Chapter 156: College Entrance Examination
Guo Guo wanted to become stronger, but she truly did not expect the opportunity to “become stronger” to come this fast.
So fast it caught her completely off guard—palms sweating, calves going weak, and her cheeks even aching a little.
And judging from the description, becoming stronger or becoming a ghost, that was a question.
After a brief silence, Guo Guo slowly raised her head with a toothache-like grimace, just in time to meet Tang Xinjue’s gaze.
“……”
The two of them simultaneously burst out laughing.
Forget it. She had already walked past the gates of hell who knows how many times. What was there left to hesitate about?
Afraid? Being afraid was right. Comfort was reserved for the lucky ones who hadn’t been dragged into the game, and for those who had already been wiped out by the game.
And for them, who were already risking their lives inside this game—Guo Guo began taking deep breaths and loosening her joints, at the same time opening her yin-yang eyes to the maximum range—
Just do it!
Five minutes of waiting time could be long or short. Short enough that it wasn’t enough for Tang Xinjue to casually go out and rob an invigilator for a new set of clothes, but long enough for Zheng Wanqing to verbally attack all four BOSS ghosts in the communication channel, finally concluding that the culprit was Xiao Hong.
“Hong (red), Lan (blue), Lü (green), Zi (purple), all non-mainstream names, they’re obviously in the same gang!” Zheng Wanqing said firmly. “She can’t beat us alone, so this time she called reinforcements by dragging the whole family, just to get revenge.”
Last time she had tricked away her right arm, this time she even wanted to trick her roommate into risking her life. The more Zheng Wanqing thought about it, the angrier she got: “Don’t let me run into her!”
“I think what Wanqing said is right.” Zhang You also frowned. Because she couldn’t go to Xinjue and Guo Guo’s side to help, she could only wait here, so she simply transferred all her anxiety and anger onto the ghosts.
From several markers in Tang Xinjue’s mental domain, it could be seen that this group of ghosts all had extremely strong revenge tendencies.
But if every time they experienced a dungeon, they had to continue suffering endless revenge from the ghosts inside, how was this supposed to work?
Tang Xinjue listened quietly, occasionally nodding:
“Makes sense. Previously we focused on clearing and surviving, and were indeed too lenient toward ghosts, never persecuting them or killing them off completely. But sometimes being kind to the enemy is being cruel to yourself.”
Guo Guo was nervously staring at the countdown. Hearing this, she raised her head in confusion: “Jue Shen, in our last match, the blood-red eyeball was eaten by the toilet plunger.”
If the toilet plunger hadn’t been unable to swallow it completely, even the last small piece wouldn’t have been left.
Tang Xinjue’s expression didn’t change: “Reasonably fleecing sheep*, how can that be called killing them off completely?”
*preying on soft targets, taking benefits from someone easy to exploit
Guo Guo: …That seems right too.
Before she could continue speaking, the sudden knocking and pounding sounds outside the room cut off her train of thought.
“Bang bang bang!”
“?!” Guo Guo hurriedly looked down at the drawer and saw that the cabinet door hadn’t moved at all. It wasn’t a ghost riot triggered by props.
“Jue Shen, outside…”
Tang Xinjue glanced over, not surprised: “We’ve been away from the exam hall too long. The invigilators will definitely come looking. The door is locked now, no need to deal with it yet.”
Guo Guo: “Then when do we need to deal with it?”
Tang Xinjue: “When the door gets smashed.”
“……”
The numbers on the watch kept decreasing, and the knocking grew denser and more urgent. The two gradually held their breath, focusing all their attention on the drawer.
Just as the countdown was about to end, Tang Xinjue suddenly spoke: “Actually there’s still the best possible outcome—that even after getting the prop, the dungeon won’t produce any changes. Want to gamble on luck?”
Guo Guo’s mindset that had just been prepared suddenly went up like a roller coaster again. Then she saw Tang Xinjue twist the key.
Amid the ringing bell signaling the end of the exam, the drawer clicked open, revealing inside a palm-sized stamp.
Next to it was a considerate label: [Academic Affairs Office approval stamp, take and use here]
The two exchanged a glance. At that instant, the long exam bell instantly became sharp and piercing, blaring loudly like a siren!
At the same time, the door violently shuddered. The sturdy wooden boards suddenly shattered into pieces, revealing outside a densely packed crowd of invigilators, almost without any gaps, tightly blocking the path out.
Tang Xinjue grabbed the stamp: “Alright, the worst case scenario has appeared.”
Without hesitation, she pushed the cabinet. Guo Guo immediately understood and began pushing from the other side. Together, the two slammed the massive wooden cabinet toward the doorway. The overturned cabinet immediately crushed a large patch of invigilators.
Before the remaining invigilators could fill the gap, the two stepped on the cabinet and rushed into the corridor!
The moment they entered the corridor, Tang Xinjue and Guo Guo immediately felt the change in the environment.
If previously the teaching building had only been faintly cold, now it was almost like being inside an ice cellar. Near the presence of invigilators it was even terrifyingly cold. Guo Guo’s peripheral vision accidentally caught one invigilator’s face, and her scalp instantly went numb:
These people not only had bloodshot corners of mouths and eyeballs, their skin had also begun to stiffen, whiten, and rot. Their movements were extremely rigid, making one immediately think of corpses crawling out of freezers.
Just as Tang Xinjue said, these NPCs that had originally still been fairly normal had begun to mutate. First were the invigilators, then…
One exam hall door after another burst open. Examinees covered in corpse spots poured out crazily, pouncing toward the two!
“The Academic Affairs Office door is still 10 meters from the teaching building entrance. From the teaching building entrance to the school gate is 30 meters.”
Zhang You broadcast Tang and Guo’s progress in real time based on the terrain on her side.
This was ten meters?
Guo Guo panted heavily and turned to look forward, feeling as if she were staring at a natural chasm.
Wave after wave of mutated NPCs surged toward them. The skyrocketing malice and the stench of rot made her dizzy.
Fortunately, Tang Xinjue had broken off several wooden boards from the cabinet beforehand. She cleared the way in front, Guo Guo blocked the crowd behind, barely squeezing out a path.
But this was only the beginning—a sense of ominous premonition from nowhere climbed up Guo Guo’s chest. She used her yin-yang eyes to observe the surroundings and quickly discovered something abnormal:
“Xinjue, the lights aren’t right!”
When viewed with normal vision, the corridor lights were still shining normally, but in the yin-yang eyes, they were extinguishing one by one at high speed, as if something were spreading over, about to catch up with the two’s shadows.
“We also heard strange sounds over here.”
Zhang You hurriedly spoke into the communicator: “It sounds like something crawling, and also like electric current sparking. Did you hear it there?”
Tang Xinjue slapped away a head that had bitten onto her and said with understanding: “Looks like those things have come out.”
Guo Guo: “What things?”
“Remember the archives room? Those things that can’t be exposed to light, hidden in the stairwell outside that corridor.”
Tang Xinjue wiped the blood off her eyelashes: “They’re coming out faster than I expected. Follow me.”
Guo Guo felt her body being yanked upward. Turning her head, she saw Tang Xinjue had grabbed her arm. A clear voice rang in her ear: “We can’t go out through the teaching building main entrance anymore.”
Waiting for them there would definitely not be just ordinary monsters, but also dark creatures and Xiao Hong.
The two roommates on the other end of the communication signal froze: “Then where are you going?”
“A closer exit.”
At the same time, the monster roars in the communication signal suddenly became much louder, as if the distance between them and the monsters had suddenly closed in!
And in fact, that was exactly the case.
If they were beside Guo Guo right now, they would be able to see Tang Xinjue grabbing an examinee who had opened his mouth wide and was roaring, using him as a human shield to crash into the nearest exam hall, forcibly smashing open a path.
The examinee whose face was smashed into a sieve: “Roar roar!”
Then he was thrown back out the door by Tang Xinjue to block the black mass of people. The door was then slammed shut and locked, briefly separating two worlds.
“Jump out the window.”
Tang Xinjue was concise.
Guo Guo turned her head. Four evenly spaced, wide and transparent windows entered her field of vision. At the end of the view outside the windows, the school gate was clearly visible.
—Most importantly, there were no iron bars.
Right!! Guo Guo suddenly realized, taking a big step and rushing over:
Who said you had to leave through the teaching building main entrance? Jumping out the window worked too!
The classroom door behind them banged violently.
Tang Xinjue knew this door couldn’t withstand many impacts. But compared to the NPCs behind the door, what was more dangerous was the darkness spreading along with the extinguishing lights.
She had just passed through there once and knew what kind of monsters were hiding inside.
To shake off the pursuit of such monsters, the only feasible method was to leave the enclosed interior and let daylight drive away the creatures parasitizing the darkness.
The other side had clearly also realized their plan. That cold, damp aura suddenly accelerated, rushing into the classroom and chasing closely behind.
Ahead, Guo Guo had already reached the window glass, but the window was tightly shut and couldn’t be pushed open at once. Just as she was about to turn back to look for Tang Xinjue, she heard a sharp shout from behind: “Don’t turn back!”
Guo Guo’s heart tightened. Gritting her teeth, she poured all her strength into her hands, recklessly prying open a gap. Before the cold aura could lick up to her, she flipped down, continued rolling twice on the ground before stopping the momentum.
“Xinjue, I—”
She covered her neck that had almost been twisted off and hurriedly turned back to look for someone, but didn’t see Tang Xinjue’s figure. The window she had come out of had somehow tightly closed again, leaving only a patch of pitch-black inside.
“Xinjue? Xinjue!!”
Guo Guo froze, rushed over and frantically pried at the window. Even when the already bloodshot gaps of her fingernails began to drip blood, she didn’t notice.
“Don’t worry, I’ll come out right away.”
When the familiar voice reappeared in the communication signal, Guo Guo almost burst into tears. She forcibly held it back so as not to affect speaking: “I’m here waiting for you. Do you need help?”
At this moment, even if Tang Xinjue said she wanted to commit arson and murder, she would absolutely be the first to hand over the oil barrel!
Tang Xinjue: “I’m going to set a fire. Watch out and don’t let other monsters run out.”
Guo Guo: “…Okay.”
Wait, how did Tang Xinjue get fire?
Before this question could be thought through, a scorching, dazzling light tore through the darkness inside the glass window.
The flames spreading to the window made Guo Guo step back slightly. Immediately afterward, amid a suddenly rising chorus of twisted wails, she saw the familiar tall figure inside the room.
And almost at the same time, from the direction of the teaching building main entrance in the distance, Xiao Hong’s scream also tore through the air and carried over from afar:
“Tang! Xin! Jue!!!”
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