Translator: CinderTL
Even if Xiao Yao was slow-witted, she knew she had encountered something unclean. But now it was too late to regret it; her entire body was beyond her control.
Just as her mind was in utter chaos, she suddenly heard a different sound—a slow, drawn-out scraping.
It was like a dull knife slicing through her nerves.
The sound came from the direction of the circulation desk.
In the next instant, Xiao Yao's breath quickened, and her pupils snapped shut. Though she couldn't turn her head to look, she already knew what was happening.
It was the chair! The scraping sound was the chair's legs dragging across the floor!
Someone had moved the chair!
No, that wasn't right. Someone had been sitting in the chair all along, but she hadn't been able to see them.
Her guess was soon confirmed. She heard footsteps—each step heavy and slow, so deliberate that she could tell the person was unusually tall.
She struggled desperately to regain control of her body, but it was utterly futile.
Creak—
"A gate has opened."
Xiao Yao's face twitched. She could distinctly feel a wave of icy dread closing in on her. That terrifying thing was emerging from the lending desk.
She didn't know what it was, nor did she dare guess.
Thump.
Thump.
The footsteps grew closer, heading straight toward them. Xiao Yao desperately tried to reassure herself that the thing might not be targeting her specifically. After all, there were so many other people here.
Yet she knew deep down that she was mostly lying to herself.
If she didn't do this, she'd faint right now, or even die of fright on the spot.
Finally, the death knell of footsteps stopped. Xiao Yao could confirm that the thing had stopped at the first table.
She was sitting at the third.
As the thing drew closer, a charred, acrid smell filled Xiao Yao's nostrils—like burnt meat. The more she inhaled, the more her stomach churned.
Simultaneously, the clatter of metal chains scraping against each other filled the air.
Xiao Yao couldn't even begin to imagine what this thing was, or what it looked like. It seemed to have transcended her understanding.
But she soon lost the time to think about it. The thing moved again, approaching the second table, leaving less than five meters between them.
The stench of burning flesh nearly made her faint.
She could feel control of her body gradually returning. Her fingertips were already capable of small movements.
If she had enough time, she could escape.
But life offered no "ifs" or "buts," only consequences.
Regret, anxiety, fear, helplessness—a dozen complex emotions swirled together, completely crushing the inexperienced young woman.
She was barely twenty years old, with her whole life ahead of her. She didn't want to die.
Tears burst forth, streaming down her cheeks and dripping onto her notebook, blurring the words and making everything hazy.
As the charred, foul-smelling creature took heavy steps toward her table, Xiao Yao gave up resisting.
She slowly closed her eyes.
"It's all over," she thought.
But suddenly, her eyes snapped open. A hand had grabbed her wrist—the young man who had been sitting beside her, the one she remembered wearing a long black trench coat.
In the next instant, the hand yanked her from her chair, sending her crashing to the floor. Xiao Yao landed hard, but she ignored the pain, instead moving her limbs in surprise. To her astonishment, she could move!
Her first instinct was to run, to get away from this place. But though her limbs could move, they were sluggish, as if frozen. She knew she wouldn't get far before that thing behind her caught up.
Gritting her teeth, she ducked under the table.
Then it hit her: her notebook was still on the table. If that thing found it, it would surely realize someone else was here.
Just as Xiao Yao was frozen in panic, a notebook was quickly tossed under the table—the same hand, belonging to the young man who had been sitting beside her.
But this time, from this angle, she saw it clearly: a golden emblem embroidered on the young man's cuff.
It was small yet exquisite, radiating a faint glow even in the darkness, as if offering hope to those shrouded in shadow.
Xiao Yao instinctively reached out to pull the young man under the table as well, but before she could, the heavy footsteps arrived.
Logically, hiding under the table, Xiao Yao should have been able to see the creature's legs and shoes. But she saw nothing.
Standing before her was a terrifying thing, its stench of burnt flesh so thick it was almost tangible.
Yet she couldn't see it.
Covering her mouth and holding her breath, she witnessed a scene she would never forget.
The young man who had saved her began to tremble under the table. A few seconds later, his black leather shoes lifted off the ground, struggling to rise as if someone had grabbed him by the head and yanked him upward.
Then, with a whoosh, flames erupted from his body.
It was as if he had been doused in gasoline. His entire body was engulfed in searing flames, crackling and sputtering as oily substances dripped onto the floor, continuing to burn.
Even more terrifying, Xiao Yao, who had been hiding under the table just inches away, felt no heat at all. In fact, the air around her seemed to grow colder.
The monstrous entity didn't seem satisfied. Several other people at the tables began to burn simultaneously, their piercing screams repeatedly assaulting Xiao Yao's nerves.
She clutched her ears tightly, squeezed her eyes shut, and desperately tried to escape this Nightmare.
The sight of more than a dozen people burning alive at the same time was too much for Xiao Yao to bear. She finally succumbed, her head lolling to the side as she slipped into unconsciousness.
Yuan Xiaoyi paused for a moment, as if giving herself and Jiang Cheng a chance to recover. After a few seconds, she continued, "When she woke up again, it was the next day. The librarian found her."
"The door to the third-floor warehouse was open, and she was lying inside. They took her to the School Doctor's Office. When she came to, she struggled violently for a while. They say it took two grown men to hold her down."
"Finally, they had to give her a sedative to calm her down."
"You can't imagine it. Even in her semi-conscious state, she kept repeating her memory of that event."
"But the strange thing is, according to the librarian and security personnel who examined the scene, the gate leading to the fourth floor was locked. She couldn't have gotten in."
(End of the Chapter)
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