Chapter Six: The Eccentric, the Academy, and the Path Forward

Ten minutes later, he found an unoccupied dorm room.

Twenty minutes later, he had finished mending his torn clothes.

Forty minutes later, he lay on a clean bunk, savoring the ache in his muscles.

But tonight, sleep would not come for everyone.

As Chen Qing drifted into a deep slumber, his body relaxing, someone hid in the shadows a kilometer away, searching every passerby who crossed their path.

When dawn broke, the young man stepped out onto the busy street, where vendors on either side hawked their wares with boisterous enthusiasm.

He watched the bustling crowds and chose the most ordinary tea stall.

“Boss! One order of fried noodles with an egg, to go!”

“Coming right up!”

“Students these days really are exhausted. It’s barely past seven in the morning and you’re already at school,” observed a disheveled middle-aged man sitting nearby. Even at this early hour, he wore dark sunglasses, making him stand out among the crowd.

“Yes. We study for more than a dozen hours a day—just so we can work just as long after we graduate,” Chen Qing replied, setting down his backpack and carefully rinsing his utensils in hot water.

“So diligent. Why aren’t you eating at school, then?”

“Is anything edible in the school cafeteria?” He scratched at his groin, then brought his fingers to his nose for a sniff. “The students at school taste better.”

Chen Qing smiled awkwardly, his expression shifting as if he’d just heard an off-color joke—just the way any ordinary high schooler might react.

“Here you go—your fried noodles! Pour your own tea, yeah?”

“Thanks.”

So he ate his noodles while the man watched the street.

For as long as Chen Qing ate, the man used the opportunity to observe him.

Only when Chen Qing finished his meal and turned to leave did the man’s gaze finally drift away from him.

It wasn’t until Chen Qing had walked far enough that the school gates were no longer visible from the man’s vantage that he realized the clothes on his back were drenched in sweat.

He exhaled heavily, glancing at his empty pockets, and finally relaxed.

“As expected… it pays to be cautious.”

Returning to the moments before sleep the previous night…

“No… this won’t do…”

Chen Qing’s eyes had barely closed when a sliver of worry took root in his heart.

“With what I know so far, the abilities of relics are incredibly diverse… And that woman surnamed Bai mentioned that my relic is extremely well concealed. If they couldn’t detect me, why send someone to hunt me down?”

He was silent for a moment before opening his eyes again, gazing at the still-warm human-skin mask in his hand, murmuring to himself.

“This face… looks so unfamiliar.”

As he stared, the features on the mask seemed to shift, becoming nondescript… painfully ordinary. It was impossible to tell if it was male or female.

Chen Qing shook his head, suppressed the tangle of thoughts, and made his way to the roof of the dormitory, where he hid the relic.

As it turned out, his decision the previous night was the right one.

He jogged home, and by the time he returned to school, it was already afternoon.

He had barely entered the classroom when a school administrator called him away to an office outside the teaching building.

There, several police officers waited, tense and alert.

Chen Qing’s gaze swept over them, noting the service pistols at their waists.

“Teacher, why did you call me here?” he asked, glancing at the officers. “Are the police looking for me?”

The officers nodded. The lead officer, a woman, questioned him, “What’s your relationship with Wu Cheny i?”

He feigned mild surprise, then nodded. “We’re pretty close? We hang out together.”

“Do you know where he is? His mother reported him missing—she hasn’t seen him for a day.”

Chen Qing frowned. “He… he went to my…”

“Think carefully before you answer! Someone saw the two of you leaving campus together yesterday! If your answer doesn’t add up, you’ll be taken in as the prime suspect!” The woman’s voice rose before he could finish.

A male officer behind her stepped forward, speaking softly, “It’s all right, just tell us what you know. You and Wu Chenyi seem to get along well, you’re classmates and you went home together.”

Chen Qing sneered inwardly, but his face remained clouded with concern. “After we left, we… went to an internet café. He only stayed a short while before leaving. I kept playing until after eight; I thought he’d gone home early.”

“You kids…” The dean, overhearing, sounded annoyed.

“And after that? You didn’t see him again?” the female officer pressed.

“No… He seemed like he wanted to tell me something, but I was too caught up in my game to pay attention.”

“I see…” The officer frowned and met her colleague’s gaze. Then she took out a business card, “You probably don’t have your phone with you at school. Keep this—if you remember anything, or if you notice a stranger following you, call me.”

Chen Qing looked at the card and muttered under his breath, “Jiang Wan. Got it.”

“Remember, if anyone follows you, call immediately.”

She seemed dissatisfied with his absent-mindedness.

“Yes…”

“All right, you can go back now.”

He left, brow furrowed, but no one found his reaction odd.

A teenager whose friend had gone missing would naturally be upset and agitated.

But his mind was elsewhere.

“So his disappearance… has become a missing person case?”

He walked, head down, confusion gnawing at him. “How much of what he told me was the truth…”

“That team he mentioned… those who vanished and were forgotten by the world…”

He hesitated, his mind full of blood and horror.

He stared at the pavement, which seemed stained with crimson.

“No… it’s an illusion.”

He shook his head, dismissing those thoughts. Yet when he looked around, the answers remained elusive.

“The legend he spoke of… what really happened that night?”

A creeping dread seized him. The unknown was like a swamp, its far shore invisible. When the truth was revealed, who could guarantee they wouldn’t drown?

He reached the classroom door just as the bell rang for the end of class.

A class of forty-five… or rather, forty-five desks. Yet only a couple dozen students were present.

“A lie must be mixed with truth.”

“Perhaps nine truths exist only to conceal a single, knife-sharp lie.”

“Which parts of that night’s story were real?”

Chen Qing closed his eyes. When he opened them again, all uncertainty was gone.

“Maybe there’s no turning back for me now…”

He muttered, his gaze drifting through the window toward the girls’ dormitory in the distance.

And to the human-skin mask hidden on the rooftop.