91: First

As soon as they stepped into the passage, the terrifying pressure that had been shrouding the altar instantly lightened significantly. Replacing it was a more direct, cold malice that crept up their ankles and burrowed into the gaps of their bones.

Jiang Ning walked in the lead, carrying the fire suit Fang Che had given her. The path beneath her feet was no longer soft, slimy flesh but a cold, hard material that made a crisp "clack-clack" sound with every step. On the fleshy walls on both sides of the passage, the school rules written in fresh blood emitted a faint red light, which shone on everyone's faces, making them look incredibly eerie.

The air was filled with a thick, musty odor of rotting paper.

Jiang Ning growled in a low voice within the narrow passage. "Don't you fucking fall asleep! Stay sharp!"

Mu Waner and Gu Nanzhi followed closely behind her, and behind them were a dozen or so girls trembling with fear, all huddled tightly together for fear of being left behind.

The fleshy walls at the entrance of the passage suddenly closed up, completely cutting off their retreat.

A new line of blood-red text appeared on the wall in front of them, the color vivid and fresh, with viscous liquid still seeping from its surface.

[Academic Affairs Office Rule 1: You must be punctual when handling affairs. For those who are late, a part of their body will be permanently kept by the school.]

[Academic Affairs Office Rule 2: The door to the Academic Affairs Office ahead will close in three minutes. We will not wait for latecomers.]

The moment the blood-red text appeared, a heavy metal door at the end of the passage swung open with a boom. Strangely, after the door opened, it began to slowly recede backward.

Jiang Ning cursed in a panic and immediately broke into a sprint toward the receding door. "Three minutes? Fuck! Don't just stand there, run!"

After running a few steps, she felt that something was completely wrong; the passage was actually growing longer.

She sprinted with all her might, watching the bone-like floor fly backward beneath her feet, but the distance between her and the metal door not only failed to shorten, it was actually being pulled further away little by little. No matter how fast she ran, the destination always remained further away in her line of sight.

Jiang Ning's eyes turned red with anxiety. The three-minute time limit made her heart pound wildly; for every second delayed, the hope of survival diminished by a fraction.

"Fuck! What the hell is going on here!"

The girls following behind also noticed this bizarre phenomenon, and panic spread rapidly through the group.

A shrill, miserable scream suddenly came from the back of the line. "Ah! Help!"

A girl, running too hastily, tripped over a protruding bone and fell heavily to the ground.

The moment she fell, the red light of the three characters for "Latecomer" on the wall flared brilliantly, and a beam of blood-red light shot out from the wall, landing precisely on the girl's left hand.

There was no gruesome scene, nor any tearing pain. The girl's left pinky finger vanished into thin air. The skin, flesh, and even bone starting from the base of the finger were completely erased in an extremely short time, leaving only a smooth, flat stump without even a single drop of blood flowing out.

The girl stared at her empty palm for a few seconds before bursting into heart-wrenching wails. "My finger! My finger is gone!"

This bizarre scene filled everyone present with a profound sense of fear.

Jiang Ning glanced at the girl wailing on the ground, then looked toward the increasingly distant door. She gritted her teeth hard and turned around, ready to rush back. "Fuck! Stop crying, I'll carry you!"

A cold hand suddenly grabbed her arm tightly. "Don't go, Jiang Ning! It's useless!"

Gu Nanzhi stood there, her face devoid of any panic. "This isn't a matter of speed; it's a rule. We can't beat it with brute force."

Jiang Ning turned back to stare at her. "Then what do you propose we do! We can't just sit here and wait to die!"

Gu Nanzhi's gaze swept rapidly over the dense, blood-red school rules on the walls on both sides of the passage. "There must be a way... The Principal relies on rules to gain power, but the rules themselves are dead things. As long as it's a rule, there must be loopholes or aspects we can exploit!"

Gu Nanzhi turned her head sharply to look at the pale-faced Mu Waner beside her. "Waner! Quickly, check those old school rules on the wall and see if there's any information we overlooked that we can still use!"

Mu Waner took a deep breath, forcing herself to steady her breathing, and closed her eyes. When she opened them again, a faint light was glowing in the depths of her eyes.

Less than three seconds into her scan, Mu Waner let out a muffled groan, and two lines of blood flowed directly from her nostrils. Although the power of the rules here was not as overbearing as the Principal's main body, it still carried intense contamination and backlash.

"Ugh!" Jiang Ning exclaimed in alarm. "Waner, are you okay!"

Mu Waner gritted her back teeth and pointed to a corner of the wall. "I can still hold on... Found it! Over there! There's a plaque covered by a blood scab!"

Everyone looked in the direction she pointed. Among the large expanse of clear school rule plaques, there was indeed one covered by a thick, solidified, black-brown blood scab, with only a few incomplete characters vaguely visible on the surface. "Students have the right to..."

Jiang Ning lunged forward and forcefully scraped off the thick layer of blood scab with her hand. As the blood clots fell away, a line of old text, in a style completely different from the other school rules, was revealed. "Get the fuck out of the way, let me do it!"

[When executing emergency official business within the school, students have the right to apply to the General Affairs Office for the use of a school vehicle.]

Jiang Ning stared at the plaque, completely stunned. "A school bus? It's the apocalypse, for fuck's sake! Where the hell are we supposed to find a shitty school bus?"

A flash of realization crossed Gu Nanzhi's eyes. "We probably don't need to actually find a physical school bus. We just need to apply for it!"

Gu Nanzhi immediately closed her eyes, held her breath, and concentrated all her mental energy to the extreme. "Emergency application! Student ID S-04, Gu Nanzhi! Currently trapped with thirteen other students in the Academic Affairs Office A-3 passage due to official business! In order to reach the designated location before the deadline to handle emergency official business, I hereby apply for the use of one school vehicle! Please approve immediately!"

After her voice fell, the entire passage was deathly silent. Time ticked by, second by second, and absolutely nothing happened.

Jiang Ning's heart sank straight to the bottom. "It's over, it's over. This shitty method is completely useless!"

Boom!!! Before she could even finish speaking, the bone-like floor beneath their feet suddenly began to vibrate violently. A crack burst open from the ground in front of Gu Nanzhi, and immediately after, a rusty white minibus with "Qingshan High School" painted on its body rose straight up from the ground.

The headlights flashed twice, and then it emitted a hoarse honk, completely responding to the rule application just made.

Everyone was completely stunned by this scene that defied all common sense.

Gu Nanzhi was the first to react; she turned around and roared. "Stop staring! Get on the bus now!"

Jiang Ning snapped back to reality instantly, a surge of wild joy rushing to her head. She yanked open the driver's side door and climbed in with a rough motion. "Quick, quick, everyone on! Hold on tight, I'm starting the bus!"

She slammed her foot all the way down on the accelerator. This dilapidated minibus, which had been asleep for who knows how many years, let out a deafening roar. The tires rubbed against the bone-like floor, creating an incredibly pungent, burnt smell. The vehicle completely ignored the abnormal force stretching the space and sprinted rapidly toward the door at the end of the passage that was slowly closing.

Just as everyone thought they were about to rush into the Academic Affairs Office, a final line of red blood-text suddenly appeared on the surface of the heavy metal door.

[Those entering the Academic Affairs Office must pay a part of their body as a deposit.]

The cheers in the bus came to an abrupt halt. Jiang Ning gripped the steering wheel tightly, her eyes widening sharply; the door was now completely right before her eyes.