AnalogHorror: Rule Kaidan 4016
Chapter 231 - 108: Oops, My Shoelace Came Undone_2

Chapter 231: Chapter 108: Oops, My Shoelace Came Undone_2

Lin Yi also sighed in relief for him, couldn’t help but elbow him lightly, and chuckled, "Using so many idioms, are you fucking preparing for a graduate entrance exam?"

"Damn, Liangzi can’t hide it anymore, under compelling circumstances, indeed some extreme actions are exposed!"

"But what’s with the green hat? Why did it appear out of nowhere, and I didn’t have the slightest premonition?"

"Is its target Liangzi, or is it that... Liangzi triggered some sort of mechanism in it?"

Just as Lin Yi started thinking about these issues, a feeling of being watched sprouted in his heart like a budding plant.

This feeling had been somewhat rare for him lately, but it was still extremely familiar.

"Am I being watched now?"

"Heh, it reeks a bit of the Non-human Classmates mechanism."

Without a doubt, when Lin Yi thought about it, the green-hatted chef who had been staring at Wei Liang shifted his attention to Lin Yi.

With the gaze of the green-hatted chef, Lin Yi gradually started sensing that cold, craving, malevolent feeling, but he didn’t show much reaction, simply envisioning a scene of Boss drop-kicking in his mind which shifted his focus away.

During the process of ordering, that green-hatted chef floated around their group like a ghost, but after being ignored for a while, he quietly wandered off to look for other targets.

The breakfast at S City University’s Cafeteria included white porridge, pastries, buns, fried dough sticks, and so on. Lin Yi, unsure about the contents of the meat buns, chose a fried dough stick, an egg, a bowl of thin porridge, and a cup of soy milk.

Ridiculously, the cafeteria’s breakfast fruit included small tomatoes.

Lin Yi and his friends silently bypassed the small tomatoes and chose a yogurt.

During this time, the blue-hatted chef who liked to stealthily switch yogurts and tomatoes appeared again, only this time he had a separate tomato in his hand instead of using the small tomatoes to switch their yogurt.

The queue for breakfast wasn’t long, so it only took them 5 minutes to buy their breakfast, and by the time they sat down with their trays, it was already 7:27.

Lin Yi glanced around the perimeter of the Student Cafeteria; up until now, people looking like students continued to come in and line up.

"Sports students seem to take off their athletic wear when they come to the cafeteria," Lin Yi bit into his fried dough stick, "I wonder if it’s required by the Art Student Rules."

"Most likely," Tian Bufan slowly peeled his egg, "Anything that’s common is almost always part of the rules."

Lin Yi nodded, "Speaking of which, shouldn’t we have a general direction for exploration? Like, what should we explore first?"

Tian Bufan took a sip of soy milk, "I have a preliminary plan, but it’s not suitable for you; for you, I have a suggestion on the overall direction."

Lin Yi put down his fried dough stick, "Let’s hear it."

"Didn’t you dream about Maozi and his trip to the Art Building? Then you should follow the route in the dream seen on the Art Student Rules as a clue to look for related things."

"With enough fragments, even if you can’t form a complete picture, you can still piece together something approximate."

"Then, while waiting to meet again, we’ll synchronize the information."

"The experience period totals seven days; I estimate those seven days are the average time from zero contamination to breaking the contamination threshold."

"Because for someone not contaminated, theoretically, how many days they experience isn’t an issue, so the seven-day limit is very intriguing and probably just as I guessed."

"That is to say, theoretically, Maozi has seven days of safety time; of course, this may be a conservative estimate, and once his contamination intensifies, he might not last as long as seven days."

Tian Bufan said this and then stopped to take a sip of porridge.

Lin Yi seemed contemplative. He originally had a vague plan in mind, but after listening to Tian Bufan’s words, his thoughts became instantly clear, "Alright, let’s do that."

"Remember, the premise of exploration is to abide by the rules," Tian Bufan repeatedly urged, "Regarding what is written in the rules, unless the underlying logic they were based on is clearly defined, try to fulfill the requirements based on their ’literal meaning’."

"Keep your speculations and judgments about opinions from others that are of a rule-like nature."

"And if it’s something neither the rules nor others have mentioned, think conservatively towards maintaining your safety."

"Alright," Lin Yi nodded.

"One last thing... remember, rules are rigid, people are flexible, don’t let the rules corner you into a dead end."

"Hmm?"

"Anyway, ’being alive’ is the most fundamental core." Tian Bufan looked up and finished the last sip of his soy milk, "This soy milk tastes quite good, I’ll go get another bowl. Do you want some?"

"I don’t need any." Lin Yi, preoccupied with thoughts of Mao Feiyang, just wanted to hastily get through breakfast and fill his stomach.

Wei Shan and Kuai Hongji were also each engrossed in their breakfasts.

Kuai Hongji’s breakfast was even lighter than Lin Yi’s, but Wei Shan had grabbed six pork buns just for himself.

Wei Liang was quietly eating on his own. When Lin Yi and Tian Bufan were talking, he seemed to have closed himself off.

But before Tian Bufan returned, someone who had not asked any questions sat down in the seat Tian had vacated.

Lin Yi and Tian Bufan were sitting face-to-face. Witnessing this, Lin Yi couldn’t help but look up, but just as his gaze moved up and landed on the other person’s plate, he froze.

He saw that the other person’s plate was filled entirely with cherry tomatoes.

Lin Yi felt a chill run down his scalp, as if coldness was shooting out of his apical bone.

He did not continue to look up, instead slowly lowering his gaze. The other person eating cherry tomatoes surely wasn’t an Experience Student. It was better not to make eye contact; less trouble that way.

So he bowed his head over his watery porridge, nibbling on a fried dough stick, but his eyes fell on the smooth metallic surface of the alloy tray, attempting to spy what sort of thing sat opposite him through the reflective surface.

However, a tray is not a mirror, and although there was a reflection, it distorted everything like a funhouse mirror. Still, he managed to see some outlines of the person across, and there were hints of green in their clothing.

"As expected, a Polluter, but not a ’Chef’, nor does it have the breath of Non-human Classmates... It must belong to the Art Building unit," he thought.

Despite this, Lin Yi was still unable to ascertain the exact identity of the person, as he remembered the Art Student Rules stated that normal Art Students could also consume tomatoes in certain situations, but what those situations were, Lin Yi had no clue.

However, he could confirm that the person sitting opposite him should be among a "normal Art Student," an "odd Art Student," or "someone like the ’Sailor Uniform Girl’ type people."

He had once heard from Xu Shunkang that a girl in a sailor uniform was an Art Student, but perhaps to someone with Xu’s level of understanding, he couldn’t grasp the detailed classification of art-related units like Mu Daxian could.

As he speculated, the person opposite popped a cherry tomato into their mouth and began to chew with a sound of "crunch, crunch."

As they continued to pop them into their mouth, the distinct scent of tomato juice quickly spread, but to Lin Yi who perceived tomatoes as hearts, the smell soon developed a vaguely nauseating scent of blood...

"Tomato elements indeed are flesh elements... if tomatoes are hearts, what are cherry tomatoes?"

A day earlier, at the very moment this thought arose, he would have likely due to cognitive distortion begun to fall into a graphical layer, sinking into some dark abyss.

But now, only a slight change passed across his face.

Since he had overwritten his cognition, when this thought emerged in his mind now, all the mental processes seemed as naturally smooth and fluid as water flowing into a channel.