The living quarters seemed unusually empty at this moment. Most of the intern staff had been herded to the third canteen by the broadcast, leaving only a scattered few still wandering the paths.
Lin Xiao stopped at the stairwell leading to the second floor. Instead of immediately ascending, she turned to whisper instructions to her companion behind her: "Don't be in a hurry to return to the room. Wait a moment."
Wang Ruofei’s reaction was a beat too slow. Her eyes, originally somewhat vacant, blinked slowly, as if she were being roused from a deep nightmare. It took several seconds for her to regain a semblance of sentience from her dullness, and she nodded mechanically. "Okay."
Lin Xiao didn’t look away immediately; instead, she scrutinized her companion for a moment longer.
Without careful observation, it was difficult to distinguish Wang Ruofei’s current state from that of the intern employees wandering outside the canteen. The erosion of human logical thinking by the instance was subtle and imperceptible. Even though Lin Xiao had been consciously resisting this influence, she remained unable to completely halt the gradual dulling of her companion's mind.
Wang Ruofei stood obediently in place, docile as a programmed puppet. Following Lin Xiao's gaze, the two stood side by side, peering out through the floor-to-ceiling window of the first-floor lobby.
Outside lay a stretch of gray-white concrete. The road was lined with tender green grass, the blades adorned with crystal-clear dewdrops. At first glance, the scene could even be described as vibrant; only the few eerie red flowers nestled in the soil hinted that this was not a normal reality.
A breeze brushed past, and the grass tips swayed mindlessly. Colorless water droplets slid down the blades, expanding rapidly the instant they touched the ground, instantly dyed into a rich, viscous crimson—
Bang!
A dull thud suddenly exploded in the air.
A body plummeted from the sky without warning, smashing heavily onto the concrete ground, instantly shattering into an unrecognizable pulp of flesh and blood.
Splattered flesh and specks of blood sprayed directly onto the glass window, right in Lin Xiao’s line of sight.
Her vision was instantly veiled in crimson. Although separated by thick glass, with no foreign matter directly touching her body, the intense visual impact still triggered a phantom sensation of foreign bodies beneath her eyelids.
Subconsciously, she raised her hand, her fingertips lightly touching her own eye.
The shattered flesh on the glass was slowly sliding down, dragging out shocking trails of blood.
A sudden constricting pain gripped her arm.
—At the instant the tragedy occurred, Wang Ruofei had instinctively taken a step back, seizing Lin Xiao’s arm in a death grip, attempting to drag her companion away from this terrifying place.
But she failed to budge her even an inch.
Lin Xiao stood like a tree nailed to the ground, staring motionlessly at the gruesome spectacle outside. This extreme environment seemed to have stripped away her usual gentle disguise, revealing the steely coldness in her bones without reservation. "Wait for me right here. Don't move."
Her voice carried a chill that brooked no argument. Cowed by this aura, Wang Ruofei forgot to resist.
Lin Xiao gave her companion’s shoulder a reassuring pat, then turned, pushed open the door, and rushed out.
The wind whistled past her ears as she rounded the corner of the building at top speed, rushing onto the concrete ground behind the dormitory—that gory pulp of a corpse was still there.
Lin Xiao keenly caught a detail: previously, when the instance processed corpses, it always chose moments when no one was watching.
This led her to a bold speculation—the instance seemed unwilling to openly display anomalies before the intern staff. As long as someone kept their eyes fixed on the scene, the corpse would temporarily remain in its current state.
Meanwhile, Wang Ruofei stood behind the window in a trance. Though fear and confusion nearly drowned her, the last shred of reason in her mind restrained her impulse to flee; she stared fixedly at the pool of bright red minced meat on the ground, never once averting her gaze.
Lin Xiao walked quickly to the corpse and looked up. All the windows on the upper floors were tightly closed, making it impossible to determine from which floor the deceased had fallen.
She crouched down and began to rummage quickly.
The body was severely mangled, and there were few useful items on it. From the blur of flesh and blood, Lin Xiao retrieved a temporary identification card and a key marked "B-304."