Chapter 23
Breaking Through The Cage : Hunting legally (Arc 1)
The Escape 23
Shen Shuiyan was quick to meet up with Zou Yun Fei.
When Zou Yun Fei saw her, his face lit up with joy, and then his expression dropped into quietness.
“Did you come alone?”
“Yes, the girls are in the toilet, I said I’d come to the classroom first, is there no one else here?”
Shen Shuiyan and the others were in the classroom of the first class, which was the farthest classroom from the toilets.
“No.”
“Here is another one, keep it, you are alone now, you have to be safe.”
Shen Shuiyan gave Zou Yun Fei the other fragment drawing, which, of course, was also a fake.
“Yes, I will.”
Zou Yun Fei thought of his two lost brothers, his heart was saddened and his eyes were slightly red, but Shen Shuiyin’s actions and her caring expression made him feel a warmth in his heart, it was a good thing that Shen Shuiyan was still here, otherwise how would he have been able to hold on alone.
“Yan Yan ‧‧‧‧‧‧”
Zou Yun Fei took a step forward and made an embracing gesture with his hands.
Shen Shuiyan took a step back at this time, glanced warily at the door, and turned her head back when she heard Zou Yun Fei calling her.
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.”
Zou Yun Fei said something and withdrew his arms, shaking his head.
The two looked at each other and the air was quiet.
“The number of survivors seems to be dwindling.”
“Yeah, but that means we’ll be out of here soon, as soon as we can get them together.”
“What if I can’t grab it from her?”
“It doesn’t matter, we’ll just think of another way.”
Zou Yun Fei’s expression was gentle, with some deep emotion, if they couldn’t get out in the end, then it was good that they could die here together.
If he could die with the girl he loved, Zou Yun Fei felt that even if he couldn’t get out, it would be fine.
“Then I’ll go out first, so that she doesn’t get suspicious.”
Shen Shuiyan didn’t want to stay with this person anymore after she finished messing around, just now he even wanted to hug her, which was funny.
That face, which he thought was so affectionate, was a mockery when matched with his previous attitude towards Xin Lan.
“Okay, I’ll let you be.”
As far as Zou Yun Fei was concerned, Shen Shuiyan was just putting up with the shame and humiliation of being subservient to Xin Lan, just so that she could get the pieces of clues for him.
“For your sake, this is nothing.”
Shen Shuiyan said in a hypocritical voice, laughing coldly in her heart.
Zou Yun Fei was even more moved, and he wanted to hug Shen Shuiyan and kiss her fiercely.
“Yan Yan ‧‧‧‧‧‧ actually I towards you ‧‧‧‧‧‧”
“She might be coming over, we’ll talk about it next time we see each other, we don’t have much time left.”
Zou Yun Fei’s confession was stuck in his throat, so he had to swallow it.
Shen Shuiyan walked out of the classroom and headed towards the toilets.
She had been here with Zou Yun Fei for about seven or eight minutes and Xin Lan should have finished using the toilet by now.
Just as she reached the door of the toilet, she heard Xin Lan speak.
“Have a good time in here, for you it’s an honour to die in the women’s bathroom, isn’t it?”
What was going on here?
Before Shen Shuiyan could enter, she saw Xin Lan come out.
“Is there anyone else in there?”
“It’s just a small bug, it doesn’t matter.”
Xin Lan didn’t really care, there was no need to talk about this kind of thing, and there was no need for Shen Shuiyan to go in to see, in case she was scared.
When Xin Lan said that, Shen Shuiyan didn’t ask any more questions, since it was an irrelevant person anyway.
“There’s no one on this floor except Zou Yun Fei, where are we going now?”
Shen Shuiyan had monitored the other classrooms as she passed back and forth through the corridors.
“Go back to the dormitory, let’s get the clues on those people.”
Xin Lan planned to sweep the girls’ dormitory first, and then go after the boys.
This way, it would take less than two more days for the mission to be over.
Neither Shen Shuiyan nor Xu Deng had any idea what Xin Lan had said, so all three of them walked towards the staircase and prepared to go downstairs.
It took less than a minute to finish one flight of stairs, but the three of them had been walking for more than a minute and were still going down this flight.
Xin Lan looked up and saw the corner of the staircase handrail in front of her, and it looked like a few more steps would bring her to it.
She continues on, and the three of them walk for another minute before the turning children.
Helplessly, Zero Nine spoke of the situation Xin Lan had encountered earlier, where space stretched out.
“Is this flight of stairs endless, or are we just walking in the same place?”
Shen Shuiyan thought she was in even motion, but no matter how she looked at it, she was relatively still.
“Every time there is a trigger for something, what have we done this time?”
There was no forbidden activity area, nor did they break public property in order to sleep in class, so why did this staircase suddenly appear strange?
So, why did they come in?
And this time there was no hint, the last punishment game had at least told them why.
“I don’t know.”
Shen Shuiyan was also beyond this situation, which was unpredictable.
“Is it an extra flight of stairs?”
Xu Deng suddenly opened her mouth.
Xin Lan: “How about the extra stairs?”
Xu Deng: “Like the extra staircase in the school story, and the Fox Staircase in the horror movie.”
Shen Shuiyan: “The extra staircase in the school has triggering conditions, such as walking step by step at twelve o’clock, and the fox staircase also has a silent count by closing the eyes of Kozo, and she made a wish, although the result is not good, and it does not match our current situation.”
Xin Lan: “Are you sure you want to tell ghost stories about stairs on top of this strange staircase?”
There was a cool breeze that blew over the body, like a chill that made people shiver.
When Xin Lan grabbed Shen Shuyan’s hand, it was cold and chilly again.
She wrinkled her eyebrows to say something, but nothing was said and she took Shen Shuiyan’s hand and put it in her pocket.
Shen Shuiyan was so happy that she did not even think about how weird the stairs were now, she was not afraid of anything with Little Tiger by her side.
Xu Deng stood by the side, very lonely and helpless.
No one was holding her hand, so she had to do it herself.
She was holding her own hand, although it was her left hand holding her right.
This was a bit of a sarcastic gesture, so Xu Deng silently put her hand in her pocket.
“What are we going to do now? Do we keep going?”
“The rules surely can’t be so boring as to just want to trap us in here, there has to be something that can be done.”
The game world is full of mini-games, but no matter what, the game has an end point or an exit, so if they just keep moving in circles, it’s not the same as the previous game setup.
“In the world after the Queen of Hearts, moving forward constantly is what keeps us still, we are constantly in opposition to the walls and the railings, they are also moving as we walk, so will they keep up with us when we run in?”
Shen Shuiyan suggested a hypothesis, and the three of them did as they were told, jogging down the stairs immediately.
The staircase seemed endless, and just as Xin Lan and the others were about to stop, the space in front of them changed abruptly.
The walls disappeared, the railings disappeared, and they were in darkness, and the staircase underneath them was no longer made of marble, but glowed with a faint light that made it hard to see what it looked like.
It looked like a scene from an anime or a computer game, the stairs were floating, and whether they were looking up or down, it seemed like they were stretching endlessly, not being able to see the end.
“What the hell is this?”
Xu Deng was stunned as Xin Lan and Shen Shuiyan were still on the same stairs, she was behind them both.
“Stay still, or go up and down?”
Shen Shuiyan glanced at Xin Lan, the two of them still holding hands tightly.
“Look up, you can only go down.”
The staircase above was dissipating into the air, step by step, and it wasn’t very far from where the three of them were.
The three of them had to keep going down, and beyond the stairs was darkness, and as they stared down, they had the feeling of being dizzy and about to fall.
The stairs behind them seemed to be disappearing faster and they had to speed up to keep the ones they were stepping on from disappearing.
Xin Lan felt the wind blowing and subconsciously felt the danger, so she shouted and pushed Shen Shuiyan’s head down.
A wind whistled over their heads, cutting off a few strands of hair that were flying.
“Be careful with the wind, you’ll get hurt.”
“What kind of weird place is this?”
Even if Xu Deng was calm, she had to curse someone, What a shitty place, even if they had to keep running down, the stairs behind them kept disappearing and they didn’t know what was underneath, but there was even an attack, afraid they wouldn’t die fast enough, right?
The wind would always interfere with the way forward but in order not to fall, they had to keep moving forward.
Xu Deng had followed Xu Lan’s lead the moment she saw her move and leaned back to avoid the wind that would have cut her head off.
A whirring sound came from a distance and Xin Lan thought it was bad enough to speed up and sprint forward.
Xin Lan could actually run fast on her own, but she had to take care of Xu Deng behind her while pulling Shen Shuiyan with one hand.
All of the sudden, a flight of stairs in front of her suddenly disappeared, and Shen Shuiyan was unable to react.
Xin Lan grabbed her hand to keep her from falling down.
Shen Shuiyan was nearly suspended in the air, her legs underneath being assaulted by the cold wind, and her other hand trying to reach the step, but she was so caught off guard that she could not reach it.
“Sister Lan, hurry up, we are almost there.”
Xu Deng glanced back and saw the stairs disappearing, and they would soon be behind them.
“You should step over first.”
The gap between the stairs and the staircase was not particularly large and it would be alright to step over.
“But you ‧‧‧‧‧‧”
“Don’t you worry!”
Xu Lan clenched her teeth and stepped over that step, but how could she not, and grabbed Shen Shuiyan’s hand as well.
At this time, behind Xin Lan, there were only ten steps left, and in less than a minute, they would all disappear.
“Xin Lan, let go!”
T/N:
We are two chapters away from finishing the first arc, this has been a wild ride.
Sister Lan is everything I want to be :).
Chapter 23
Breaking Through The Cage : Hunting legally (Arc 1)
The Escape 23
Shen Shuiyan was quick to meet up with Zou Yun Fei.
When Zou Yun Fei saw her, his face lit up with joy, and then his expression dropped into quietness.
“Did you come alone?”
“Yes, the girls are in the toilet, I said I’d come to the classroom first, is there no one else here?”
Shen Shuiyan and the others were in the classroom of the first class, which was the farthest classroom from the toilets.
“No.”
“Here is another one, keep it, you are alone now, you have to be safe.”
Shen Shuiyan gave Zou Yun Fei the other fragment drawing, which, of course, was also a fake.
“Yes, I will.”
Zou Yun Fei thought of his two lost brothers, his heart was saddened and his eyes were slightly red, but Shen Shuiyin’s actions and her caring expression made him feel a warmth in his heart, it was a good thing that Shen Shuiyan was still here, otherwise how would he have been able to hold on alone.
“Yan Yan ‧‧‧‧‧‧”
Zou Yun Fei took a step forward and made an embracing gesture with his hands.
Shen Shuiyan took a step back at this time, glanced warily at the door, and turned her head back when she heard Zou Yun Fei calling her.
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.”
Zou Yun Fei said something and withdrew his arms, shaking his head.
The two looked at each other and the air was quiet.
“The number of survivors seems to be dwindling.”
“Yeah, but that means we’ll be out of here soon, as soon as we can get them together.”
“What if I can’t grab it from her?”
“It doesn’t matter, we’ll just think of another way.”
Zou Yun Fei’s expression was gentle, with some deep emotion, if they couldn’t get out in the end, then it was good that they could die here together.
If he could die with the girl he loved, Zou Yun Fei felt that even if he couldn’t get out, it would be fine.
“Then I’ll go out first, so that she doesn’t get suspicious.”
Shen Shuiyan didn’t want to stay with this person anymore after she finished messing around, just now he even wanted to hug her, which was funny.
That face, which he thought was so affectionate, was a mockery when matched with his previous attitude towards Xin Lan.
“Okay, I’ll let you be.”
As far as Zou Yun Fei was concerned, Shen Shuiyan was just putting up with the shame and humiliation of being subservient to Xin Lan, just so that she could get the pieces of clues for him.
“For your sake, this is nothing.”
Shen Shuiyan said in a hypocritical voice, laughing coldly in her heart.
Zou Yun Fei was even more moved, and he wanted to hug Shen Shuiyan and kiss her fiercely.
“Yan Yan ‧‧‧‧‧‧ actually I towards you ‧‧‧‧‧‧”
“She might be coming over, we’ll talk about it next time we see each other, we don’t have much time left.”
Zou Yun Fei’s confession was stuck in his throat, so he had to swallow it.
Shen Shuiyan walked out of the classroom and headed towards the toilets.
She had been here with Zou Yun Fei for about seven or eight minutes and Xin Lan should have finished using the toilet by now.
Just as she reached the door of the toilet, she heard Xin Lan speak.
“Have a good time in here, for you it’s an honour to die in the women’s bathroom, isn’t it?”
What was going on here?
Before Shen Shuiyan could enter, she saw Xin Lan come out.
“Is there anyone else in there?”
“It’s just a small bug, it doesn’t matter.”
Xin Lan didn’t really care, there was no need to talk about this kind of thing, and there was no need for Shen Shuiyan to go in to see, in case she was scared.
When Xin Lan said that, Shen Shuiyan didn’t ask any more questions, since it was an irrelevant person anyway.
“There’s no one on this floor except Zou Yun Fei, where are we going now?”
Shen Shuiyan had monitored the other classrooms as she passed back and forth through the corridors.
“Go back to the dormitory, let’s get the clues on those people.”
Xin Lan planned to sweep the girls’ dormitory first, and then go after the boys.
This way, it would take less than two more days for the mission to be over.
Neither Shen Shuiyan nor Xu Deng had any idea what Xin Lan had said, so all three of them walked towards the staircase and prepared to go downstairs.
It took less than a minute to finish one flight of stairs, but the three of them had been walking for more than a minute and were still going down this flight.
Xin Lan looked up and saw the corner of the staircase handrail in front of her, and it looked like a few more steps would bring her to it.
She continues on, and the three of them walk for another minute before the turning children.
Helplessly, Zero Nine spoke of the situation Xin Lan had encountered earlier, where space stretched out.
“Is this flight of stairs endless, or are we just walking in the same place?”
Shen Shuiyan thought she was in even motion, but no matter how she looked at it, she was relatively still.
“Every time there is a trigger for something, what have we done this time?”
There was no forbidden activity area, nor did they break public property in order to sleep in class, so why did this staircase suddenly appear strange?
So, why did they come in?
And this time there was no hint, the last punishment game had at least told them why.
“I don’t know.”
Shen Shuiyan was also beyond this situation, which was unpredictable.
“Is it an extra flight of stairs?”
Xu Deng suddenly opened her mouth.
Xin Lan: “How about the extra stairs?”
Xu Deng: “Like the extra staircase in the school story, and the Fox Staircase in the horror movie.”
Shen Shuiyan: “The extra staircase in the school has triggering conditions, such as walking step by step at twelve o’clock, and the fox staircase also has a silent count by closing the eyes of Kozo, and she made a wish, although the result is not good, and it does not match our current situation.”
Xin Lan: “Are you sure you want to tell ghost stories about stairs on top of this strange staircase?”
There was a cool breeze that blew over the body, like a chill that made people shiver.
When Xin Lan grabbed Shen Shuyan’s hand, it was cold and chilly again.
She wrinkled her eyebrows to say something, but nothing was said and she took Shen Shuiyan’s hand and put it in her pocket.
Shen Shuiyan was so happy that she did not even think about how weird the stairs were now, she was not afraid of anything with Little Tiger by her side.
Xu Deng stood by the side, very lonely and helpless.
No one was holding her hand, so she had to do it herself.
She was holding her own hand, although it was her left hand holding her right.
This was a bit of a sarcastic gesture, so Xu Deng silently put her hand in her pocket.
“What are we going to do now? Do we keep going?”
“The rules surely can’t be so boring as to just want to trap us in here, there has to be something that can be done.”
The game world is full of mini-games, but no matter what, the game has an end point or an exit, so if they just keep moving in circles, it’s not the same as the previous game setup.
“In the world after the Queen of Hearts, moving forward constantly is what keeps us still, we are constantly in opposition to the walls and the railings, they are also moving as we walk, so will they keep up with us when we run in?”
Shen Shuiyan suggested a hypothesis, and the three of them did as they were told, jogging down the stairs immediately.
The staircase seemed endless, and just as Xin Lan and the others were about to stop, the space in front of them changed abruptly.
The walls disappeared, the railings disappeared, and they were in darkness, and the staircase underneath them was no longer made of marble, but glowed with a faint light that made it hard to see what it looked like.
It looked like a scene from an anime or a computer game, the stairs were floating, and whether they were looking up or down, it seemed like they were stretching endlessly, not being able to see the end.
“What the hell is this?”
Xu Deng was stunned as Xin Lan and Shen Shuiyan were still on the same stairs, she was behind them both.
“Stay still, or go up and down?”
Shen Shuiyan glanced at Xin Lan, the two of them still holding hands tightly.
“Look up, you can only go down.”
The staircase above was dissipating into the air, step by step, and it wasn’t very far from where the three of them were.
The three of them had to keep going down, and beyond the stairs was darkness, and as they stared down, they had the feeling of being dizzy and about to fall.
The stairs behind them seemed to be disappearing faster and they had to speed up to keep the ones they were stepping on from disappearing.
Xin Lan felt the wind blowing and subconsciously felt the danger, so she shouted and pushed Shen Shuiyan’s head down.
A wind whistled over their heads, cutting off a few strands of hair that were flying.
“Be careful with the wind, you’ll get hurt.”
“What kind of weird place is this?”
Even if Xu Deng was calm, she had to curse someone, What a shitty place, even if they had to keep running down, the stairs behind them kept disappearing and they didn’t know what was underneath, but there was even an attack, afraid they wouldn’t die fast enough, right?
The wind would always interfere with the way forward but in order not to fall, they had to keep moving forward.
Xu Deng had followed Xu Lan’s lead the moment she saw her move and leaned back to avoid the wind that would have cut her head off.
A whirring sound came from a distance and Xin Lan thought it was bad enough to speed up and sprint forward.
Xin Lan could actually run fast on her own, but she had to take care of Xu Deng behind her while pulling Shen Shuiyan with one hand.
All of the sudden, a flight of stairs in front of her suddenly disappeared, and Shen Shuiyan was unable to react.
Xin Lan grabbed her hand to keep her from falling down.
Shen Shuiyan was nearly suspended in the air, her legs underneath being assaulted by the cold wind, and her other hand trying to reach the step, but she was so caught off guard that she could not reach it.
“Sister Lan, hurry up, we are almost there.”
Xu Deng glanced back and saw the stairs disappearing, and they would soon be behind them.
“You should step over first.”
The gap between the stairs and the staircase was not particularly large and it would be alright to step over.
“But you ‧‧‧‧‧‧”
“Don’t you worry!”
Xu Lan clenched her teeth and stepped over that step, but how could she not, and grabbed Shen Shuiyan’s hand as well.
At this time, behind Xin Lan, there were only ten steps left, and in less than a minute, they would all disappear.
“Xin Lan, let go!”
T/N:
We are two chapters away from finishing the first arc, this has been a wild ride.
Sister Lan is everything I want to be :).
