As footsteps echoed outside one after another, Zuo Lin'an noticed that several people in the classroom could no longer sit still.
He even saw a middle-aged man, hands trembling, pull a photograph out of his pocket.
The picture was of a young girl around ten years old.
Taking a deep breath as if he had made up his mind, the man stood up and walked out through the back door.
With the first departure, a second and third soon followed, leaving in succession.
At that moment, Xu Youyou turned to look at Zuo Lin'an.
“Brother An, what do you think...”
Zuo Lin'an furrowed his brows and gritted his teeth. “I'm staying.”
He had already guessed the danger of this assessment from the few words dropped by Aunt Mei and his homeroom teacher.
He had prepared himself mentally long ago.
Besides, now that he was here, there was absolutely no way he would walk away.
He was all alone anyway; if he died, he died.
But if he succeeded, he would become a Human-Specter Symbiont, just as Instructor An had described!
He would become a dungeon boss and possess supernatural power.
Specifically, the power of rules.
Seeing his resolute expression, Xu Youyou let out a sigh of relief.
Good.
“Then I can put my mind at ease.”
Zuo Lin'an muttered, “Huh?”
Xu Youyou chuckled.
“You know my situation. I won't live long anyway, so I might as well take a gamble. It's no big deal if I die, but if I succeed...”
He stared at Zuo Lin'an with a deep, knowing gaze.
“So, if you left, you wouldn't have to face the dangers of Sin Hunter City and could live a long life. As your brother, wouldn't that mean I'm getting the short end of the stick?”
Zuo Lin'an asked, “How are you getting the short end of the stick?”
Xu Youyou replied, “If I left with you, I wouldn't live long. Then I'd end up making you, a black-haired youth, bury me, a white-haired elder.”
“But if I stay, though there's a tiny chance of success, I'll probably die in Sin Hunter City. Then I'd be making you, a black-haired youth, bury me, another black-haired youth...”
Zuo Lin'an was completely speechless. The heavy, tense atmosphere from moments ago vanished instantly.
What a weirdo...
Xu Youyou continued to babble, “It's great that you're staying. The two of us can either become bosses together and live well, or die together in Sin Hunter City.”
“How about it? Doesn't it sound like sworn brothers in a wuxia drama? ‘We weren't born on the same day, but we wish to die on the same...’”
Zuo Lin'an's face filled with disgust. “Stop!”
“Can't you say something a bit more auspicious?”
The two of them bickered in hushed voices at the back of the classroom, making sure not to disturb the others.
However, this wasn't the time or place for fooling around, so they didn't argue for long before falling silent.
The heavy, agonizing struggle lasted for a full half-hour before people finally stopped standing up to leave.
An Wen waited for another ten minutes or so. Once he was certain no one else was leaving, he stood up again.
“Only sixteen left?”
“Fine. I can see your determination in your expressions and your eyes.”
“Only now have you truly cast aside all concern for life and death. This is good. You are the kind of real students we want.”
With that, An Wen pulled out his phone.
“Yeah, we're ready.”
“You can bring the ones from upstairs down to the classrooms below. By the way, how many left in total?”
Someone spoke on the other end of the line.
An Wen said, “Thirteen hundred left?”
Zuo Lin'an raised an eyebrow.
There were only two thousand students in the entire academic building. If thirteen hundred had left, didn't that mean only seven hundred of the original two thousand remained?
Still, seven hundred was not a small number.
Soon, many students walked in from outside, filling the empty seats until their classroom was packed with forty people once again.
An Wen looked at the somewhat noisy classroom. “Quiet.”
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