LRAB Chapter 12 Rules for Good Students
Chapter 12 Rules for Good Students
The seven days in reality are like a silent film that has been fast-forwarded.
There was no touching farewell, nor any exhilarating special training. Most of the time, Lu Dan stayed curled up on the sofa, staring blankly at the postcard with the clown on it.
In the shadows beneath his feet, the new "roommate" would occasionally reach out a dark hand, trying to grab the water glass on the coffee table, only to be stomped back by Lu Dan.
The human and the ghost got along in a strangely harmonious way.
Until the countdown reached zero, the clown on the postcard grinned and made a silent invitation.
Darkness surged in like a tide, instantly engulfing everything.
......
When I opened my eyes again, my lungs were the first to be hit by a heavy blow.
The air was filled with the stench of burnt rubber, as if countless tires had been smoldering in a damp cellar for three days and three nights.
Lu Dan sat up from the creaking iron bed.
This is an old-fashioned security guard room. The paint on the four walls has peeled off, revealing the yellowed cement underneath. The windowpanes are covered with a thick layer of grease, and through the cracks, you can see a silent, dark night outside, and a pale moon hanging from a withered tree branch, as white as a dead person's eye.
"Another one like this at the beginning."
Lu Dan rubbed his throbbing temples and habitually reached into his pocket, where his fingertips touched a cold, hard syringe—a potent adrenaline injection.
This was a life-saving charm he obtained by spending all his remaining points. This thing can't kill ghosts, but it can forcibly bring someone back from the brink of cardiac arrest and can also increase explosive power at critical moments. It's commonly known as a "last gasp."
With this thing as a safety net, his anxiety subsided a little.
He turned his gaze to the rusty iron table, on which the equipment was extremely meager: a flashlight with poor contact that required tapping to light up, a rubber baton with badly peeling paint and a sticky feel, and a thin booklet covered in black ash—"Chengde Middle School Night Patrol Manual".
The paper of this manual was damp and soft, with a sticky feel.
Lu Dan picked up the manual and opened the cover. Several lines of bright red text, as if freshly printed with blood, were still slightly reflective—"Job Responsibilities and Safety Instructions".
Rule 1: Night shift hours are from 11 PM to 4 AM the next day. Security guards must conduct a campus-wide patrol and check-in every hour, following a fixed route from Teaching Building A to Teaching Building B and then to the dormitory building. Routine missed patrols are strictly prohibited.
Rule 2: Classes at this school have already been suspended, and there are no evening study sessions scheduled. During your patrol, regardless of which classroom you see with lights on or how many people are inside, please record it as "All is normal" in your patrol log.
Rule 3: No talking to students is allowed. If a lost student asks for directions, do not answer; simply point towards the rooftop.
Lu Dan's eyebrows twitched, pointing to the rooftop? This school is truly despicable.
In horror movies, rooftops usually serve two purposes: either as the final battleground for the boss or as a place to jump off.
Leading lost students down the rooftop path—this isn't a security guard, it's clearly a guide to the underworld.
He continued flipping through the pages. The last page of the manual was torn in half, and on the remaining half was a line of extremely messy ballpoint pen handwriting, the pen tip tearing through the paper, revealing a sense of despair.
Don't look them in the eye, don't listen to the radio, don't believe them...
The writing that followed was completely covered by a huge, dark red bloody handprint.
Lu Dan gestured with his hand; the bloodstain was a size larger than a normal person's palm, and the fingers were illogically long and thin, leaving several deep scratches on the paper.
"It seems the previous security guard left in a rather undignified manner."
Lu Dan closed the security manual and put it in his jacket pocket. Just then, the old red digital clock on the wall ticked; it was 11 o'clock.
A piercing electrical hum instantly ripped through the entire campus broadcasting system, followed by the sudden, unannounced flashing of the previously dark campus streetlights outside the window.
The light was a ghostly green, like will-o'-the-wisps; it was time to go to work.
Lu Dan grabbed a flashlight and a small iron bar, and kicked open the deformed iron door of the security room.
A wave of heat mixed with a biting chill hit me, creating an extremely jarring sensory experience.
The passive skill "Night Owl" has been activated.
His previously dim and blurry vision instantly became clear and eerily sharp. It was as if his retina had been covered with a gray filter, revealing details that were previously invisible.
He saw countless black, fluffy things floating in the air, like living dust slowly settling in the dim light. He reached out and caught a wisp; the thing was greasy to the touch, like dust that had solidified after the body oil cooled.
The playground directly in front was deserted, except for two rusty swings that were moving erratically without any wind.
"Squeak...squeak..."
The screeching sound of metal scraping together was as if two unseen children were swinging happily on it.
Lu Dan didn't even glance at the swing. According to the rules, his first stop was Building A of the teaching building.
He pulled his hat brim low, trying to minimize his presence, and walked quickly along the cement road covered with fallen leaves.
As they drew closer, the entire view of Building A came into view, and Lu Dan paused for a moment.
The handbook said that the school had already suspended classes, but at this moment, half of the windows of this old five-story teaching building were neatly lit, and the lights were dim and flickering.
Through these windows, Lu Dan could clearly see that every lit classroom was full of people.
They were dressed in identical blue and white school uniforms, sitting stiffly like molds on an assembly line, with their hands flat on the desks, heads bowed in unison, staring intently at the textbooks on the desks.
There was no sound of turning pages, no sound of lecturing; hundreds of "people," hundreds of still shadows, were enacting a silent pantomime in the school building late at night.
Is this what they mean by everything being normal?
Although we've already gone through the script once, this time it feels even more terrifying.
Lu Dan gripped the rubber baton, which offered him absolutely no sense of security. He walked to the lobby on the first floor, and had to cross the entire corridor to reach the checkpoint at the end; this was the only way.
I took a deep breath of the greasy air and stepped into the shadows of the corridor.
The instant he stepped into the shadows, countless gazes focused on him, and a pricking pain spread throughout his body.
He looked up, the beam of the flashlight shining straight ahead.
The area was not as empty as described in the manual; the corridor was densely packed with things on both sides.
They faced the wall, their bodies pressed tightly against it, their hands hanging down, like rows of bad students being punished.
The moment Lu Dan entered, the dozens of figures facing the wall trembled slightly, their necks trying to twist backward...