“Bang—”
Something fell from a great height, crashing down with a tremendous noise.
Hua Huai jolted in fright and scrambled to her feet. Rising onto her tiptoes, she peered through the small window in the door, wanting to see what had happened.
The window offered a very narrow view, but she could still see the source of the noise.
Someone in disheveled, loose-fitting clothes seemed to be lying facedown on the ground, completely motionless.
The posture was strange, unlike anything a normal person could manage.
There was a lot of liquid beneath them. She couldn't make it out clearly, but it looked mostly red.
Putting together what she knew,
she concluded that this person had jumped from the building.
They were dead.
This was the first time Hua Huai had ever seen a dead person—and it was at night.
She quickly lowered her heels and returned to her original spot, crouching down.
The other Players besides her seemed to be fast asleep. None of them had heard the sound of something heavy hitting the ground.
She hurriedly closed her eyes, too.
It would be best to pretend she hadn't seen anything.
The dead person wouldn't suddenly lift their head, stare at her, and say, “Come down and keep me company, Hua Huai.”
Her mind was full of thoughts, and she shuddered, trying to banish these terrifying images.
But she'd clearly seen it. How could she pretend she hadn't?
Hua Huai didn't sleep at all before dawn.
In the early morning, the door opened.
Natural light fell across the Players' faces, glaringly bright.
Hua Huai squinted, trying to make out what was in front of her.
But the Female Instructor didn't wait for them to adjust. “Get up. I'll take you to the Dormitory.”
The Players had already learned their lesson yesterday.
Today, no one dared defy the Female Instructor. They quickly got up and followed behind her.
As they stepped out of the room, they caught a faint smell of blood in the air.
Hua Huai instinctively looked at the spot where the dead person had lain last night. It had been cleaned at some point, with not a trace of blood left behind.
All that remained was an extra puddle of water on the ground. It seemed the spot had been washed.
Following the Female Instructor, the Players soon arrived at the Dormitory Building.
The outside of the Dormitory Building was coated in fresh, army-green paint that hadn't yet dried. Inside, the walls were still covered with indistinct, ashen faces, enough to make one's scalp crawl.
They entered the Dormitory.
It was called a Dormitory, but it looked more like a prison.
Perhaps even worse than a prison.
In the middle of each dorm room stood two extremely rudimentary tables, with a small alarm clock on top.
There were five bunk beds, each with bedding that had been used by who knew how many previous owners. It was yellowed all over.
The names of the Players were posted on the iron frames of the Dormitory beds.
There were nine Players, but ten names posted on the bed frames.
As she looked them over one by one, she noticed one Player's name circled, along with another unfamiliar name that was circled as well.
Before Hua Huai could think further, Xiang Lu said with a grim expression, “Boys and girls are sharing a room?”
The Female Instructor replied without so much as batting an eye, “You're all children. What's wrong with boys and girls sharing a room? If you can't even control yourselves over something like that…”
She smiled faintly, her voice utterly cold. “I'll make sure to teach you properly.”
She beckoned, and a student immediately brought over eight School Uniforms.
“You have ten minutes to wash up. Change into your School Uniforms, then follow me to class.”
“The bathroom is next door.”
After speaking, she glanced at the watch on her wrist. “It's 7:10.”
The eight School Uniforms were for the eight Players.
One Player noticed something was off and asked, “What about Jin Kangtai?”
Leaning against the doorframe, the Female Instructor raised her eyes slightly and gave a strange smile. “Dead.”
“D-Dead? How did he die?”
She didn't answer, merely continued watching the time as she counted down. “You have nine minutes and thirty seconds left.”
Ten minutes to wash up was far too little. This was no time to focus on the cause of Jin Kangtai's death.
Xiang Lu led the way, clutching a School Uniform as she rushed into the bathroom. The sight before her stunned her.
The walls and floor of the bathroom were tiled. The tiles should have been white, but grime had nearly obscured their original color, and the filth between them was impossibly thick.
A crude shower was fixed to the wall. A plastic hose connected to the showerhead, and the grime coating the handle made it hard to bring herself to turn it on.
Even if she forced herself to turn it on, she couldn't help feeling that whatever came from the showerhead might not be water, but some kind of strange mixture.
Water mixed with dirt, for instance.
Or perhaps with a little blood as well.
There were two small stalls in the bathroom, as if they had been prepared specifically for Xiang Lu and Hua Huai.
Pulling open a stall door and stepping inside somehow made her feel uneasy.
The Female Instructor's countdown continued. The consequences of running late were definitely not something they wanted to experience.
Gritting her teeth, Xiang Lu locked the stall and began washing up.
Hua Huai didn't want to get beaten either. Besides, she was filthy and had to wash up, or she might get sick.
She turned on the tap. The water was clear.
“Hss—”
She sucked in a sharp breath.
It was so cold. There was no hot water in the bathroom; no matter how she turned the handle, only cold water came out.
Fortunately, it was summer. After standing under the water for a little while, her body gradually adjusted to the temperature.
The grime on her face washed away, revealing a fair, clean face. Her dark pupils shimmered brightly, and when she blinked, they seemed to sparkle like stars in the night sky.
Her eyebrows were neither too thick nor too thin, her nose was high-bridged, and her lips were a soft pink, like peach blossoms glistening with water.
Her freshly washed black hair fell below her shoulder blades, smooth against her back and forming a gentle curve.
She was pure and untouched by worldly concerns, naturally exquisite without needing anything to enhance her beauty.
After washing quickly, Hua Huai changed into her School Uniform.
It was a size small, but it still looked far too large on her.
The shirt itself wasn't the issue. She didn't mind if it was long enough to wear as a dress.
But the pants were not only long; the waist was also far too loose.
There was no rope or anything nearby that she could use as a belt.
Time passed second by second.
From the doorway, the Female Instructor called, “Thirty seconds left.”
Hua Huai gritted her teeth, put on the pants, and tied a tight knot at the waist. Only then did they stop slipping down.
“Ten.”
“Nine.”
“Eight.”
She pushed open the stall door and stepped out, immediately drawing the other Players' attention.
Someone exclaimed, “I didn't expect her to be this cute.”
Someone else scoffed, “What's the use of being cute? She's in this C-rank Instance. She's as good as dead.”
“Three.”
“Two.”
“One.”
The Female Instructor counted the people in front of her. One was missing.
“Where's that big fat guy?”
Of all the Players, only Gan Hong, who had been beaten until his skin was torn yesterday, fit the Female Instructor's description.
A figure rushed out of the bathroom. No one had taken a close look at his hand before, but now they could see it was already swollen and rotting with pus.
After being washed in cold water, it looked even worse.
He wept bitterly, his breakdown mixed with unbearable pain. “I-Instructor, my hand hurts so much. Could you treat it first?”
“If this keeps up, I'll die!”
It had taken only one day for him to go from the arrogance he showed when he knocked the food to the ground to humbly begging for help.
The horror of this instance might not lie solely in the Anomalies within it.
The Instructors and students in the Instance were just as terrifying.
Faced with Gan Hong's distress, the Female Instructor remained expressionless. As she walked toward him, she said, “You failed to finish washing up on time, so I'll help you finish.”
Seeing this, Gan Hong backed away in terror until he reached the corner and had nowhere left to go.
The Female Instructor grabbed him by the hair and forcibly dragged him to the sink. She swiftly turned on the cold water and pressed his head down into the basin.
At first, cold water ran from the back of his head, streaming over his eyes and making it impossible for him to open them.
Then the sink filled with water, and the hand on his head pressed down hard, submerging his entire face.
“Glug, glug—”
He couldn't breathe. Was she trying to drown him?
Bubbles kept rising to the surface as he struggled with both arms and legs.
“Hah—”
The Female Instructor loosened her grip just enough to let him catch his breath, then repeated the action at least three more times.
The Players thought she wouldn't actually kill him, but during the final dunk, the Female Instructor pressed him down especially hard, nearly forcing Gan Hong's face to the bottom of the basin.
No matter how he struggled, he couldn't break free.
It went on for a very long time, until he gradually stopped struggling and slipped helplessly from the Female Instructor's grasp.