Chapter 3 | The Crazy Persona Must Not Collapse

By now, the sun had completely slipped below the horizon!

Under the murky, dim sky lay an abandoned sports field, mottled walls, and dilapidated buildings. Weeds ran rampant, garbage littered the ground, and a nauseating stench hung thick in the air. Countless staggering, soulless silhouettes swayed in the gloom...

What had once been a vibrant, thriving campus had transformed into a ruined, desolate ghost domain littered with rotting corpses.

Standing in the middle of this ghost domain, however, Ye Li curled her lips into a smile.

Little fear showed in her gleaming black eyes; instead, she looked thoroughly intrigued, as though everything before her was precisely what she had been waiting for.

Now this was starting to look like a “Desperate Realm”!

Just then, Ye Li suddenly felt something yank violently at her arm.

Looking back, she saw that a rotting corpse had crept up behind her without her noticing. Its festering hand—flesh split open down to the bone—gripped her arm tightly. Yellowed, blackened teeth gnashed together in a loud clatter, about to lunge right at her.

Ye Li swung her meal tray without hesitation, slamming it hard against its hideous head.

Whether the tray had finally given out after all the violence or the corpse just had an unusually thick skull, the metal buckled and snapped in two on impact.

With her “weapon” ruined, Ye Li instantly pivoted, stepping in close along the corpse’s flank. At the same time, she tucked her other arm inward and drove a vicious elbow strike straight into its rotting neck, right where the bone was exposed.

She put all her strength into the blow.

With a sharp crunch, the ghastly, decomposing head lolled onto its shoulder at an unnatural angle. Its body went limp and collapsed in a heap.

This time, the rotting corpse lay motionless on the ground, never getting back up.

Seeing this, Ye Li understood—these damned things could actually be killed!

Drawn by her presence, a massive swarm of rotting corpses crawled out from every corner of the school.

Baring their teeth and claws, they converged on her in droves, forming a dense horde that would send chills down anyone’s spine.

Ye Li shook her sore, overexerted arm, swept her gaze across her surroundings, and spun on her heel to sprint toward the school gate.

There were over two thousand students and teachers at this high school; looking at the situation now, every last one of them had likely turned into rotting corpses.

Even though she knew the fiends could be slain, their sheer numbers were overwhelming. With the meager physical fitness of her current body, having martial skills wouldn’t get her far—she would eventually be worn down to death.

Her top priority was to see if there was a way out.

Along the way, more and more rotting corpses rushed out in a frantic scramble, their chaotic, violent footsteps pounding like a death knell.

Fortunately, their speed was limited. As long as Ye Li ran at full tilt, they couldn’t catch up to her for the time being.

By the time she finally reached the clock tower, Ye Li was utterly out of breath, her legs burning with intense fatigue.

The physical constitution of this body was simply abysmal!

Ye Li bent over, resting her hands on her knees, and drew a couple of ragged breaths before looking up to examine her surroundings.

The school gate lay right before her.

Beyond the gate, however, a thick mist swirled, completely obscuring the view outside in an undeniably eerie manner.

The horde behind her was already closing in. Without time to deliberate, Ye Li pushed her aching legs forward again, ran to the gate, and mustered her remaining strength to scramble up the rust-eaten iron bars with hands and feet.

After exerting every ounce of effort to scale the iron gate, the relentless corpses reached it as well.

Pressing tightly against the gate, they shoved their decaying arms through the gaps between the bars, clawing and grasping wildly. The dilapidated iron gate rattled violently under their weight, seeming on the verge of collapse at any second.

Ye Li did not linger. Dragging her exhausted legs, she stepped into the mist, though a nagging intuition told her that escaping wouldn’t be nearly this simple.

Groping her way forward through the mist for roughly a dozen paces, the vague outline of a building emerged before her, looming in the murky fog like a beast baring its fangs and claws.

Yet as she drew closer, she realized with a start that the dilapidated building was all too familiar—it was none other than the school dormitory building.

Ye Li couldn’t help but curve her lips into a smile, a peculiar glint flashing in her slightly widened eyes.

Interesting!

She clearly remembered that outside the gate had been a wide street when she checked earlier, yet walking through the gate had brought her straight to the dormitories.

In other words, the iron gate she had just climbed over served as both the front gate and the back gate!

The entire school was like a loop joined end to end; no matter which way one walked, they remained trapped within, with no way out whatsoever!

In the deep night, Ye Li’s presence was like a beacon, drawing countless shambling silhouettes toward her.

By now, however, she no longer had the strength to run.

Ye Li sighed with a touch of regret, a faintly self-deprecating smile gracing her lips.

To think she would die so quickly; how lame.

She stood where she was and opened her arms, letting the grotesque walking corpses scramble over each other to tackle her to the ground and submerge her...

Agonizing pain washed over her body. She vividly felt her flesh being torn and chewed, her internal organs ripped apart and mangled as her life ebbed away in seconds...

Right as her consciousness was on the brink of vanishing, Ye Li couldn’t help but wonder.

Did this count as successfully surviving a day?

That was ten points of Sin Value, after all!

...

“Ningning, wake up!”

Ye Li snapped her eyes open to find a face brimming with youthful vigor.

A long-haired girl withdrew the hand that had just patted her shoulder. “Hurry and get up, school’s out!”

Looking at the girl and hearing those familiar words, Ye Li blanked for a moment.

Subconsciously, she looked around.

A spacious, noisy classroom, desks piled high with mountains of books, students in blue-and-white uniforms, and colored chalk scrawled on the bulletin board reading “Gaokao Countdown: 238 Days”...

Everything was identical to before!

So, she was back again?

Ye Li frowned, filled with confusion.

She clearly remembered being eaten alive by that mob of corpses, dead as dead could be. Why had she returned to the beginning?

Suddenly, she recalled what the system had said when she first woke up, and inspiration struck...

Could it be...?

“What are you spacing out for? Hurry and pack your things so we can grab a table at the cafeteria! If we’re late, we’ll have to wait forever again!”

The long-haired girl was still urging her, but Ye Li had no mind to pay her any attention now.

To test her theory, she abruptly stood up, shoved the girl aside, and strode off with a blank expression.

Ye Li walked briskly, knocking over stacks of books and bowling past people along the way, completely ignoring the shouted curses she drew as she sprinted out of the classroom onto the corridor.

Without missing a beat, she grabbed the corridor railing with both hands, nimbly vaulted over it, and faced the afterglow of the setting sun. Releasing her grip, she leaped resolutely from the sixth floor.