Yuying University
Chapter 515: Graduation Ceremony 6
Meanwhile, inside the gymnasium.
The graduation ceremony continued.
“…”
Suo Suo sat below the stage, his gaze fixed on the podium.
On stage, the vice-principal wore a smile as he methodically screened all the graduates, handing out “Employee Contracts” to those who qualified.
Everything seemed exactly the same as before.
However…
Suo Suo’s gaze fell on a corner of the stage.
That spot was now empty. The young man who had been standing there had vanished at some point, but no one else had noticed.
A sense of unease rose in Suo Suo’s heart.
Where did that guy go?
It would be fine if he had just disappeared completely, but what if…
Suo Suo involuntarily recalled what had happened during the final movie screening, and a cold sweat broke out on his back again, as if he were reliving the scene.
A few hours ago.
The sky was filled with the light of a blazing fire. Twisted human figures shrieked in the flames, and the entire campus was overrun with living corpses, turning it into a terrifying inferno on earth.
And in this inferno, the only living person was running for his life.
The protagonist… where’s the protagonist?
Where is he?
Suo Suo gasped for breath, stumbling and running through the campus, frantically searching everywhere.
His body had reached its limit. His arms, legs, and waist were all severely injured. Even though he had set an outrageous number of corpses on fire, more continued to pour in endlessly.
This is bad, this is bad, this is bad.
Is this the intensity of the end of an SS-rank instance?
Forget about going to the dormitory to get that unknown item; even surviving seemed hopeless.
Staring at the desperate scene before him, Suo Suo’s face was deathly pale.
…I’m going to die. I’m definitely going to die this time.
Unconsciously, Suo Suo realized he had been forced to the edge of the school’s only artificial lake.
He panted heavily, looking around like a frightened bird, but strangely, the corpses that had been relentlessly pursuing him just moments ago had not followed.
Under the azure sky was an artificial lake as calm as agate.
And just then, a voice spoke:
“Do you want to live?”
“?!”
Suo Suo whipped his head around in horror and looked behind him.
He saw the protagonist he had been searching for.
The young man was kneeling by the lake, seemingly about to drink from it. But strangely, the scene before him was like a paused film. The wind didn’t blow, the trees didn’t sway, and time seemed to have frozen.
This isn’t right.
And Suo Suo soon found the source of the strangeness.
Not far behind the young man was a shadow, humanoid but with no discernible face. It gave off an unsettling sense of dislocation, like seeing a large hole torn in the movie screen from within the flat movie itself, with a cold wind howling through the hole.
This was a top-down, dimensional pressure of terror.
Suo Suo could clearly feel the bizarre, incredibly cold aura emanating from the shadow, an aura that quelled any thought of resistance.
He trembled all over, his blood running cold.
The voice came again:
“Do you want to live?”
Suo Suo clutched his shoulder, battered and on the verge of collapse. He said in a hoarse voice:
“…I do.”
In front of the dormitory building.
Wen Jianyan unfolded the damp, small square of crumpled paper and smoothed it out.
The paper on top of the three was the construction map Suo Suo had given him before.
He took out the map Suo Suo had given him earlier from his pocket and began to compare them.
Both the school map at the bottom and the dense network of pipes that converged at the artificial lake were identical on both sheets, without the slightest difference.
This meant that regardless of the origin of this construction map, the one Suo Suo had given him was genuine. It was not a fake, nor had it been tampered with in any way.
It was indeed one of the three key documents.
“…”
Wen Jianyan was a little puzzled.
Just then, an abnormal fluctuation came from the air not far away.
Wen Jianyan snapped his head up.
In the half-open door of the dormitory building, that haunting back view appeared again.
“…Tsk.”
Again.
Wen Jianyan frowned, clicked his tongue, and quickly got up.
However, as soon as he stood up, he realized that the fall had not left him unscathed. He seemed to have two or three broken ribs, his knee joints, which had absorbed the impact of the fall, were shattered, and his right calf was fractured.
It just didn’t hurt.
But his movements were somewhat affected.
Wen Jianyan dragged his body, trying his best to get away from the back view as quickly as possible.
The back view’s speed was still unhurried. Although it couldn’t immediately catch up to Wen Jianyan, it clung to him like a persistent disease that couldn’t be shaken off.
Where to next?
As Wen Jianyan moved forward, his mind raced.
He wasn’t sure yet.
So, Wen Jianyan once again took out the three papers he had gotten from the drainpipe. After removing the construction map from the top, the one underneath was a personal profile form.
It was Wang Ni’s.
It looked like it had been pulled from a student file. The edges were neat, but it still had a deep crease from being in a binder that hadn’t faded even after being removed for a long time.
Wen Jianyan was taken aback.
…Wang Ni’s personal file?
Why was it here? More importantly, why was it as important as the “school construction map”?
Wen Jianyan wasn’t sure.
He scanned the personal file. Most of the content was very ordinary, extremely mundane.
Name: Wang Chuni (Former name: Wang Ni)
Gender: Female
Address: …
Wang Ni’s personal file was no different from that of any other ordinary university student. It had her graduating school, past exam scores, home address, and so on. Wen Jianyan couldn’t see anything unusual, until…
His gaze fell on a corner at the bottom, and he suddenly froze.
Wang Ni’s registered residence and her current home address were not the same?
This wasn’t a big deal. After all, it was normal for ordinary people to move to a different city to work and live.
What caught Wen Jianyan’s attention…
Was a former correspondence address from Wang Ni’s elementary school records.
X Street, X District, X City, X Province
…Antai Community.
Antai Community?
Wen Jianyan’s fingers, holding the file, involuntarily clenched. A cold sweat suddenly broke out on his back. He stared intently at those words, as if he couldn’t believe his eyes.
Was it a coincidence?
The name “Antai” was auspicious and not uncommon for a residential community, but…
Although he could rationalize it in his mind, seeing those two familiar words in this instance, in this scene, at this moment, Wen Jianyan found it hard to convince himself that there was no connection.
But why…
Suddenly, Wen Jianyan jolted. As if sensing something, he snapped his head up.
He had unknowingly left the dormitory area and reached the main road leading to the school gate. Further ahead was the artificial lake, to the left was the academic building, and to the right was the main school gate.
However, what truly made Wen Jianyan look up had nothing to do with any building.
The sky above, at some point, had turned blue.
The azure sky was cloudless, and clear, bright light shone down, forcing Wen Jianyan, who had grown accustomed to the darkness, to squint.
This is…
Wen Jianyan looked around in amazement.
There wasn’t a single person in sight, and the area behind him was empty again.
He realized that the back view that had been chasing him had disappeared at some point.
“Clink! Clink! Clink!”
Suddenly, a rhythmic chiseling sound came from the school gate.
Wen Jianyan’s attention was drawn to it.
A few shadows seemed to be moving at the school gate to his right.
Wen Jianyan hesitated for a few seconds, then started walking toward the source of the sound.
“Clink! Clink! Clink!” The closer he got, the clearer the chiseling sound became.
But when Wen Jianyan reached the school gate, the sound suddenly stopped.
Then, two burly-looking workers, grunting with effort, carried a huge stone plaque into the school and walked straight toward him.
Wen Jianyan quickly stepped back two steps, avoiding them just before being hit.
As they passed by, he caught a glimpse of the two words on it.
[De Cai].
…Decai?
Wen Jianyan jolted. He whipped his head around and looked out the school gate again.
A few people stood with their backs to the gate, seeming to be in pleasant conversation, with occasional bursts of official-sounding laughter.
Wen Jianyan subconsciously moved a few steps closer and held his breath to listen.
“…Principal Zhang, from now on you are the principal here. I wonder what your plans are, what grand ambitions you have?” one of the middle-aged men with his back to Wen Jianyan said with a smile.
Principal Zhang?
That means—
Wen Jianyan’s heart pounded. He slowly turned his head to look at the person talking to the middle-aged man.
It was a humanoid shadow.
Like a black hole burned through a movie screen, it was incompatible with the surrounding scene, as if an endless, sinister wind was pouring in from it.
“———”
The shadow seemed to answer something, and the person who asked the question burst into laughter again.
Wen Jianyan felt the hair on his back slowly stand on end, and a cold sweat broke out in his palms.
He now had a rough idea of “where” he was.
Because the timing and method of his entry into the movie tape were so tricky, the plot didn’t play automatically when he entered but was in a “stagnant” state. But this didn’t mean this place was no longer a [Movie].
Apparently, as long as he went to the right location, he could still “trigger the plot” like before.
Wen Jianyan’s gaze involuntarily fell on the dark shadow.
It was like a hole burned into the world’s background, with no face and no details, only a humanoid silhouette—exactly the same as the shadow he had seen when he entered the administrative building in the memory.
This was probably the school’s principal.
Zhang Yunsheng.
Wen Jianyan had known his name since the first day he entered the instance and had even seen his face in a group photo in his office. But on the last day before the instance ended, this mysterious “principal,” the source of all evil plots, was still like a hollow cutout from a piece of paper, never revealing a single bit of his true self.
In front of the school gate, the laughing middle-aged man extended his hand, seemingly to shake hands with the “person” in the shadow.
Soon, the few of them stood together in a neat line and turned to look not far away.
“Three, two, one—” someone not far away held up a camera.
With a “click,” a flash as bright as day went off, and the scene before him began to fade.
The sky above slowly turned a strange blood-red again, and the figures not far away began to fade like reflections in water, eventually disappearing completely.
But strangely, the shadow remained, as if deeply seared into the background.
And…
The darkness was dissipating.
The black hole-like halo was also fading away with the film… and even began to reveal its true background color.
A gradually clearing figure appeared there.
“…”
Wen Jianyan heard his heart pounding in his chest. His gaze was uncontrollably fixed there, and his breathing involuntarily quickened.
The black shadow had become completely clear.
What appeared before Wen Jianyan’s eyes was—
A back view.
A very familiar back view.
The first time Wen Jianyan had seen it was in the movie theater for Suo Suo’s graduation thesis. Since then, it had never completely disappeared but had followed him like a shadow, a nightmare he couldn’t shake, a shadow he couldn’t escape.
“…”
Wen Jianyan couldn’t stop himself from taking a sharp step back.
The next second, the back view, just as it had countless times before, once again began to move, slowly, step by step, backward.
But although the movement seemed slow and no different from before, in the blink of an eye, the distance between them had already halved!
“!!!”
Wen Jianyan’s pupils widened slightly, and he sucked in a sharp, cold breath.
This is bad!
He barely had time to think before he immediately turned to flee.
In the “Integrity First” live room barrage:
[Damn, damn, what’s going on? You mean this back view that’s been chasing the anchor is actually the principal??]
[Hiss, looks like it.]
[Why is it chasing the anchor? Did the anchor do something before?]
[What do you mean ‘do something’? You should be asking what he ‘hasn’t done’, right?]
[…Hmm, that’s true.]
[And I don’t know if it’s my imagination, but has the back view’s speed increased…?]
[It’s not your imagination, definitely not. But the anchor is obviously about to be caught, the distance between them is closing so fast!!]
[Ahhh, anchor, run! If he gets caught, he’s probably really screwed!]
Wen Jianyan dragged his half-wrecked body, stumbling forward with difficulty.
Even without turning his head, he could feel the terrifying, haunting back view chasing him, sending chills down his spine.
What now? What to do next?
Wen Jianyan’s eyes darted around, his brain working at high speed.
If he had a choice, he would want to leave this movie as quickly as possible. But with the rules gone, the way to leave the tape was also gone—
Wait a minute.
Wen Jianyan’s pace involuntarily faltered.
…Is it really gone?
His mind uncontrollably replayed what had just happened—the clear sky, the backs of people talking at the school gate, the sudden flash of the camera.
That’s right. Once he entered a key scene, the movie plot would still be automatically activated.
If that’s the case, don’t the rules apply again!
Wen Jianyan’s spirits were instantly lifted.
His gaze fixed on a spot not far ahead—although he didn’t know how many key scenes there were in this movie, he knew that this place would definitely be one of them.
Within the blood-red, twisted bushes, lay the absolute core of this instance.
The artificial lake.
While quickening his pace, Wen Jianyan glanced back.
Just a brief glance sent a chill up his spine.
Too close.
The back view was now only two meters away from him. At such a short distance, he could clearly feel the terrifying coldness emanating from it, like a huge, malicious black hole, its immense gravity pulling at him, as if trying to drag him in.
Wen Jianyan snapped his eyes forward, clenched his jaw, and charged forward at the fastest speed he could muster!
The blood-red bushes whipped against his arms and thighs. After a series of stumbles and bumps, the view before him suddenly opened up.
The sky once again turned a clear, azure blue.
Lush bushes surrounded the artificial lake, which was the same color as the sky.
Wen Jianyan panted heavily, not even having time to survey his surroundings before quickly turning his head to look behind him.
Sure enough, just like last time, the back view was gone.
“…”
Wen Jianyan’s tense shoulders and neck finally relaxed.
His guess was right. The back view wouldn’t follow him into the movie’s plot—but this safety was also temporary. Once the movie ended, the danger would return as scheduled.
A rustling sound came from the grass ahead.
Wen Jianyan turned his head and looked in the direction of the sound.
A familiar figure appeared before him.
Richard.
He looked extremely battered. His face and body were charred, and several parts of his clothes were burned through, revealing scorched and broken skin underneath, exposing blood-red flesh. But he seemed to feel nothing.
And standing next to Richard was that hair-raising, humanoid shadow.
“Really?”
The young man turned his head, looking at the artificial lake not far away in a daze. “If I do this, I can really…”
“——”
An indistinguishable sound came from the shadow.
As if bewitched by some invisible force, the young man walked toward the artificial lake step by step.
Wen Jianyan knew this was the last scene of the previous movie.
Under the principal’s bewitchment, Richard, who had already set the gymnasium on fire, finally stopped and chose to drink the lake water, to be with his lover forever.
Based on Wen Jianyan’s experience, this scene wouldn’t last long.
So, he had to hurry. He had to use this brief period of safety to get himself out of this world.
Wen Jianyan rummaged through his pockets. Finally, he pulled out the “report card” that had appeared with the tape. Something seemed to have been pulled out with it and fell to the ground.
But he had no time to look. He just scanned the questions on it.
[Thesis Topic: Thank You, Teacher]
[1. What story does Thank You, Teacher tell? (20 points)]
[2. In the film, why does the protagonist express gratitude to the teacher? (20 points)]
[3. Please write your thoughts after watching the film (60 points)]
Wen Jianyan started with the post-viewing thoughts.
He began to write furiously.
In the “Integrity First” livestream chat.
On the big screen, lines of text flowed quickly from the pen, leaving the viewers dumbfounded.
[Ah, this… has the anchor really never been in some kind of system before? The way he writes this argumentative essay… it’s beautiful and official, not only fitting the plot but also saying nothing of substance. It’s flawless from any angle, truly amazing.]
[Awesome. He can write such good official-speak without even watching the movie. You’re wasted in the Nightmare, kid.]
In just a few minutes, a lengthy “post-viewing thoughts” appeared on the paper.
The moment Wen Jianyan finished the last word and put a period at the end of his thoughts, a bright red number appeared in the top right corner.
[Score: 40]
Strictly speaking, this score wasn’t high, but Wen Jianyan couldn’t help but let out a long sigh of relief.
Thank god.
He knew he had a grudge with the film appreciation teacher. If the power to grade him was in that teacher’s hands, his plan to “leave here by completing the answer sheet” would probably be ruined.
This was also why he had started with the subjective question.
Although the score wasn’t high now, it at least gave him a chance to pass.
Not bad.
Wen Jianyan turned to the first question.
[1. What story does Thank You, Teacher tell? (20 points)]
Strictly speaking, Wen Jianyan had not experienced the plot of this movie.
Not in the initial film appreciation course, nor when choosing his thesis topic later. Although the instance gave him two chances to watch the movie, for various reasons, Wen Jianyan had coincidentally never had a direct encounter with it.
But he had pushed the instance’s exploration rate to 98%. For an instance—especially an SS-rank one like [Yuying Comprehensive University]—this was a terrifyingly high number.
Even though he had never watched the movie’s plot before, answering the questions was not difficult for him.
Wen Jianyan thought for a moment and began to write down the plot of Thank You, Teacher, which he had pieced together from the other two movies.
“After Zhang Yunsheng became the principal of this school, he changed the original school name ‘Decai’ to ‘Yuying’ and carried out large-scale construction and reconstruction of the school’s drainage pipes, artificial lake, and gymnasium, ultimately creating a huge water supply network centered on the artificial lake that covered the entire campus. The swimming pool in the gymnasium was just an exposed opening.
However, a week before the project was completed, two students from the school accidentally entered the gymnasium.
One of the students became the first victim, and her mirror image began to invade reality…”
Wen Jianyan’s pen tip paused.
Wang Ni was not just the first victim, but the only one.
Richard had only noticed the strangeness of the school’s internal water supply and thus never dared to drink anything other than mineral water. But as an intruder in the gymnasium as well, he was not invaded by his own mirror image.
“So, the two students began to search for a way to break the situation in the following week. Wang Ni found it, but unfortunately, before she could succeed, her mirror image had already invaded and replaced her. So, Richard took over her mission and ended everything for her. However, before succeeding, he was bewitched again.”
Writing this, Wen Jianyan couldn’t help but look up at the lake.
The burned boy lay on the ground, his belly swollen high, as if some invisible entity was growing and strengthening inside.
Suddenly, Wen Jianyan was slightly taken aback.
He wasn’t sure if it was the angle, but he saw in the lake’s reflection a thin red tube connecting to Richard’s stomach—and it seemed to be the long, thin thread connected to the bottom of the “human cocoon” that Wen Jianyan had seen at the bottom of the lake before.
The throbbing on the belly grew stronger.
Finally, with a “splat,” a pair of hands tore open the boy’s swollen belly from the inside.
At the same time, Richard looked up. His eye sockets were a bloody mess, his eyeballs long gouged out and held tightly in his palm.
But he seemed to still see something. His unfocused gaze stared straight at the sky, and endless joy appeared on his face.
And in the lake’s reflection, the figure of a young woman appeared before the dying man.
She knelt before the boy, seemingly looking down at him with great sadness.
Wen Jianyan’s gaze paused. He looked away and finished writing the answer to this question.
“In the end, Richard’s mirror image burst out of his stomach, and he—”
The last stroke was drawn with a deep line.
Wen Jianyan looked stunned, staring into the distance.
In the lake’s reflection, the girl kneeling before the boy suddenly raised her hand and viciously slapped him across the face.
This…
This seemed different from the movie plot before.
Because the other’s soul had already entered another world, Wen Jianyan couldn’t hear their conversation and could only watch their expressions change through the lake’s surface.
There was intense anger, the unwillingness of failing at the brink of success, and an overwhelming grief that seemed to spill over.
Under the pull of these countless emotions, the mirror image that was supposed to be born from the boy’s swollen belly suddenly stopped writhing and actually began to gradually calm down.
It was all like a strange pantomime.
Wen Jianyan stood there, watching this unfamiliar scene in amazement.
None of these images had appeared in any of the previous movies.
This was information that belonged solely to this movie and existed nowhere else.
And just then, the shadow that had been standing still all this time suddenly moved. It stepped forward and bent down.
With a sickening sound of tearing flesh, the boy’s stomach was torn open from the outside.
A strange and deformed figure slowly crawled out of Richard’s abdomen.
“——” The shadow seemed to say something.
The mirror image slowly raised its head, revealing a flat face.
Unlike the mirror image that crawled out of Wang Ni’s abdomen, which was almost identical to Wang Ni herself, the mirror image that crawled out of Richard’s abdomen this time had flat and blurry features, random and crude. Although it was still within the human category, it had a strangely unsettling and bizarre feel.
Its forehead bulged high, and its eyes were set far apart. It was so ugly and incomplete, like a semi-finished product of some experiment or like an undeveloped embryo.
Wen Jianyan’s pupils shrank.
This face…
It belonged to the convenience store owner from before.
It raised its head, its mouth opening and closing, making a grating sound:
“Water—I want water—”
