Now that things had come to this, no one was more satisfied than Tan Tai.
By the light, he learned that the Culprit who had taken his food was Player Gan Hong, the one who had knocked over his bowl and chopsticks.
He was fat, and it was clear that he usually ate a lot.
He was probably worried he wouldn’t get enough to eat. With the meditation room pitch-black, he had tried to take advantage of the chaos.
But he was spoiled and couldn’t stomach food that had gone bad.
The noise of his bowl and chopsticks hitting the floor had attracted the Female Instructor and those students. Whether it counted as karma for him was anyone’s guess.
Was he really going to eat the food off the floor now?
It wasn’t just spoiled this time. There was also…
No one knew how long it had been since the floor was last cleaned. Besides dust, there was a thick layer of grease, and cockroaches would occasionally crawl across it, leaving little black pellets behind.
The Players who hadn’t knocked over their bowls and chopsticks felt lucky. Thank goodness they hadn’t, or they’d have gotten sick after eating.
Even if they didn’t get sick, the disgust would linger for a year or more.
“You’ve got to be kidding!”
“This food is already filthy. Eating it could kill me.”
Gan Hong bellowed, his eyes brimming with tears. His already pudgy palms had taken ten strikes from the disciplinary ruler and were swollen beyond recognition.
How to put it?
They looked like pig’s trotters.
He hadn’t moved, yet his body was already trembling.
He was no longer a rookie Player and knew that resisting would bring punishment, but he simply couldn’t bring himself to eat it.
Sure enough, the Female Instructor gave an order.
“I like tough guys like you. Keep hitting him until he eats it.”
The students were like robots that only knew how to follow orders. They held Gan Hong down while the disciplinary ruler came down on his swollen, reddened palms.
Every strike drew a bloodcurdling scream from him.
If he had been trembling from fear before, now his body was shaking uncontrollably from the pain.
It hurt so much.
After just five more strikes, the skin on his palms split open.
Any more, and they might smash his hands to pieces, down to the bone.
At last, he wept and begged for mercy, repeating, “I’ll eat it. Stop hitting me.”
The other Players watched, terror practically spilling from their eyes.
Then, nauseated, they covered their mouths and watched Gan Hong collapse to the floor, miserably using his uninjured hand to grab the food.
He shoved it into his mouth without daring to hesitate for even a moment. Even when he wanted to retch, he had to force himself to hold it back.
After he had eaten everything, the Female Instructor smiled and said, “That’s what a student at our school should be like.”
Then she changed the subject. “After receiving the Instructor’s lesson, don’t you have anything to say?”
What could they say?
What could they possibly say!
Most of the Players looked bewildered.
Xiang Lu spoke up first. “We are deeply grateful for the Instructor’s lesson.”
As expected of a Player who had once experienced a C-rank Instance. Her reactions were much quicker than everyone else’s.
The other Players understood at once and hurriedly echoed her in unison: “We are deeply grateful for the Instructor’s lesson.”
The Female Instructor stared at Gan Hong. “And you?”
He struggled to swallow the food in his mouth, then repeated what the other Players had said. “We are deeply grateful for the Instructor’s lesson.”
The Female Instructor nodded in satisfaction and finally led the students out of the meditation room.
The Female Instructor hadn’t looked at Hua Huai or Tan Tai once the entire time.
Perhaps it was because they hadn’t eaten the food, but they hadn’t “wasted” it either, so they didn’t meet the criteria for being picky eaters.
Besides the two of them, Xiang Lu had also escaped punishment because she had eaten her food.
The meditation room fell quiet again, and Tan Tai’s laughter rang out especially clearly.
He laughed heartily. “Well, I never! You fat bastard. Not only did you take my share, you took the little girl’s too.”
“You’ve eaten one share now, but there are still two left. You’d better eat them all, or when the Female Instructor charges back in later, she’ll probably smash your other hand too.”
No Player spoke up in response to Tan Tai’s taunts, which only made him even more smug.
“You D-rank Players aren’t all that impressive. It’s only the first day, and you still couldn’t figure out a rule this obvious.”
“This is the Quality Education School, and you still dared to be picky about your food. That Xiang Lu is the only one with any real skill.”
“But weren’t you supposed to form a team? Why didn’t she warn you?”
That last question struck right to the heart of the matter.
Sun Sui fell silent for a long while, then asked, “Why?”
He didn’t say who he meant, but everyone knew whom he was asking.
Xiang Lu replied, “I wasn’t sure. Besides, it all happened so suddenly that I didn’t have time to speak before the Female Instructor came in with the others.”
No one knew how much of what she said was true and how much was false.
Hua Huai only knew that, for the rest of the time, none of the Players spoke again.
The sky gradually darkened. The small window in the door cast a little patch of light that grew dim and gray.
They seemed to have arrived at the school in the morning, when the sun had just risen.
And now, it was already night.
The school had only served one meal all day. No wonder she was so hungry.
Hua Huai stayed crouched, since that helped ease the pain caused by hunger.
Most of the Players around her had fallen asleep. Their soft breathing could be heard.
Hua Huai had slept during the day, but now she couldn’t fall asleep.
She stared blankly at the only faintly glowing spot in the room.
At the same time, in the hallway of the same building…
Jin Kangtai, with his clothes in disarray, thrashed about in the hallway, crawling along on all fours.
Cold sweat ran down his forehead and temples, and his back was already soaked.
Deep fear was buried in his eyes.
He kept muttering, “Don’t follow me. Don’t follow me…”
After crawling up a short flight of stairs, he timidly looked back. Another pale face was almost pressed against his.
Blood and brain matter dripped from the other person’s shattered skull, pattering onto his shoulder.
“Aah—”
Jin Kangtai stumbled backward. “Don’t kill me! Don’t kill me…”
He quickly turned his head, scrambled to his feet, and ran upstairs.
Footsteps stayed close behind him. No matter how fast he ran, they followed like a shadow.
Every time he heard a footstep, his heart involuntarily gave a shudder.
The chase through the stairwell, though only a few hundred meters, felt as if it had lasted a whole century.
He ran onto the rooftop, slammed the iron door shut, and locked it.
The footsteps vanished.
Had that thing left?
Just as he was about to breathe a sigh of relief, he found he couldn’t control his legs.
Step by step, he walked to the edge of the rooftop.
What should he do?
That thing was still nearby.
He was going to die!
“Please, I don’t want to die!”
Looking down, the eight-story drop was more than enough to kill him.
Just standing there made him dizzy.
An eerie, hollow laugh sounded around him. Then, in an instant, it was right beside Jin Kangtai. His eyes were barely a centimeter from the Anomaly’s, and he could feel the bone-chilling cold radiating from it.
The Anomaly murmured, “What should I do? I don’t want to die either.”
In the next instant, its mouth stretched into a grin far wider than any normal person’s. “But I’m already dead. Why don’t you come down and keep me company?”
The cold breath that escaped the Anomaly’s mouth was enough to freeze a person solid.
A layer of ice crystals formed on Jin Kangtai’s body hair and shook loose as he trembled.
The Anomaly’s eyes curved into a smile as it watched him step forward and plunge of his own accord from the eighth floor, smashing into a heap of pulp.