The World Below Surface

Despite the towering height of the building, Lu Yan could still discern the objects below in the murky darkness of the night. A lump of flesh lay still, almost unrecognizable, amidst the bloodstains on the cement floor.

Questions haunted him. Had the principal jumped off the building? Or was it someone else? Doubts besieged him, but this wasn't the time to ponder. He shifted his gaze and surveyed the office once more.

Suddenly, something caught his attention. A cabinet door was swaying gently, concealing a secret within. Lu Yan crept towards it, stopping in front of the door, hesitant for a moment before reaching out and prying it open. What he saw made him freeze in his tracks.

A twisted, bright red statue of a deity was perched on an altar within the cabinet. Lu Yan slammed the door shut and bolted out of the room without a backward glance. It wasn't until he was out of the door that he realized he had been holding his breath, and his forehead was coated in a cold sweat.

When he looked at the statue, he had an inexplicable urge to prostrate himself in worship, consequences be damned. Was it because he had chosen to become a believer? Would this influence strengthen over time? Could he keep his sanity intact in the end?

Lu Yan loosened his collar, his gaze on the mark beneath his collarbone. The mark grew redder, almost as if it were on the verge of bleeding. He buttoned up his shirt, turned to face the door, and went to the end of the hallway, fading into the shadows to wait.

Before long, faint commotion from the lower floors reached his ears.

"The Principal!!"

"The headmaster leapt from the building? And what shall we do now?"

"Someone must be upstairs!"

"Indeed!"

But before they could take any further action, the head teacher arrived at the scene, aghast and enraged at the sight of the lifeless body on the ground. He wept bitterly, collapsing to the earth in despair. His cries were contagious, and soon other faculty members joined in, their tears flowing freely.

Yet, as suddenly as he had begun to weep, the head teacher ceased his sorrowful outburst, wiping away his tears with a determined hand. "Nay, my friends," he spoke with conviction, "the headmaster did not take his own life. It was those two reporters! We must find them and bring them to justice!"

"Aye, catch them!"

"For the principal's revenge!"

The school's teaching building layout was peculiar, with just one staircase at the far end of the left wing. Lu Yan observed from his elevated position as the searchers ascended the stairs, stationing a few sentinels on each floor. At the same time, the rest scoured the classrooms for any signs of the culprit.

He would indeed be discovered before long. Thinking quickly, Lu Yan sprinted to the opposite end of the corridor, reaching the restroom soon. The door was unlocked, and he slipped inside, listening carefully to footsteps drawing nearer with each passing second.

"Search every nook and cranny!" one of the searchers barked. "We mustn't let him slip away!"

Minutes passed like hours as the search party scoured each floor, moving closer and closer to the topmost level. Lu Yan held his breath, listening intently as door after door opened, but he remained hidden from view.

"There's no sign of him here either," one searcher exclaimed, his voice heavy with frustration. "This is impossible. Where could he have gone?"

"There's no one in the office," another added.

And then, just as suddenly as they had arrived, the footsteps began to fade away, gradually growing softer and softer until they were nought but a distant echo.

Lu Yan breathed a sigh of relief, but his triumph was short-lived. Something was amiss.

He didn't seek refuge in the lavatory. Instead, he slithered out of the window. He clutched onto the outer wall's water pipes and air conditioning units. As he heard the footsteps fade away and were on the brink of leaping back into the window, a sharp gaze caught his attention from the left. His head jerked towards the source.

A face, indistinct yet grinning, met his gaze on the left side of the teaching building. As soon as it realized it had captured his attention, its smile became even more affable.

The water pipes next to his arm began to break. At this critical moment, Lu Yan pushed against the wall, jumped up, grabbed the window with force, and flipped inside.

As soon as he was within, he was petrified in position, and his breath caught in his throat. The voice-activated light failed to illuminate, but he could still discern a pitch-black, hunched-over figure stationed at the bathroom's threshold.

At the sight of the figure, Lu Yan lowered his gaze and avoided meeting its eyes. But then, out of the corner of his eye, he caught a glimpse of a head floating in from outside the window.

What could he do?

Lu Yan had encountered this type of predicament before. He had grown accustomed to discovering a way out from a dead end. He clutched the gun and wooden stick tightly in his hand, gradually smoothing his breathing, and inched one step at a time toward the figure.

A niggling suspicion crept into his mind. With a furtive glance, the figure remained motionless as though waiting for something. Looking up once more, Lu Yan instantly understood. It was not a figure with its head bowed but a headless corpse! It stood at the door, awaiting its own head!

With the realization dawning upon him, Lu Yan's senses keenly detected that the other figure's stance was not quite right. In an instant, he knew what it meant. It, the headless thing, could not see itself. After grasping at the disembodied head bounding towards him, Lu Yan ran as fast as his legs could carry him.

As he dashed past the looming figure, Lu Yan could feel the icy chill emanating from it. He didn't waste a second, racing straight towards the stairs opposite the bathroom.

Faster!

Faster still!

If it reclaimed its head...

In a mere dozen seconds, Lu Yan had descended the stairs, blasting a shot into the void as he did so. The deafening gunshot reverberated in the eerie silence, and he quickly heard the voices of the teachers from below.

"Over here!"

"Hurry! Stop him!"

Those teachers, if they could still be called that, were hollow shells, their fanatical and obsessed expressions as ghastly as their cracked and bloodied faces. They looked like shattered plaster statues brought back to life. They swarmed upstairs, already on the third floor and confronting Lu Yan, racing down from the fourth.

With no time to spare, Lu Yan's sole focus was to outrun the thing upstairs before it could reclaim its head. He bolted downwards at breakneck speed, ploughing through the two teachers obstructing his way and flipping over the railing. He landed with a thud on the next level, swinging his wooden stick with force to shatter the barricade of bodies ahead of him. Without a second thought, Lu Yan bolted into the open, not daring to look back.

The moment his foot hit the pavement, darkness engulfed the entire edifice.

Lu Yan's heart pounded as he ran for his life. The ghostly apparition had already laid eyes upon him, and it was only a matter of time before it came for him. For reasons unknown, the thought crept into Lu Yan's mind, fueled by the primal fear that drives us all: run.

Inside the teaching building, chaos reigned.

"Why did the power go out? Everyone take out your phones and follow!" The order was barked, and the group complied.

"Who got hurt just now?" Another voice chimed in, tinged with panic.

"Damn it, why did the power go out at this time? Director, shouldn't we fix the equipment in our building? It's unbearable to have it stop every two or three days." The words were barely out of his mouth when a voice called out from the darkness.

"Director, someone else just came down from above; I don't know who it is."

"Definitely an accomplice! Catch him!" The director's voice was authoritative, his orders snapping like a whip.

"Director, it...it doesn't seem like..." The voice trailed off into a blood-curdling scream.

After a series of harrowing screams, only discarded phones littered the ground. The figure of the ghostly entity passed by, and the light extinguished in its wake.

Lu Yan continued to shuttle through the campus, his adrenaline-fueled escape leaving him with a few injuries. Bandaging them would have to wait. All he could do now was run. His survival depended on Chu Xiu finishing the game after midnight, regardless of whether he emerged victorious.

He checked his watch and saw that there was still almost half an hour until midnight. Lu Yan took a deep breath, slowed down his pace, and began to recall everything in his mind, scanning his surroundings with caution.

The God of Omniscience was once a mere symbol to him, a religion without any impression. But once he recognized it as a detailed faith, the Church of Omniscience seemed to crop up more and more, impossible to ignore, even influencing the tasks of outsiders. It was a strange relationship between the God of Omniscience, ghosts, and tasks that lingered even after the tasks were completed.

And lately, the tasks had become increasingly bizarre, far more complex than the ghosts and their stories from the start. Too many interfering factors were at play, all linked to the God of Omniscience.

As time ticked slowly toward midnight, the few remaining teachers in the school grew anxious. The school rules were clear - wandering around campus after twelve o'clock was strictly forbidden, with consequences to be borne by those who disobeyed. After discussing their options, they simply up and left. The principal was already dead, so they figured it didn't matter.

Chu Xiu, on the other hand, stood on the second floor of the teaching building opposite the main entrance, watching their figures recede into the distance.

"Why did they suddenly leave?" he wondered, befuddled. But before he could ponder it further, the lights on the side of a teaching building went out. Not one light at a time, but all at once, as though someone had pulled the plug on the entire building.

Did Lu Yan have something to do with it? Did he cut off the power?

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Just as Chu Xiu was about to contact Lu Yan to inform him that the teachers had already left, he noticed something amiss. A figure emerged from the side teaching building, and as it passed each streetlight, the light would quickly go out.

Taking in a sharp breath of icy air, Chu Xiu knew right away that what he faced was not a living person.

He couldn't flee now. He'd collide with the spectre head-on if he bolted down the stairs. Chu Xiu swivelled on his heel and rushed into the classroom. Yet, every window was clamped tight with anti-theft screens.

He pressed his shoulder against the windowpane, the electric saw in his grip snarling and buzzing, slicing through the iron mesh as thick as a finger. Its shrill clamour echoed in the mute campus, flinging sparks into the air.

But Chu Xiu didn't give a damn. He gouged a gap in the anti-theft screen in three or four slashes, sprang out of the second floor, broke through the branches, tumbled onto the grass, rolled twice, staggered to his feet and stumbled away.

His wounded leg must have worsened; blood seeped down his thigh. But Chu Xiu brushed it aside.

Did he catch sight of his silhouette, illuminated by the light, flickering out of sight and plunging into darkness? Without glancing back, he sensed that all the lights in the edifice had snuffed out.

Limping towards the darkness, Chu Xiu knew that the most dangerous place was often the safest. When other lit teaching buildings went dark, the ghost had left. All the teachers had already left the school. Yet, an inexplicable black figure appeared, and he had to find a secure building to hide until he could play the game.

But where was Lu Yan? He'd managed to escape, hadn't he?

Chu Xiu waited for roughly ten minutes, and the lights in the teaching building situated a hundred meters to his left suddenly snuffed out. The ghost must have gone there!

With the ghost's path mapped out in his mind, Chu Xiu wasted no time and charged towards the distant teaching building. Ignoring the searing pain in his legs and the blood trickling down, he pushed himself to the limit and reached the building farthest from where the lights had flickered.

The witching hour was rapidly approaching, and the entire campus was cloaked in darkness as the final teaching building went dark.

Huddled in the shadows, Lu Yan kept his breathing steady. Like Chu Xiu, he swiftly retreated to a building as far away as possible from where the lights had vanished, hoping to keep a safe distance from the ghost.

But the moment he tried to escape, he discovered that the school gates were locked tight. The walls were too high to climb, and he suspected the entity wouldn't let him leave the premises so quickly.

Therefore, Chu Xiu needed to finish the game as soon as possible. Once he did, all the eerie happenings would cease.

Lu Yan had cast aside his stick and now had his hand on the mark below his clavicle, scanning the area cautiously.

As the clock struck midnight, Chu Xiu and Lu Yan froze.

In an instant, every single teaching building on campus was illuminated, the lights flickering on one by one. Students roamed the corridors and classrooms, flipping through textbooks and engaging in lively discussions. Had it not been for the pitch-blackness that had enveloped the buildings just moments before, the scene would have looked like any other bustling high school, a hive of activity and productivity.

None of the students paid them any heed. It was as if they were invisible. Lu Yan stood rooted to the spot, his heart pounding with apprehension at this bizarre spectacle.

"What is this?" wondered Lu Yan, his voice barely above a whisper. Was it a ghostly illusion? He stood in disbelief as two students carrying textbooks came up the stairs and walked straight through him. They continued, smiling and oblivious that they had just walked through a human figure.

Lu Yan pinched himself to check if he was still alive. A sharp, painful sensation indicated that he had pinched something real. He tentatively reached out to touch a student nearby, but his fingers met with nothingness. It was a relief when he confirmed that he was invisible to the students. Lu Yan pulled out his phone and contacted Chu Xiu, determined to find out where he was. Once he knew, he left the building and headed towards Chu Xiu's location, his curiosity piqued.

"Ding-ling-ling...class is starting," the bell rang, jolting Lu Yan out of his thoughts.

The students, still wandering in the corridor, quickly returned to their classrooms, holding their books and test papers. In a short while, the sound of students reading aloud could be heard coming from some classrooms. Lu Yan suddenly remembered what Teacher Li had said before he entered the school, claiming that the evening self-study class was also a unique feature of this school.

"It is quite a unique feature, indeed," thought Lu Yan.

Finally, Lu Yan met Chu Xiu in the building closest to the school gate. Chu Xiu still had his mirror, and it was intact, but he looked terrible. His legs were bleeding heavily, his lips pale, and he was only being propelled by sheer willpower.

"I'm going to play the game right away, so please wait for me downstairs," Chu Xiu said, taking out his mirror. "I've calculated that I won't take more than ten minutes to get to the fourth floor at my current speed. If I don't give you a warning after ten minutes, you should leave immediately."

Chu Xiu could have followed the game rules and left immediately after the game ended. However, when he and Lu Yan were separated, the other party must have gathered a certain amount of information, and he hoped to learn something. So he was ready to delay as much time as possible.

Lu Yan acquiesced with a nod and supplemented, "When you're in danger, a warning is necessary, and I'll reciprocate."

"Agreed. A gunshot will be the signal."

Hearing that, Lu Yan reached out, "I'm out of ammo."

Chu Xiu responded, "It's my oversight." After speaking, he took two rounds from his magazine and handed them to Lu Yan.

Next, Chu Xiu limped into the building. Lu Yan watched everything unfold from a distance.

The sound of students reading aloud resonated from within the edifice. Chu Xiu retrieved a mirror, positioned it to his face and said his name, advancing to the first stair.

"Chu Xiu."

"Chu Xiu."

His eyes never left the mirror, one hand grasping the railing, the other clasping the mirror, ascending the stairs step by step. It was queer to hear his own name, but Chu Xiu didn't detect anything peculiar after reaching the first floor. However, when he called out his name, he felt somewhat awkward. He descended to the next floor.

Stepping down one level. "Chu Xiu."

Second level. "Chu Xiu."

Upon reaching the third level, Chu Xiu's voice faltered momentarily.

The image in the mirror...changed.

The mirror fogged up, becoming hazy and hard to see. Chu Xiu had to reach out and wipe it clean. But as he finished wiping, he was startled to find his reflection with a bluish-purple complexion and white, rolling eyes – the face of a dead person!

His own face!

He shuddered but couldn't stop walking, continuing up the stairs. Each step he took decayed the dead face in the mirror more. At first, it was barely noticeable, but it became increasingly obvious as he climbed higher. On the last step of the second floor, the person's face in the mirror was unrecognizable, terrifying, and disgusting.

Remaining calm was his only option. Chu Xiu took a deep breath, changed direction, and headed to the third floor.

The scene in the mirror changed once again, and Chu Xiu stood frozen, trembling hand holding the mirror so much that he could hardly hold it. In the mirror, the face of a woman he knew very well appeared – Chu Xian, his sister.

"Sleeve? Is that you? Where are you?" Chu Xian's voice came from the mirror. Chu Xian always liked to call him Sleeve, a nickname she especially gave him.

Chu Xiu called his name, "Chu Xiu," and continued up the stairs.

"Hey? Sleeve, don't scare me. Where are you?" Chu Xian looked puzzled, searching around in the mirror.

Chu Xiu's lungs burned as he struggled to catch his breath. Suddenly, a memory resurfaced in his mind. Before they were thrown into this wretched world of tasks, Chu Xian told him about a day when she heard him calling her name while she was alone. He hadn't believed her then and dismissed it as a mere hallucination. But after listening to the recording at her insistence, both siblings felt uneasy. Chu Xiu had stayed with her the whole day, but the eerie occurrence never repeated. Eventually, Chu Xian forgot about it.

"Chu Xiu," he called out again.

In the mirror, Chu Xian's face twisted with fear as she frantically searched for the source of the voice.

"Don't try to scare me, or I'll beat you up," Chu Xian threatened as she barged into the room. However, after scouring every corner of the house and finding nothing, she heard the voice again. Fear etched on her face; she couldn't hide it any longer.

"Chu Xiu," the voice echoed, sending shivers down his spine. His mind raced as he struggled to understand what was happening. Why was his current task affecting his past world?

In the mirror, Chu Xian pulled out her phone and began recording a few sentences of Chu Xiu's voice. Hastily, she fled the house, leaving the mirror image to fade into darkness. He had reached the fourth floor.

Taking a deep breath, Chu Xiu wiped away a tear and continued to climb. His eyes remained glued to the mirror.

Suddenly, he saw Lu Yan's figure lurking in the corner of the reflection. How had he made it up here? Chu Xiu dared not turn around when the game rules prohibited it. Instead, he turned the corner and stood at the staircase on the fourth floor.

Lu Yan followed up on Chu Xiu without mentioning that ten minutes had already elapsed. Seizing the brief window earlier, he quickly scanned the building across the street. The teaching building was calm, and the instructors were busy teaching their classes. Lu Yan tried to use the mirror to spy on the group of people, but he saw nothing in the reflection.

That black silhouette had vanished.

Puzzled, Lu Yan couldn't fathom the reason. Without any answers, he decided to keep pace with Chu Xiu, who walked with a confused expression, taking one step and halting the next as if he had seen something strange in the mirror.

Lu Yan was cautious, avoiding angles that would reflect his image in the mirror while monitoring their progress with his wristwatch. What he failed to realize was that this task was routine.

If not for the "deity's" interference, Chu Xiu and his friends would have randomly selected two ordinary students to play the game and might have survived or died before reaching the Yin—Yang Road. The second and third-day horror games would have been a simple affair, and they would not have been trapped in the cycle of reincarnation.

The last day's mirror game was supposed to occur on the fourth day. They would have encountered the dark figure and the eerie sight of students attending classes on campus. Through the games and the students they met over the next three days, they would have to unravel the school's mystery to escape.

However, their task had been wholly disrupted, and the normal flow of time and space was out of control. Only Chu Xiu and Lu Yan remained, unaware of the truth.

Chu Xiu was once again confronted with a situation beyond his control. In the mirror, he saw himself and Chu Xian performing a task in the past.

In the past, he was not like the present. Chu Xiu had attempted to encourage the taskers to cooperate and assist one another. After all, individual strength was insufficient, and unity provided the only chance of survival. Chu Xian instilled this idea in him, who was intelligent and courageous but a dreamer, far removed from reality.

The mission was drawing to a close. Chu Xiu watched helplessly as the task member he had rescued to survive turned on Chu Xian, causing her to lag behind as they fled before ultimately being devoured by a monster. In that instant of returning to the real world, Chu Xiu personally strangled the traitor and left with Chu Xian's corpse. From that day forth, he vowed never to save another person again. To Chu Xiu, everyone was just a pawn to be used.

Now, as he looked into the mirror, the scene was playing out once more, and he desperately wanted to shout out to Chu Xian to tell her to hide. He gasped for breath, his eyes bulging as he tightly grasped the mirror. A knife materialized behind Chu Xian, poised to strike.

Chu Xiu shouted recklessly, "Hide, Chu Xian! Hide!" He reached out and pushed away the blade, succeeding in saving her.

In the mirror, Chu Xian revealed a strange smile, grabbed Chu Xiu's hand, and extended it into the glass, yanking him into the mirror. As the mirror fell in the hallway, Lu Yan caught it with the reverse side facing him, not daring to touch the reflective surface. He stood there, frozen, pondering what Chu Xiu had witnessed. Who was Chu Xian? And what was on the front of the mirror? Would Chu Xiu meet his demise?

The bell rang, signalling the end of class. Lu Yan believed the students couldn't see him and didn't move. But to his surprise, groups of students walked out of the classroom one after another. They quickly spotted the stranger on the stairs, their eyes fixed on him.

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