They had nearly finished putting everything away when a loud clattering erupted against the window, frighteningly loud.
They all looked over at once and saw that rain had finally begun falling from the gloomy sky. The whole world had turned grayish yellow. A fierce wind was howling, but it couldn’t move the raindrops, each as large as a bean, as they plummeted straight to the earth. A burst of panicked screams rose from outside.
Xu Kewang saw the students fleeing frantically, their faces twisted with pain. Some were even carrying supplies they had snatched, their burdens making it hard for them to run quickly.
For some reason, halfway through their flight, all those moving slowly fell to the ground at the same time.
Some struggled to crawl toward places where they could take shelter from the rain, pushing themselves forward with both hands.
Others let out anguished wails, then gradually fell silent, lying motionless on the ground.
Xu Kewang sprang up from her chair and rubbed her eyes. She saw the objects scattered on the ground gradually fill with holes burned right through them. Before long, the plastic bags disappeared.
Then, the clothes of the people who had fallen began to melt, little by little.
Their hair thinned.
Their skin ulcerated.
They turned into pools of blood.
“Ugh—” Ning Yiwei, who had witnessed the whole thing beside her, could no longer hold it in. She covered her mouth and began retching violently, disbelief filling her eyes before they welled with tears.
Hearing her, Xie Yue and Wencai hurried over. “What’s wrong? Why did you suddenly feel sick?”
“She was frightened,” Xu Kewang said, her voice unnervingly calm, almost icy. She seemed to be holding something back, too. “The rain outside isn’t ordinary rain.”
“It’s acid rain.”
She pointed to the red flesh drifting everywhere with the rainwater. “If you stay out in it for too long, the acid will corrode you. Judging by the damage to those objects and the injuries to the students just now, the rain isn’t all that acidic yet. As long as you move fast enough, there’s still a chance to escape.”
But Xu Kewang wasn’t optimistic. “I have a fleeting Impression of acid rain from my dream. By then, it had reached the point where an ordinary person would be corroded to death after spending a minute in the rain.”
“You mean the acid rain will Upgrade?” Wencai’s face darkened.
So far, they had experienced two kinds of severe weather: low temperatures and heavy rain.
If the heavy rain could turn into acid rain, and the acid rain could then Upgrade, then the low temperatures might worsen too. Snowstorms, ice storms, Extreme Cold—any of those could easily claim the lives of a large number of students.
“Good thing we still have the Air Conditioner,” Xie Yue said, enjoying the warm air with lingering fear. “Otherwise, we really would freeze to death.”
Three seconds later, the Dormitory fell completely silent.
Only belatedly did she glance around and meet the others’ speechless expressions. Scratching her head in confusion, she asked, “What? Was I wrong?”
“You’re right,” Wencai sighed. “Too right.”
“The school is cut off from the outside world now. All the staff have Disappeared, and only students and some people of unknown Identity are left,” Xu Kewang patiently explained. “How long our Electricity System can Persist—or how long this so-called A-whatever wants us to Persist—is anyone’s guess.”
Ning Yiwei had finally recovered a little. Her face still pale, she nodded. “Maybe you’re right. Once the Air Conditioner stops working, we’ll freeze to death.”
Clearly, no one had high hopes, and the mood sank.
Xu Kewang still felt a little guilty. “I’m sorry. If it weren’t for me, you might have arrived a few days later and wouldn’t have run into this.”
“You’re overthinking it.” Xie Yue patted her Shoulder. “Do you know who I ran into on my way back with the water just now?”
She left them in suspense. Only after seeing everyone watching her with keen curiosity did she finally speak, looking thoroughly pleased.
“Xu Yueyao and Zhang Yeming—and, oh, Zhang Jiajia from our class, too.”
“Weren’t they traveling on Jeju Island?” Wencai blinked and asked. “I was watching livestreams on the bus and saw those two showing off their relationship.”
Ning Yiwei held up her phone. “Zhang Jiajia asked the Student Council for leave, saying something urgent had come up at home and she’d return to school a few days late.”
She was in the Student Council’s Organization Department and often took part in group activities. A University’s Student Council had fairly strict Management; usually, even if you filed for leave through the school’s official procedure, you still had to give the Guild Leader or a department head a heads-up.
Why were people who shouldn’t have returned to school here?
“I think this game may have selected people according to certain criteria, with A University’s Dormitory Area being one of them. Whether you were on campus or not, you’d be Teleported here.” She offered her Analysis.
That finally eased some of the burden on Xu Kewang’s mind.
“At least the four of us are still together,” Xie Yue reassured her casually. “As long as we’re all here, we don’t have to be afraid of difficulties. It’s just a shame I didn’t get to say a word to my mom and dad before the signal went out.”
She tossed her phone onto the bed.
Amid the howling wind and rain, all four of their phones rang at once near dusk. They exchanged surprised looks. In a place with no signal, whose messages could their phones possibly be receiving?
But when they eagerly opened them, they saw only several densely packed lines of text on the black screens.
【Welcome to the LV1 Plane—Crazy World.
You are about to experience your first wonderful night. To ensure your health, we have set up Safety Officer positions in the Interior of the Dormitory Building. Each Dormitory must Dispatch one Student to take the night shift at midnight tonight.
Students who don’t report for their shift on time will be considered absent. For every ten minutes you’re late, a corresponding amount of wages will be deducted.
Of course, students who perform well may also receive a Reward.】
“What is all this supposed to mean?” Xie Yue scratched her head. “It sounds downright creepy. Are we working a shift or going to our deaths? Besides, who’s going to pay us wages? How can they deduct anything if we don’t get paid?”
She thought she was quite the little genius.
So the whole Dormitory unanimously agreed to wait and see what the punishment for being late would be. If it wasn’t too severe, they’d keep hiding out in the Dormitory.
After all, this was the safest place they could think of right now.
Light and shadow shifted as night fell. In the howling storm, they left the lights off and looked out at the pitch-black world. Here and there, lights shone in the Dormitory Building opposite.
Feeling utterly unsafe, the four of them worked together to barricade the doorway with tables and chairs.
The moment midnight arrived, an ear-splitting Alarm Sound blared from their phones.
They stood back-to-back in pairs, one pair watching the doorway and the other the window. The Alarm Sound faded from loud to soft and finally disappeared. At long last, the ten minutes passed. The harm they had imagined never came, and all four were Relieved.
At the same time, the Air Conditioner fell silent.
With the outdoor unit no longer making a sound, the Dormitory was terrifyingly quiet, making the howling storm outside seem even louder. The room had been warm, but now they could clearly feel the temperature dropping.
It was easy to imagine how cold it must be outside.
“You son of a—”
They all burst out with the same curse at once.
Who could have guessed that the wages being deducted were actually the electricity bill???