Chapter 93: Surprise Hygiene Inspection
The moment the door was slammed shut, the fastest reacting girl had immediately rushed over to pull the door, yet it was as if the door was locked from the outside. No matter how hard they pulled, they couldn't open it.
“Shit! I should have known that, I should have put something to hold it down!”
Zheng Wanqing slapped her head fiercely in remorse.
“It's not your fault.” Zhang You backed up while escorting Guo Guo and comforted Zheng Wanqing, “If we really triggered some mechanism, or if something deliberately shut us in here, the result would be the same even if we put something to hold the door.”
Zhang You had a cautious personality, and had already thought of the worst possible outcome the moment the accident occurred. She immediately retreated away from the doorway to a corner that seemed slightly safer.
On the other hand, No. 5 and the others were manic in character, and just before the others could think of a solution, Sister No. 5 had already drawn out her flamethrower: “What's the point of closing the door on us, we can just demolish the door!”
Tongue of fire spit out, licking the place into a burn. The wooden door soon burst into flames, collapsing downward a little bit.
No. 10, who has a water system ability, was not afraid of flames, and raised her props and rushed over to kick the door open. However, under the full force of the kick, the door only opened a small crack, and the flames spread to her legs instead!
The burning pain caused No. 10 to panic a bit. She quickly began to utilize her powers. Transparent water appeared above her fingers and poured a stream of water on the flames on her legs.
With the flames on her leg finally extinguished, No. 10 dragged her limping leg back up with the help of her sis No. 5. Her face was pale as she alerted the others, "This isn't right, don't go over there, something isn't right with this door!"
Number 5 immediately explained, “Us roommates should be immune to each other's powers, it's reasonably impossible for her to be hurt by our flames. But now...”
Before she could finish her sentence, the movement at the door attracted everyone's attention again.
“The fire is getting bigger!”
The flames burning on the door panel didn't diminish and disappear as No. 5 and No. 6 withdrew their powers. Instead, they grew bigger and bigger, and even began to spread inside the walls!
No. 5 incredulously exclaimed, “This can't be!”
The psychic flames were as well known to them as their own bodies, and would never spread out of control if they wanted to control it in a certain area. But now it was—
No. 10 had already begun chanting to call for water, and this time she moved for real as a curtain of water poured down from the ceiling, dousing the doorway with smoke and choking the crowd into coughing fits.
“No, it's not enough…” No. 10’s face was getting whiter and whiter. The water she had summoned was clearly enough to extinguish a fire like this, even if it was a supernatural fire, it wouldn't continue to burn. But now the flames were only slightly lessened, with no tendency to be doused at all.
Tang Xinjue's voice rang out abruptly, “No need, this isn't the fire you just set.”
She gazed at the doorway, her gaze grave, “This fire is coming from outside.”
Right at this moment, the boy ghost finally stopped eating frantically under the increasingly thick smoke, sniffed his nose suspiciously and raised his head. His eyes snapped round and shivered as he raised his arms, “The fire... is the fire that they set... is the fire... It's them, they're back! They're going to burn me to death for revenge!”
The boy ghost screamed miserably, seemed to be scared out of his wits by the flames, and began to scratch his body frantically, shouting things like ‘don't burn me, get out of the way.’
The fire hadn't even burned inside yet, and it was scared like this?
Tang Xinjue's brows knit tightly. Looking at the boy ghost's frantic state, her heart sank, and a terrible thought surged into her mind.
“Jiang Lan, use props to keep it under control!”
Almost at the same time, the boy ghost suddenly opened its mouth wide. The red threads that it had just eaten seemed to crawl outward in a mass as if they had come to life. They scrambled and squeezed out of the esophagus, and because of the overly large number of them, they even dislodged the boy's jaw. The rest of the red threads couldn’t find an exit, so they poured out of the nostrils, ears, and even eyes...
Jiang Lan threw out a new golden ball, which popped up in the air and enveloped the boy in the same spider web as the last time. It held the twitching boy firmly in place, and at the same time, it was just enough to hinder some of the red threads from climbing outwards.
“Ooohhhhhhhhhh—”
The boy ghost could only let out a few shifting screams as his body swelled up like an inflatable, and there seemed to be countless threads surging and stretching under his skin. In less than a few seconds even, the entire body exploded at the apex of its expansion!
The crowd had expected to see a gory scene of blood and flesh flying around, but they didn't expect to see only a layer of withered skin bursting open, and underneath the skin there were only densely packed clusters of red threads that scattered onto the ground as the boys' ghosts burst apart.
These red threads, as if they had already sucked the blood out of the boy ghost's body.
The moment this thought rose in their minds, the fire spread once again towards the room, engulfing half of the room in the blink of an eye, forcing them to retreat once again.
“No, this will result in us all being burned to death here!”
Jiang Lan gritted her teeth as she frantically thought about countermeasures. Beads of sweat dripped down from the top of her head one by one, and her eyes scarlet red from the flames scorching in front of her.
Combined with the crazy and unending fire, and the boy ghost's self-talk just before it blew up, a terrifying thought had appeared in their minds.
“Could it be that the current fire is actually a replica of what happened back in 916?”
Seemingly confirming the thoughts of the crowd, from the burning roaring flames, there seemed to be faint screams and wails resounding, and the figures of the boys struggling and rolling inside could also be vaguely seen — across a layer of throbbing flames, the two time periods that had already been missed seemed to overlap back together, right in front of them.
Watching the other set of candidates look forlorn before they died, several of them clenched their teeth, unwilling to believe that this could possibly be the scene that happened to them next.
“Look inside the flames.”
Tang Xinjue suddenly spoke out.
“We've already seen it.” There was a hint of a desperate cry in No. 10's voice.
“No, not those shadows.” Jiang Lan instantly realized what Tang Xinjue was talking about and immediately added helpfully, “Look at the ground!”
Through the flames, they could vaguely see the ground opening and the red thread above it. At this moment, however, the red thread wasn't burning in the flames... there wasn't even any fire in the area around the red thread, so much so that it even appeared as a chunk of vacancy in the field of view.
—As if the flames had specifically avoided these red threads!
Everyone quickly reacted as they took out the red threads they had previously stowed away, tried to hold them in their hands, and then approached the flames.
In full view of everyone, the flames really avoided the fists holding the red threads, and even their entire arm... just as the tongues of fire were about to engulf the shoulders, Tang Xinjue quickly drew out and said in a clear voice, “Tie the red threads outside of your body, we can get out this way!”
It was like the crowd grasped onto a lifesaver and immediately began to act.
The range of red thread that can avoid fire is probably around one arm, so they wrapped red thread around their legs and hands respectively, and put the rest in their pockets. Then they summoned up the courage to walk into the flames, and actually really walked through the fire, creating a gap that can be used for people to pass through.
Shadows and struggles and wails seem to be around. The ghosts and shadows of those who were once buried in the flames screamed in their ears. Once those with uncertain minds were accidentally affected, the flames would follow.
Fortunately, Tang Xinjue and Jiang Lan and the other stronger-willed ones were scattered before, after, and in the middle of a line, pulling them forward when they saw someone next to them begin to drift off. They quickly traveled through the length of a dormitory room, and Tang Xinjue drew out the toilet plunger and struck it heavily against the doorway!
The door panel fell down and fresh air rushed into their lungs. Before Tang Xinjue, who had run out of dorm 920, could breathe a sigh of relief, she heard a scream from the rear.
It was the scream of Guo Guo from the very back.
Jiang Lan, Keke, and the others had already run out right behind them, but Tang Xinjue drilled back into the room against the current. She saw that several hideous ghostly shadows had already grabbed Guo Guo and No. 10 next to her, while Zheng Wanqing and No. 5 and the others were snatching people from the flames.
With the help of Tang Xinjue and Zhang You, who rushed back later, Guo Guo and the others were quickly rescued. Under the terrible creaking sound of the room, they were able to run out of the doorway, while behind them the door frame collapsed with a loud bang.
The collapse of the room didn't stop the ghosts from moving, and one by one they floated out of the dormitory door. Some looked as if they had been burned to death, some looked as if they had been torn apart, while others seemed to have stitched many bodies together, many heads turning sluggishly, their empty eyes staring at the crowd.
“Run!”
The group that had just escaped the flames scattered their legs and ran, with the ghostly shadows in hot pursuit behind them. Luckily, for some reason, they moved very slowly, and by the time they reached the end of the corridor, the girls' silhouettes had already disappeared from their “visible” field of view.
Not being able to see the target, the ghosts' movements became even slower. They drifted through rooms 916 and 918, and after realizing that there was no sign of the candidates in either room, they found a crack in 918 that led to the outside.
Hiss... Hiss... Hiss...
One by one, twisted and hideous shadows floated out from the crack. The pitch-black corridor didn't affect their movements. They turned their heads from side to side to make sure that there was no one in the vicinity, and then they floated to the other end of the corridor again, one by one.
.........
Listening to the sound of the ghostly shadows rubbing against the wall getting further and further away, separated by the distance of a wooden door, the girls gasped softly with extreme caution.
They had just run to the other end of the corridor, wanted to follow the original route back to the girls' dormitory, but found that the cracked hole when they came could no longer be found. Even if they smash the wall for a while, they can't open it. Seeing that time was running out and the ghosts might come out at any time, they had to go back to the male dormitory side, and crashed through the other door facing the male dormitory.
Fortunately, the boy ghost once mentioned that there were two doors at the end of the corridor. One led to the boys' dormitory, while the other contained a room full of second-hand used appliances that seemed to have been inhabited by an old garbage collector in his lifetime.
Ripping through the wallpaper, they did find the other wooden door, crashed through it and ducked into the room inside, and camouflaged the outside with props.
If it could temporarily stop the ghost shadows, then it would be the best, but if it didn't work... they can only fight with their backs to the wall.
Fortunately, the ghostly shadows really didn't seem to realize that there was another door here, and soon all of them drifted to the other side of the corridor, leaving them with a short respite.
Zhang You spoke softly, “How long can we hide here? What should we do if they find out?”
Tang Xinjue gripped the toilet plunger, her spiritual power spreading to the outside of the door to “see” the situation in the corridor: “...Wait until they disappear.”
There was a sixty percent certainty that these ghostly shadows will not always exist.
Just when she ran out just now, she observed that the ghostly shadows weren't completely void. They more or less had traces of red threads on their bodies.
These monsters that had just been born from the flames seemed to be closely related to the red threads.
“...And that boy ghost said that it would be strengthened after swallowing the red thread, but the time would only last for a while. The effect will disappear after that time.”
Tang Xinjue's voice was almost faintly audible in this space, yet it clearly reached everyone's ears.
“If what the boy ghost said is true, then the effect of the red thread is likely the same for these ghostly shadows.”
Although the effect was powerful, it was short-lived.
When the red thread's effect wore off, the ghostly shadows would most likely disappear with it, and then they could go out and look for a way back to the girls' dormitory.
“I still think that all of these things are the work of the Academic Affairs Office.”
Jiang Lan softly voiced the speculation in her heart.
“Everything was business as usual before we arrived. And from the time we left the female dormitory and entered here, accidents came one after another...”
Jiang Lan's voice suddenly stalled. She turned on her flashlight and shone it at her wrist, which was already oozing with blood.
The red thread strangled into her skin and began to absorb the blood inside!
The danger of the red thread snapped to the crowd's mind as they hurriedly untied the red thread wrapped around their bodies. The light from the flashlight bobbed around the room to nowhere, and suddenly there was a crisp click.
Then a second, and a third...
The crowd stopped moving and the light shot toward the source of the sound, which was a radio.
“Bzz, bzz.”
The radio began to emit a sound, a raspy voice falling into the crowd's ears.
“Repair, repair now, repair used electrical appliances, used furniture, used refrigerator color TV washing machine—”
Snap. The room lights snapped on.
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