(5/5)
Yuying University
Chapter 400: Three sentences that make your enemy obey you completely!
The entire floor suddenly plunged into a deathly darkness.
Wen Jianyan lay on his bed, staring intently at the ceiling in the darkness, feeling a chill creeping all over him. Familiar drowsiness washed over him, tugging his consciousness downward.
His eyelids drooped uncontrollably.
He fell asleep.
……
Inside the dark dormitory, the sound of deep breathing rose and fell in turns.
Everyone had slipped into their dreams.
On the right side of the dorm, the upper bunk by the window, the young man’s eyelids were tightly shut, his breathing steady.
Above his head was the filthy ceiling— even through the dusty mosquito net, one could see the water stains and the bulging peeling paint.
Was it just his imagination? It seemed as if a black water stain was silently spreading, slowly growing larger and larger. Everything was swallowed by darkness.
Within the black water stain on the ceiling, something strange was undulating, surging like waves made up of countless hairs.
From the darkness came the faint sound of dripping water—like a faucet not fully tightened, droplets hanging precariously, swelling little by little, then— the murky water drops fell toward the young man on the bed with a clear plink.
Drip.
Wen Jianyan suddenly opened his eyes and reflexively dodged to the side!
He gasped violently, staring tightly at the ceiling before him—empty, nothing there.
He touched his forehead, then skeptically reached out to the pillow beside him.
It was dry.
It seemed what he had just seen was only a dream.
Just as Wen Jianyan was still shaken, his eyes, now accustomed to the dark, caught a faint glimmer of light—seemingly coming from outside the mosquito net?
Why was there light after lights-out?
He held his breath and carefully propped himself up, looking toward the dormitory door.
A dim yellow light filtered through the window, half-covered with newspapers, and sneaked in through the crooked door crack, casting a few yellow lines on the floor. Wen Jianyan was stunned.
The hallway lights were on?
But before sleeping, he clearly remembered the dorm lights had been turned off…
At that moment, a rustling sound came from beside him.
Wen Jianyan’s heart tightened as he snapped his head toward the sound.
The next second, in the faint light beneath the door crack, a black head popped out from the mosquito net below.
“What’s going on?”
A deliberately hushed voice, still thick with sleepiness, sounded in the dorm. “Why are the hallway lights on?”
“I dunno!” another head popped out of the net, answering in the same hushed tone.
It was Brother Hu and Brother Bao.
Noticing Wen Jianyan’s head peeking out from the upper bunk, they said, “Hey, bro, you’re awake too?”
[“Integrity First” livestream chat]:
“Damn, so it’s the whole dorm getting screwed at once!” “So unlucky, others didn’t even pick this course…”
“Haha, that’s what happens when you live with a curse!”
“Do you guys know what’s going on?” Brother Hu asked.
Wen Jianyan: “…I have no clue either.”
In the “Integrity First” live room chat:
[What? No clue?]
[Pfft, you’ve got plenty of clues!]
The rustling continued.
Besides Brother Hu and Brother Bao, the others in the dorm seemed to have also woken up, all equally puzzled by the situation.
Since they were awake, Wen Jianyan decided to just get up and get off the bed.
“Hey hey hey?” Brother Hu’s voice suddenly grew tense and alarmed, “You crazy? Don’t you care about your life?”
“It’ll be fine.”
Wen Jianyan replied, glancing at the empty spot on the bunk below.
Wen Jianyan squinted, showing a thoughtful expression.
This confirmed his previous guess: because of different choices on day one and two, the skinny-faced guy who joined the club had taken a completely different path from the rest.
Wen Jianyan walked toward the dorm door.
He carefully lifted the newspaper glued over the window and peered outside.
The corridor was brightly lit, but there was no sign of a soul.
Seeing Wen Jianyan get off the bed unharmed, Brother Hu and Brother Bao exchanged a glance and cautiously got down as well.
The next second, a creaking sound—the dorm door opened.
“?!”
Brother Hu and Brother Bao both gasped.
Getting off the bed was one thing, but you actually opened the door?
Bro, aren’t you being a little too bold?
Behind them came a terrified shout from another squad member:
“Hey, what are you doing?! Stop!”
Wen Jianyan ignored them and stepped out into the hallway.
Indeed, after lights-out, students weren’t supposed to leave their dorm or make any noise or light. But the real issue wasn’t inside the dorm—it was related to the movie elective they had attended that day. That explained why the hallway was so brightly lit unexpectedly.
Sure enough, Wen Jianyan wasn’t attacked in the hallway.
Though brightly lit, the corridor was utterly silent, not a sound anywhere.
Wen Jianyan reached the dorm across the hall and pushed the door open.
Inside was pitch black, but under the faint hallway light, he vaguely saw shadows rising and falling on the beds—everyone else seemed still asleep.
In other words, only their dorm had woken up tonight.
Now, even the dullest among the remaining dorm mates realized something:
Wen Jianyan clearly knew something they didn’t.
“Hey… you little brat,” a burly anchor rushed up to Wen Jianyan, “What the hell is going on right now?” Another leaned in aggressively, grabbing his collar viciously: “Where’s the weasel you messed with?”
Wen Jianyan blinked.
Oh, so the skinny face was called Weasel. Pretty fitting.
From the other guy’s words, he caught a crucial piece of info: they didn’t know their teammate had taken a very different path from most other anchors in the game.
“Hey, calm down, all of you,” seeing the tension rise suddenly, Brother Hu and Brother Bao hurried over and pulled Wen Jianyan free from the others’ grip.
Brother Hu stood in front, scowling and scolding:
“At a time like this, you guys still fighting among yourselves? You really wanna die?”
His words were like a bucket of cold water poured over everyone’s heads.
The three in the squad finally calmed down.
Though they suspected Wen Jianyan was behind it, and were worried about their teammate’s safety, they knew emotional decisions were the easiest way to die—especially in this weird, high-level game.
With the conflict resolved, Brother Bao turned to Wen Jianyan: “Bro, so what do you know about the situation?”
“Some things.”
Wen Jianyan straightened his rumpled collar and answered cautiously. “I guess it’s related to the course we signed up for today.”
In the “Integrity First” live room chat:
[?]
[Some things, huh? You’re being modest.]
[After all, no one here broke the rules tonight, but the whole dorm is trapped here, so it must have something to do with what we did during the day.]
Wen Jianyan looked toward the dorm they had just left, his gaze falling on the empty bed below, meaningfully:
“But what I want to know is… why is he the only one missing?”
“…”
Everyone paused.
Wen Jianyan looked at them and asked, “Your teammate’s name is Weasel, right? Did he show any weird behavior during the day?”
He blinked, his light eyes glimmering in the dim corridor.
“Or… were you really all together the whole time?”
In the “Integrity First” live room chat:
[Holy shit, that’s intense.]
[If the anchor says he’s the dangerous culprit, his dorm mates will be upset and could cause trouble later. Now he’s blaming the missing guy with just a few words.]
[And he’s right, too.]
[Yeah, anyone could see Zhao Fei was acting strange earlier. More importantly, in the afternoon he definitely went off on his own. I didn’t see any of the anchor’s other dorm mates at the club recruitment event…]
[Damn, this is perfect, Weasel’s the prime suspect now.]
“The anchor’s move here is smart — not only shifting blame, but gathering info from his teammates about the whole day and the school’s clubs. Triple win.”
Sure enough, after Wen Jianyan’s words, the group exchanged hesitant looks.
“Well…”
The guy who grabbed Wen Jianyan’s collar hesitated before saying, “Weasel was definitely missing for a while in the afternoon.”
“Oh?” Wen Jianyan’s spirits lifted, “About when?”
“I don’t really know.” The guy shook his head. “We were in a professional class and fell asleep. When we woke up, he was gone.” Normally, no one should have woken during that nap, but Weasel disappeared during that time.
They couldn’t find him after waking, couldn’t reach him by phone, and thought something bad had happened. They searched the teaching building nervously for quite a while.
“About 6:30, he sent us a message saying he was waiting at the door.”
Wen Jianyan asked, “Did he say where he was during that time?”
They all shook their heads.
Wen Jianyan fell into thought.
He was starting to get a bit of an idea about how the club recruitment worked.
Clearly, while they were forcibly put to sleep, Weasel was an exception—he could move freely. Or rather, he had been “guided” into the club recruitment site.
Wen Jianyan thoughtfully rubbed his nose.
He just didn’t know if there were other ways in besides the club recruitment.
Logically, there should be. Otherwise, just filtering members by the initial registration would be too crude.
Or maybe they should team up with Orange Candy and just kidnap someone to ask questions? That’d be more efficient.
Wen Jianyan lowered his eyes. Despite his obedient student appearance, his mind was scheming.
“Damn it, I knew there had to be a reason for this danger. Turns out it’s that guy!” Brother Hu growled fiercely, punching the wall angrily. “The first time I saw him, I knew he wasn’t any good.”
The other three who had been with the weasel knew they were at fault, so they all fell silent, finding it hard to speak.
“All right, all right,”
Unexpectedly, at this moment Wen Jianyan stepped forward and stopped the quarrel.
A gentle and warm smile appeared on his face, making people feel like basking in the spring breeze. “This danger is something the entire dormitory faced together. In this situation, there’s no need to blame each other. What matters most is to get out of this predicament as soon as possible.”
The guilt on the faces of the other three grew even heavier.
“From now on, we act together,” Wen Jianyan said. “We must unite and work as one, right?”
In the “Integrity First” live room chat:
[I… you… ah, this…]
[I’m numb. do you, the culprit, even have the face to speak?!]
[Three sentences that make your enemy obey you completely!]
[Is the anchor opening a class? I want to sign up!]
“We should check the stairwell to see if we can leave this floor,” A-Bao suggested.
The group headed toward the stairwell.
Their footsteps echoed in the narrow hallway. Soon, they arrived at the next floor.
The dim stairwell was glaring with red paint on the fourth floor.
The group exchanged glances, their expressions growing more solemn.
Wen Jianyan casually followed behind the team.
He had known early on that this floor was likely a dead end.
After all, before the lights went out, he had messaged his teammates. They hadn’t encountered any situations like his, meaning they wouldn’t enter this scenario.
Since that was the case, this floor was probably isolated from the others.
As for leaving the dormitory, that was even more impossible. It was already past curfew, and even if they could leave, none dared to choose that option.
While they stood in the stairwell, suddenly, a sound like a water drop fell from afar: “Drip-drop.”
“!”
Wen Jianyan was startled and turned his head toward the direction of the sound.
The sound was very faint, hard to locate. It rang only once and did not repeat.
The sound also caught the attention of the others.
No matter what instance they were in, the sound of dripping water was never a good sign, so everyone grew cautious.
“Sounded like it came from the direction of the water room?” Brother Hu Brother said uncertainly.
“Maybe?”
They exchanged looks. “Let’s go check.”
Their footsteps echoed in the silent, bright corridor. The group cautiously moved toward the water room, glancing around carefully.
Wen Jianyan followed quietly in the middle, his gaze unintentionally falling on the dorm room door he had just pushed open.
The dorm door was half-open, inside pitch black.
In the darkness, pitch black and chaotic, each bed had a stiff, black shadow sitting on it.
“?!”
Wen Jianyan’s heart skipped a beat as he quickly turned to look inside the room.
There was nothing inside—like a hallucination caused by his overstrained nerves during a glance.
He stood still and looked carefully inside.
Indeed, there was nothing.
The darkness was utterly silent, no movement at all.
Just then, a sudden “Ah!” came from ahead.
Brother Hu, at the front, stopped walking, looked down at his feet, frowned, and said, “Damn, it sounded like water dripping from far away, but why is there water all over here?”
Wen Jianyan was stunned, withdrew his gaze, and turned to the direction of the sound.
Two lights at the far end near the water room were off. When they got closer, they saw a thin layer of water accumulated on the floor, reflecting faint light.
Moreover…
It didn’t look clean.
Wen Jianyan stopped and studied the water carefully.
It was pitch black, with something like silt swirling beneath the surface, giving off a damp, musty smell.
The others whispered confusedly nearby:
“Strange, no faucets are open, so why is there so much water on the floor?”
“Not sure…”
At this moment, two eerie “gurgling” sounds came from inside the water room.
Strangely, no one seemed to hear them and remained standing still.
Wen Jianyan paused, then stepped inside.
Following the sounds, he came to a water basin by the window.
He put one hand on the edge of the basin and leaned over to look inside.
There was nothing in the basin, but at the bottom was a thin layer of filthy water, just like the water on the floor. Judging by this, this was the source of the water on the ground.
Other than that, there was nothing particularly noteworthy.
Wen Jianyan slightly relaxed and withdrew his upper body.
Because of nervousness, his fingertips had sweated slightly, leaving round prints on the cold basin edge.
—Wait a moment.
Wen Jianyan suddenly realized something.
He looked around.
This basin was… the second one from the right by the window.
He stared at the handprint he left on the basin’s edge and felt a sudden chill down his spine.
The position of the handprint…
Was exactly the same as the bloody handprint on the basin edge in the movie Brave Richard.
Shortly after leaving the handprint, Richard in the movie forced his finger to gouge out his own eyeball, then filled his belly with water, dying horribly there.
