zhibai's face.

"Hug me." It covered its face and wept in grief.

"Student Shang Nan, I beg you, hug me."

Shang Nan's palms were covered in sweat. He gritted his teeth and was about to step out when a flash of white passed before his eyes. He looked towards the white streak; it was a palm-sized white butterfly dancing in front of him.

A cool breeze hit him. The eerie nursery rhyme in his ears vanished, the stiff faces vanished, and even the scarred middle-school-era Yu Zhibai and the dim, chaotic corridor disappeared together.

Shang Nan looked at the endless night before him. The leaves of several trees on the playground, which didn't wither even in winter, were fluttering. The floodlights on the rooftop of the opposite teaching building were bright and piercing.

Shang Nan lowered his head, his heartbeat and breathing stopping abruptly. He wasn't in any teaching building corridor; he was... on the rooftop of their teaching building.

After seeing his surroundings clearly, Shang Nan immediately moved away from the dangerous area.

School dismissal was already drawing to a close, with only a few students occasionally coming out of the teaching building.

The banner on the opposite teaching building fluttered slightly in the night wind, but the white characters on it were still clearly visible—Celebrating the 88th School Anniversary, Writing a New Chapter of Development.

On the running track at the entrance of the teaching building, Yu Zhibai, wearing a black down jacket, looked up and gazed at Shang Nan from afar. His eye sockets were pitch-black, his face as white as paper, and he revealed a sincere and gentle smile to Shang Nan.

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