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Ge Liang was taken a back; he hadn’t even realized when he started biting it.
He quickly spat out the small piece of pencil he had bitten off and then noticed Wang Ye was staring at him.
“I really didn’t take it out on the pencil because I couldn’t draw…” Ge Liang felt that there was no way to clear himself of suspicion.
Unexpectedly, Wang Ye raised an eyebrow: “Your teeth are impressive.”
Ge Liang: “…”
Wang Ye found it quite amusing, much like watching two classmates fight in heavy fog. Whenever something piqued his interest, he usually liked to observe or study it more closely: “Do you usually use pliers to crack hazelnuts, or do you just go at it with your teeth?”
Ge Liang: “…”
Why was Wang Ye always focusing on such random things?
Wang Ye asked, “What kind of expression is that?”
Ge Liang replied, “Why are we suddenly discussing practicality!”
Wang Ye: “Are you going to keep stalling?”
Ge Liang: “I use pliers.”
Wang Ye: “Then that’s settled.”
Satiated by his curiosity, Wang Ye finally returned to his mobile game.
Ge Liang: “…”
‘Once again, he had succumbed to the forces of evil. He really wasn’t manly at all!’
‘He looked down at the renewed drawing assignment in his hand…’
‘Whatever‘ he thought.
Yuan Sixue had finished his phone call long ago but hadn’t paid attention to Wang Ye and Ge Liang because their interaction had already solidified into a routine since their freshman year—it was a daily occurrence of a clueless bully and his blunt follower.
Instead, he was curious about the phone on Jiang Tan’s desk, which had been lighting up silently all night.
Every time it lit up, it was a new friend request notification.
“Jiang Tan” Yuan Sixue actually didn’t like meddling in others’ affairs, but the persistent requester was making it hard for him to ignore. “Why don’t you just accept it?”
Jiang Tan hadn’t taken his eyes off his book all night and still replied, “There’s no need.”
Yuan Sixue said, “Adding someone on WeChat doesn’t mean you have to chat. Maybe they just want to say thank you.”
Jiang Tan replied, “I already said that at the school hospital in the afternoon, more than once.”
Yuan Sixue said, “If you didn’t want to add him, why did you give him your WeChat ID?”
Jiang Tan: “…”
Because at that time, I didn’t budge, and the guy looked like he was about to cry.
As they were talking, Jiang Tan’s phone screen lit up silently again.
Yuan Sixue sighed softly, “Such persistence is rare.”
Back at his own desk, Ge Liang had only caught the latter half of the conversation but understood enough to frown and glance at Yuan Sixue: “What’s with your strange tone? It’s as if that person is trying to woo Jiang Tan.”
Yuan Sixue shook his head: “The relationships between people are interconnected. When it comes to genuine feelings, especially persistent ones, they should be cherished and nurtured.”
Ge Liang felt a chill: “You can take care of your own feelings. Jiang Tan doesn’t need it.”
Yuan Sixue replied, “Right now he doesn’t need to, but in the future, when he really wants to date, he might find he has lost the ability to accept genuine feelings.”
Ge Liang: “…”
Yuan Sixue: “Is this an epiphany for you?”
Ge Liang: “I want to run you over with a forklift.”
At eleven o’clock at night, the dormitory lights turned off on schedule.
For Room 509, it was just another ordinary night, with Ge Liang’s broken pencil and Jiang Tan’s frequently lighting phone being mere trivialities.
However, Room 333 hadn’t slept a wink.
At seven in the morning, a new day’s “Morning Symphony” awakened the campus. The four students sat up in their beds, looking at each other, all dazed and confused.
Xia Yang said, “Was yesterday a dream…?”
Li Junchi replied, “Are you referring to the incident where Feiyu fell headfirst but landed on his feet, or the one where he glided down in a big diagonal line before landing on his feet?”
Lin Wu said, “Whatever, I thought about it all night and now I’m so tired…”
Ren Feiyu added, “That was really terrifying…”
Xia Yang and Li Junchi exclaimed, “Stop acting innocent!”
They were groggy for half the morning, and the four didn’t really absorb any of the lessons. Despite sitting in class and feeling sleepy, their minds kept replaying the bizarre moments from the night before.
It could be one person experiencing a hallucination, but four people seeing things together? That would be something supernatural.
However, if they weren’t hallucinating, then Feiyu’s landing position, which defied human anatomy, couldn’t be explained unless it was supernatural.
—Great, it seemed they couldn’t escape the supernatural after all.
Their chaotic thoughts persisted until the second class when the teacher had to take leave, and a graduate student came to substitute for them. He simply read straight from the textbook, with no inflection in his tone, as if he were putting their souls to sleep.
The whole class had zoned out, secretly scrolling on their phones, when someone quickly shared a news article in the group.
[Class 1 Group of Environmental Engineering]
Pang Dongdong, the quick talker: “Russian daredevil climbs skyscraper barehanded, accidentally falls from the roof but is unharmed! [link to details]”
Lin Wu would never have clicked on such news before.
He knew it was just for views, often with absurd or sensational titles, and when you clicked on them, it wasn’t what you expected. This one probably had something soft at the bottom of the building, like an artificial lake or a swimming pool, to break the fall.
But after Ren Feiyu’s incident, Lin Wu was unusually sensitive to the word “fall” and instinctively clicked it.
The link opened to a short video. Lin Wu had silenced his phone, and from the angle and quality, it looked like someone in the adjacent building had unintentionally discovered a person climbing a skyscraper and hurriedly recorded it.
At the beginning of the video, the person was almost at the top of the building, gripping the exterior facade tightly, with no protection at all. Watching it made people’s hearts race.
After a few seconds, the climber finally reached the top’s steel structure. There was no solid footing; it was just a grand structure made of steel components. Standing firmly on the steel beams was already difficult, yet the climber was only using one foot to balance, with one hand hooked onto a steel bar while the other foot and hand extended outwards, resembling a flag fluttering atop the building.
The consequence of such recklessness was a strong gust of wind that caused him to lose his grip.
From the perspective of the cameraman, the entire process of the fall was clearly recorded.
Initially, the climber fell normally, straight down in free fall, but at about one-third of the way down, he suddenly changed direction, tracing a strange diagonal line. Although he was still heading down, this diagonal movement prolonged the fall. More inexplicably, as the direction changed, the speed of the fall visibly slowed. The video was still playing at normal speed, and you could see the cameraman’s excited hand gestures occasionally entering the frame, but the climber’s descent was slowing down to the naked eye.
The cameraman, high up in the building, only captured a small black dot as the climber hit the ground, making it impossible to judge the situation.
However, based on the trend of slowing down, Lin Wu believed the climber was unscathed.
When he checked the news date, it was yesterday.
With a blank mind, Lin Wu slowly raised his head and searched for his usual partners in the back row.
In the last row, Xia Yang, Li Junchi, and Ren Feiyu, who had just gathered together to watch the short video, simultaneously raised their heads, their bewildered expressions resembling a group of meerkats standing upright at the entrance of a burrow.
If Ren Feiyu’s fall last night was too short and too fast to see clearly in the flash, then this video was like a step-by-step breakdown of the event in an advanced version.
[Class 1 Group of Environmental Engineering]
Xu Zhenlong, the class joker: “This video must be a post-production edit…”
Shang Haitao, the foodie: “Be more confident; just drop the “must be”. ”
Pang Dongdong, the quick-talker: “If you don’t believe it, go search it yourself; there are several similar incidents. I’ve just moved one, and Weibo is exploding!”
Lin Wu quickly clicked on Weibo’s trending topics—
Today’s trending topics seemed like a collection of global oddities, but despite their strangeness, none made it into the top three, because only events occurring close to home can evoke that genuine sense of horror—
By the afternoon, similar or identical news nearly swept across social media, echoing the recent heavy fog incident.
No one in the class could focus on the lecture anymore; everyone was glued to their phones.
Lin Wu wasn’t sure if it was just his impression, but occasionally looking up, he felt the teacher at the podium seemed just as distracted as they were.
It was the hottest time of day, and sitting in class felt like being directly under the sun.
The sky outside was cloudless; perhaps the scorching[1]extremely or intense sun had melted away the clouds, leaving behind an empty space that held an unseen, untouchable, yet searing unease.
At five in the evening.
After class, students flocked to the cafeteria for dinner. Lin Wu and his friends joined, and everything seemed to be going through the motions, as if by turning off their phones and forgetting the news, they could return to that calm campus, a silly and happy university.
But something was off.
The usual hustle and bustle in the cafeteria was gone; every table of students was quieter than usual, devoid of laughter and playful banter. Even when they spoke, it was in hushed tones, whispering.
Then, the televisions hanging above the cafeteria simultaneously showed live news coverage—
“Regarding the recent reports of physical anomalies across various regions, a press conference is being held to provide relevant updates…”
“In the past two days, multiple provinces in eastern China have reported individuals exhibiting physical anomalies.…”
“The specific manifestations include unreasonable changes in physical functions or behavioral habits, such as sudden increases in physical strength or changes in lifestyle and dietary preferences…”
“Some of the anomalies show similar trends, while others vary significantly. Currently, no patterns have been discovered, and the cause of the physical anomalies remains unclear…”
“However, detailed examinations of several affected individuals have shown that these anomalies have not caused any physical disease; all examined individuals have normal health indicators and are in good health…”
“We will provide timely updates as new information arises…”
Just as the press conference was concluding, phones began to ring under the televisions. From all departments and grades, the sound of notifications filled the air.
Lin Wu opened his WeChat.
[Environmental College Group]
Teacher Li: “The school has issued an urgent notice. We will close the campus again tonight at 21:00. All classes will be suspended tomorrow morning, and there will be a school-wide assembly at 8:00 in the athletics field. @everyone”
References
| ↑1 | extremely or intense |
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Lhaozi[Translator]
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