(2/7)
Yuying University
Chapter 403: Teacher, it should be okay to hand in the homework early, right?
Dorm Room 504 was dead silent.
Light from the hallway filtered in through the crack under the door and the windows half-covered with newspaper, barely illuminating the shadowy, damp figure ahead.
“Click… click…”
The sound of bones grinding against each other echoed through the stillness.
“Richard” stood with his back to Wen Jianyan, slowly turning his head.
Wen Jianyan held his breath. He could hear the frantic pounding of his own heart, feel the cold sweat forming in his palms. His body involuntarily pressed harder against the door.
In the faint light, as the head gradually rotated, he could make out the water-soaked, pale ears… the swollen, discolored cheeks… and—
Stop looking any further.
Suddenly, without warning, a bold, blood-red line of text surged into his mind.
It was scrawled on the dorm room wall.
And, as part of the “post-class homework,” it was also carved slowly into the skin over his chest and abdomen.
A wave of overwhelming, fatal dread crashed over him. Wen Jianyan’s heart lurched, and he barely had time to think.
Driven by instinct, he squeezed his eyes shut.
“Click… click…”
The grinding of bones continued, then suddenly stopped.
Silence swallowed the dorm.
In the darkness, only Wen Jianyan’s rapid, uneven breathing remained. His eyes stayed shut tight, thin lids trembling over quivering eyeballs.
Thump-thump, thump-thump.
His heart slammed against his ribs. The sound of rushing blood filled his ears.
Cold air prickled his skin with goosebumps.
Wen Jianyan gritted his teeth, suppressing every instinctive reaction.
One second.
Two.
Three…
…
Ten seconds passed.
Still silence. Only the steady dripping of water.
It seemed… he was right.
No eye contact.
“……”
Wen Jianyan took a deep breath, forcing himself to calm down.
Now, in this nightmare, props couldn’t be used. That meant, aside from relying on teammates, the only real option left… was activating his talent.
But even if his conveniently absent dormmates were still around, Wen Jianyan seriously doubted they’d be of much help in a scene like this.
Should he… use his talent?
The thought stirred his mind.
After all, as a formal member of the Secret Council, he now had a unique privilege that no other anchor possessed—he could use his talent multiple times in a single instance, and the cooldown had been drastically reduced.
No. Not yet.
Wen Jianyan frowned and quickly pushed the idea aside.
Not only did all talents come with a price, but more importantly—this wasn’t a dead end yet.
He had encountered this same prop-locked situation before. During a “major course,” they had faced something similar. Meaning, this wasn’t triggered by his behavior—it was an intentional part of the instance’s mechanics.
Which meant…
There had to be a rule-based way around it.
What was it?
While Wen Jianyan was lost in thought, a sound stirred in the silence.
Something wet seemed to be slowly dragging… slithering.
Drip… drip…
There were no footsteps, but somehow, the sound of water droplets seemed to draw closer.
“!”
Wen Jianyan’s eyes flew open in shock. He instinctively backed up, bumping into the door with a thud.
Then he remembered—the locked door was behind him. No way out.
Drip… drip…
With his vision gone, his other senses sharpened.
He could hear the approaching water droplets, feel the chilling cold creeping up his skin, smell the familiar damp, fishy stench at his nose.
In the dark, the human imagination reached its peak.
It was almost as if—
Richard’s grotesque face had elongated and was now inches from his own.
“!!!”
Wen Jianyan’s skin crawled, but his mind kept racing.
The wet dragging was nearly at his face.
This…
This had happened before.
And then, like a flash in the dark, something clicked in his mind.
“Mr. Sun!!”
Wen Jianyan raised his hand, eyes still shut tight, pale but astonishingly calm as he uttered a sentence completely out of place in the current situation:
“I request to go to the bathroom!”
And instantly—
Silence.
No more dripping. No more squelching.
Only endless, suffocating stillness.
“……”
Wen Jianyan, eyes still closed, tentatively reached out in front of him, feeling his way forward.
His fingertips touched something hard and icy cold—
A desk.
He cautiously lifted his eyelids to peek outside.
What appeared before Wen Jianyan was no longer the narrow, pitch-black dormitory of Room 504, but an empty, old classroom. Mr. Sun stood at the podium, his face wearing the same unchanging smile—but his eyes were cold and menacing.
Behind him, the projector spun silently, the word [Paused] flickering faintly on the grimy screen.
In the “Integrity First” live room barrage:
[?]
[??]
[??!!!]
[WTF?? You can do that?!]
Wen Jianyan’s clothes were soaked through with sweat and blood, clinging to his back. His face was pale, his forehead beaded with sweat—he looked utterly disheveled.
He let out a long breath and slumped weakly into a nearby chair.
So it was like this.
Back during the “Film Appreciation” elective, he had already noticed that every movie screening was very short, and the threats introduced were rarely fatal. In fact, the moment a danger appeared, the movie would be cut off—so quickly that they never even had a chance to use their one allotted “bathroom break.”
So, when was that break meant to be used?
Before being dragged into that previous scene, Wen Jianyan hadn’t figured it out. But once he entered the actual movie scenario and heard the same kind of sounds he remembered from class, he suddenly had a revelation.
If the so-called “bathroom break” couldn’t be used during the real Film Appreciation class, then—was it carried over into the “homework” afterward?
Turns out, it was.
At that moment, Mr. Sun, still standing behind the podium, smiled stiffly and spoke in a cold voice:
“Bathroom breaks are only five minutes. Don’t waste your time.”
Wen Jianyan stood up, hesitated… then sat back down again.
He blinked, looked at Mr. Sun, and pushed his sweat-drenched black hair away from his forehead, revealing his pale skin. His expression was innocent as he asked:
“Teacher, you don’t mind if I use this time to catch up on some homework, right?”
Mr. Sun: “……”
In the “Integrity First” live room barrage:
[HAHAHAHAHAHA!]
[Oh my god, what a savage move!]
Through gritted teeth, Mr. Sun spat: “…I don’t mind.”
“Thank you, teacher.” Wen Jianyan smiled, swiftly pulled off the backpack that had been hanging on his arm the whole time, and took out the chilly draft paper and pen.
Only 300 words to go.
In the empty classroom, the sound of pen scratching paper—shasha—filled the air.
Wen Jianyan leaned over the desk, thoughts sharp, his hand flying across the page. He was rapidly finishing his “homework.”
At the podium, Mr. Sun’s smile remained frozen, but his expression had clearly darkened. He kept glancing down, checking the time left on the “bathroom break.”
Finally, with less than thirty seconds to spare, Wen Jianyan wrote the last character of the essay—and even added a stylish little flourish.
A familiar system sound rang in his ears:
【Ding! Congratulations! You’ve completed the homework for this session of ‘Film Appreciation’!】
Wen Jianyan let out a long sigh, packed away all his things, and with the draft paper in hand, walked directly toward the podium.
For the first time, the smile vanished from Mr. Sun’s face.
He stood still, expressionless, his eyes cold as he stared Wen Jianyan down.
The young man stood tall, his white dress shirt soaked and stained with blotches of red. His face was pale from blood loss, black hair slicked back with sweat. His usually gentle features now carried an uncommon sharpness.
“Teacher,” Wen Jianyan smiled lightly as he handed over the paper, his tone casual, “I suppose turning it in early is allowed?”
“……………………”
Mr. Sun’s face was like stone as he slowly reached out and took the draft.
At the top of the page, written in bold:
“Reflections on Brave Richard: Why You Should Never Be Too Brave in a Horror Movie”
In this situation, that title was utterly ridiculous.
“Goodbye, Teacher.” Wen Jianyan smiled, waved at him, slung his backpack over one shoulder, and walked toward the classroom door.
Even as he reached out and opened it, he could still feel that burning gaze searing into his back like twin lasers.
But he didn’t pause.
He stepped straight out of the classroom.
In the very next instant, the scene shifted.
RRRRRIIIIINNNNGGG!!!
The bell blared.
Wen Jianyan opened his eyes to see the dingy ceiling above his bed and the hazy mosquito netting.
He froze, his brain lagging for half a beat before realizing—
After submitting the homework, they had finally escaped that twisted scene and returned to the real Yuying Comprehensive University.
BZZZZZZZZ!
The moment Wen Jianyan woke up, his phone began vibrating madly beneath his pillow.
Clearly, his teammates had also snapped out of the forced sleep and were flooding him with messages to check if he was safe.
Wen Jianyan propped himself up on the edge of the bed and reached under the pillow to grab his phone.
“Hss—!”
But just as he pushed himself up, he suddenly gasped.
So painful!
Wen Jianyan lowered his head and glanced over his body.
The wounds he had sustained inside the film scenario had followed him back. Crimson blood seeped through his clothes, and the jagged gashes carved into his flesh throbbed violently as sweat stung them.
Grimacing, Wen Jianyan looked up at the health bar above his head.
Still at 50 points.
Damn.
He had already lost nearly half.
As he was checking his HP, a voice came from the bunk below:
“…We’re out?”
“No way, we’re really out!”
Brother Hu and Brother Bao scrambled out of bed in a flurry, standing up and taking in the familiar dorm room around them. For the first time, the old, dirty furnishings actually felt comforting.
“Shit, that was seriously… the scariest thing ever…”
Brother Bao exhaled a long breath, his face still bearing the look of someone freshly shaken.
“Wait—how did we even get out? Was it because enough time had passed?”
“No idea…”
The others shook their heads, looking confused. None of them had a clue as to how they’d suddenly been released from the nightmare.
“Wait a second,” Zhao Ze suddenly blurted, as if realizing something. He rushed forward and yanked open the mosquito net of the bunk below Wen Jianyan’s.
His face froze mid-smile, replaced by a heavy expression.
“Where’s the Weasel?”
Everyone else was stunned and immediately turned to look at the Weasel’s bed.
Inside the net, there was nothing. The blanket was still spread out, but the person who’d been lying there was gone—vanished at some unknown point.
“No idea…” Brother Hu scratched his head, looking puzzled. “It’s not like he was in the movie scenario with us. So where did he go?”
Did he leave?
It wasn’t impossible. During earlier professional courses, the Weasel had indeed shown he could break free of forced sleep states…
But the question was—where did he go?
The group exchanged glances, each of them wearing a blank expression.
No one had the answer.
“Hey!” Brother Hu suddenly smacked his forehead, then looked up at the top bunk. “Bro, you back? You okay?”
The mosquito net above swayed slightly.
Wen Jianyan poked his head out, his voice weak: “I’m fine…”
Everyone let out a collective sigh of relief.
“But your face looks kinda pale,” Brother Hu said with concern, noticing Wen Jianyan’s complexion. “Something wrong?”
“I’m fine, thanks, Brother Hu.”
Wen Jianyan smiled a bit shyly. “It was my first time seeing something like that… I just got really scared.”
His face was pale, his forehead damp with sweat. His long eyelashes drooped, casting fragile shadows over his cheeks. He looked every bit the timid, inexperienced newbie.
In the “Integrity First” live room barrage:
[…]
[…]
[Oh please, keep acting!!]
After gaining the sympathy and concern of his dormmates, Wen Jianyan gave his wounds a simple treatment. He used the potions he had exchanged from the system shop to stop the bleeding, and even took a painkiller. But because of the dungeon’s mechanics, his HP bar didn’t recover at all.
He jumped down from the bed and glanced at the now-empty lower bunk.
As he’d suspected, the Weasel had indeed entered the club-related side quest. But whether he cleared it—and whether he was still alive—was another question.
Wen Jianyan let out a sigh of regret.
What a shame.
If the Weasel hadn’t disappeared, he could’ve rallied his teammates and staged the perfect kidnapping—to really “understand” how the club system in this dungeon operated.
After a quick wash-up, Wen Jianyan grabbed his backpack and left the dorm.
Soon, he arrived at the meeting point they had agreed on in the group chat.
Underneath the dorm building, by the wall that still held the “Welcome New Students” banner, the Orange Candy team was already waiting. As soon as they spotted Wen Jianyan, their eyes lit up.
Su Cheng looked him up and down, only relaxing when he confirmed Wen Jianyan still had all his limbs.
“Glad you’re okay.”
Yun Bilan’s gaze fell on Wen Jianyan’s face, frowning slightly. “But your complexion looks a bit too pale, doesn’t it?”
Wen Jianyan smiled, thanking his teammates for their concern.
Orange Candy leaned lazily against the wall, as if Wen Jianyan’s safe return hadn’t surprised her one bit. She raised an eyebrow. “It’s over?”
“Mm.”
Wen Jianyan nodded.
“So, what happened?” Orange Candy straightened up and leaned in curiously.
Wen Jianyan briefly recounted his experience from the night before, then concluded:
“…Anyway, that’s basically how to clear the Film Appreciation course. You just need to re-enter the movie and finish a 1,500-word reflection essay. Every 500 words written opens an exit route for the anchor. If you realize you can’t hold out, you can choose to leave through one of those exits.
During this process, the monsters become more aggressive as your HP drops, and there are some over-the-top attacks that, while impossible to counter, can be dodged through loopholes in the rules.”
“Once you turn in the assignment, the credits you earn from the elective course can be freely used.”
Wen Jianyan pulled out his student card and waved it in front of them.
The credits, which had previously been marked as temporarily restricted for exchange or withdrawal, had now changed ownership. They no longer belonged to the school but were permanently his.
Orange Candy let out a melodious whistle:
“Wow, not bad!”
Although she had already expected that with Wen Jianyan’s capabilities, surviving this level of difficulty wouldn’t be a problem, she hadn’t expected that not only would he come out in one piece, but he would also pull off a beautiful overtake—completely figuring out the course mechanics and even finishing the assignment that usually took others three movie entries to complete—
Even though Orange Candy was in the same tier as him, a veteran anchor herself, she was genuinely surprised and impressed by the result.
“But when you’re writing the reflection, there’s an unavoidable HP deduction mechanic.”
Wen Jianyan shrugged helplessly and explained how wounds would appear on his body in proportion to the word count of his essay.
“You mean… the wounds are made of words?”
Orange Candy’s eyes lit up the moment she heard that clue.
She lunged forward and grabbed the hem of Wen Jianyan’s shirt, trying to lift it. “Quick, let me see!”
Startled, Wen Jianyan hurriedly clutched his shirt to stop her from tearing it open out of pure chaos. He took a nervous step back. “Wait, wait—this isn’t the place for that, right?”
Other anchors were heading out of the dorm to “attend class,” and some of them had already noticed the commotion and were casting them odd looks.
“…Fair.”
Orange Candy reluctantly let go.
“Later then.”
“Wait a minute, you said there’s an unavoidable HP deduction?” Yun Bilan, who had been quiet, suddenly reacted. She furrowed her brows. “How much HP do you have left?”
Wen Jianyan: “Fifty.”
Every 300 words deducted 10 HP. At 1,500 words, that was 50 HP gone.
Exactly half.
While it wouldn’t kill him instantly, Wen Jianyan could clearly feel the physical toll. He was dizzy, his limbs were cold and weak like he had lost too much blood. Even though the bleeding had been temporarily stopped, the wounds showed no sign of healing.
“…”
Orange Candy paused.
Something seemed to click in her mind. Slowly, she turned her head, her thoughtful gaze settling on Wen Jianyan.
Wen Jianyan felt a chill down his spine under her stare. “…What?”
Orange Candy lowered her head and rummaged through her backpack. Soon, she pulled out a tightly wrapped plastic package containing a cold leftover bun.
She handed it over, eyes sparkling:
“Here, try it?”
Wen Jianyan: “…”
In the “Integrity First” live room barrage:
[HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!]
[I knew it!! Poor little lab rat!!!!]
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