Pen Spirit 10
The thought seemed to spring out of nowhere, and as soon as it appeared, it deeply imprinted itself in her mind, becoming a firmly rooted perception.
Even stranger, Ying Yan didn’t understand how she had leapt from thinking about the slide to imagining a writhing, twisted intestine.
The similarity between the two was weak at best.
Moreover, she was largely unfamiliar with animal intestines; no matter how wildly her mind wandered, she wouldn’t naturally think in that direction.
Ying Yan’s expression grew serious.
She instinctively closed her eyes, trying to dispel the bizarre notion invading her mind.
This is the inside of a slide. It cannot be an intestine! It cannot be… an intestine! Not an intestine… an intestine!
The smell of rotting food mixed with a foul stench wafted through, mingled with the intermittent “squelching” sounds.
As the folded passage writhed, dark brown mucus coated the remnants of food, surging in all directions.
Countless pale tentacles reached for her ankles, the fine hairs piercing her skin, greedily sucking blood, probing even deeper…
The realism was bone-chilling.
As Ying Yan tried to convince herself, she attempted to move her body.
But she quickly realized that even lifting a single finger was excruciatingly difficult, let alone moving her legs to avoid the feeding tentacles.
The harmonica was clutched in her palm, yet it felt as if it were miles away, incapable of providing any real help.
With the tentacles sucking, her blood drained rapidly, bringing wave after wave of dizziness.
Layer upon layer of despair spread like a carpet across her mind, dragging her consciousness into a bottomless abyss.
Something was wrong!
Ying Yan resisted the creeping negativity, struggling to remain lucid, carefully reviewing what was happening.
She was certain she was in a hallucination capable of altering perception and influencing emotions.
First, when facing a tough situation, her first reaction was never despair, but to charge forward, dragging her enemies down with her if she died.
Second, the chicken-blood stones on her bracelet had not been triggered.
She had already sensed that the level of the white porcelain statue was higher than the slide, and the tools it provided could not easily fail.
But could a hallucination feel this real?
This question rose uncontrollably in Ying Yan’s mind.
The patchy feedback from her body surged intensely, crashing against her ingrained perceptions through cracks in her consciousness.
Her lucid awareness lasted only a few minutes before collapsing entirely, leaving only the fear of being devoured and digested.
Perhaps soon, a pus-filled tumor or shriveled rotting flesh would appear on the intestinal wall.
Inside the snow-white “small S” slide,
Rows of colorful little lights hung on the walls, their vibrant glow falling on the unconscious girl.
This section neared the bottom; the slope was gentle, and it would be difficult to continue sliding while not fully conscious.
A few rats appeared from somewhere, eyes glowing red, squeaking harshly in excitement.
The girl furrowed her brow, keeping her eyes tightly shut.
Her pale cheeks reflected the lights, floating in the darkness like fragile, pale beauty lamps—lifeless.
Then, the “beauty lamp” stood up.
Her smooth black hair fell along her cheeks, neck, and shoulders. Her eyes half-open, half-closed, expression indifferent, calm as still water.
Her face had not changed; she remained breathtakingly beautiful, yet now like a thin painting of a woman hanging on the wall.
—Beautiful, yes, but lacking vitality.
[3. No matter what you see, do not stand or run around; fasten your seatbelt. The stars will protect you.]
The instant this rule was flagrantly violated, a rustling sound came.
Besides the red-eyed rats, countless black matchstick figures, armed with weapons, appeared en masse; groups of short, thick, and differently colored poisonous snakes slithered by, hissing; dark black seawater churned, agitating countless colorful bubbles…
At the same time, an intense sense of being watched swept over her; the surrounding temperature rose, and the air felt dry and scorching.
Magma in the night sky poured down, roaring as it slid through the passage ahead.
Any one of these hazards could take a life.
Yet the girl standing in the white tubular slide merely lifted her eyelids and glanced casually.
Her fair, delicate fingers curled and flicked forward—
Just with this simple movement,
The red-eyed rats, matchstick men, poisonous snakes, black sea, even the magma—
Everything that caused fear or discomfort vanished into thin air, as if erased by an invisible eraser, leaving only faint gray ashes.
The surface of the white tubular slide, covered in countless cracks, collapsed at incredible speed, the colorful little lights exploding with crackles.
The night sky was revealed, unobstructed, and the hanging galaxy twinkled; each star opened its eye—a humanoid pupil filled with intense malice.
They stared at the person below like a human staring at a lamb for slaughter.
Sensing the watched girl raising her head, she met countless cold eyes.
She stared back indifferently, neither sad nor happy, yet in her left hand, a completely black bow appeared out of nowhere.
The bow was over a meter long, sleek and thick, glinting faintly. Thin horn-like plates were inlaid inside, engraved with strange, bizarre patterns.
Though no taboo existed, it made a rustling sound when moved, as if chains were clashing.
Its string, however, was unusually thin and trembled slightly.
The girl casually tossed the harmonica aside, as if throwing garbage.
She gripped the bow with her left hand, holding it vertical to the ground. Her right hand hooked the string, pulling back steadily and slowly.
Her fair fingers were cut by the thin string, and the blood was entirely absorbed by the string.
Yet she seemed completely unaware of the pain, her half-closed eyes fixed on the countless eyes in the sky.
She aimed at the brightest one, released the string, and said in a deep voice:
“Stars cannot have eyes.”
Visually, no arrow was on the bow. Yet something sliced through the air, flying relentlessly toward the night sky.
The scene looked absurd but made the pupil of the meteor-star in the sky contract tightly.
It would die! It would die! Surely it would die!
Even without seeing anything, a strong sense of danger surged, directly threatening life.
This should not exist!
Remember, Hou Yi, who shot down the sun, exists only in myths.
In reality, humans without special powers are merely crumbs before these entities, easily crushed or flattened.
Due to an agreement with the “Interdimensional Exchange Center,” the stars followed rules, only consuming small crumbs once mental contamination reached a threshold.
But no matter what, these crumbs could never harm them.
Just as humans would never imagine being gnawed by tiny ants on the ground.
Though most stars think this way, they still instinctively hide in an orderly fashion.
Then, the sky darkened for an instant, exploding into countless red fireworks.
If a camera recorded this and slowed it down infinitely,
It would reveal something touching the night sky, absorbing all the light and forming a black arrowhead.
The dim stars—or rather, they could no longer be called stars—
Fled and screamed, yet the arrowhead caught up, piercing them through, exploding into red fireworks.
After eliminating all the eyes, the arrowhead did not slow, piercing straight through the dark night sky, heading into the unknown.
Even witnessing the surface alone was enough to shock the mind.
Those outside the white line widened their eyes, shocked, glancing at the bottom of the slide.
But there was nothing there.
Old Lei exhaled, muttering quietly: “What did she do, pulling off such a spectacle!”
Mu Xiang stared at the fireworks, eyebrows showing confusion.
At the moment of the explosion, she saw a black feathered arrow.
Whether a hallucination or not, it seemed the sky trembled briefly.
But on closer inspection, everything returned to calm.
Except for a missing stretch of the galaxy, nothing seemed changed.
Logically, playing on a slide shouldn’t take long.
A 40-minute class could allow a whole class to try it once.
Even in this large room, it wouldn’t take that long.
Yet the group anxiously waited an hour, seeing no sign of Ying Yan or a body.
According to the rules from the pen-ghost, others cannot cross the white line while someone plays on the slide.
Time passed anxiously for another half hour before Ying Yan slowly awoke at the bottom of the “small S.”
She looked around at the mess, bewildered.
What happened? Why does it look like a battlefield here?
At the same time, a heavy fatigue weighed on her body, like working all day on multiple jobs, then staying up all night to finish assignments.
She checked the two quiet chicken-blood stones on her bracelet, realizing she hadn’t faced any fatal danger during the hallucination.
But since part of the slide had been interrupted, it would have been impossible to finish sliding if she had stayed seated.
She cautiously stood up—nothing happened.
It seemed the third rule was wrong too.
She walked a few meters to the entrance of the “big S,” calmly seated herself, prepared for surprises.
But the subsequent “big S” and “three-section tube” passed smoothly, without incident.
It felt anticlimactic.
At the bottom of the slide was a report card.
Ying Yan tore it off and saw clear first-place rankings for each subject.
Besides common subjects like Chinese and math, there were also unheard-of subjects:
Chinese class: LuluMath class: Lei LeiArt class: Feng FengPlanting class: TiantianSpell class: Mang MangMysticism: Chen Chen…Rice Transformation: Stars
Ying Yan’s gaze fell on the last column, and the first thought in her mind was the red-haired girl wearing a red scarf.
Clearly, the newly obtained report card conflicted with Mang Mang’s claim that “there can only be one first place.”
Also, the warning “don’t trust the stars…” might refer to the Rice Transformation top student, Stars.