96: The middle

Fang Che stood before the wooden door, not pushing it open immediately.

Behind the door was the Broadcasting Room.

Fang Che stared at the old wooden door, his thoughts racing.

If he were to just push the door open like that, the sound of the door hinges turning, his footsteps, or even the amplified telephone ringing inside could be flagged as a violation at any moment.

"If you want to fish for me, you'd better see if your fishing line is strong enough."

He slowly raised his hand, pressing his palm against the rough, aged wooden door; tiny wood splinters pierced his skin, sending a sharp, stinging pain through his hand.

He didn't dare to apply force directly, instead feeling his way along the door gap until he reached the hinges, finally gripping the doorknob tightly.

He pulled a bottle of water and a bag of bread from his backpack, crumbled the bread, mixed it with water into a soft paste, and stuffed it bit by bit into the hinge gaps to cushion the blackened, rusted metal. Only after doing this did he grip the doorknob again.

Inside, the stubborn ringing continued intermittently.

Ring...

Ring...

Ring...

He held his breath, exerting force with his shoulder and wrist simultaneously, and squeezed through the opening of the door as he pushed it ajar.

The Broadcasting Room was unnaturally clean—so clean it made one's skin crawl.

An old broadcasting desk sat in the center, and the red, vintage telephone off the hook next to the mixing console was ringing on its own.

The sound was captured by the massive amplification device on the desk and conducted to the surrounding walls, which were densely packed with dark, hollow speaker horns.

Beside the microphone in the very center sat a brass nameplate engraved with the four characters [Broadcasting Discipline].

Underneath the nameplate lay a loop of red wire, one end connected to the equipment on the table, the other extending into the speakers on the wall.

Fang Che slowly approached the broadcasting desk. Every time the red telephone rang, it caused the desk to vibrate, the sensation traveling straight down the red wire and into the interior of the nameplate.

He quickly reached out to press down on the telephone casing, his palm and finger bones pinning the internal metal clapper to suppress its vibration, forcibly muffling the impending ring within his own bones.

He reached out with his other hand toward the cold nameplate, which felt heavier than steel. He tried to exert force with his fingertips but found the object didn't budge at all.

He wasn't surprised by this. He could only fish out the adrenaline enhancer from his backpack—the one he had used once before to suppress excruciating pain—even though he knew that continuous injection within a short time would place a massive burden on his body.

He wrapped the syringe in the corner of his shirt, pressed it against the outside of his thigh, and used his palm to hook the end, slowly pushing the icy medicinal liquid deep into his muscle.

As a searing heat rapidly spread through his body, an intense, stinging sensation flooded every inch of his blood vessels. His expanding muscles stretched his clothes, emitting an extremely faint friction sound.

Fang Che's expression shifted violently. He immediately let go of the phone and reached back to tear off his shirt, using his palm to press down hard on the sound of the fabric rubbing, not stopping until the tightness of his bare torso ceased spreading.

The enhanced effect would only last for a brief ten seconds; he dared not waste a single millisecond. With his left hand pressing firmly on the phone again, his right hand gripped the edge of the nameplate and began to exert force.

A faint, crisp sound of hard material snapping came from beneath his palm.

Fang Che immediately held his breath and ceased movement. All the speakers on the wall seemed to react, simultaneously twisting to face him, and the red light on the microphone flashed for an instant.

He froze in place, forcibly suppressing the rise and fall of his chest until, a few seconds later, the red light went completely dark, confirming that he hadn't triggered any rules, and he let out a slight sigh of relief.

Brute force alone definitely wouldn't work; this nameplate had astonishing hardness. If he tried to destroy it with direct violence, it would certainly make a huge commotion.

He lowered his head and quickly scanned the surface of the nameplate, soon discovering a minute crack in the bottom right corner—one that would be impossible to notice without an extremely high Spirit attribute.

He silently curled the corners of his mouth, counting down the remaining seven seconds in his heart.

He pinched the two sides of the crack with his fingers, choosing not to press down but rather to pull outward. The movement was slow but carried a fierce, hidden strength. The immense resistance made him feel as if the thing in his hand was incredibly tough.

The power of the internal rules began to twist crazily, and a small but extremely sharp, high-frequency buzzing sound drilled out from the crack, piercing his eardrums with waves of pain.

The red light inside the wall speakers suddenly ignited, and the microphone body began to shake violently.

Fang Che's left hand suddenly released the phone, his entire palm slamming down to grip the nameplate and seal the crack, forcibly stifling the piercing buzz within his own flesh and blood.

The chaotic power of the rules rampaged continuously in his palm, delivering a burning, excruciating pain. The fresh blood seeping from his cracked skin didn't even have time to drip before it was firmly pressed onto the surface of the nameplate by his palm.

Only four seconds remained. As the crack continued to widen, the unsuppressed telephone again attempted to make a sound, the internal clapper vibrating almost manically.

He took the opportunity to flick his discarded shirt off the floor with his toes, accurately covering the phone, and then stomped on it hard, pinning it between the table leg and the floor.

The nameplate had cracked by a third at this moment, with three seconds left until the drug's effect ended.

At two seconds remaining, a violent, reactive force suddenly erupted from inside the nameplate. It instantly tore the web of his right hand while ripping off a fingernail. The heart-wrenching pain caused the veins on his forehead to throb wildly, and his hand was covered in sticky, fresh blood.

But he stubbornly endured the agony, jamming his two fingers hard into the gap of the crack, attempting to use brute force to break it off completely.

The speaker horns on the surrounding walls expanded to their limit; the air was filled with an extremely oppressive, silent scream. The crazily flashing red light on the microphone was only a hair's breadth away from triggering a penalty.

Fang Che's gaze turned fierce, and at the final second, both hands erupted with all his remaining strength.

That incredibly hard nameplate finally snapped with a tiny, crisp sound. This noise would normally be hard to notice, but in the Broadcasting Room at that moment, it was extremely abrupt.

Fang Che dared not be the least bit careless. He held the two broken halves of the nameplate tightly to prevent them from falling, letting the power of the rules within gush out from the fracture before gradually dissipating into nothingness.

The speakers, which had been glowing with intense red light, and the microphone, which had been locked onto him, remained motionless. Even the telephone under his foot stopped struggling completely. The entire room fell into a deathly silence, and he held his breath, enduring the long four seconds.

Those speakers suddenly slumped down in unison. The microphone, its red light extinguished, was rendered useless along with the foul-smelling black blood flowing from the cracked telephone casing, and the circle of red wire connecting all the equipment on the table lost its color inch by inch.

Fang Che's taut nerves relaxed completely along with the nameplate that had turned to ash. The intense soreness that followed the fading of the adrenaline's effect instantly drained all his strength. His legs went weak, and he slumped down along the wall, gasping for air, no longer caring about any rule restrictions.

Various messages popped up in the team channel almost simultaneously.

"Brother Fang, what's the situation inside? Say something!"

"Don't scare us, what exactly is going on over there?"

"Fang Che, report the situation immediately!"

"Fang Che, are you still listening?"

Fang Che raised his bleeding, trembling fingers and pressed the reply key in the team channel.

"The Broadcasting Room has been cleared."

There was a moment of silence in the channel, followed immediately by Jiang Ning's voice, cracking with excitement, blasting through the communicator.

"I knew it, Fang Che, I knew you could do it!"

Teacher Qin Bing tried her best to suppress the tremor in her voice.

"You stay right there and don't move. Where are you hurt? Don't try to be a hero; I'm bringing people over right now!"

Su Qingxue's tone was also no longer its usual coldness.

"Just stay where you are and don't run around. Teacher Qin and I are coming to rendezvous with you now."

Fang Che glanced at his mangled right hand, pushed his tongue against the half-broken tooth in his mouth, and curled his lips.

"What's the panic? I've still got half a life left."

Mu Waner's tearful scolding followed immediately.

"You liar, every time you say you're fine, you end up covered in injuries!"

Just as Fang Che was about to speak a word of comfort, the ground beneath his feet began to tremble violently without warning. Some terrifying existence lurking in the deeper reaches was clearly thoroughly disturbed.

A harsh sound of electrical interference simultaneously rang out in the communication channel.

"Zzzzz~"

A twisted voice filled with malice forced its way into everyone's minds.

"Fang Che..."

"You damn ant, you actually dared to destroy my discipline..."

"You destroyed the school I painstakingly built..."

Fang Che propped up his weak, sore body and stood against the wall, his gaze instantly becoming as sharp as a blade. He saw that in the thick blood mist rolling outside the window, a massive eyeball was slowly opening, connected behind it to a disgusting, collapsing mountain of flesh—a giant face. Its pupil was locked firmly onto the prey inside the room.

"Then use your flesh and blood to fill in this new school rule!"

Accompanied by a roar from the entire Teaching Building as it groaned under the unbearable weight, Fang Che wiped away the blood spilling from the corner of his mouth and responded with a cold sneer through the glass.

"Fine."

"I'm standing right here today."

"If you've got the guts, crawl in and kill me."