“Wh-where are you going?” Le Jun asked, still squatting on the ground, his voice trembling.
“Jumping off the roof!” Ye Li replied as if it were the most natural thing in the world.
Le Jun’s face paled. “Then what about me?”
Ye Li’s tone was indifferent. “Either jump with me or wait to get bitten to death by them. Make your choice!”
Looking at those blackened, rotting, jagged teeth, Le Jun made a prompt decision. “I'll jump with you!”
“Then let's go!”
Ye Li tried to step forward, but the hem of her jacket was still gripped tight. Annoyance flared up immediately. “What now?”
Le Jun’s expression was awful as he looked at her pleadingly. “M-my legs gave out...”
Ye Li: “...”
With courage like this, his towering frame was completely wasted!
Shooting him a look of sheer disdain, Ye Li ultimately reached out and hauled him up.
By now, several rotting hands had already crested the rooftop edge; the corpses were about to scramble up.
Ye Li dragged him straight to the ledge. “Jump!”
Staring down at the drop of over twenty meters beneath his feet, Le Jun felt dizzy. His calves shook violently, but he simply couldn't bring himself to take that step.
“I—I can't...” He felt on the verge of a total breakdown.
He was terrified. Truly terrified!
Even knowing full well that death would only reset him to life, not everyone could face death with calm composure.
At least, he couldn't do it yet!
Right at that moment, a rotting corpse successfully pulled itself onto the roof.
Without a single patch of intact flesh on its body, its limbs twisted at grotesque angles, it bared a half-rotted maw and pounced toward the two at the ledge with a rasping roar.
“Close your eyes!” Ye Li snarled in a low voice, her patience finally exhausted.
Le Jun reflexively obeyed, squeezing his eyes shut.
The very next instant, he felt a violent shove against his back. Flung forward into empty air, his feet lost purchase, and he plummeted rapidly...
“Aaaah—!”
Amid his bloodcurdling scream, Ye Li leaped off after him without the slightest hesitation.
Thud! Thud!
Two pools of blood rapidly spread across the pavement.
In her dying moments, all Ye Li saw in the darkness were countless grotesque silhouettes hurtling down from the rooftop one after another...
Like moths to a flame, crashing down in heaps—what a magnificent sight!
...
“Ningning, wake up!”
Ye Li opened her eyes out of sheer habit, greeted as usual by her deskmate's urgent voice: “Get up, school's out!”
She looked up toward the classroom doorway, and sure enough, spotted a tall, slender figure craning his head in from the corridor outside.
“Excuse me for a second,” Ye Li said to Tang Qi as she stood up.
Tang Qi, who was packing up her books, reflexively stepped aside to let her through, only to watch her deskmate brush past her and walk straight out.
“Hey, where are you going? Aren't you eating dinner?” Tang Qi shouted after her.
Ye Li waved a hand dismissively and tossed back an answer: “A date!”
Once outside the classroom, Le Jun looked somewhat self-conscious, clearly embarrassed by how he had carried himself before “embracing death” last time.
Unbothered, Ye Li gave him a subtle look, and with tacit understanding, the two headed downstairs together.
“Your teacher went five minutes over,” Le Jun remarked.
He had come over to wait the moment class let out, only to find the teacher lecturing earnestly at the front while she slept soundly at her desk.
Ye Li replied casually, “Yeah, he's dedicated.”
Reaching the ground floor, the two cut straight across the sports field toward the gymnasium.
Walking together in silence, they nonetheless drew countless curious, inquisitive stares—courtesy, of course, of Le Jun, who was practically a walking spotlight.
Long accustomed to being the center of attention, Le Jun felt no discomfort.
He glanced sideways at Ye Li, only to find her expression completely impassive.
With both hands shoved into her pockets, the girl strode forward with her chin held high. She was wholly unaffected by the scorching gazes and hushed whispers, treating everything around her as if it were thin air.
Le Jun suddenly found himself curious about this girl who looked so frail and ordinary on the outside.
She always seemed so calm and indifferent, fearless in the face of anything—even death itself.
A daring, peculiar girl.
The school gymnasium sat to the right of the sports field, facing the cafeteria across the grounds. It took them about ten minutes to reach it.
Stepping through the main doors of the gymnasium, the first thing to catch their eyes was an honors wall hung with award certificates of all sizes from various major athletic competitions.
Ye Li cast a quick glance over it and soon spotted Le Jun's name.
He had three certificates in total. One of them, dated just a month ago, was from the 200X National Youth Swimming Championship, where he had placed third in the men's 400-meter freestyle.
Ye Li arched a brow slightly, glancing at the youth beside her with mild surprise.
Placing third in a nationwide championship meant this timid guy was actually quite accomplished.
With some time left before six o'clock, Ye Li planned to take a quick look around first.
This indoor gymnasium mainly consisted of three sections: the multi-purpose sports hall, the indoor pool, and the dance studio.
The multi-purpose sports hall covered the largest area, accommodating courts for basketball, volleyball, and badminton. At the moment, a group of basketball players were working up a sweat on the court, and counting the onlookers along the sidelines, there were about twenty people in all.
The dance studio was to the right of the sports hall. Modest in size, it was mostly used by the school's gymnastics team. Ye Li pushed the door open to peek inside, finding only three girls stretching their legs before the mirrors—likely student dancers.
The indoor pool was located behind the sports hall. Reaching it required walking across the sports hall and through a hallway, next to which were communal showers and locker rooms.
When the two arrived, the doors to the pool were shut tight, the interior cloaked in darkness.
“Hardly anyone comes here after class; it's mostly just me training,” Le Jun said as he pushed the doors open, expertly finding the light switch and flipping it on.
The overhead lights along the ceiling flickered to life one after another, illuminating the interior in sharp detail.
The setup was simple: just a twenty-five-meter-long, twelve-and-a-half-meter-wide swimming pool.
The right side of the pool ran along the wall, while to its left was a three-meter-wide walkway lined haphazardly with a few chairs, but nothing else.
Enclosed by four solid walls, the room had no windows, save for a small row of skylights in the center of the steel-framed roof that let in faint light.
After some thought, Ye Li made her decision. “We'll stay here. But first, we need to find a way to lock all the outer doors.”
The pool was located deepest within the building; from the main entrance to this room, there were four doors in total.
“That's easy—I have keys!” Le Jun said. “Sometimes I train late before meets, so I asked the teacher for keys to the building. I've got keys for all the doors from the entrance to the pool.”
“What are we waiting for, then? Come on, let's lock up!” Ye Li grinned; their luck was truly good!
“Wait, the keys are in my locker in the changing room. I'll go grab them now.” Le Jun turned and pushed open the door.
“Do you have a watch?” Ye Li asked.
She wasn't wearing one, and with no clock nearby, there was no way to check the time.
“Yeah, wait for me!” Le Jun said before hurrying off.
The locker rooms were divided by gender, so Ye Li waited outside.
Before long, Le Jun emerged and handed over a black sports watch.
The watch was visibly expensive.
Ye Li wasn't surprised; she took it and strapped it onto her wrist.
At an upscale private international high school like this, tuition was exorbitant. Aside from a few high-achieving scholarship students whose fees were waived, the students who could afford to attend generally came from well-off families.
It was already five fifty-three. Only seven minutes remained until six o'clock.
Rate on N.U.
