With time running short, the two wasted no more time and sprang into action immediately.
The gymnasium had double main doors: an exterior metal security gate and interior tempered glass doors.
The barred gate looked fairly sturdy, while the glass doors probably wouldn't keep out much of anything, but it was still better than nothing.
As luck would have it, no one was coming to the gymnasium right then, so they managed to shut the main doors without a hitch.
Ignoring the practice studio, Ye Li and Le Jun went straight into the multi-purpose hall.
All the venue doors inside the gymnasium were double-swinging spring-loaded steel doors. At the moment, the basketball team was still tearing across the court. Ye Li and Le Jun weren't quite so lucky this time—locking the door drew their attention.
“Hey, what are you doing?”
“Why are you locking the door? Can't you see we're still in here?”
“What the hell are you playing at?”
“...”
Faced with the barrage of questions, neither Ye Li nor Le Jun uttered a word, simply keeping their heads down and pressing on.
“Hey, we're talking to you! Did you hear us?” Sensing something was off, several of them began striding toward the pair.
Ye Li checked the time on her watch, whispered, “Run!” and bolted toward the door on the other side of the hall.
Le Jun hastily scrambled after her.
“Hey, don't run...!” Seeing them flee, the players gave chase at once.
Long-limbed and athletic, they ran exceptionally fast.
Fortunately, the court was a fair distance away, allowing Le Jun to reach the door first.
He yanked the door open and waited for Ye Li.
Pumping her short legs like churning wheels, Ye Li finally managed to slip through the door just before they caught up.
Le Jun slammed the door shut with a heavy bang, using all his strength to hold the handle tight and keep the people inside from forcing it open.
Fists pounded furiously against the door with loud bangs, accompanied by an endless stream of muffled curses and demands from within.
Without even pausing to catch her breath, Ye Li quickly slid the key into the lock and turned it.
“What's going on?”
“What happened?”
Right at that moment, two boys in basketball jerseys happened to emerge from the locker room, instantly drawn by the ruckus.
“Chen Yu, grab them! They locked the door!” someone shouted from behind the door.
The two were clearly with the group inside. Hearing the call, they lunged forward to seize Ye Li and Le Jun.
With the distance so short and the corridor so narrow, there was nowhere to dodge.
There wasn't much time left.
Ye Li's eyes darkened as she prepared to make her move.
Yet completely contrary to her expectations, Le Jun threw the first punch without a word, striking right at the boy grabbing for his collar.
Caught off guard, the boy took a heavy blow to the cheek. Letting out a muffled grunt, he stumbled backward several paces and crashed to the floor.
Seeing this, the other boy immediately switched targets and lunged at Le Jun.
Le Jun reacted rapidly. Ducking to dodge the incoming fist, he lashed out with a long leg and kicked the boy back.
“Fuck!” The first boy scrambled up from the floor, spitting a curse. His eyes red with fury, he charged back into the brawl.
For a moment, Le Jun took on both of them at once, yet he didn't show the slightest sign of being overwhelmed.
His movements were fluid, striking fast and true, targeting vulnerable spots with practiced ease. From his technique alone, he had clearly been in plenty of fights.
Just as the three were locked in a fierce, chaotic brawl of traded blows...
Suddenly, a crisp chiming sound echoed out—dong, dong, dong!
Hearing the chimes, Le Jun panicked instantly. Caught off guard, he failed to dodge in time and took a hard punch squarely to the jaw, slamming backward against the wall.
Seizing the chance, the other boy lunged forward, pinning him firmly against the wall in an attempt to subdue him.
Le Jun struggled with all his might, driving his elbow hard into the boy's ribs behind him to shove him off.
Right as the chimes faded, the overhead lights along the corridor abruptly snapped off.
Le Jun's heart skipped a beat!
He whipped his head around, only to come face-to-face with a hideous rotting visage of decaying flesh and upturned, milky-white eyes. The yellow-black gums and jagged teeth were right in front of his face, resembling a hungry ghost crawling straight out of hell in the dim gloom.
Le Jun instantly let out a bloodcurdling screech. Terrified out of his mind, his heart almost leaped into his throat, his face turned deathly pale, and his legs gave out completely, buckling underneath him.
However valiant he had been during the fight, he was now just as utterly paralyzed by fear.
Just as that gruesome, rotting maw was about to bite down, a wet squelch rang out. A sharpened wooden stick pierced clean through the rotting corpse's throat, its pointed tip bursting out through the decaying mouth to stop right in front of Le Jun's forehead, splattering foul-smelling putrid fluids all over his face.
Unable to hold himself up any longer, Le Jun collapsed onto his rear with a dull thud.
Before he could even recover from the shock, he saw the girl wrench the wooden stick back out, flip her grip so the sharpened point faced up, and cleanly drive it right into the eye socket of another lunging corpse.
Although the blow impaled the corpse's head, it evidently missed the vitals. With the stick stuck in its eye, the corpse continued to claw frantically at Ye Li with hands rotted down to the bone.
Ye Li swiftly unleashed a brutal kick against the monster's shin, sending the tall corpse off balance and crashing to its knees.
Seizing the opening, Ye Li gripped the wooden stick firmly, bracing it against the monster's head, and shoved violently to the side.
Crack!
A sickening snap echoed as the decaying head was twisted all the way around behind its back. Its arms went limp, falling completely still.
Planting a foot on the corpse's shoulder to wrench the wooden stick free, Ye Li shouted to the boy still sitting frozen on the floor, “Move!”
Snapped out of his daze, the terrified Le Jun scrambled to his feet and followed her into the natatorium.
By now, the natatorium had deteriorated into a state of ruin and decay. The pool was filthy, its water murky. Spiderwebs draped across peeling, crumbling walls, and the door was caked in rust and thick dust. A heavy stench of rot hung in the air.
The two struggled with all their might just to pull the door shut, nearly snapping the key inside the rusted lock.
Still feeling uneasy, Ye Li surrendered the mop handle she had snagged from the locker room amid the chaos and jammed it through the door handles.
With everything secured, Ye Li shoved her hands back into her pockets, walked over to the dilapidated chairs, and slumped down onto one, uncaring of the thick coat of dust covering it.
Between sprinting and slaying monsters, her scrawny limbs were exhausted!
Le Jun walked over as well, sinking into the chair next to hers, finally feeling like he had returned to the land of the living.
“Weren't you pretty fierce when you were beating those guys up earlier? How'd you chicken out the very next second?” Ye Li teased, glancing at the boy furiously scrubbing his face with his jacket.
“That's different.” Le Jun's hand paused, still shaken as he explained, “They're people, not monsters! I'm not afraid of people!”
Ye Li raised an eyebrow and asked curiously, “Then why are you so terrified of monsters? Did something traumatize you before?”
She had initially assumed he was just a coward, but his punches earlier hadn't pulled any punches whatsoever.
And his reaction upon seeing the rotting corpses seemed far deeper than simple fear.
Rate on N.U.
