At nine o’clock in the evening, the self-study session ended.
Students filed out of the classroom one after another, heading back to their dormitories to rest after a long day of intensive studying.
The players, however, did not leave. They remained seated in the classroom, cautiously observing every detail of Classroom 305, scrutinizing the space for any potential clues.
Classroom 305 was their designated self-study room every evening. It was noticeably different from other places and seemed to hold more secrets than anywhere else.
Tick-tock!
A faint, almost imperceptible sound broke the silence. Gu Jiu glanced up at the clock hanging above the blackboard. The hour hand, minute hand, and second hand had just moved slightly past nine o’clock.
When she looked again, the clock hands appeared unchanged, as if only a few minutes had passed since class ended.
Tick-tock, tick-tock, tick-tock…
The ticking grew faster and faster, as though something unseen was urging them.
Gu Jiu suddenly stood up, her expression tense. “We need to leave the classroom!”
Chai Yingying and Lu Ji didn’t hesitate. They immediately got up and followed her out.
The other players hesitated for a moment but decided not to risk their lives. Even though they didn’t know what Gu Jiu had noticed, her grave expression set their hearts racing with a foreboding sense of dread.
In an instant, over twenty players exited the classroom.
They turned back to look through the window but saw no visible changes in the classroom. Everything inside remained eerily calm. Under the bright fluorescent lights, every detail was plainly visible.
“Look at the clock!” someone exclaimed.
Everyone instinctively glanced at the clock above the blackboard. The hour and minute hands had moved significantly—it was now 10:15.
A chill ran through them.
It had only been a short while since class ended. They couldn’t have spent more than ten minutes in the classroom. So how had it suddenly become past ten?
Someone immediately checked their wristwatch or pulled out their phone. Both devices displayed the time as 9:10.
But the classroom clock couldn’t possibly be malfunctioning.
There was only one explanation: time inside the classroom flowed differently than outside. Outside, only ten minutes had passed, but over an hour had elapsed inside. And the speed of this time discrepancy was increasing.
“I think it’s possible,” Chai Yingying said. “We might really have spent over an hour inside, but we weren’t aware of it. We didn’t even notice how fast time was passing.”
Pei Yongyong disagreed. “But we didn’t lose any memories. How could we not notice time passing?”
“Or maybe,” Chai Yingying suggested, “time inside the classroom simply moves at a different pace. Five minutes in there could be equivalent to an hour outside.”
…
No one could offer a definitive answer to this bizarre phenomenon. They all turned to Gu Jiu, silently seeking her explanation.
“Gu Jiu, how did you realize something was wrong with the classroom?” someone finally asked.
Gu Jiu pointed to the clock. “I heard the sound of the hour, minute, and second hands moving. It wasn’t normal—it was way too fast.”
Heard the sound?
Everyone present instinctively wanted to clean their ears. Why hadn’t they heard anything?
Chai Yingying quickly realized that this was Gu Jiu’s innate ability at work—she could hear subtle sounds that others couldn’t perceive.
As they spoke, they noticed a startling transformation in the classroom.
The walls, blackboard, desks, books—everything inside—suddenly became covered in a thick layer of dust. Then, the colors began to fade, and everything started to erode and disintegrate. In mere moments, only crumbling, timeworn walls and a floor covered in dust remained. The classroom now resembled an abandoned ruin, aged by decades.
Although the rest of the school building outside still appeared pristine and new, this particular classroom seemed to have been pushed forward by a hundred years of time in an instant.
And the signs of decay weren’t stopping. The room seemed on the verge of disintegrating entirely, its remnants threatening to vanish into oblivion.
The players instinctively stepped back in fear.
If Gu Jiu hadn’t warned them in time and they had stayed in the classroom, they would have been affected by the accelerated passage of time. By now, they might have aged into frail, withered elders—or worse, died of old age and turned to dust and bones right there.
As they watched, the classroom finally collapsed, leaving behind nothing but an ominous, pitch-black void, like a gaping hole.
Relief flooded the players’ faces, but it was short-lived. Their expressions grew serious as they fully grasped the malicious nature of this game world. It could manipulate the flow of time itself.
Could the endless looping at this school have something to do with time?
“Let’s go check out another area,” Gu Jiu said to Lu Ji and Chai Yingying.
The three of them bid farewell to the remaining players and headed off.
The others, standing in the dimly lit corridor, took a deep breath while gazing at the campus shrouded in night before following suit and leaving.
—
Classroom 305 was on the third floor.
As Gu Jiu and her companions descended the stairs, they heard a rhythmic thump, thump, thump from below, like the sound of a ball bouncing on the polished floor. In the quiet of the night, the sound was unnervingly clear.
The three maintained their calm expressions and continued down the stairs.
When they reached the landing on the next floor, the source of the sound became more distinct. The sound of the ball hitting the ground seemed to echo directly in their chests, making their hearts skip a beat.
Finally, they reached the first floor and saw the source of the noise.
Ahead of them, a headless ghost stood with its back to them, dribbling a ball. The ball bounced steadily, returning perfectly to its hand with each fall.
Sensing their presence, the ghost stopped dribbling. Holding the ball in its hands, it turned around slowly.
It was wearing the male uniform of Shengying High School, though the once-white uniform was soaked with bloodstains. The “ball” it had been dribbling wasn’t a ball at all—it was a severed head.
Gu Jiu raised an eyebrow. So this ghost had twisted off its own head to use as a ball?
The head in the ghost’s hands stared at them, its face curling into a strange smile. In a cold, eerie voice, it asked, “Want to play ball?”
Chai Yingying’s expression twisted in discomfort. Who would want to play ball with a ghost’s severed head?
Lu Ji’s face remained stoic.
Gu Jiu, on the other hand, smiled sweetly. “Sure, let’s play.”
“…”
The ghost seemed momentarily stunned, clearly not expecting anyone to accept its invitation so boldly. Even Chai Yingying turned to Gu Jiu with an incredulous look, her expression full of disbelief.
Gu Jiu stepped forward. “Alright, let’s do this. Pass me your ball, and let’s play.”
The ghost’s expression quickly turned sinister.
Its body hurled its severed head toward Gu Jiu with force.
As the flying ghost head approached, it grinned maliciously, baring sharp, jagged teeth. Just as it was about to reach Gu Jiu, the head opened its mouth wide, aiming to bite her.
Suddenly, a slender, pale hand darted out. Red-painted nails firmly gripped the ghost’s skull at its crown.
Gu Jiu held the ghost head high and swung it toward the wall, smashing it repeatedly as she spoke. “You said play ball, right? I’m playing now! I love smashing balls, and I’ll make sure to smash this one to pieces for you!”
Bang! Bang! Bang!
The sound of the impact echoed through the hallway, accompanied by the ghost’s anguished wails.
Players who hadn’t yet reached the first floor heard the commotion and rushed over. Upon seeing the scene, they were momentarily speechless.
This woman… she’s terrifyingly fierce.
The ghost’s body, seeing what was happening to its head, scrambled toward them in desperation to retrieve it. Before it could get close, however, a dark red whip lashed out, stopping the body in its tracks.
The whip’s hue was deep, as if soaked in countless layers of fresh blood. It exuded a menacing aura, so overwhelming that even the ghost hesitated in fear.
Chai Yingying clicked her tongue in amazement. “Lu Ji, I’ve been meaning to ask—what’s with that whip? It’s ridiculously powerful.”
“The Infernal Blood Whip,” Lu Ji said calmly. “It’s soaked in the blood of the damned, so its aura is heavy. Both humans and ghosts tend to avoid it.”
Chai Yingying gave her a thumbs-up. “That’s an incredible weapon. Where on earth did you even get such an overpowered item? So jealous!”
Lu Ji’s whip lashed out again, sending the ghost’s body spinning like a top whenever it tried to approach. The body flailed helplessly, unable to retrieve its head, and stumbled around in frustration, bumping into walls and furniture.
Meanwhile, Lu Ji stood composed, her demeanor exuding the cool confidence of an expert.
Chai Yingying couldn’t help but comment again, “Lu Ji, the way you’re whipping that ghost is so badass—totally a queen move! I love it!” She glanced at her chest. “Though… it’s a bit flat. Wonder if it’ll ever grow?”
Lu Ji: “…”
Just as Gu Jiu was about to smash the ghost head into pieces against the wall, she finally stopped.
By now, the head was a mangled mess—its nose was crooked, its mouth was askew, and it was drenched in blood, its features nearly unrecognizable.
With a surprisingly gentle expression, Gu Jiu tossed the head back to its body. “Want to play ball again next time?”
The headless ghost cradled its battered head like a frightened rabbit and bolted away, disappearing into the shadows of the first-floor lobby.
The players stood frozen in awe. She’s terrifying… even ghosts are scared of her.
Gu Jiu waved nonchalantly at the players and motioned for Lu Ji to follow her out of the teaching building.
—
Next to the teaching building was the multimedia building, which housed music rooms, art rooms, and other specialized facilities. The situation there was rumored to be even more chaotic than in the teaching building, with a greater number of ghosts and disturbances.
At night, the ghosts of Shengying High School could be divided into two distinct categories:
- Ghosts that retained human-like forms, such as staff, teachers, and students.
- True ghosts—grotesque, horrifying spirits that couldn’t even take on human appearances during the day.
These two types of ghosts didn’t usually attack each other. In fact, they seemed to avoid crossing paths, maintaining a sort of uneasy truce. Gu Jiu wasn’t sure what would happen if they ever did encounter one another—she hadn’t seen it yet.
As the three headed toward the multimedia building, Chai Yingying carried a small, delicate disk in her hands. It was a Yin Energy Detector. Whenever ghosts were nearby, the needle in the disk would spin wildly, serving as an early warning system.
“Why are there so many ghosts in this high school?” Chai Yingying asked in disbelief. “Could they all have died unjustly?”
“Probably not,” Gu Jiu replied. “At least not the dean or those student-like ghosts.”
“What about the others? Like that idiotic ghost just now, using its own head as a ball?”
“That kind might actually be possible.”
—
This was one of the peculiarities of the Reincarnation School: the ghosts seemed to be divided into two distinct types. Those that could take on human forms during the day were beyond the players’ understanding. Some even suspected that their existence might be connected to the reincarnators themselves.
At night, Shengying High School turned into a scene straight out of folklore, with spirits roaming freely. Danger lurked around every corner.
As the trio reached the multimedia building, they suddenly sensed something plummeting from above.
Lu Ji reacted swiftly, pulling Gu Jiu aside to dodge. Chai Yingying was a fraction slower and barely managed to leap out of the way. The object brushed past her, narrowly missing.
Bang!
A corpse landed heavily at their feet.
No, not just a corpse—this was a jumping ghost.
The ghost had leapt from above and crashed to the ground, its body a grotesque mess of mangled flesh and twisted limbs. Its pale face, streaked with blood, stared at them with wide, unblinking eyes. Thin trails of blood snaked downward, adding to its terrifying appearance.
The ghost was female, and her once-white uniform was now soaked red with blood. At first glance, she resembled a vengeful spirit clad in crimson.
Without sparing the ghost another look, the three of them stepped around it and entered the multimedia building.
“Where to?” Chai Yingying asked, glancing at the building’s layout map.
“The music room,” Gu Jiu answered.
Chai Yingying recalled the rumors about the music room and immediately understood Gu Jiu’s intentions.
The music room was located on the seventh floor.
The three began their climb. As they reached the fourth floor, a subtle unease crept over them. Chai Yingying instinctively looked around, her gut telling her that something was off.