"I can confirm that the time was after 21:00, but whether it was past midnight, I'm not sure..."

There were too few environmental factors, simply not enough for a complete assessment.

Lin Yi didn't even know why Mao Feiyang was running in the first place.

"How are you feeling?" Just then, Mu Daxian, who was running ahead, abruptly stopped and turned to look at Mao Feiyang.

Mao Feiyang leaned on his knees, gasping for air, "I feel... okay, just a bit tired."

Mu Daxian grabbed Mao Feiyang's arm and inspected it, his eyebrows slightly furrowed, "I don't know if you can hold on..."

Mao Feiyang pursed his lips and didn't speak.

Only then did Lin Yi notice that Mao Feiyang's hand had acquired a wound, which wasn't serious—in fact, it was a common wound. However, in the eyes of Mu Daxian, it seemed like a significant problem.

"When did you get this injury?" A question popped into Lin Yi's mind.

At that moment, the image of Mao Feiyang stumbling and rolling down into the Green Forest Belt on his way to the cafeteria flashed before his eyes.

"Was it... then?"

Mao Feiyang looked alright at the time, but there was a scrape on his hand that he probably didn't feel initially due to the body's emergency response.

"Go wash your wound first." Mu Daxian led Mao Feiyang to the restroom, "We need to wait until after midnight to find the elevator... We still have more than an hour."

Mao Feiyang gritted his teeth, nodded firmly, then silently proceeded to the restroom, turned on the faucet, and began to wash his wound, while Mu Daxian stood not far away, vigilantly observing the surrounding environment.

Lin Yi took the opportunity to closely observe Mao Feiyang's scrape.

Honestly, the scrape wasn't anything serious. Many people get worse scrapes than this playing basketball. Mao Feiyang might have realized he was injured when he picked himself up from the ground, but he didn't make a big deal out of it.

But honestly, who could expect this?

Lin Yi quickly noticed something unusual. He could now see the green Qi winding around Mao Feiyang's body, but from the wound flowed a breath that was several times thicker than the green mist.

"Could it be that blood is a carrier of contamination?" Lin Yi pondered.

Everything requires a medium, especially when it comes to the concept of "energy," which is unlikely to be ambiguous.

Although "contamination" was still a somewhat vague concept for them, it was even more important not to mince words because of it.

In simple terms, you might not understand, but you can't be unaware.

"When Xu Shunkang first mentioned it, he said that Experience Students, after being contaminated, would continue to transform their bodies, eventually turning into a Nocturnal species. But he didn't explain the principle. Now, it seems that the Supernatural Power containing the 'contamination' breath must have penetrated into the blood, thereby altering the form of life from the cellular level and even deeper..."

Tomato sauce is the blood, the tomato is the heart.

Could this merely be the body's perception system's understanding of that contaminating substance?

"Tomato Element" must be a kind of cognitive feedback.

The brain insists on understanding something essentially incomprehensible, so it uses "tomato," the most similar concept, to "define" this cognition.

Like... explaining the concept of "Qi."

It can't be explained; because it can't be explained, a definition is directly provided.

Everyone stop trying to explain it, that thing is "Qi," and over time, it becomes a "supposed to be" perception.

This is an "overwrite"—a direct overwrite at the level of everyone.

Just as if everyone in the world calls a certain bird "crow," then it is a "crow," whether it is a crow or not, at most it's just a somewhat different crow.

Suddenly, his gaze sharpened as he saw water flush over Mao Feiyang's wound, causing some thick blood to seep out...

At first, this blood was still blood, but as it mixed with the water and washed into the sink, a green mist started to emanate from the drain, and Lin Yi felt as if he could see Mao Feiyang's blood turn into tomato sauce in the sewer pipes.

After washing for a while, a trace of unnatural pallor emerged on Mao Feiyang's dark face, as if this small amount of blood could cost him his life.

Mao Feiyang's arm also showed an unnatural shade of bluish-gray, his skin somewhat resembling the bronze figures unearthed from Sanxingdui...

"Enough, time to change locations..." Mu Daxian turned around to advise.

Suddenly——

"Careful!!!"

Mu Daxian's voice suddenly rose by an octave, and he rushed toward Mao Feiyang without a moment's hesitation.

Mao Feiyang's heart skipped a beat, feeling instantly the sense of crisis as if the scythe of the Grim Reaper were slicing down toward him. At the same time, a shadow engulfed him...

"Damn!" he cursed under his breath, reflexively dodging backward a bit.

He didn't know what was coming, but his instinctive reaction made him unconsciously move closer toward Mu Daxian's position behind him.

Mu Daxian soared into action, swapping places with him in an instant. At the same time, Mu Daxian whipped out the painting board like Master Xing from Food God pulls out a folding stool to flatten someone, striking a pitch-black entity with the corner of the board!

'Bang!'

The thing flew back like a tennis ball, crashing heavily into the men's restroom.

Mao Feiyang watched the wriggling mass in the restroom with horror and unconsciously swallowed.

Mu Daxian glanced at the thing, then turned on the faucet and walked away.

"Let's go!" Mu Daxian didn't press the attack but chose to retreat on the spot.

"Don't just stand there dazed, hurry up!"

Seeing Mao Feiyang still unable to move, Mu Daxian reminded him again.

Mao Feiyang quickly shifted his gaze away and then turned and followed Mu Daxian into the stairwell.

Only Lin Yi, who dared to stare fixedly at the shadow in the men's restroom because he was in a dream and had no concerns, remained.

Since Mao Feiyang was moving away from there, his vision also started to darken at an incredibly fast speed.

Whether it was an issue with his vision or the environment had indeed changed, he noticed the incandescent light in the restroom began to flicker.

In that flickering, dimly lit environment, the wriggling mass slowly stood up and gradually took on a human form.

It slowly moved across the floor and finally reached the window, a pair of pupil-less eyes staring fixedly at the back of Mao Feiyang.

By the fleeting light, Lin Yi could vaguely make out the face of the human-shaped entity. At that moment, his pupils shrank sharply. It was actually—

"Liangzi?!"

Inside the window of the men's restroom, a Wei Liang with wide open yet pupil-less eyes and his signature sickly smile, was staring at Mao Feiyang's back.

It had no pupils, so its gaze was indiscernible, but Lin Yi felt it was intense and even spirited.

Behind that "Wei Liang," shadows in the restroom, like cobra standing erect and swaying, started to emerge into Lin Yi's view from the dim light. They... all looked like Wei Liang!

[I... am Wei... Liang...]

[I'm trapped... save me...]

[Save me...]

The intermittent, hoarse voices, like the chanting of soul-reapers, drifted towards Mao Feiyang, but his figure had already disappeared into the stairwell.

Lin Yi's vision was also dragged away along with it.

Seeing those "Wei Liangs," Lin Yi felt an icy chill through his entire body, as if a person lounging in big shorts on a hot summer night was suddenly thrown into an Arctic cellar.

The utter cold and the terrifying horror enveloped him in an instant, making his scalp tingle and go numb!

"Wait a minute..." A surge of electricity shot through Lin Yi's mind, "Could it be...?!"

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