Yuying University
Chapter 497: He didn’t pass.
Soon, the voice from the speaker faded, and the classroom returned to dead silence.
It was dark all around, with only the young man standing alone under the single beam of light in the center of the classroom.
First Round of Assessment... these few words weighed heavily on Wen Jianyan’s heart, making it somewhat difficult for him to breathe.
What would it be?
As someone who had no contact with dance class before this, Wen Jianyan had no clue.
His nerves tensed, and he vigilantly observed his surroundings, his palms sweating with a sticky coldness.
Suddenly, Wen Jianyan caught a glimpse of something out of the corner of his eye. He jolted and abruptly looked at the mirror opposite him.
In the mirror, the dance studio was pitch black. Under the single light pillar, it was not his reflection standing there, but a faceless puppet.
The puppet was the same height as him and looked very ordinary. Its limbs and torso were made of wood, bare and without much detail. But for some reason, its right hand was suspended, fingers slightly open, as if holding something in the void.
Wen Jianyan seemed to realize something and subconsciously glanced down.
His own right hand was suspended in the air, holding the Graduation Thesis Report Card. The posture was identical to the puppet in the mirror.
“…”
Seeing this, Wen Jianyan felt a shiver of cold dread run up his spine.
【Assessment Content: Basic Skills】
At that moment, the distorted voice came from the speaker above again.
The moment the voice fell, Wen Jianyan saw that the puppet in the mirror, which had been mirroring his movements, suddenly moved.
Its suspended right hand dropped, its back straightened, and its head lifted slightly, looking tall and elegant.
In the “Integrity First” live room:
[!! Damn, so it’s this!]
[Hiss…]
[Huh??? How does everyone in front understand? Am I the only one in the entire live stream who hasn’t paid attention to anchors who took this elective??]
[Ahhh, someone tell me what’s going on! Is this round hard or not?]
[How to put it… it’s hard and it’s not hard.]
[In short, if the anchor has taken this class before, it’s fine. But if he’s going in blind with no experience… he might die in the first round.]
Wen Jianyan reacted quickly.
Even though he hadn’t taken the dance elective and knew almost nothing about this class, he was an expert at guessing rules. Even without many more hints, Wen Jianyan roughly understood what he had to do next.
He put away the report card in his hand and, imitating the puppet in the mirror, tentatively lowered his hand and straightened his back.
Sure enough, as Wen Jianyan began to imitate the puppet in the mirror, a huge, bright red, bloody word slowly appeared in the upper right corner of the mirror’s surface:
D.
The red was vivid and viscous, looking not as if it had been smeared on the mirror’s surface, but rather as if it were seeping out from underneath…
Under the pale light, it was very jarring.
Wen Jianyan’s gaze swept over the bloody word. His heart skipped a beat, and it was hard to tell if he was relieved or more worried.
…So it was like this.
However, although his guess was confirmed, Wen Jianyan still did not let his guard down.
The dance exam had three rounds. Even if the difficulty of the first round wasn’t too high, it wouldn’t be this low.
As if to confirm his speculation, the puppet in the mirror suddenly moved again.
It slowly stepped back, its posture still standard and dignified.
Wen Jianyan followed closely behind.
Next, the puppet turned sideways, and Wen Jianyan followed suit.
The puppet sat down facing the mirror, and he did the same.
The next few movements were equally simple, with almost no difficulty.
On the mirror’s surface, the bright red letter gradually changed, from D, to C, then to B…
As time went on, the rating increased bit by bit. The only sound in the entire dance studio was the young man’s breathing, as quiet as the sea before a storm.
Wen Jianyan sat on the floor, observing the puppet’s movements in the mirror out of the corner of his eye. His nerves were tense, and he waited silently.
Suddenly, the puppet moved again.
The wooden body elegantly and slowly spread its legs, folding forward completely, its upper and lower body pressing together.
“…”
Wen Jianyan paused.
In the “Integrity First” live room:
[This… is a bit difficult.]
[For real?? Is the anchor really going to do it?? Can he?]
Because he didn’t follow immediately this time, the puppet’s movement did not change right away. It was as if it was waiting for him, silent and motionless.
Perhaps because he hesitated for a bit too long this time, in the upper right corner of the mirror, the B that had just been dripping with bright red began to fade bit by bit, seeming to be on the verge of disappearing.
“…”
Although the difficulty was a bit high, it wasn’t completely impossible.
Wen Jianyan took a deep breath.
He reached up and unbuttoned the top two buttons of his shirt, then glanced down at his pants—the cut was very proper, and the fabric didn’t look very stretchy.
In any case, he hoped they wouldn’t split.
With a light “click,” Wen Jianyan deftly unbuckled his belt, pulled it out, and tossed it far away.
In the “Integrity First” live room:
[My goodness?!]
[Holy shit, he can actually do it!]
[Truly impressive, especially since he has the frame of an adult man. To have this kind of flexibility is too rare.]
Wen Jianyan had tried his best, but the objective physical limitations still existed. He managed to do it, but his execution was not as standard as the puppet’s in the mirror.
In the upper right corner of the mirror, the bright red B that had been hanging high gradually faded, and a capital A slowly emerged.
Wen Jianyan stared at the letter, panting slightly.
It seemed the rules for the first round of assessment were pretty much like this.
The Basic Skills assessment was indeed very basic.
He just needed to keep his movements consistent with the puppet in the mirror. The higher the consistency, the higher the rating.
As Wen Jianyan was deep in thought, the puppet in the mirror moved once again.
It slowly turned around, pulling one leg to the side. The angle between its two legs was almost greater than 180 degrees, yet its posture remained elegant and effortless.
Wen Jianyan: “………………”
In the “Integrity First” live room:
[…]
[…]
[Dude, are you serious?]
The moment he saw this movement, sweat immediately broke out on Wen Jianyan.
Indeed, he worked out and could do some relatively difficult movements.
Even before entering the instance, Wen Jianyan was the type who cherished his image and paid great attention to managing his physique. After entering the instance, due to the constant high pressure and high consumption, the more flashy, aesthetically pleasing muscles were worn down and re-tempered into a more practical physique.
He was thinner than before, but also more agile and flexible.
…But that didn’t mean Wen Jianyan had the flexibility to match a professional dancer!
Cold sweat broke out on Wen Jianyan’s forehead as he stared intently at the puppet’s movement in the mirror.
In the upper right corner of the mirror, the A rating began to fade again, like some kind of invisible urging.
Finally, Wen Jianyan closed his eyes, steeled his heart, and made up his mind.
In an instance of this difficulty, a crisis that could be solved with physical pain was not a crisis at all.
He took a deep breath, gritted his teeth, and began.
In just a few short seconds, dense cold sweat seeped from the young man’s forehead. His already bloodless face became even paler. He frowned tightly, his lips pressed together, as if silently enduring something.
Cold sweat dripped from his forehead, falling onto the tips of his trembling eyelashes.
In the ‘Integrity First’ live stream room, the audience couldn’t help but be filled with solemn respect.
[Holy shit………………]
[He really fucking did it??]
[I’m on my feet, this is truly impressive!]
Suddenly, without any warning, the puppet in the mirror slowly turned its head and looked at Wen Jianyan.
The next second, it pressed its entire upper body down.
“—?!”
Wen Jianyan’s pupils constricted, and a sharp, horrified tremor escaped his throat. He found that his body was somehow no longer under his control. His upper body was being forced down by some invisible force, pressed entirely towards the ground.
His ligaments were forcefully stretched, every inch of his muscles tensed, and his nerves shrieked in pain.
“Ugh, ah—”
The young man’s thin shoulder blades pushed up his sweat-soaked shirt, revealing the living color of his flesh. He trembled as if dying, and red marks like cracked porcelain seeped through the fabric on his skin.
What… exactly… was happening?
Wen Jianyan struggled to glance at the mirror.
He didn’t know if it was an illusion caused by too much pain, but in his sweat-blurred vision, the puppet seemed to be…
Laughing?
The blank, smooth wooden face rippled. The positions of its facial features sank in, and the corners of its mouth split wide, as if revealing a malicious smile.
Wen Jianyan shivered.
A premonition of danger rushed over him.
He didn’t even have time to think. His body had already reacted subconsciously. He didn’t care about his currently overly difficult posture and rolled to the side—!
Due to the pain from his limbs and ligaments, Wen Jianyan’s mind was blank for the next half a minute.
His vision went black, and his ears rang.
The audience in the ‘Integrity First’ live stream room was also stunned.
[Huh? What happened?]
[What just happened… I didn’t react in time!]
On the other side, those viewers who had watched the dance class live stream before marveled:
[I didn’t expect the anchor to actually escape without any information. Impressive.]
[Indeed, this part is really easy to die in. The anchor I used to follow died right here. Logically, he wasn’t a newcomer, but he still crashed and burned, and it was game over just like that.]
[I hope the anchor in our live stream doesn’t die too quickly.]
A long time later, Wen Jianyan finally recovered.
He turned his stiff neck, panting, and looked up at the mirror.
In the upper right corner of the mirror, the rating that was originally A had now become D.
—Failed.
The puppet in the mirror lay on the ground, as if its controlling strings had been cut, motionless and lifeless. Its previously twisted and sunken face had returned to being smooth and ordinary.
It still maintained the previous split posture, fallen on the ground.
At some point, its waist had twisted a full 180 degrees, as if twisted in two directions by two forces. If this had happened to a human, and not a puppet…
That person’s spine would have been completely broken, crippled if not dead.
“…”
Wen Jianyan stared at the scene in the mirror, couldn’t help but shiver. The soaked cloth stuck to the skin on his back, cold and sticky.
After all that effort, the assessment still wasn’t passed. This was indeed disappointing.
But Wen Jianyan also knew…
He had indeed just escaped death.
If he hadn’t reacted quickly, the one lying on the ground with a broken back would have been him, not the puppet.
Wen Jianyan withdrew his gaze, rested his sweaty forehead on the ground, and closed his eyes to take deep breaths.
He sorted through the recent events in his mind.
The idea of following the puppet’s movements in the mirror was clearly correct, but it hid a deadly trap—the puppet, which was supposed to be just a demonstration, could somehow control his body in reverse, injuring or even killing him.
This was very terrifying.
As Wen Jianyan was thinking, the distorted voice sounded from the speaker again:
【The first round of basic skills assessment is over. The rating is D—grade failed, the candidate cannot leave the examination room】
Wen Jianyan turned his head and looked in the direction of the voice.
The voice continued:
【The next round of assessment will continue in ten minutes. Please prepare, candidate.】
Wen Jianyan slowly blinked, a thoughtful expression on his face.
The information contained in that announcement from the speaker was not insignificant.
“Grade failed, cannot leave the examination room,” meant conversely—if the grade was passing, even if he hadn’t completed all three assessments, he could temporarily leave the examination room?
With that thought, Wen Jianyan pushed himself up from the ground and knelt.
Due to the previous ordeal, his arms were exhausted and trembled slightly as he supported himself on the ground.
Wen Jianyan took a deep breath, sat cross-legged on the floor, and wiped his face.
Although he had failed the first round of basic skills, it didn’t mean his thesis had failed.
After all, according to the information on the report card, whether he could graduate in the end depended on the “average score” rather than a single subject’s grade. This meant… if he wanted to pull his score back up, he had to perform exceptionally well in the next two rounds and get a high score.
—But, how to do it?
Wen Jianyan lay on the floor, staring at the ceiling above, deep in thought.
About three hours ago.
After seeing the firelight in the distance, Hugo and the others were all stunned. After exchanging a glance, they immediately realized that there was a turn of events.
Without any delay, they immediately left the library and rushed in the direction of the firelight.
However, by the time they arrived at the entrance of the teaching building, everything had returned to its original state, as if the firelight they had just glimpsed was merely an illusion.
“What on earth…”
Yun Bilan frowned and looked around.
The sky was azure, without a cloud in sight. Everything looked no different from memory.
No figures, no clues, nothing.
Hugo looked around, then just walked forward and squatted down by the edge of a flower bed.
His gaze fell on the scattered bricks there, his brow slightly furrowed, deep in thought.
“Did an event outside the loop occur?” Wei Cheng asked.
“Yes.”
Hugo stood up and looked at the building in front of him.
Yun Bilan was startled: “Could it be…”
“Yes.”
Hugo withdrew his gaze, “It’s him.”
Besides him, there would be no second person.
The meaning of an invisible wall—to isolate influence, to prohibit change.
In other words, what happened in the area surrounded by the invisible wall was the truly crucial existence in this 【Memory】.
As for why Wen Jianyan was not pushed out by the invisible wall like them, Hugo didn’t know. But he knew that as long as one could enter the invisible wall, it meant Wen Jianyan would gain a unique authority.
A chance to change the plot, to break the loop.
And based on the firelight they had just seen from the sky, Wen Jianyan must have done something to successfully affect the instance itself. As for whether this result was good or bad, perhaps only he himself knew.
Tian Ye showed a look of annoyance:
“It’s a pity we were still too slow and missed such a good opportunity…”
But Hugo shook his head: “We didn’t miss it.”
The position Wen Jianyan was in was the core of the memory that was not allowed to be touched.
This also meant that unlike them, who could only wander on the surface of the memory—the changes Wen Jianyan made to the instance were thorough. They would not disappear with the restart of the cycle but would loop along with it.
“What time is it?” Hugo asked.
Wei Cheng looked down at his watch and accurately stated the current time.
Hugo nodded and withdrew his gaze.
“But,” Wei Cheng paused, seeming to hesitate, “is this really okay? You know, we still can’t contact him. What if…”
Although he didn’t finish, everyone understood his unspoken meaning.
After communication was cut off, their situations were blind boxes to each other.
In this situation, they were like mutes walking forward blindfolded, not knowing if the person ahead was walking a path of life or a gate of death.
If it was a gate of death… Wen Jianyan would have no way to pass the information out.
“There is no ‘what if’.”
Suddenly, Su Cheng, who was at the side, spoke.
The group paused and looked over.
From the beginning, Su Cheng had been silently staring at the building in front of them.
It was as if he was looking at the teaching building before him, but also as if he was looking at something much more distant.
Su Cheng turned to look at the group and said no more. Perhaps because the sky behind him was too bright, his eyes were rendered particularly dark and deep.
This was perhaps a common ailment of prophets.
Always stating only the conclusion, never the process.
And for this reason, no one knew whether his conclusion came from his own talent or from blind faith in his own guild leader.
Hugo gave him a deep look and briefly said, “Mhm.”
He withdrew his gaze: “I think so too.”
Since Hugo had spoken, the others naturally couldn’t have any objections.
“However, there’s still a while before the next cycle. Before that,” Hugo turned around, without looking back, and said, “we’re going back to the library.”
“—We still haven’t found what we need to find, have we?”
Time slipped easily through the fingers.
Soon, the ten-minute rest period was over.
【Your second dance assessment is about to begin】
The flat, emotionless voice came from the speaker, echoing in the empty dance studio.
Wen Jianyan took a deep breath and pulled his body up from the floor.
Although the forcefully stretched ligaments were still aching faintly, and his limbs were trembling uncontrollably because of it, these ten minutes had still given him some room to breathe and rest.
【Please prepare.】
The moment the voice fell, without any warning, the single cool beam of light above his head abruptly went out.
“?!”
Wen Jianyan was startled.
It was pitch black all around. Even if he blinked his eyes, he couldn’t see any light. The deep darkness brought an illusion of blindness.
“…”
Wen Jianyan adjusted his breathing, his body tensing up involuntarily.
“Bang!”
Suddenly, a beam of light from above lit up.
The sudden sound startled Wen Jianyan severely.
He jolted and looked in the direction the sound came from.
“Bang!”
“Bang!”
“Bang!”
Next, the lights above lit up one after another, quickly dispelling the darkness. In the blink of an eye, the entire dance studio was brightly lit.
Only then did Wen Jianyan suddenly realize that this dance studio was much larger than he had imagined.
There were mirrors on all four sides.
No doors, no windows.
In the mirrors on all four sides, each one reflected his face. Layers of space extended into the distance, like a cage impossible to escape.
In the mirror, the young man looked around nervously, his expression tense and panicked.
The next second, the lights went out again.
In the darkness, it was dead silent. He could only hear his own slightly chaotic heartbeat and breathing. Other than that, he could hear nothing.
Wen Jianyan’s body tensed.
“Bang!” In an instant, all the lights came on brightly at once.
As the darkness disappeared, Wen Jianyan saw everything around him clearly. He was horrified, and a layer of cold sweat suddenly broke out on his back.
The classroom, which had been empty just now, was now filled with puppets.
They stood one next to another, straight and tall in the dance studio, making the vast classroom seem packed. Their wooden limbs and heads were as smooth as ever, looking lifeless.
The next second, a distorted voice came from the speaker:
【Assessment Content: Ballroom Dance】
The moment the voice fell, the puppets began to move.
Although the assessment content this time was ballroom dance, they did not pair up. Instead, they suspended their arms in the air, as if embracing an invisible dance partner.
“…”
Wen Jianyan seemed to realize something. He hesitated for a moment, chose the puppet closest to him, walked forward, and stepped into the empty space in front of it.
“!”
Wen Jianyan jolted.
—It was the puppet’s cold wooden hand on his waist.
Is it going to lead the dance??
Of course, Wen Jianyan knew how to ballroom dance.
This little trick on the social scene, he was all too familiar with it.
He had always been good at taking elegant steps, skillfully coordinating with his partner’s dance steps, and guiding the other to follow his movements while gentlemanly maintaining a comfortable distance.
But to be honest, him dancing the female part…
This was a first.
Especially dancing with this kind of puppet that exuded a cold aura.
“…”
Wen Jianyan suppressed the urge to run away, took a deep breath, raised his right hand, and slowly placed it on the puppet’s shoulder.
His other hand held the puppet’s suspended hand.
Under his palm was the hard wooden body, ice-cold, giving a strange sense of discomfort.
The moment he got into position, as if affirming his action, the mirror that had been empty just now showed the familiar, striking bloody word:
【D】
Beautiful music came from the speaker, mixed with a grainy static, making it seem inexplicably cold and eerie.
As the music filled the entire classroom, the puppets slowly began to dance.
One, two, three, one, two, three.
Along with the music, the puppets’ feet moved forward and backward, each step perfectly on the beat of the music. All their movements were standard and uniform, with no flaws to be found.
Although Wen Jianyan had never danced the female part, ballroom dancing was what it was. If it was just a matter of reversing the steps, it naturally wouldn’t stump his clever mind.
After a short period of awkwardness, Wen Jianyan quickly got the hang of it, and his steps gradually became smooth and proficient.
He was already good at these things, and with his slender figure, it didn’t look awkward even when he danced the female part. Instead, he had an elegant grace of his own.
When the puppet’s hand was raised, pulling him into a spin, Wen Jianyan naturally coordinated while consciously glancing at the mirror.
On the mirror’s surface, the rating that was originally only D had at some point turned into an A.
“…!”
Wen Jianyan’s heart skipped a beat.
Under his palm, the originally cold and hard puppet body seemed to be getting colder, invading his flesh through his palm.
In his peripheral vision, the wooden texture on the puppet’s face in front of him seemed to be twisting again, as if… it was transforming into a human face.
In that instant, alarm bells went off in Wen Jianyan’s mind.
If the rules of the second round were the same as the first, then the truly terrifying danger was about to happen.
No!
He stopped following the music, and his feet immediately messed up a few beats.
On the mirror, the color of the rating that had already risen to A no longer deepened, and was eventually replaced by a faint B.
The music still echoed in the dance studio. The puppets embraced the void, dancing neatly in the four-sided mirrors. Wen Jianyan held one of the puppets in his arms, deliberately slowing his steps by half a beat, following its rotation step by step.
Under his palm, the original coldness had disappeared, and the puppet’s smooth face, close at hand, no longer showed any change.
“…”
Wen Jianyan lowered his eyes absently.
It seemed his previous summary of the rules was correct.
To successfully pass, he had to follow the puppet’s instructions. But if he was too obedient, the puppet, which was originally meant to show him the way to pass, would turn into a murderous weapon.
…This was troublesome.
Based on the rules he had observed so far, a B rating was the safest. Once the rating rose to A, terrifying dangers would follow one after another.
And, even if the crisis was resolved in the end, his rating would also drop to the lowest, which was 【Fail】.
The passing standard for the thesis was set at a B grade, probably for this reason as well.
—This was why in high-difficulty instances, the information gap was so important.
If Wen Jianyan had taken this class before choosing dance as his thesis topic and had survived it, it would have been impossible for him not to know this.
Then, this seemingly crisis-ridden exam question would be very simple for him.
As long as he maintained a B rating in each of the three rounds of assessment, the candidate could smoothly pass by the skin of their teeth—even if Wen Jianyan encountered a problem he hadn’t encountered before in the middle of it, he wouldn’t fall into a too disadvantageous position.
But the problem was…
Before the assessment began, Wen Jianyan knew nothing about the dance class or the rules within it.
Thus, in the first round of assessment, although he successfully dodged the fatal attack, he also received a failing grade because of it.
And whether he could graduate successfully depended on the “average score.”
In other words, even if Wen Jianyan’s ratings in the next two rounds of assessment were mediocre, just scraping by with a B, his average score would still not be enough.
Troublesome, so troublesome.
Wen Jianyan frowned in annoyance.
In his current position, if he wanted to successfully get a passing grade, he had to get a rating higher than B at least once in the remaining two rounds…
This was practically forcing him into a direct confrontation with death.
The young man’s posture was straight and tall, stepping to the elegant beat of the music. His pale right hand rested on the puppet’s shoulder.
Even he himself didn’t notice that the black tentacle, which had been quietly staying under his shirt cuff, silently released his wrist, landed on the puppet’s cold shoulder, seeped in, and disappeared without a trace in the blink of an eye.
Without any warning, Wen Jianyan jolted.
The cold wooden fingers that had been loosely resting on his waist suddenly tightened without reason, gripping his waist tightly.
“!!!”
Wen Jianyan’s eyes shot up, and he looked at the puppet in front of him in astonishment.
The puppet seemed no different from before, but its head, under the intervention of some unknown force, slowly lowered, and then…
【Looked】 over.
What’s happening?!
Wen Jianyan was horrified, and his steps became chaotic.
The hand on his waist continued to tighten. The cold force pulled his body, irresistible, almost forcing him to lean forward.
In the “Integrity First” live room:
[Holy shit?]
[What’s with this puppet? Why did it suddenly become so creepy?]
The hair on the back of Wen Jianyan’s neck immediately stood on end.
He immediately struggled reflexively with great force, breaking free from the puppet’s embrace.
His peripheral vision swept over the nearby mirror—the bloody letter on the mirror’s surface was still glaring. But because of him, the originally safe B grade also began to gradually fade, shifting towards a C.
The cold air spread, the lights above flickered slightly, and even the music from the speaker became distorted and eerie. The speed also began to gradually increase, making one’s back feel cold.
Not good!
At that moment, Wen Jianyan almost immediately realized his predicament.
In the first round, a rating that was too high would bring the threat of death.
And in the second round, the rules of death were increased again. Not only would a rating that was too high cause trouble, but a rating that was too low would too!!
I must immediately find a new partner—
Suddenly, a cold wooden hand reached out from behind and wrapped around Wen Jianyan’s waist.
“?!”
After a short and rapid spin, Wen Jianyan’s mind went blank for two seconds. By the time his hand was lifted and his waist was held, he realized that he seemed to have once again fallen into a pair of arms.
In his dizzying vision from the spin, Wen Jianyan almost had an illusion—
In those brief few seconds, he seemed to have seen a pair of familiar eyes.
They were golden, a strange color that humans couldn’t possess, silently looking down at him.
Wu Zhu?!
Wen Jianyan broke out in a cold sweat.
But, when he looked closely, those eyes had already disappeared. The puppet’s face was smooth and blank, with no features, no expression. Everything was no different from just now.
It was as if that fleeting pair of golden eyes was just his hallucination.
The music gradually returned to normal, flowing smoothly and soothingly by his ear. The lights above no longer flickered, and the temperature returned to normal.
“…”
Wen Jianyan stepped to the beat, controlling himself not to dance too well, but not too badly either.
He stared intently at the puppet in front of him, without blinking, as if trying to see through the wooden texture.
Wen Jianyan’s expression was suspicious, his eyes flickering with uncertainty.
Did I see wrong?
But…
Just as he was carefully recalling what had just happened, suddenly, Wen Jianyan was startled, as if he had suddenly realized something—
The puppet leading the dance seemed to be… leading him in a fixed direction.
His pupils shrank, and he inconspicuously turned his head to the side.
Not far away, the mirror reflected the puppets dancing to the music, and also reflected the figure of the young man in its embrace.
Wen Jianyan was shocked to realize that, unknowingly, he was getting closer and closer to the mirror with the viscous bloody words on it as the music played.
Perhaps because of the closer distance, the scene in the mirror seemed slightly distorted.
The music was still playing continuously, but Wen Jianyan’s mind was in a bit of a mess.
His eyes flickered, his expression hesitant.
.
Just as Wen Jianyan was struggling between different ideas and predictions, suddenly, he saw that the clean and bright mirror, which should have reflected the outside world exactly, began to gradually distort as the distance shortened.
The puppets’ movements were uniform, dancing gracefully to the rhythm of the music, without a single flaw.
No… that’s not right, those are not puppets.
They are corpses.
Ashen gray and bluish-black faces, hollow eyes, skin covered in livor mortis.
Every puppet is a corpse!!
The hair on Wen Jianyan’s body stood on end, and he reflexively looked at the puppet he was embracing in the mirror.
“…?”
Unlike what he had imagined, in the mirror, his arms were empty. There was no corpse, let alone a puppet, but a void.
Wen Jianyan was stunned.
The wooden hand on his waist was still cold and hard, indicating a strong presence.
Strange?
What on earth is going on?
Under the impact of the strange scene, his feet couldn’t help but misstep a few beats. In the upper right corner of the mirror, the bloody word flickered slightly, seeming to have a tendency to be downgraded again.
Before Wen Jianyan could figure out why he wasn’t holding a corpse and where all these strange phenomena came from, suddenly, his peripheral vision caught a slight movement.
Among the stiff and uniform corpses, one of them slowly turned its head.
Its pale face twisted bit by bit until it was facing the mirror, as if it was looking straight through the mirror.
Wen Jianyan’s back went cold.
He couldn’t see its face clearly, but for some reason, he just knew…
It was smiling.
Author’s note:
Wen Jianyan: Does the splits.
Wu Zhu, you lucky bastard.
