C10 – Strange Talk by the Lakeside

Zhou Wu and Li Mingfeng looked like rats that were scared out of their wits, especially Zhou Wu. Although he ran fast, he had to drag Mu Ying along with him. He didn’t know when it started, but Mu Ying became stiff and sluggish, and if she wasn’t called, she wouldn’t take a step.

 

“Run!”

 

The three hurriedly ran towards the back door of the school, the sound of running fading away. Although Zhuo Yu didn’t know why they came to Spring High School, he was also in a hurry because he was afraid that the boss would kill all the seniors.

 

 

Of course he wasn’t trying to save them, but he wanted to salvage the information. One more person alive was one more clue. Zhuo Yu hadn’t drained the information from Zhou Wu and the others yet.

 

 

“Let’s go after them.” Zhuo Yu made an instant decision, stuffed those few useful files into the file bag and packed it in the last grid space, then commanded Liu Jingyun to move.

 

 

Liu Jingyun could push the wheelchair much faster than he could turn the wheels himself, so the two of them followed closely behind Zhou Wu, but because she was so nervous, her grip loosened when she pushed him down the stairs, almost turning Zhuo Yu upside down.

 

 

Zhuo Yu also experienced riding a roller coaster in a wheelchair for the first time in his life. He tightly held onto the handrail, feeling that his most likely way of death was not to be ki-lled by the boss but to roll down the stairs and fall to death.

 

 

The boss’s action was very fast; Zhuo Yu had already seen the crocodile headman on the first floor stairs, and Zhou Wu and the others directly faced him.

 

 

Zhou Wu turned his head towards the corridor to run, but the main door of the hall was blocked by BOSS; he could only go to the classroom to break the window and escape.

 

 

The boss seemed to sense something; he stopped and hesitated for a moment, hesitantly looking in the direction of Zhuo Yu, but Zhuo Yu had long been hiding with Liu Jingyun in the corner of the staircase. The boss didn’t see anyone, so he continued to pursue.

 

 

But it was this pause of a few seconds that allowed Zhou Wu’s trio to rush into the chemistry classroom.

 

 

Zhou Wu and Li Mingfeng’s spirits had been strained to the extreme. The two of them rushed across the room, kicking over a bunch of tables, chairs, and experimental equipment. The sound of glass shattering was endless, and the ground was full of unknown reagents.

 

 

Zhou Wu just wanted to block the window, but the BOSS had already stepped into the room and threw a chair at them.

 

 

The chair was solid wood with iron, but the boss threw it as easily as a small stone, precisely knocking over the three pitiful survivors. The huge force even smashed Li Mingfeng against the wall, causing him to curl up like a shrimp.

 

 

Presumably, one of his ribs was broken by the impact.

 

 

Zhou Wu was really about to go crazy, and in his impotent rage, he pulled out his g-un and shot out the last of his bullets in a frenzy, but it was still as useless as before; he slammed the g-un on the ground in anger.

 

 

An accident happened here.

 

 

The fragments of a flying bullet hit the iron table leg, creating a spark that instantly ignited the wet reagents on the ground, turning the chemistry classroom into a sea of fire.

 

 

“The alcohol lamp… I broke the alcohol lamp!” Zhou Wu was already desperate; the rolling heat wave came and quickly swept through all the tables and chairs, the flames travelling down the floor all the way towards him.

 

 

But it didn’t end there. As the flames spread towards the podium, they didn’t know what explosive item was ignited, but with a rumble, the entire classroom exploded violently. The powerful shockwave directly shattered all the classroom’s windows in unison.

 

 

The boss was lifted back a step by the air wave. Zhou Wu was also affected by the explosion; he vomited out a mouthful of blo-od and fought to push Mu Ying out of the window, then he himself jumped out of the window as well, leaving only Li Mingfeng, whose bones were broken, lying on the ground, moaning in pain.

 

 

“Don’t leave me! Please, don’t leave me behind!”

 

 

Li Mingfeng wanted to escape, but the flames had already crawled up his body. The extreme heat coupled with the chemical additive made the flames as hard to extinguish as a hock. Li Mingfeng screamed in a twisted manner, almost tearing his vocal cords, and the boss stopped, just standing in the doorway, quietly watching the man being engulfed by the fire.

 

 

Li Mingfeng’s skin swelled and foamed, then turned black and shrank after being burned dry and dehydrated. Gradually, he stopped wailing.

 

 

[Actor Li Mingfeng is dead.] [Died in a fire.]

 

 

The relentless voice of the system came online, broadcasting the suffering of the survivors.

 

 

Only then did the boss turn around and leave. He wanted to continue chasing Zhou Wu through the main entrance, but this time, he sensed an even stronger presence; what he had just seen wasn’t an illusion; Zhuo Yu was really in this school!

 

 

The crocodile-headed man clenched his fists, and an unprecedented panic actually arose within him, as if he had returned to fifty years ago, becoming that useless Asha instead of a bloodthirsty monster.

 

 

Zhuo Yu couldn’t die; he couldn’t die here!

 

 

The boss met the flames and headed for the stairs, and the fire spread out from the chemistry classroom, engulfing the entire college building. Surprisingly, the BOSS was regarded as a supernatural power by the others, but his body could be injured and he felt pain like a normal human.

 

 

His skin started to develop prairie blisters, but he didn’t care; he just wanted to find Zhuo Yu.

 

 

On the school playground, Zhuo Yu and Zhou Wu collided.

 

 

Zhou Wu looked like he had seen a ghost; he was so startled that he probably took Zhuo Yu as a ghost that had come to claim his life, and without waiting for Zhuo Yu to call out to him, he tugged Mu Ying and ran as fast as he could.

 

 

Zhuo Yu silently withdrew his outstretched hand, feeling speechless at this.

 

 

“Your reaction was too fast! If we were any slower, we would have been burned to death as well.” Liu Jingyun’s heartbeat was so fast that it looked like it was going to come out of her mouth; she completely and utterly worshipped Zhuo Yu at this moment and was practically about to develop fangirl feelings.

 

 

Zhuo Yu, of course, escaped quickly because he had been wary of the third day’s punishment, so when he heard the crackling of the flames burning, he smashed the window with his fist and tumbled out through the window.

 

 

Liu Jinyun was still in a trance for a moment before she threw his wheelchair down and fled with him. Although she didn’t know why, she did as Zhuo Yu did.

 

 

The two got out of the school building before the explosion.

 

 

Zhuo Yu looked at the sea of blazing fire in front of him and couldn’t help but sigh at the curse of the Seven Day Talk. He hadn’t realised that even after leaving the forest range, the fire torture would still find its way to his door.

 

 

By the way, Asha.

 

 

Zhuo Yu thought that the boss, who acted so swiftly, must have left the school building and gone after the remaining people.

 

 

But he didn’t know that the terrifying boss who made people scared on the film set was like a big dog that was abandoned for the second time at the moment, and he was going crazy as he was weaving in and out of the sea of flames, classroom by classroom, going to look for Zhuo Yu, and his despair at the moment was even more bone-chilling than that of Li Mingfeng’s before he died.

 

 

The boss had long been dead; death wasn’t something he feared at all, but now he had to admit that he was afraid of death, afraid that Zhuo Yu would die.

 

 

He couldn’t find him…. Why couldn’t he find him?

 

 

When he was at the lakeside cabin, he personally held Zhuo Yu’s neck and looked into the other party’s eyes for a long time to confirm; if it was just a trick of those intruders, he would crush his neck without mercy.

 

 

But the reality was that Zhuo Yu really came back.

 

 

The boss simply couldn’t bear the pain of losing the other again; the pain of burning fire was nowhere near a millionth of what it was in the first place.

 

 

Zhuo Yu on the playground followed suit and frowned. He had felt that something was wrong before, and sure enough, the school that could allow people to sneak in easily could also easily have a fire. The reward was always proportional to the danger.

 

 

And now that foreboding that something was wrong was back.

 

 

He even wanted to rush into the fire, but he didn’t understand where that urge came from.

 

 

“Let’s get out of here!” Liu Jingyun pushed his wheelchair up and ran. God knew how she was so tenacious; she actually managed to use most of her physical strength.

 

 

Zhuo Yu didn’t object and was pushed all the way to the caravan parked on the side of the road.

 

 

The two of them drove the car away from the fire, and the rushing flames and smoke finally startled the townspeople.

 

 

Lights went on from house to house, residents dragged their families out of their houses, and the whole town was in chaos. But there seemed to be a leader among the residents; under the command of the strong man, they pushed the town’s fire alarm, and then everyone followed the order to use water basins to extinguish the flames in the near distance and stop the fire from spreading further.

 

 

Zhuo Yu wasn’t far away, and he stared at the crowd without looking away.

 

 

That leading man looked so much like Mu Ying.

 

 

Three fire engines came from a distance, and with the concerted efforts of the townspeople and fire fighters, the wild flames were finally extinguished. The flames came and went quickly, and as if it knew that there were no more targets in the school, it was extinguished with great pleasure.

 

 

The townspeople were in an uproar of chatter and crying children, and the man who had been organising the extinguishing of the fire waved his hand and told everyone to go back to their homes and to just leave the rest to the fire marshals.

 

 

After giving the final instructions, he left the scene with a headache and walked towards home.

 

 

Zhuo Yu and Liu Jingyun seemed to have a strange tacit understanding. The two of them looked at each other, and together they made up their minds to follow this man.

 

 

Judging from his behaviour and mannerisms, as well as his excessive resemblance to Mu Ying, Zhuo Yu decided that this man was the character Nina’s father, the Mayor of Spring Town.

 

 

The two of them had followed Zhou Wu before, so now that they were following the mayor of the town, they were already familiar with the road.

 

 

The mayor’s house wasn’t far away, they walked more than ten minutes before they arrived. By the time the lights inside the house were turned off, Zhuo Yu had already found a good place to enter.

 

 

He turned his wheelchairs, went close to the drainpipe, and then, just like a professional rock climber, grabbed the small platform where the pipe was connected, forcefully supported his body, and then used his hand to go up to feel for a new pipe section.

 

 

Liu Jingyun had previously thought that she wouldn’t be surprised if Zhuo Yu did anything else, but now, her pupils once again quaked as she asked incredulously, “Aren’t you unable to walk?!”

 

 

Zhuo Yu’s entire body weight was dragging on his arms; he couldn’t hold on for long, so he briefly explained, “I specialised in exercising the upper body.”

 

 

His upper body was indeed very strong, because as a perfectionist, not being able to move his legs was already hard enough to accept; he didn’t want the part of him that could move to be so frail as well, so he worked out day in and day out, and disability climbing was even more of a sport that could work out the entire upper body, so how could he miss it?

 

 

Zhuo Yu’s whole body was now hanging in mid-air; the only point of focus was his hands.

 

 

“I can’t move my lower body, so push me.” He gritted out with great effort.

 

 

Liu Jingyun looked left and right and finally found a nearby street bin. She pushed the bin to the base of the wall, stood on it, and pushed Zhuo Yu’s legs upwards with force, allowing Zhuo Yu to touch the window sill of the first floor at once.

 

 

He climbed up a notch again, lifted the glass window, and tumbled into the cottage after a second upward push from Liu Jinyun.

 

 

The room Zhuo Yu entered seemed to be a bedroom, and in the dim moonlight, he saw a woman lying on the bed, she rubbed her eyes, woken up by the sound.

 

 

“Sleep, sleep.” Zhuo Yu looked at the woman’s wandering eyes, and when their eyes met, she quietly closed her eyes.

 

 

Zhuo Yu breathed a sigh of relief as he adjusted his posture to sit upright, leaning against the corner of the wall.

 

 

The physical exertion required to climb to the second floor was extremely exaggerated, as rock climbing itself was a test of comprehensive quality. He worked hard to calm his breathing and planned to recover some strength before embarking on exploration.

 

 

Just then, the woman’s frightened voice rang out.

 

 

“Who are you? Why are you in my room?”

 

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TN:

I moved apartments, sorry bout the delay. I’m still not settled in, but I’ll try to update tomorrow. I’m like 80% sure I will but something might come up ✌️.