49: Chapter 49 The person inside the door is still stuck twenty years in the past.

Click.

Inside Classroom 104, behind the sealed strips, came another soft knock.

It wasn't heavy.

It was even somewhat weak, as if the person inside had been knocking for many years, finally waiting for someone outside to respond.

"Who is outside?"

"The practical training class..."

"Is it over?"

As soon as this sentence came out, the corridor fell instantly silent.

Chen Ye's hand, which he had just raised in preparation to celebrate, froze stiffly in mid-air.

He swallowed a mouthful of saliva.

"Is there someone inside?"

Shen Tingxue looked at the door wrapped in black sealed strips, her gaze sinking.

"Not an ordinary person."

Lin Jin did not answer.

His gaze rested on the doorplate.

[104]

The doorplate had reappeared.

But it wasn't as smooth as an ordinary doorplate.

Its surface was covered in rust, and the edges had scorch marks.

Even more eerie was that those black sealed strips weren't stuck on the outside of the door.

Instead, it was as if they had grown from inside the door, piercing through the door panel, and binding it tightly from the outside.

This meant that Classroom 104 hadn't been sealed from the outside.

It had been forcibly sealed by the rules after the incident occurred inside.

The Hand of Rules slowly unfolded.

[Target: Classroom 104]

[Current Status: Sealed Existence]

[Test Judgment: First Item Passed]

[Residual Anomaly: 104 Incident echo leakage]

[Warning: Do not open the door]

[Warning: Do not regard the voice inside the door as a real person]

104 Incident echo.

Lin Jin's eyes narrowed slightly.

Not a living person.

Nor a simple ghost.

It was an echo left behind by that incident all those years ago.

Like a segment of an unfinished recording on an old cassette tape, sealed inside Classroom 104, it had started playing again twenty years later.

Chen Ye asked in a low voice:

"Should we reply?"

Lin Jin immediately said:

"Don't."

Almost at the same time, the young man's voice inside the door sounded again.

"Hello?"

"Is anyone there?"

"Has the teacher arrived?"

"Something... seems to have happened on our side."

The voice carried a suppressed panic.

It wasn't exaggerated.

It wasn't shrill.

Instead, it was so real that it made one's skin crawl.

Because it didn't sound like a monster's lure.

It sounded more like a young student trying to call for help when the incident had just occurred.

Frost slightly condensed on Shen Tingxue's fingertips.

"He is trying to bring us back to the scene of the incident."

Lin Jin nodded.

"As long as we answer, it is equivalent to admitting that we are part of the practical training class from back then."

Chen Ye's face became even uglier.

"So we can't answer anything it asks inside?"

"At least not right now."

Lin Jin looked toward the door of Classroom 104.

The requirement for the first test was to fix a classroom that didn't exist.

Now the classroom had been fixed in the form of a "Sealed Existence."

Logically, the test should have ended once passed.

But with the echo inside Classroom 104 starting to leak, it meant that while they had restored its "existence," they had also allowed the record of the incident from back then to have an outlet again.

If not handled, this door would inevitably cause trouble sooner or later.

Just at this moment, slight footsteps sounded at the other end of the corridor.

Teacher Xu Wenzhou reappeared from the doorway of Office 105.

He looked at that door of Classroom 104, and the gentleness on his face completely vanished.

"I told you."

"You would regret it."

Chen Ye immediately raised his shield.

"You still dare to come out?"

Teacher Xu Wenzhou did not look at him.

His gaze was fixed tightly on the door of Classroom 104, as if looking at a corpse that refused to be buried.

"You fixed it back."

"Do you know what you have done?"

Lin Jin said indifferently:

"I fixed a non-existent loophole into a Sealed Existence."

"At least it's better than you letting it continue to rot inside the wall."

Teacher Xu Wenzhou's voice lowered by a few degrees.

"You think that's called a loophole?"

"That's called a tombstone."

Shen Tingxue looked at him.

"In the 104 Incident, Shen Qingshuang went missing."

"You were also in the practical training group at that time."

Teacher Xu Wenzhou's eyes flickered slightly.

"You investigated very quickly."

"The photo was given to me by you."

Shen Tingxue's voice was very cold.

"You want me to know, yet you don't want me to go in."

Teacher Xu Wenzhou was silent for a moment.

Then he said:

"Because after you go in, you will be the same as her."

Chen Ye frowned.

"Can you stop saying 'dead' or 'missing' every other word?"

"Will it kill you to explain things clearly?"

Teacher Xu Wenzhou smiled slightly.

That smile had no warmth.

"Yes."

"Some things, once explained clearly, will happen all over again."

Lin Jin looked at him.

"What exactly happened inside Classroom 104?"

Teacher Xu Wenzhou did not answer.

However, the young voice inside the door suddenly sounded again.

"Teacher Xu Wenzhou!"

The corridor instantly went quiet.

Chen Ye looked sharply at Teacher Xu Wenzhou.

The young man's voice inside the door was actually calling his name.

"Teacher Xu Wenzhou!"

"Did you hear that?"

"Don't close the door!"

"Shen Qingshuang is still inside!"

Teacher Xu Wenzhou's face turned pale abruptly.

At this moment, he no longer resembled that composed Admissions Teacher.

Instead, he looked like a person caught by a nightmare from twenty years ago.

His fingers trembled slightly.

"Shut up."

He said in a low voice.

Yet the voice inside the door of Classroom 104 continued to sound.

"Teacher Xu Wenzhou!"

"You promised you would come back!"

"You said it was just a temporary seal on the door!"

"You said the teacher would save us!"

Boom!

The door panel of Classroom 104 suddenly shook.

The black sealed strips tightened, as if being yanked hard by the person inside.

The Hand of Rules immediately issued an alarm.

[Incident echo intensity rising]

[Emotional resonance from external personnel detected]

[Target: Teacher Xu Wenzhou]

[Risk: Sealed door loosening]

Lin Jin understood immediately.

Teacher Xu Wenzhou could not get close to Classroom 104.

He was a participant in the incident back then, and also a strong association object for this echo of the incident.

His emotions would make the records inside the door more active.

"Chen Ye."

Lin Jin said in a deep voice.

"Keep him away."

Chen Ye immediately raised his shield to block in front of Teacher Xu Wenzhou.

"Did you hear that?"

"Back off."

Teacher Xu Wenzhou stared at the door.

"You don't understand."

"That is not an ordinary echo."

"That is the last record left behind by the people eaten by Classroom 104."

"It will use a real voice to make you feel like you still have a chance to remedy the situation."

"And then drag you inside."

Lin Jin looked toward the crack of the door of Classroom 104.

The door crack did not open.

But a bit of black chalk dust had already started to seep out from under the door.

Those chalk dusts slowly formed characters on the ground.

[Practical training class unfinished]

[Absent personnel: Three people]

[Please complete the group]

Chen Ye's scalp tingled when he saw this line of text.

"Complete the group?"

"It doesn't want us to go in for class, does it?"

The Hand of Rules provided a prompt.

[Residual rules of 104 Incident detected]

[Current logic: Practical training class interrupted]

[If absent personnel are completed, the practical training class will be restarted]

[Warning: Do not complete]

Shen Tingxue's gaze turned cold.

"It wants to find substitutes."

Lin Jin nodded.

"However many people were missing in Classroom 104 back then, it wants to fill that many people now."

And there were exactly three of them.

Lin Jin.

Shen Tingxue.

Chen Ye.

The numbers matched up.

This was definitely not a coincidence.

The first test had them find Classroom 104.

But what was truly dangerous was that after Classroom 104 was restored, it would automatically search for the absent personnel from the incident back then.

If they were dragged inside, they would become the substitute students for that practical training class.

Chen Ye gritted his teeth and said:

"Then what do we do?"

"The door can't be opened, people can't go in, and it keeps knocking inside."

Lin Jin looked at the chalk words on the ground.

"Fixing Classroom 104 back doesn't mean letting the course continue."

"We have to provide it with an ending."

Chen Ye was stunned.

"How do we provide it?"

Lin Jin looked up at the half-line of remaining words on the blackboard bulletin.

[Rule Maintenance Special Class, No...]

The words after were erased.

There was a course schedule in 101.

There were equipment records in 102.

There were meeting resolutions in 105.

Only one item was missing.

A course completion record.

Whether a class has ended doesn't depend on the students shouting, nor on the people inside the door saying so.

It depends on the teacher's record.

The reason the 104 Incident kept repeating was because the practical training class hadn't officially ended after being interrupted.

People later chose to erase Classroom 104, rather than giving that class a legitimate termination.

That was why it had always remained in an "unfinished" state.

Lin Jin's eyes lit up bit by bit.

"We won't enter Classroom 104."

"And we won't supply students."

"We will provide a course completion record."

Teacher Xu Wenzhou looked at him sharply.

"What do you want to do?"

"Fix the procedure."

Lin Jin took out the four anchor points he had collected just now.

Course schedule.

Doorplate traces.

Fragmented grouping table.

Meeting records.

Then he walked toward the temporary office in 105.

Teacher Xu Wenzhou immediately wanted to stop him.

Chen Ye's shield was held horizontally in front of him.

"Don't move."

"If you move again, I will really hit you with the door panel."

Teacher Xu Wenzhou gritted his teeth.

"Lin Jin, you cannot write the course completion record indiscriminately!"

"That class has not ended!"

Lin Jin stopped his steps and looked back at him.

"Of course it hasn't ended."

"That's why it needs to be provided."

Teacher Xu Wenzhou's voice became heavy.

"If the record is written incorrectly, Classroom 104 will list you all in as well."

Lin Jin said indifferently:

"Then I won't write it incorrectly."

In the 105 office, that meeting record book was still open.

Lin Jin flipped to the end.

Sure enough, behind the meeting resolutions, there was a blank page.

The page title was:

[104 Practical Training Class Completion Record]

The columns below were empty.

[Course Status:]

[Participating Personnel:]

[Incident Handling:]

[Final Conclusion:]

Seeing these columns, Lin Jin was instantly certain in his heart.

The true first test hadn't fully ended yet.

Fixing Classroom 104 was only the first half.

The second half was to let Classroom 104 exist in a correct state.

It couldn't be non-existent.

Nor could it be continuing the class.

It had to be a sealed completion.

The Hand of Rules unfolded.

[Target: 104 Practical Training Class Completion Record]

[Status: Missing]

[Maintenance Plan: Complete the completion logic based on existing anchor points]

[Risk: Writing incorrectly will trigger a restart of 104]

Lin Jin picked up the old fountain pen on the table.

The pen had no ink.

He cut his fingertip and moistened the pen with blood.

Chen Ye at the door felt his teeth ache watching.

"Why are you drawing blood again?"

Shen Tingxue frowned slightly, but did not stop him.

Because she also saw it.

This kind of old rule document required real anchor points.

Ordinary ink was not enough.

Lin Jin first wrote the first column.

[Course Status: Abnormally Terminated]

Not completed.

Nor canceled.

It was abnormally terminated.

After this line was written down, the knocking sound inside Classroom 104 noticeably stopped for a moment.

Second column.

[Participating Personnel: Seven people from the original practical training group]

He did not write specific names.

Because the fragmented table was incomplete.

Rashly writing one wrong name could potentially fill the current people in.

Seven people from the original practical training group was the safest expression derived from existing records.

The third column was the most critical.

[Incident Handling: Classroom 104 enters a Sealed Existence state, prohibiting the completion of absent personnel, prohibiting the restarting of the practical training class]

Writing up to here, a violent impact suddenly came from inside Classroom 104.

Boom!

Boom!

Boom!

That young voice became urgent.

"You can't complete the course!"

"We haven't come out yet!"

"Teacher Xu Wenzhou!"

"Are you going to close the door again!"

Teacher Xu Wenzhou's face was pale, his body shivering slightly.

Chen Ye was blocking him tightly.

Shen Tingxue stood in front of the door of Classroom 104, using frost to suppress the black chalk dust that kept seeping out.

"Lin Jin."

"Hurry."

Lin Jin took a deep breath and wrote down the last column.

[Final Conclusion: 104 Incident not resolved, but this practical training class has been terminated. Subsequent handling requires consulting the master files; it must not be restarted by way of substitute students.]

The last stroke fell.

The entire meeting record book lit up abruptly.

The banging sound inside Classroom 104 came to an abrupt halt.

The corridor was terrifyingly quiet.

A few seconds later, the young man's voice inside Classroom 104 sounded again.

This time, it was no longer urgent.

Instead, it was very light.

"Is the course completed?"

No one answered.

Nor could they answer.

After a long time, the voice laughed lowly.

"So..."

"It has already been twenty years."

The black sealed strips slowly tightened.

The doorplate of 104 stabilized.

The chalk dust writing on the ground dissipated line by line.

[104 Practical Training Class Completion Record has been completed]

[Incident echo leakage stopped]

[First test completion degree: Excellent]

Lin Jin put down the fountain pen.

His fingertips were still bleeding.

But he didn't sigh with relief immediately.

Because at the end of the meeting record, new words slowly emerged.

[Second test initiated]

[Please candidates enter in front of the door of 104, and without opening the door, retrieve the legacy item inside the door]

After reading it, Chen Ye's eyes almost popped out.

"Without opening the door, retrieve things from inside the door?"

"What kind of perverted question is this?"

Teacher Xu Wenzhou looked at that line of text, his face already sinking completely.

"Legacy item..."

He muttered in a low voice.

"It is still inside."