"How is this possible...?"
Liu Zhipeng was watching the surveillance footage in the dorm's monitoring room with the dorm manager. The room was now filled with more than just the two of them; almost all the school leaders had arrived.
The surveillance clearly showed Liu Zunfu entering the restroom at 2:13 AM.
He never came out again.
The footage had been replayed dozens of times, and all the cameras outside the building and windows had been checked, but Liu Zunfu was simply gone.
There couldn't be cameras inside the restroom; that was a private area.
But the doors and windows showed no signs of damage, the protective bars were intact, and there was nowhere in the restroom to hide a person.
Yet, he was gone.
"Principal Zhang, call the police! We must call the police!"
Liu Zhipeng was genuinely anxious. Liu Zunfu was a student in his class, and after searching so thoroughly without finding him, he had repeatedly urged calling the police.
But Principal Zhang didn't want to call the police. He insisted that this student, known for his bad temper, had somehow, while only wearing underwear and slippers, evaded the surveillance, bypassed the security guards, climbed over the school's high wall, and then skipped school.
Zhang Ya stood up, tugged at his suit pants, which were stretched tight by his belly, straightened his jacket, and then placed a hand on Liu Zhipeng's shoulder, speaking in a heartfelt tone tinged with a hint of sorrow:
"Xiao Liu... you know, high school students are always mischievous. You've seen the surveillance; no one else went in there. What could be in the restroom? What could have happened to him? He probably just found a way to sneak out, and he'll be back in a couple of days when his pockets are empty. We'll wait for him to return, then appease his parents, and this matter will be over."
"Wait a couple of days?! Where could a living person go without clothes? Even if he really skipped school, he could be in danger, tricked, or manipulated! How could a student avoid so many cameras? We must call the police!"
Liu Zhipeng was already in a panic, disregarding whether it was the principal or the director. He quickly stepped back, shaking off Zhang Ya's hand, and reached for the phone on the table.
But before Liu Zhipeng could touch the phone, Yang Director, who was closest, suddenly reached out and slapped the phone away.
Yang Desheng's strength seemed astonishing. The phone spun through the air like a frisbee, hitting the wall with a 'crack' and shattering into pieces. The screen separated from the casing, and black fragments scattered all over the floor.
"Oh, I'm sorry, Teacher Liu. I didn't mean to. I'll buy you a new phone another day."
Zhang Ya looked at the shattered phone on the ground with satisfaction, nodded slightly at Yang Desheng, then looked at Liu Zhipeng, who was stunned by the sudden turn of events.
"You... you... how could you do this??"
Liu Zhipeng looked at the phone's remains, then at the others in the room.
No one spoke. The school leaders either lowered their heads or looked at him with strange eyes. Not a single person helped Liu Zhipeng resist this crazy act.
"Teacher Liu, I'll say it again, calm down. Our school is currently at the cusp of reform, and I don't want you to affect our overall situation because of these personal matters."
Zhang Ya then casually turned off the surveillance screen and looked back at Liu Zhipeng.
Liu Zhipeng felt like he was going crazy. Looking at the expressions of these leaders around him, he suspected he had traveled to some parallel universe. But he also had a question.
"What reform?"
Liu Zhipeng looked at Zhang Ya's chubby face and asked this question.
But Zhang Ya didn't evade the topic with official jargon as he usually did. Instead, he directly uttered four words:
"None of your business."
Zhang Ya waved his hand and turned to walk out of the monitoring room.
Only then did Liu Zhipeng belatedly realize his predicament. The dorm manager, seeing the situation was dire, immediately handed his phone to Yang Desheng, smiling awkwardly and stepping aside.
He looked at the two vice principals who had already stood up by the door and Yang Desheng and others approaching. He knew it might be too late to run.
"Why isn't the homeroom teacher here yet?"
"Yeah, isn't the first class his? He's usually here early. Good thing I didn't bring snacks today."
"Where's the homeroom teacher?"
The 1:20 PM class bell had already rung. The first class in the afternoon was Chinese, taught by Liu Zhipeng, but Liu Zhipeng hadn't arrived for class yet.
Some students were happy, some pretended to be, and some started to sleep at their desks.
But Hu Zihao wasn't as relaxed.
"Why hasn't the homeroom teacher returned? Did Liu Zunfu really... have an accident?"
He was very flustered now. Besides Liu Zunfu's situation, Shi Yu's words had deeply pierced his heart. If Liu Zunfu had indeed met with misfortune, it would confirm Shi Yu's statement, and he himself would truly be in danger.
Just as Hu Zihao's mind was in turmoil, a female teacher pushed the door open and walked in.
"Alright, quiet down! Your homeroom teacher has a temporary emergency, so I'll be substituting for your class for two days."
The classroom quickly quieted down, but it was obvious that a few lively students seemed about to raise their hands, no doubt to ask where the homeroom teacher had gone. Before any student could ask, the female teacher tapped the podium and continued.
"Alright, I know you're very curious about what happened to your homeroom teacher, but none of us know the specific reason. The director sent word that he had an urgent matter back home. That's all for the questions, settle down. Let's start the class."
Hu Zihao felt his mind in a jumble after hearing this. What exactly was going on? His roommate disappeared in the morning, and now the homeroom teacher had suddenly left. Shi Yu had also told him such terrifying things. Who could he turn to for help now?
Hu Zihao felt very helpless.
Meanwhile, behind him and to his side, Shi Yu was thinking the same thing.
Where did the homeroom teacher go?
He hadn't told Hu Zihao too much about himself that morning. Because it really sounded... strange.
Shi Yu's luck was very good.
As long as it was something he particularly hoped for, and as long as it fit his conditions and the logic around him, it seemed to come true naturally. But it was inconsistent, and he had always just considered it good luck.
But one day, when he was leaving school in junior high, he saw a woman crying on an upper floor.
The woman's cry was mournful and chilling, as if her fear and sorrow had reached a certain level, and her cries were mixed with despair.
Shi Yu was genuinely curious at the time, and he kept thinking:
"What happened to her? I really want to know."
Within ten minutes of him thinking this, an extreme panic inexplicably erupted from within him, as if he had witnessed something terrifying firsthand, a terror without reason.
Shi Yu, who was still walking at the time, was so frightened he couldn't move, and on the deep winter road, he instantly broke out in a cold sweat.
At that moment, he inexplicably felt this fear, and he also inexplicably knew:
"That woman is suffering immense terror and pain."
The next day, when he went to school, he saw police cars parked downstairs, and the entire building entrance was cordoned off with long caution tape.
That woman was dead.
It was said that her death was extremely gruesome, and not just her; her entire family of three had died. The woman's husband and daughter had died even before her, and the entire house was filled with shattered flesh and organs.
But strangely, all the neighbors said they hadn't heard any cries for help or screams. Even the crying from that day hadn't been heard. It wasn't until the next morning, when a neighbor left their home, that they discovered blood flowing from under the woman's door, emitting a putrid smell, and only then did they call the police.
From that day on, Shi Yu knew that perhaps his luck wasn't just ordinary good luck.
He began to try and uncover what was special about himself. Finally, he figured out some patterns.
If he concentrated on achieving certain small things, and that thing wasn't contradictory, then he had a certain probability of making that thing succeed.
But it didn't always work, and when facing things he wanted to understand, he seemed to be able to vaguely sense some emotions. But except for encountering death events similar to that woman's, this ability wasn't very obvious.
It wasn't until a few days ago that he again felt fear from Liu Zunfu.
Only then did he begin to subtly tell him about evil spirits and fear, using the excuse of showing him novels. But clearly, Liu Zunfu just thought Shi Yu was trying to scare him in advance with horror novels and didn't take it seriously.
And today, Liu Zunfu is missing. Danger emanates from Hu Zihao.
But what about the homeroom teacher?
Shi Yu sat in his seat, lowered his head slightly, closed his eyes, cleared his mind, and concentrated on what had happened to Liu Zhipeng.
But there was no feedback.
"At least he didn't encounter that kind of thing."
Shi Yu breathed a sigh of relief, opened his eyes, and looked up at the blackboard.
But out of the corner of his eye, he saw Han He wasn't staring blankly downwards as usual, but was staring intently at him.
"Damn."
Shi Yu felt a little uneasy. He lowered his voice and quietly asked Han He:
"What's wrong? Is there something on my face?"
Han He looked at Shi Yu, narrowed his eyes slightly, and instead of answering Shi Yu's question, said something strange:
"What did you feel?"
"Huh?"
This was the second time Shi Yu had asked Han He this question today. But at the same time, he also felt a little guilty.
How did Han He know what he was doing?
"What do you mean, 'what did I feel'? I was just spacing out, wondering where the old man went. I didn't feel anything."
Shi Yu chuckled, but Han He was uncharacteristically different. He frowned, seemingly puzzled by something, but didn't say anything more. He stopped staring at Shi Yu and lowered his head to continue spacing out.
After a while, in a place Shi Yu couldn't see, Han He lightly drew a shallow question mark with a pencil in the corner of his book.
A few words were originally written in that corner.
"Witchcraft Ritual" -- Tenth Skill "Trance"