Chapter 364
Chapter 364
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>Translator: Ryuma
>Chapter: 364
>Chapter Title: School
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“This is an illusion! This place is an illusion!!”
In the dim bridge cave, Li Huowang knelt on the ground with his head split open and bleeding. He trembled as he repeated the words over and over, as if trying to solidify his conviction.
The sight terrified Huan Huan into tears. The small steamed bun in her hand rolled onto the ground as she turned and ran crying out of the bridge cave.
Li Huowang remained kneeling there, thinking for a very, very long time. The surroundings shifted between dimness and brightness.
After switching between the bridge cave and the woods three times, he walked to the riverbank, washed the blood scabs from his face, and headed out of the bridge cave. A glint of cold steel peeked from between his fingers.
All that remained on the ground was Sun Xiaoqin’s name. The other name had been completely covered in blood.
Li Huowang remembered where Yang Na’s school was. She had once happily described to him the snacks on the nearby food street and even made a promise that once he was better, they’d go explore it together.
He always remembered everything about Yang Na with perfect clarity, even if she’d only mentioned it once.
The sharp blade scraped along Li Huowang’s scalp, shaving off the matted clumps of hair and exposing the skin that was no longer oozing blood.
He stripped off his filthy old clothes and took a set of clean laundry drying outside.
In this state, Li Huowang looked utterly normal. He walked right through the crowd without anyone pointing or staring.
Under cover of night, he climbed into the train station and disguised himself as a passenger relative dropping off luggage to board the train.
When Li Huowang snapped out of his daze once more, he realized he had arrived in the city where Yang Na lived.
He glanced at the sign on the bus stop and began trudging with heavy steps toward the university district.
He walked very, very slowly, as if the endless road should never end. Yet no matter how slowly he went, he eventually arrived.
Li Huowang sat on a plastic stool at a barbecue stall, staring blankly at the distant campus gate. His odd behavior drew some puzzled looks.
“What are you waiting for?! This is an illusion! Yang Na’s fake! Get up and do it! I can’t abandon reality for some illusion! Do you really want Miao-miao to end up as that half-human, half-ghost monstrosity?”
“I’ve crossed over already! I crossed over a long time ago!! Yang Na will be fine. She’ll live well in that world! No lunatic harassing her, blocking her happiness!”
“What are you waiting for?! Go! Go! You turned Miao-miao into this abomination—don’t you want to save her?!”
Li Huowang writhed in inner torment. In that moment, he desperately wished for something to snap him out of his hesitation, to let him stand decisively.
Just then, the plump-faced proprietress approached. “Ahem, classmate, you okay? You look really pale.”
Li Huowang didn’t react at all, completely lost in his own world.
The proprietress wiped the table in front of him with her rag and turned to get back to work.
Suddenly, a scream echoed from inside the campus gate, instantly drawing her attention. Moments later, she saw men and women fleeing in panic from within. “Huh? What’s going on?”
As the others rushed past her stall, the proprietress grabbed a male student who often ate there. “Hey, Little Fatty, what’s happening at school?”
“Sis Liu, call the cops quick! Those bank robbers have shown up here! They’ve stormed the girls’ dorm, and one of them has a gun!!”
Hearing this, Li Huowang slowly turned to look at the boy. He suddenly smiled.
“Could it get any more fake? I run into something this ridiculously improbable. Yeah, this is definitely an illusion.” With all doubts cast aside, Li Huowang finally stood and strode toward the campus gate against the flow.
Li Huowang walked along the university’s main road, eyes scanning the fleeing girls around him, searching for that one familiar face.
The deeper he went, the more intensely his body shook.
To ease the uncontrollable trembling, Li Huowang spoke to a magnolia tree blooming with flowers on his left as he searched. “Miao-miao, after I inflict the agony of the heart, if the pain leaves me unable to move, please help me achieve the utmost torment of the flesh.”
“Remember back on Reed Island, how that man dug out his own throat? Just do it like that.”
Not entirely reassured, Li Huowang then addressed a fallen bicycle nearby. “Li Sui, if Miao-miao really does it, don’t you dare stop her, got it? She’s not hurting me—this is how we escape this hellhole.”
“Whatever happens then, stick close to me. I’ll save the Supervising Heaven Bureau folks if I can; if not, leave them.”
The campus was huge. Li Huowang searched for a good while without spotting Yang Na. By the time he reached the girls’ dorm, sirens were wailing outside.
Looking up at the building in front of him, Li Huowang heard cursing from the middle floors. Over a hundred girls on the upper levels appeared trapped.
“This is all an illusion. All of it!” Li Huowang muttered to himself as he stepped past the iron gate and inside.
The first and second floors were empty—they’d all fled. As Li Huowang climbed the stairs, he came face-to-face with two men dragging a girl downward.
Li Huowang nodded to them and stepped aside to let them pass, then prepared to continue upward.
“Stop!! I said stop! Don’t come any closer!! Don’t think I don’t know your game! You’re plainclothes—I saw right through you!”
A bald man pressed his knife blade straight against the neck of the girl in his arms. He looked extremely agitated, his breathing erratic.
“We want three off-road vehicles! Full tanks! And five million—no, ten million! Then clear everyone out! You’ve got one hour to prepare! Hurry!! Every thirty minutes past that, we kill one more!”
Li Huowang ignored him and asked the girl in his arms, “Classmate, do you know Yang Na? What room is she in?”
The girl was clearly petrified by the scene, reduced to nothing but whimpering sobs.
Li Huowang didn’t mind and started toward the upper floors again.
“Stand the fuck still!!” An old handgun emerged from around the stairwell corner above, aimed straight at Li Huowang.
Accompanied by footsteps, a tall man with a grim expression descended the stairs, gun in hand.
“See what I’ve got here? This is a gun!”
(End of chapter)