AnalogHorror: Rule Kaidan 4016
Chapter 128 - 58: The Mist-Filled Student Passage (Additional 1100 Words)_3

Chapter 128: Chapter 58: The Mist-Filled Student Passage (Additional 1100 Words)_3

He walked out of the Student Passage under the guidance of Wei Liang.

"One hundred steps, no more, no less!" Wei Liang wiped the sweat from his forehead, his back already drenched.

He turned around to look at Lin Yi, patted the latter’s somewhat icy hand, and said with relief, "We made it out," then reverted to his giggling self, proudly saying, "How about that? Believe in Liangzi and you shall have eternal life!"

With several pats, Lin Yi, as if his spirit had returned to his body, snapped out of that bizarre state.

Just like a person who stands up suddenly after squatting for too long, causing blood to rush inadequately to the head, Lin Yi’s brain experienced a brief blankness, and his ears went temporarily missing...

By the time he came to his senses, his visual, auditory, tactile, and olfactory senses gradually returned to normal.

...

May 7th, X023, the exit of the Student Passage.

A gust of chilly wind came by, scattering away Lin Yi’s feeling of suffocation. He felt refreshed, with clear hearing and sharp sight, as if all the filth in his chest had been thoroughly cleansed.

He glanced at his watch, causing his clear mind to suddenly startle.

18:24.

"18:24...?"

"It’s only 18:24?!"

He remembered it was 18:20 before entering the Student Passage, so this Student Passage that felt as long as a century had actually taken... only four minutes?!

Four minutes?

It felt more like forty minutes!

"What’s the matter? Still dazed?" Wei Liang waved his hand in front of Lin Yi’s eyes, "Wake up, wake up, we’ve already made it out!"

Lin Yi asked in confusion, "Liangzi, how long do you think we walked for?"

"How long? You mean... this passage?"

"Yeah."

"Probably maybe... a few minutes?" Wei Liang hesitated, "I feel like you might have a bit of claustrophobia because you seemed very tense following me... You didn’t think it took a very long time, did you?"

Lin Yi said, "It did feel like a long time."

"It’s pretty normal to have some abnormal reactions if you have claustrophobia in that kind of environment." He patted his chest, "I was relentlessly leading you downwards."

"If it weren’t for the mist being a tiny bit thick and I feared you might slip and slow down, we could have come down in one or two minutes."

"Anyway, all is well now!"

"Claustrophobia...?" Lin Yi narrowed his eyes, "Why would I have claustrophobia?"

He turned back to look at the Student Passage, only to see it shrouded in mist, with light and shadows twisted in an unhealthy way, resembling those dusty mine tunnels hundreds of meters underground.

Opressive, suffocating, maddening, and hair-raising.

Lin Yi’s brows furrowed slightly, but he shook his head immediately.

Night had fallen; it was best not to dwell on too many things.

He and Wei Liang took off their clothes to check carefully and, after confirming there was no tomato sauce, put them back on.

The two returned the Cafeteria rules sign to the notice board and then left the cafeteria area.

...

May 7th, X023, 18:33, on the campus road.

With nightfall, a thin layer of mist pervaded the campus, and the cobblestone road was covered with a dry ice-like effect.

This was a common occurrence for a campus nestled in the mountains. In Wei Liang’s words, there was no need for alarm with mist below a certain concentration, but one should never linger too long on the campus roads—especially not near the Green Forest Belt and the shrubbery areas.

The simplest thing to do was to quickly return to a building, such as going back to the classroom after dinner, and then heading to the dorms when it was about time.

The dorms had a stipulated return time between 21:00 and 22:00.

It was forbidden to leave the classroom after 21:00.

That meant, as long as the weather at night was normal, meaning no thick mist or rain, one could depart the classroom around 20:30 to head to the dormitory to wash up and sleep.

This was the experience passed down to Wei Liang by his seniors.

The two walked along the illuminated cobblestone road and soon arrived in front of the Teaching Building.

The mist was not very thick that night, and Lin Yi could clearly see the layout of the four floors of the Teaching Building with the help of the street lights.

The Teaching Building was an ordinary one, and the incandescent lights were just simple bulbs. From a distance, one could faintly see figures passing through the corridors, entering their classrooms.

There was a Teacher’s Office at the entrance of each class, and next to classes 1 and 3, there were a staircase and a restroom.

There was no such thing as a seven or eight-story Teaching Building; there were only four four-story buildings.

Lin Yi shook his head helplessly, feeling as though the seven or eight-story Teaching Building from the day before had appeared in a dream.

"Wait, wait a second!"

Lin Yi suddenly realized something, and he abruptly stopped in his tracks from afar.

"Four buildings... four floors? Why would I say four buildings?!"

He stared hard at the Teaching Building.

The moonlight cast a silvery frost over the mountains, and a dense white mist emerged from the depths of the forests, thinning out by the time it reached the Teaching Building.

And the Teaching Building... looking from near to far, there were clearly one, two, three... four...

Four?!

"Four... the fourth Teaching Building?!"

Lin Yi looked at the C building of the Teaching Building as if he’d seen a ghost. Unexpectedly, behind C building, a slender Corridor Bridge had extended out at some point, reaching all the way into the thick fog and disappearing.

And beneath that thick mist, the vague contour of the fourth Teaching Building was barely discernible.

It was a building of extreme wildness and abstract style, standing at the intersection of moonlight and Grey Mist, giving off an intensely dreamlike and unreal sensation visually.

It was like a Mirage, a castle in the air.

It also resembled the reflection of some chaotic world.

Under the moonlight, a ghostly silhouette of a Bell Tower could be vaguely seen atop this fourth structure...