Due to the unsanitary state of the house, Li Xin made do with the sofa for the night. His long legs, with nowhere to rest, were propped up on the armrest, dangling into thin air without a care.
His internal clock remained intact even after his memory loss. At 8:00 AM, Li Xin opened his eyes right on time and looked at the grey sky outside the window.
Fog had occupied the entire street; he couldn’t see anything through the glass.
Li Xin tapped his fingers against the window frame and gave a cryptic, light chuckle: “So, I’m trapped, huh…”
Despite saying this, he didn’t dwell on the view. He turned and walked to a memo board hanging on the wall in the corner, reaching out to take a black note attached to it.
He had noticed the house had changed since he woke up, and this sudden note seemed to answer why a memo board was there in the first place.
The note had a black background with white text, containing only a cryptic sentence and a time:
You are a teacher. Time: 8:25
The disconnected lines made Li Xin subconsciously raise an eyebrow. He glanced at the electronic clock hanging nearby.
The clock had started running the moment he entered the house, and it was currently stuck at 8:24.
Li Xin lowered his gaze at the pitch-black clock, making no other move, just waiting quietly.
The moment the numbers flipped, he felt a strange movement at his fingertips.
Black, mucus-like matter surged from the note in his hand, swallowing him whole.
As he felt the bone-eroding pain spreading, Li Xin gently closed his eyes, masking a hint of nostalgia that he couldn’t trace the origin of.
“Teacher Li? Teacher Li?”
A voice from the darkness woke him up. He slowly opened his eyes; he was in pitch darkness, save for a harsh beam of light cast by an incandescent lamp on the table.
The sudden glare in the darkness made him squint. It took a few seconds before he looked at the person standing beside him.
Based on the prompt and the way he was addressed, Li Xin had expected to see a young female teacher.
To his surprise, standing next to him was a… human-shaped monster wearing a giant pink rabbit doll head.
The intense shock made Li Xin instinctively rub his temples, yet the smile on his face never wavered. He even continued the topic, responding automatically: “What is it?”
Seeing him wake up, the person breathed a sigh of relief and hurriedly shoved a form into his hands.
“This is the class roster for today. There are six transfer students, and they’re all ‘problem children’.” The rabbit head let out a heavy sigh, sounding like a disappointed mentor: “You have to wonder what they’re thinking. If they just cooperated with the treatment, they could leave soon, instead of always plotting to escape.”
On the far left of the form was a long list of student names, each followed by three empty spaces.
Having completely adapted to the pink doll head in just a few minutes, Li Xin raised a smile and tilted his head at his strange-looking colleague: “Why are there three empty columns?”
This “beauty trap” tactic proved effective even in the dim, gloomy room where his face couldn’t be clearly seen. Although he couldn’t read the expression on the pink rabbit head, the female teacher’s voice couldn’t help but rise a notch.
“Teacher Li, did you sleep your brains out? This is an attendance sheet. New students have a three-day observation period, so of course, there are three empty columns.” The female teacher laughed, not suspicious at all: “The class schedule is already in the classroom. I see you only have one class today.”
Having said that, she paused as if remembering something: “Oh, right, almost forgot. I have something to take care of tonight and need to ask for leave. The Dean wants you to cover my shift. Sorry for the trouble.”
“It’s no trouble.” Li Xin smiled, tucked the form into the notebook beside him, and looked up at the staff schedule on the wall.
He was vigilant about this colleague who appeared in the middle of the night to “wake him up”—clearly, she hadn’t come for no reason.
His suspicions were confirmed when he saw the staff schedule:
[Evening Study Hall: 21:00—23:00. Refer to the daily schedule for specific subjects. Please do not be late.]
Although he didn’t see a clock in the room, Li Xin remembered the time he entered: 8:25.
This notation usually implied morning, and that was exactly when he had arrived. While everything seemed to suggest that the time was irrelevant to the current moment, he preferred to speculate with the utmost malice.
He remembered the rabbit-headed teacher mentioning he had a class today. Being a newcomer, he didn’t know if that class had already passed. If he misremembered the time, he had no doubt he would be in trouble.
Withdrawing his gaze from the schedule, Li Xin deliberately used a surprised tone: “It’s already past eight. Evening study hall is about to start, right?”
Hearing this, the female teacher quickly lowered her head to check her wristwatch: “It is a bit late. Teacher Li, let’s go together. If we’re late, the Dean will be angry. I wonder if those brats arrived at the classroom on time.”
As expected.
Li Xin, having successfully gathered the information, wouldn’t dream of refusing. He grabbed the notebook and opened the door: “Why don’t we go see? Let’s go.”
Walking down the stairs to the classroom floor, they had ten minutes left until nine.
Unexpectedly, a “student” was already waiting in the classroom, which had yet to have its lights turned on.
Hearing the sound of the door opening and the weak light turning on, the student propped his head on one hand and looked toward the door. He froze the moment his eyes met Li Xin’s.
Li Xin could feel the scrutiny in the other’s gaze—not malicious, but seemingly filled with confusion and surprise, which turned into silent observation after a few seconds.
This observation didn’t make Li Xin feel uncomfortable, because he was observing the other person too.
The person in the classroom had medium-length, messy grey hair and was covered head-to-toe in a casual jacket and undershirt. His face, mostly obscured by shadows, was handsome, but his temperament and dark blue eyes revealed a coldness that felt unapproachable—the type that was clearly difficult to deal with.
Looking at this face, a thought flashed through Li Xin’s mind: This person… is very special.
This sudden, ill-timed thought made Li Xin frown slightly.
Forcing down the inexplicable feeling, Li Xin put the smile back on his face and slipped into his role as a teacher.
“Morning. How come you didn’t come with the others?”
Not knowing if this was one of the transfer students the rabbit-headed teacher mentioned, Li Xin chose to say something harmless that fit his teacher persona to avoid blowing his cover.
After speaking, he smiled at the handsome, cold face, but waited and waited—only to be met with a complex, unreadable look and the back of the student’s head.
Li Xin: “…”
Rejected immediately upon taking office, the newly appointed Teacher Li subconsciously touched his face, feeling a bit incredulous. In his own judgment, his appearance should have been the type that was very popular.
Before he could overcome the frustration, the rabbit-headed teacher followed him in, her gaze also landing on the only student in the classroom.
Looking at this completely unfamiliar face, the rabbit-headed teacher asked: “Transfer student? What’s your name?”
Facing that giant, patch-covered pink rabbit head, the student fell into a strange silence, pausing for a few seconds before answering: “Yu Suheng.”
The look of stomach-churning pain on Yu Suheng’s face amused Li Xin for some reason.
He chuckled cryptically, ignored the unkind gaze from behind him, walked up to the podium, claimed the only chair as his own, and curled his lips while checking the daily schedule.
Meanwhile, Yu Suheng, who was being pestered by the rabbit-headed teacher, retracted his gaze. He closed his eyes and rubbed his temples, cutting the monster off before it could speak: “Others have arrived.”
“Hm?” Hearing this, the rabbit teacher looked at the clock, her tone regretful: “Two minutes left.”
Perhaps because the regret in the rabbit teacher’s voice was so obvious, even Li Xin, who had been acting like he didn’t care, couldn’t help but look up.
The next second, the classroom door was slammed open with a loud bang, and four people came rushing in, gasping for air.
Their clothes were messy from running, and one man, nearly 1.9 meters tall, was even wearing pajamas with a ridiculous rabbit-eared hat on his head.
It wasn’t hard to tell from their outfits that they had just crawled out of bed. Despite their ridiculous appearance and near-tardiness, the rabbit-headed teacher didn’t seem to care, letting them catch their breath and return to their seats.
Li Xin watched this scene with great interest, tapping his fingers on the desk, wondering what was going on.
Then, a clear bell rang from outside the window.
The sound was almost identical to the school bells in reality. Li Xin looked up at the rabbit teacher and found her watching the hand of the clock at the back of the classroom pointing at twelve with a look of pleasure.
Li Xin had a pretty good idea of what she was happy about.
Six transfer students, but there was an empty seat left in the classroom. He didn’t think the “educational tools” here were just for show.
The bell rang for about half a minute before slowly fading away. The students in the classroom couldn’t help but let their guard down.
However, just as they were about to exhale, a frenzied laughter suddenly came through the broadcast, followed by the dull thud of something being struck.
The already weak lights flickered and buzzed during the sudden laughter, as if they might go out at any moment.
The rabbit-headed teacher observed the fear on everyone’s faces, her split mouth revealing rows of sharp teeth.
This pleasure only paused when she met Yu Suheng’s indifferent face, but she quickly looked away, as if she didn’t want to see him.
From beginning to end, this monster teacher didn’t glance in Li Xin’s direction once.
Until the laughter stopped and the rabbit teacher returned to normal. The man in the rabbit pajamas, suppressing his fear, couldn’t help but ask: “Is it… over?”
Over? Probably not. Li Xin looked at the closed door; he had already heard the sound of something being dragged, getting closer and closer.
Soon enough, as if to confirm his suspicion, the door was knocked with a thud.
“Please come in,” the rabbit teacher said, sounding delighted.
The door creaked open with a skree sound.
A dark shadow stood quietly at the edge of the light and darkness. If not for the leg it was dragging in its hand, they wouldn’t have been sure if it existed at all.
“Thank you so much. Sorry to trouble you with delivering the late student.”
The rabbit teacher trotted over and took the shattered student from its hands. Li Xin could even see the shredded internal organs through the student’s torn-open torso.
Everyone went silent. The timid young man in the corner even covered his mouth tightly to keep from vomiting from fear.
Throwing the late student into the only empty seat, she ignored the pale, livid expressions of the students and walked over to Li Xin, facing the group: “Since everyone is here, I am the teaching assistant, Teacher Rabbit. And the person beside me is your future homeroom teacher—Teacher Li. Let him lead you in a registration now.”
Everyone: “…”
Dammit, so you’re just an assistant! We thought you were the final boss of the dungeon!!
Li Xin, forced into his role, didn’t react much.
He stood up unhurriedly, looked at the registration form handed to him, lazily raised his head to scan the room, and finally locked eyes with Yu Suheng’s dark blue pupils.
“Hm… since Teacher Rabbit said so, then…” He smiled, pressed the button on his spring pen, and spoke in an overly familiar, provocative tone: “Then… let’s have Student Yu go first. No need for the name, since we’re already quite familiar.”
Yu Suheng, who watched him put on this act: “…”
Li Xin wrote Yu Suheng’s name on the paper and looked at the next line. “Hmm… next is, age.”
After the words fell, Li Xin waited for a response, but none came. He looked up, slightly puzzled, but couldn’t read anything on Yu Suheng’s expressionless face.
However, the highly dedicated Teacher Li did not give up. He rested his chin in his hand, putting on the expression of a teacher who could do nothing about a disobedient student, and sighed: “Student Yu, answer the teacher’s question.”
Their gazes crossed in the air—one smiling brightly, the other cold and impatient.
Finally, Yu Suheng looked away first. He leaned back into his chair, causing the desk behind him to clatter slightly, and spat out two words in a cold, indifferent voice:
“Six years old.”
Li Xin: “…………？”