[Beep—]
[Welcome to… Adelos… Error… Error…]
Then came a long, piercing ring in her ears.
Xu Kewang opened her dark, hollow eyes and stared blankly at the bed slats above her. Pallid and devoid of color after running a continuous fever for days, her face looked like a ghost’s—anyone seeing her at this moment would likely have jumped out of their skin.
“Holy crap, a ghost!”
A scream drifted in alongside a rush of cold air from outside the door. Xie Yue, who had just returned to school carrying an assortment of bags, rushed over to her bedside. Right under Xu Kewang’s open-eyed gaze, she reached out a finger to check beneath her nose.
“…Not dead, thank you,” Xu Kewang rasped, looking at the peerlessly gorgeous face before her. She could never fathom how someone with such looks managed to do something utterly ridiculous every single day.
Xie Yue let out an “Oh” and turned back to unpack her luggage. “You said in the group chat three days ago that you had a fever, and we couldn’t get in touch with you after that. I tried to change my ticket to come back early, but they were sold out. I only made it here today by catching a rideshare.”
She couldn’t understand Xu Kewang either—how could someone isolate themselves from the world and stay silent in a dorm room for three whole days?
“Why didn’t you answer your phone?”
Xu Kewang froze slightly. “Three days?”
She had thought only a single night had passed.
Taking out her phone, she saw that three days really had gone by. It was flooded with missed calls and WeChat messages from her roommates. Weakly propping herself up into a sitting position, she didn’t even know how to explain.
She had slept too deeply.
So deeply that…
It felt as though she had died and come back.
“Speaking of which, I think I’m coming down with a cold too,” Xie Yue said, rubbing her arms. “I almost froze to death the moment I got out of the car. It’s only late August—how can it be colder than the dead of winter? Does this make any scientific sense?”
When her fever first started, Xu Kewang had felt terribly cold and groggily turned on the AC’s heat, which had kept the room warm until now.
A bad premonition crept into her heart. She looked out the window and saw the sun hanging brightly in the sky; there was neither rain nor snow.
“Is it really that cold? The weather forecast says thirty-four degrees Celsius.”
“Really?” Xie Yue glanced at her phone as well, looking suspicious. “Impossible. It feels below freezing out there.”
Xu Kewang dragged her weak legs out of bed and opened the window, but a blast of arctic air made her slam it shut immediately.
Just like in her dream.
She recalled that long, disjointed dream. It was chaotic and complex: sometimes bitterly cold, sometimes scorching hot, with grotesque creatures that were neither human nor ghost wandering everywhere.
Out of the four people in their dorm, one had gone missing while searching for food.
Another had returned heavily injured, only to die right before her eyes with no way to treat her.
Xu Kewang hadn’t dreamed of how she herself died. At times, her dream was like an old television that had lost its signal, filled with pixelated static and buzzing electrical noise.
“Subzero temperatures…”
Gazing into the distance, she murmured to herself. Quite a few students were returning to campus today. Everywhere, people carried luggage and greeted one another. Their movements were identical: rubbing their arms, stomping their feet, visibly shivering from the cold.
Among them were two familiar faces hurrying along—Xu Kewang’s other two roommates, Wen Cai and Ning Yiwei.
“What are you muttering about?” Xie Yue leaned in and spotted the two as well. “Great, they managed to change their tickets too. To celebrate our unbreakable friendship, I propose that once you recover, you treat us to revolving hot pot.”
Xu Kewang was usually quiet.
Fearing they might inadvertently leave her out, the other three often teased and bantered with her, never really expecting a response.
To Xie Yue’s surprise, Xu Kewang nodded.
“My treat. Tonight.”
“I was just kidding,” Xie Yue said after a stunned pause, waving her hands hurriedly. “You’re sick. Let’s do it another time.”
At that moment, the dorm door was pushed open. Wen Cai walked in first. Seeing Xu Kewang standing by the window, she rushed over and looked her up and down.
“Nice, still breathing.”
“You scared us to death,” Ning Yiwei followed closely behind. “How did you manage to go completely MIA for three days just from a fever?”
Xu Kewang smiled, feeling a wave of warmth in her heart. “I’m fine now.”
“Dinner’s on me—let’s get hot pot tonight.”
Seeing that they were about to refuse again, she sighed and added, “I’m worried that if we don’t eat it today, we won’t get the chance in the future.”
Then, she succinctly recounted what she had seen in her dream.
“I know it sounds absurd, but for some reason, I just have this terrible feeling,” Xu Kewang said, looking out the window. “Doesn’t this temperature seem suspicious to you too?”
How could it be subzero in the middle of summer?
Come to think of it, the other three had also been unsettled by the sudden plunge in temperature. Wen Cai nodded. “I even asked my parents, and they said the temperature back home is completely normal.”
Wen Cai lived in the neighboring city; there was no reason for such a massive temperature difference between the two places.
Ning Yiwei remained silent, lost in thought.
Suddenly, Xie Yue leaned right into Xu Kewang’s face, delivering a critical hit of sheer beauty, and solemnly placed a hand on her forehead. “No fever. So you’re probably not talking nonsense.”
“Let’s go eat right now,” Xu Kewang said, her heart thumping with mounting anxiety. “After eating, take the earliest train home. No matter what happens, it’s better to be with your families.”
The other three were all only children, doted upon by their families. They would be much safer with their parents.
“Then what about you?” Xie Yue asked with concern.
It was a fair question. Everyone knew Xu Kewang’s family situation was unusual. Ever since starting college, she had never gone home. She covered all her living expenses through part-time jobs, and her tuition was paid by an education fund reportedly left behind specifically by her mother before she passed away.
As for the rest of her family, Xu Kewang had only ever said their relationship was strained. Her father had remarried and had another child; the three of them never got along with her. Arguments were a constant routine, every few days without fail, and they mistreated and bullied her. By the time she went to college, she had completely severed ties with that man and never returned.
Whenever she spoke of those details, it was always vague; she only said that family didn’t welcome her, and she would never go back.
“We can go home, but what about you?” Xie Yue took her hand. “How about this: come home with me. My parents adore you.”
Xu Kewang thought that was a viable option. At worst, she could just find a hotel in another city to stay in for a while. If the disaster didn’t happen, she could treat it as a vacation.
“All right. So, do we leave after eating?”
“Forget about eating,” Wen Cai said, her face suddenly turning grim. She was the only one facing the window at the moment. “Look at the sky.”
They all turned around. In the brief time they had been talking, the once-blazing sun had been swallowed by dark clouds. Tree branches thrashed wildly in the wind, carrying the suffocating pressure of an imminent storm.
The weather had turned.
“Let’s leave right now.” None of them had unpacked their luggage yet; they could pick up their bags and go immediately. Xu Kewang grabbed her ID and a few thick coats. “No waiting. We’ll eat hot pot some other time.”
The four of them rushed down the stairs, laden with bags and luggage, preparing to hail a cab to the high-speed railway station.
Yet, somehow, the main gate to the dormitory area had been locked tight. The elderly security guards were nowhere to be seen. Peering through the gaps in the gate, they couldn’t see a single soul outside. The students who had just returned to campus stood dazed by the entrance, utterly bewildered in the cold wind, not yet grasping what was happening.
[Bzzzt…]
[Welcome to… Ade… los.]
[LV1 Scenario is now open.]
Xu Kewang’s heart gave a violent lurch. She grabbed Xie Yue’s hand. “You and A-Wei take the luggage back to the dorm. Wen Cai and I are going to the convenience store to buy some supplies.”
She had a gut feeling: if they didn’t buy them now, it would be too late.