After the Little Crybaby Enters the Nightmare Cycle

Mosaic School (11)

Ni Rong from Room 202 died on the night of the 15th.

In the case where everyone deduced that the rule was about a man and they had to dress in female clothing, the one who died turned out to be a girl.

Ni Rong died more peacefully than any sleepwalker before. Her face was calm as she lay on the pillow. If it wasn’t for the fact that there was no blood on her face, there was a lifeless blackness in her paleness, there was no breath from her nose, and her body had started to stiffen, it would look like she had fallen asleep and just didn’t wake up, making people ignore the truth of her death.

“How can this be… A girl was punished with death?”

“Were our guesses yesterday incorrect?”

The sleepwalkers, who finally calmed down after finding the rule, felt confused after Ni Rong’s death.

Chi Nan quickly noticed that there was no red quilt in Ni Rong’s dormitory, and her roommate Zhao Congnan wasn’t hurt apart from being overly frightened. This indicated that Room 202 didn’t receive a death trailer video last night.

It didn’t snow all night yesterday, so the school rule about the snow was even less likely to have been violated.

Was there another rule last night apart from the ‘male sacrifice’ rule? However, the female teacher made it clear that apart from the first night, only one school rule was added every day. It was reasonable to say that there should be no victims with an unknown cause of death.

The only possibility that Chi Nan could think of now was that Ni Rong’s death was due to a high awakening value.

There wasn’t enough time for them to feel sad or scared. At 9:30, the bell rang for the morning class and the female teacher closed the door of Room 103.

On this fine winter morning, the morning class was more silent and depressing than ever before.

“Last night, Ni Rong of Room 202 ended her study life at the boarding school in the most dignified and calm way. For her departure, I offer the most sincere blessings on behalf of all the students at the school. From today onwards, I will pray daily for Ni Rong.”

Chi Nan found that the female teacher’s words today were very different from the past. She didn’t mention any violation of school rules regarding Ni Rong’s death. On the contrary, she had a face full of piety when mentioning Ni Rong.

Was there a second set of rules for death? Chi Nan couldn’t be sure for a while.

The process of the morning class was as usual. The female teacher handed out the test paper to the remaining 13 students. “Last night’s situation is slightly different, so today’s test content has increased from before. Students, please answer carefully according to your own judgment.”

There were two questions on the test paper:

[What was the new school rule added yesterday?]

[What was the cause of Ni Rong’s death?]

Chi Nan answered the first test question quickly, but he was stuck on the second question.

Usually, the question on the test paper was the same as ‘XX’s death penalty was due to breaking which school rule?’ Today was unusual. Did this mean she didn’t die from breaking the school rules?

Chi Nan thought for a moment before writing ‘the awakening value was too high’ that he had previously considered.

He had never been a person to worry over things he didn’t understand. The answering process could also be used to make a guess.

All the sleepwalkers seemed stumped by the second question. Some people were sitting with sullen faces like they had lost their souls, others scratched their heads or bit their pens, and someone else frequently pressed on the tip of the ballpoint pen to make an annoying sound.

Guo Xian, who was sitting next to Chi Nan, stared at the test paper calmly. After a moment, he started to write.

However, before handing in the paper, Guo Xian seemed to have made a decision. He suddenly raised his pen to cross out the written answer in a hard and anxious manner. Chi Nan had the illusion that his pen would rip through the test paper.

The papers were handed in and the answer area of Guo Xian’s second question was blacked out.

“It is a pity that no one got a full score today.” The female teacher looked at them with pity. “All the students only answered the first question correctly. No one answered the second question correctly.”

Chi Nan’s heart sank slightly. The cause of Ni Rong’s death really wasn’t the awakening value being too high.

“According to the school rules, if no one answers correctly then I will keep the trigger rule confidential. This rule will continue until the end of the semester.”

There was an uproar below the podium when the female teacher’s voice finished.

“Teacher, didn’t you say that apart from the first night, only one school rule will be added every night after that? We have answered the first question correctly, indicating that the school rule is the sacrifice of a boy on the night of the full moon. So why did Ni Rong die?” Tong Yu reluctantly raised her hand to ask a question.

“This student, it is your test, not mine,” the female teacher replied succinctly, “This isn’t an open book test either.”

Tong Yu followed up by saying, “I am just raising my doubts. I hope you can explain a bit.”

The female teacher rolled her eyes stiffly and opened her red lips. “Don’t be limited by your inherent thinking. Some rules exist from the beginning, but too many interference factors have confused your vision. The truth that you should’ve discovered long ago has been buried deep in the soil.”

The commotion in the classroom abruptly stopped. Her meaning was already very clear. The cause of Ni Rong’s death had existed since the beginning. It was just that no one triggered this death condition, so they hadn’t been able to speculate about it so far.

What was it? No one had any clues. Zhao Congnan was in the same room as the deceased, but her awakening value was too high to ask any questions.

“Students shouldn’t be limited by the existing information. You must have divergent thinking and even apply your past experience to your current campus life.” The female teacher looked down at everyone and held up the lesson plan. “This afternoon’s class is a physical education class. The classroom has been changed to Dance Room 105. Please be sure to attend class on time.”

After the explanation, the female teacher left the classroom with her high heels and left behind 13 gloomy looking students.

“It seems that we have missed a very important rule before. It is too dangerous to go on like this. It is dangerous even if we determine the rule for the day.”

“What should we do? I don’t want to die in ignorance?”

“Look on the bright side. At least the rule that Ni Rong triggered is the gentlest one of the school rules. I think she died quite peacefully…”

“What theory do you have? It is better to live than to die. I don’t want to die peacefully.”

Tang Yu lay on the desk with a sad face. “Compared to this, I am most worried about the afternoon physical education class.”

“Yes, it is currently my time of the month. I don’t know what to do in PE class…” Another girl agreed. Then she remembered that Tang Yu was a transgender with a male biological sex, so she had to shut up.

“Fortunately, it is the dance studio. I would die if I had to run 800 meters around the playground.”

“Why do I have to endure the fear of being dominated by 800 meters in the Nightmare World?”

Guo Xian was different from his previous positivity. He sat in his position in a daze. Chi Nan looked at him and asked softly, “The teacher said we can use our past experience. Do you have any ideas?”

It was rare for him to take the initiative to discuss things, but Guo Xian’s behavior of crossing out the answer on the test paper just now made him a bit concerned.

Guo Xian shook his head. “This time, I really have no idea at all… It is too bad.”

Then he sighed heavily.

During the lunch break, Chi Nan took the large bouquet of small white flowers left in his dormitory last night to the infirmary.

The doctor opened the door before he could knock and made a gesture of invitation with great pleasure. “The lady who lives next door, please come in.”

Chi Nan: “……”

“Doctor, can I ask you a question?” Chi Nan followed him into the room and sat in the consultation chair in a very familiar manner.

The doctor’s lips curved. “Of course.”

“Dream maker 229 of this instance, does he have a habit of watching people in women’s clothing?” Chi Nan was expressionless as he asked bluntly.

The doctor’s smile obviously froze for a moment before it spread more naturally. “You’re wrong about this.”

Chi Nan looked up at him. “What is wrong?”

The doctor shrugged. “He doesn’t like looking at other people. He just…”

He fixed his gaze back on Chi Nan’s face, but paused halfway through the conversation.

“Just what?” Chi Nan asked.

“Just kidding. It doesn’t matter.”

Chi Nan knew that 229 wasn’t going to tell him based on this attitude and didn’t ask much.

The doctor put on gloves and unbuttoned the top of Chi Nan’s clothes as he did yesterday. He slightly raised Chi Nan’s chin. “The mark on the neck is gone and your cold is almost better, but…”

He hid the smile in his eyes as he stared into Chi Nan’s eyes. “Your eyes are a bit swollen again. Did you have a nightmare and cry last night?”

He asked with a serious expression like a doctor seeing a patient.

Chi Nan: “……”

The doctor laughed and pushed the prepared sweets in front of Chi Nan as usual. “Eat more. You will need to consume a lot of energy in the afternoon physical education class.”

Chi Nan didn’t need this person to tell him to eat more. After all, this was special treatment that cost him 100 favorability points.

In the innermost side of the corridor, the east and west walls of the rectangular dance classroom were made of floor-to-ceiling mirrors. The mirrors were opposite each other so the originally only 150 square meters room was visually magnified. It gave people a sense of confusion of being in an endlessly empty room.

It was a dance studio, so it was normal for the walls to be designed as large mirrors.

However, Chi Nan soon found that the clock hanging on the wall showed that the time was 5:30. This was different from the actual class time of 2 o’clock.

“Teacher, Zhao Congnan of Room 202 fainted at noon and wants to take a leave of absence from the physical education class,” Tong Yu requested.

The newcomer Zhao Congnan’s mental state had been very unstable since the discovery of her roommate’s body in the morning. She couldn’t last at noon and fainted. She still hadn’t woken up.

The female teacher’s face was unexpectedly calm as she nodded. “Leave of absence from physical education class for girls is allowed.”

No one expected this physical education class to be designed so realistically.

The female teacher looked at the 12 sleepwalkers standing beside the door of the dance studio. “Students, you don’t need to be nervous. We will play a relaxing game in today’s physical education class. The process of playing is to enforce orders and prohibitions, raise your awareness of the rules, and increase your feelings for each other, which will benefit the students for life.”

“Playing a game…?” Everyone thought that the class today was dance training when they heard it would be held in the dance studio. They didn’t expect it to be a game.

“That’s right. I think you’ve played it before. It is the Statues game.”

The female teacher spoke while measuring the distance with her eyes. She placed red ropes not far from the door of the classroom, in the middle of the classroom, and by the end of the classroom. She stood at the rope in the middle section and told the group, “This is the starting point of your game.”

Proofreader: Kat