Autophagy

'Now...'

Song Lei left the class and decided to wait till the night. This sounded like a crazy plan, but it was better than going back to his house. There were several reasons for this. The first and most important reason was the fact that there was a monster in loose back in the apartment. Song Lei didn't know where it had gone after he had let it run away.

This created a huge problem of uncertainty. The monster could even be hiding in his room, waiting for him to completely drop his guard. Or it could be laying in wait in the next room. Song Lei would have no way to know where it was and he wouldn't have the ability to get ready for it.

Another reason why he chose to wait the night on the campus was the fact that there seemed to be some kind of clue in this place. Song Lei had been feeling that he was being watched since he had entered the remnant world. This feeling of being watched had instantly disappeared after he entered the campus. There could be several reasons behind this.

One, it could mean that this place had some kind of protection from harmful supernatural things. If that was the case, Song Lei would probably choose to stay here for a good amount of time. The other could be that there was something much stronger here. So much stronger that none of those beings dared to approach here.

The last reason he would wait here was that Song Lei felt safer here. He didn't know why but his sixth sense was telling him that this place wasn't nearly as dangerous as the Heaven and Hell Apartment.

These three made up the reason why Song Lei didn't want to go back to Heaven and Hell Apartment. As long as he could find something useful, it would be worth the while. After spending a good amount of time strolling through the campus, he went into a desolate corner of the campus and started waiting.

He would have to wait till the night to meet the Night Lunatic. He was hoping that this was an actual monster that could lead him to find a clue about how to leave this place and not some person who was just a real lunatic.

The sun kept going down and down until it dipped into the horizon. There were no people left hanging around the campus. Most of them had gone back to their dorms or their own homes. The bustling and joyous atmosphere of the campus was long gone, leaving its place to an eerie feeling.

With the sun disappearing from the sky, the campus sunk into darkness, turning into a black ocean. The gentle warmth of the sun turned into a piercing cold wind, making Song Lei shiver in his place.

As the leftover light coming from the sun fully disappeared, weird noises started coming from out of the campus. These were the same noises Song Lei had heard last night. According to what he had experienced before, these noises would last till midnight. Weirdly though, noises didn't seem to be able to enter the campus. Back in the apartment, all the noises were right outside Song Lei's window.

Song Lei took a deep breath, relieved that the campus really had some kind of protection from the outside world, he decided to head to the male dorms. He had to start searching at early hours as he had no idea where the Night Lunatic would be.

After five minutes of walking, he got to the front garden of the dorms. There were two guards at the front gates of the dorm. They seemed to be very sleepy as they more than occasionally yawned and rubbed their eyes. This was better for Song Lei as he had to sneakily enter the dorm somehow.

'Hmm...'

Unfortunately, he had almost no idea about the layout of this dorm.

Toda Anzai never had to use the dorms as his family had more than enough money to afford an apartment room that was somewhat near his university. And even if he did, Song Lei wouldn't be able to access that information.

Song Lei could figure out some stuff from the notes of Toda Anzai but that was pretty much it. He was grateful that he could at least find Toda's timetable.

Having no knowledge beforehand, Song Lei started walking between the bushes to figure out a plan to silently break into the dorm.

Fortunately, his journey didn't go unrewarded. He found a small window that wasn't blocked and that was near to the ground. Although it could be too small for some people to go, Song Lei could fit in with his slender body.

He looked left and right to be sure that no one was watching. After confirming that he was in the safe, Song Lei started crawling towards the window. His body had gone back to that of a normal human so this activity was really tiring for him.

After more than a minute of rapid crawling, Song Lei managed to reach the window. Fortunately, it had been left open.

'Why would they do such a careless thing?' Song Lei thought. 'This is suspicious...'

He decided to see what was inside before jumping in. When he bent down to see what was going on, he realized that the screw of the window seemed to have been forcefully opened.

'Someone other than me is here!' Song Lei shouted in his mind. This window must've been the only plausible place that someone could enter from. Someone other than Song Lei had broken in.

'This night will be eventful...'

Because of the mess made by the Night Lunatic, the police would probably come here tonight. If there was another party here, things would cascade into a four-way war.

Song Lei didn't have any other choice than to enter through this window.

He held the window frame with his hands and dangled his legs into the window. Bending his body, he threw himself in.

'Urgh...'

As soon as Song Lei went in, his face soured. He was currently in a toilet cubicle. This place didn't seem like anything you would see in an elite school. A stench that smelled like this place hadn't been cleaned for a few weeks filled Song Lei's nostrils. Fortunately, Song Lei was plenty useful to such disgusting smells.

Avoiding the toilet, he opened the door of the cubicle and went out. There were four cubicles and four sinks in the bathroom he currently was in. The ground was covered with muddy footprints all around. Considering that it hadn't rained in the last two days, these footprints must've been considerably old.

One of the sinks seemed to have been clogged. It was filled with murky water, hair, and unidentifiable white particles. As the sight was really disgusting, Song Lei's face soured once more.

Song Lei turned his head towards the exit of the toilet. There seemed to be a green night lamp that was illuminating the hallway. As there was no light source in the bathroom, the faint green light coming from the corridor was enhanced. This light was coming from an angle, illuminating a quarter of the bathroom.

While Song Lei was staring at the green light, a human shadow passed by at high speeds. This person seemed to be running from the speed his shadow was passing by. Weird thing was, his legs didn't seem to move. As Song Lei couldn't notice anything distinctive from the shadow of this person, he couldn't identify his gender.

Fortunately, the shadow didn't bother entering the bathroom and passed by.

Song Lei breathed a sigh of relief and turned to look at the cubicles. He opened them one by one and checked inside. Three of the cubicles were exactly the same, however, the fourth one was used as a closet to keep cleaning supplies.

Song Lei took out a plastic glove from the cubicle and put it on. He went up to the clogged sink. He dipped his hand into the sink and started looking for what was clogging the sink.

He kept searching for a minute and finally managed to grasp something. He held the thing tightly and pulled it out. As soon as he did so, the murky water that had filled the sink started spiraling down.

'Just like I thought...'

Looking at the thing he had pulled out, Song Lei smiled widely. He had recently thought of an idea. The New World seemed to be mostly made up of stereotypes. Different films, cultural elements, and stories were quite relatable to the things that were happening in the New World.

Although Song Lei thought like this, he didn't have any way to confirm this thought. Now, however, he had a way to do so.

In horror films or stories, clogged sinks usually meant two things. It was either that the ghost was there and intentionally clogging the sink, or it was that there was something important to the story that was doing the job.

The thing Song Lei was holding in his hand probably implied that this case was the latter.

Song Lei was holding a ruby, masterfully crafted gemstone. It was the size of Song Lei's palm. If this was real ruby, it would probably be worth a lot.

Song Lei pocketed the gem and headed towards the exit of the bathroom....