AnalogHorror: Rule Kaidan 4016
Chapter 112 - 52 "Other" Channels_2

Chapter 112: Chapter 52 "Other" Channels_2

After staring for about ten seconds, he realized he was really falling behind and quickly lifted his feet to catch up with the figure of Wei Liang.

However, once he stepped beyond the sign, he hadn’t walked far when that almost forgotten, faint sense of resistance, like the claw of a demon probing out from the shadows, lightly grazed his body again.

He stopped in his tracks, casting his gaze back towards the cafeteria.

He felt that this cafeteria... might be different for him now.

Or rather, his feelings towards the cafeteria had become different...

Bathed in the remaining glow of the sunset, the cafeteria took on a thin blush, like a tower in olden days that had seen the tribulations of war, rooted in the recess of a deep pit.

The mountains around the cafeteria, dyed with a faint red light as though planted with a swath of maple trees, allowed the evening breeze to shepherd the mist, crawling out from the woods and gradually converging towards the location of the cafeteria.

"Huh? There’s mist on the lower ground floor?"

Lin Yi suddenly noticed that, being built in a pit, the lower ground floor of the cafeteria had accumulated a layer of mist...

It was as if someone had pushed the mist out of the mountain woods, driving it to pour into the lower ground floor.

"Is it because of the geographical location?"

He squinted his eyes, but his reason told him not to consider this issue from a "normal" perspective anymore.

"Let’s deal with dinner first, and discuss this with Young Master Tian tonight," his intuition told him that in Tian Bufan’s "awareness," there must be more secrets he didn’t know, secrets he urgently needed to unravel.

So he chased after Wei Liang, running in his direction.

But he found Wei Liang standing not far from the entrance of the Student Passage, his gaze watching something not far ahead.

"Liangzi?"

With some experience, he didn’t pat Wei Liang’s shoulder but called out to him first.

Wei Liang’s body trembled, as if he had been interrupted by someone while deep in thought.

"Old Lin, I’m fine," Wei Liang said.

"Ah? Did something just happen to you?" Lin Yi asked in return.

"Emmm... No, nothing," Wei Liang confirmed.

He paused, then shook his head: "Even if there was, it has nothing to do with us, just see for yourself..."

Lin Yi immediately looked in the direction Wei Liang was pointing—only to see groups of students huddling together, walking at a leisurely pace into an unmarked pathway.

Lin Yi’s eyelids twitched violently: "Another passage?"

He instantly understood what Wei Liang meant and quickly averted his gaze.

"I was careless, I should have kept my head down and walked like before!" Wei Liang muttered under his breath, his tone full of regret, "This time I saw a little too much again!"

Lin Yi didn’t pay attention to what Wei Liang was muttering, his mind was first flooded with the contents of the cafeteria rules:

[Students entering and exiting the cafeteria should use the Student Passage to the first-floor dining area (the entry and exit of the passage have clear Student Passage signs), please do not use the Staff Passage, and certainly not any unmarked passage.

If you see someone entering a passage other than the Student Passage and there’s a security guard nearby, you can inform the security guard right away, or you can choose to ignore.]

At such times, ignoring it was undoubtedly the better choice.

But as he brought his gaze back, he suddenly realized one, no, many problems.

Firstly, he had seen Xu Shunkang and Xie Huayang enter the cafeteria through other passages during lunchtime.

And according to the rules of the gymnasium, he had received another piece of information: the Sports Students didn’t have Student ID cards.

Yet, the sign in front of the cafeteria explicitly stated: [Entry to the cafeteria without a Student ID card is forbidden!]

So...

"Sports Students actually belong to ’those without Student ID cards but entering the cafeteria,’" he mused.

"Their behavior obviously contravenes the warning on the sign, but... nothing happened to them!"

"Could it be... Sports Students are exempt from following the cafeteria rules?"

He thought of Xu Shunkang previously emphasizing that he didn’t need the cafeteria rules.

"Could it be that... the ’Student Passage’ is exclusively for ’students’, and that Sports Students no longer fall under the category of ’students’ but rather ’other people’, which is why they use the ’other passage’ to enter the Cafeteria?"

"Or could it be that... the rule ’No entry to the Cafeteria without a Student ID card’ actually means ’students without Student ID cards are barred from entering the Cafeteria’?"

"Because only students have Student ID cards."

"So the Sports Students aren’t following the Cafeteria rules, or rather, they are following a different set of rules for entering and exiting the Cafeteria... perhaps related to the other passage."

"But... "

Not all of the people who used the other passage just now were Sports Students.

Sports Students wear the standard blue and white striped tracksuits, and even the Boss is no exception.

But those people just now... clearly weren’t wearing tracksuits.

Lin Yi quickly recalled the appearance of these individuals and realized that they indeed lacked the vitality of Sports Students, and they were also somewhat different from the classmates who went to physical education class together.

They gave him a strange feeling, as if dulled and numbed by constant contemplation, or as if in a daze due to some kind of shock.

Overall, they clearly weren’t normal.

He thought of the girl wearing a sailor uniform with a hair clip he had seen at noon; he remembered that girl also took the other passage.

And that girl... belonged to the group that followed the fake female teacher into the mist!

"They are not Sports Students, they’re not normal students either, but they still need to go to the Cafeteria to eat!"

"Can one dine in the Cafeteria without a Student ID card?"

"Wait! So that means... people without Student ID cards can use the other passage to enter the Cafeteria, and ’students’ with Student ID cards use the ’Student Passage’ to enter!"

"Student ID card! Student ID card?"

Lin Yi instantly thought of something, a scene flashed vividly through his mind; when he received his Student ID card and the Teaching Building regulations, his homeroom teacher had told him with utmost seriousness:

["This is your Student ID card, remember to keep it safe, and come find me immediately if you lose it."

"This booklet is the ’Teaching Building Regulations’, just read it slowly once you get to the classroom."

"Remember, for your own safety, you must follow both the student regulations and the Teaching Building regulations at all times. Whenever you encounter two conflicting rules, you should make a judgment based on your current identity and environment."

...

"You don’t need to know how I should be addressed, you just need to remember this badge and uniform."

"From now on, your homeroom teacher is not me, but the person wearing the badge marked with the number ’Homeroom Teacher-B2-039’."

"And you, Lin Yi, you are not my student; my student is the one holding the Student ID card in your hand."

"So remember what I said, from now on, please take good care of your Student ID card. You can talk to others about the Student ID card, but never hand it over to anyone at any time."

"Do you understand?"]

It wasn’t until this moment that he suddenly awakened and fully grasped the meaning behind his homeroom teacher’s words.

Clearly, in this school, identity isn’t just something simple on paper—it’s far more complicated than he had initially predicted.

[Our school will continue to assist you in resolving trouble until you retrieve your Student ID card or confirm that you cannot retrieve it.]

During the seven-day trial period, he, Lin Yi, would live as a "student," and once he lost his Student ID card, he would no longer be a "student," but an "other person"!

Therefore, the three passages leading into the Cafeteria actually correspond to three identities—regular students with Student ID cards, "employees" with staff badges for the Cafeteria or campus areas, and "other people" with no form of identity proof!

And "other people"... this vague and broad concept seems terrifyingly complicated.

At this thought, he couldn’t help but recall the deep echoes coming from the depths of the Staff Passage, echoes that seemed to affect even Xu Shunkang.

Could it be that if someone with an incompatible identity approaches the wrong passage, it would trigger that kind of horrific mutation?

"It’s very likely so!"

Lin Yi remembered the physique and appearance of the Cafeteria Auntie; in his set impression, not to mention the Cafeteria Auntie, even if King Kong himself went into the Staff Passage, he’d probably get slapped before proceeding.

If it wasn’t for a specific "identity" having a certain protection in an assigned area, he couldn’t understand why the Cafeteria Auntie would be able to enter such a dreadful Staff Passage.

Unless she wasn’t human.