Rules-related weird stories: 4016

May 8, X023, 7:14 AM.

The dawn sunlight streamed down from the clear sky, scattering across the cobblestone road and reflecting mottled golden light.

Lin Yi and his group left the dormitory area in a mighty throng, stepping through the thin mist and entering the dining hall area.

As he passed the boundary of the area, Lin Yi observed the streetlights on the dividing line again.

He saw that the numbers of the other streetlights were quite chaotic, but the two closest to each other were indeed "Dormitory-001" and "Dining Hall-001."

The instant he entered the dining hall area, Lin Yi distinctly felt the cool sensation of passing through a water curtain again.

"Each building in the campus seems to contain an independent space." He suddenly felt a sense of感慨(gan3kai3) and couldn't help but sigh, "It feels like… each building is like a solitary island floating on the sea, distant from each other, yet tightly connected by the cobblestone road filled with streetlights on campus."

Tian Bufan looked at him in surprise, then nodded silently: "Each building on campus may exist on an independent layer."

"All the buildings are independent and interconnected, and whether as individuals or as a whole, their layer structure is very complex."

"By the way…" Lin Yi looked at him curiously, "Young Master Tian, what time did you guys come to eat yesterday?"

"About this time," Tian Bufan said, "I tagged along with the group of sports students who stayed overnight in the classroom and had breakfast in the cafeteria."

"What happened to those strange art students and non-human classmates later?"

Tian Bufan said, "Some were taken away by the sports students, and some escaped."

"Es… escaped? Wait, I can understand escaping, but what does 'taken away' mean?"

Running away when you can't win is not embarrassing at all, and given the elusive and outrageous speed of the non-human classmates, as long as they are determined to run in the dark, they can definitely escape, but what does 'taken away' mean?

Capture?

Tian Bufan shook his head: "I don't know, some of the sports students took them away at dawn, and the other part went to the cafeteria."

"I couldn't follow to see what happened until 7:40."

"Oh… okay." Lin Yi nodded slightly, "Then, Wei Shan, Kuai Hongji, what about you?"

"Eat what should be eaten, drink what should be drunk," Wei Shan spoke sparingly, but with extreme hostility, "If anything dares to come looking for me, I'll tear it to pieces!"

"Savage." Kuai Hongji shook his head with a sneer.

Lin Yi stopped Wei Shan, who was about to get angry again, and hesitated: "Did you encounter the green apron chef?"

Wei Shan glanced at Tian Bufan, and when he saw that Tian Bufan was looking at the surrounding environment without any other expression, he said:

"I didn't eat breakfast either, but when I left after finishing lunch, a chef wearing a green apron rushed towards me."

"With your skills, you should have run away, right? Did he chase…"

"I killed it." Wei Shan said coldly, his eyes seeming to swirl with killing intent.

Lin Yi's expression changed, and the original sentence "Did he chase you out of the student restaurant to deal with you?" instantly became a dud.

He opened his mouth, and his brain circuit didn't even turn around at first.

"Wait… green hats can be killed?"

"I don't know if they can be killed," Wei Shan said, "But I feel like I killed it."

Lin Yi's mind flashed back to the scene in the dream where Wei Shan fought back against the non-human classmate.

That explosive front kick seemed like it could shatter granite…

"Then are you injured?" He asked with concern.

"I don't know." Wei Shan shook his head, "But I feel very strange… after attacking them, it's like being entangled by something."

"I hate this feeling… they make me angry—although I'm always angry, but, I've never been so angry… seeing them, I want to tear them to pieces, like… wanting to tear that陰比(yin1bi3) apart."

He pointed to Kuai Hongji.

"Hehehe, Fatty, don't drag me into this kind of crap." Kuai Hongji smiled coldly.

But Lin Yi on the side was puzzled: "This…?"

Wei Shan's situation seems completely different from his…

According to his speculation, seeing the non-human classmates would cause a cognitive distortion and fall into the layer, but Wei Shan didn't seem to have this change.

Why is this?

He didn't understand.

"Could it be that my speculation is wrong… or is my speculation not rigorous enough? Or does Wei Shan have something special about him?"

He felt a little dizzy, but since Wei Shan seemed to be fine, he was temporarily relieved.

"Kuai, what about you?"

Kuai Hongji shook his head: "I didn't encounter any danger."

Lin Yi narrowed his eyes, then withdrew his gaze.

His expression was serious, but in fact, he couldn't help but feel a little崩之不住(beng1zhi1bu4zhu4). His teammates stood next to him, and the sense of参差(cen1ci1) was simply too obvious.

"Great, so I'm the only one who's having a near-death experience, right?"

Putting aside the situation and only talking about the encounters, even Mao Feiyang, who was trapped in the art building, didn't have it as离谱(li2pu3) as him.

Five minutes later, the group arrived at the notice board in front of the dining hall.

The dining hall in the morning light had a glassy, magnificent feel. The octagonal cage-like architectural shape, surrounded by thin mist, actually gave people a feeling of融合(rong2he2) of Tang Dynasty and modern architectural styles.

That is, if you ignore the exaggerated通道(tong1dao4) around it that run counter to its architectural style.

After everyone took a copy of the dining hall rules from under the notice board, Lin Yi didn't rush to the student通道(tong1dao4), but first looked at the other通道(tong1dao4).

After his conversation with Tian Bufan, he had more views on the other通道(tong1dao4), and at this point, there were also some people wearing sports student clothes sparsely walking into the通道(tong1dao4).

This time he didn't see the girl in the sailor suit, but it was normal to think about it. After all, the time concepts of the two sides were different, and in a sense, the girl in the sailor suit couldn't even be classified as an "art student."

At least, this was the case until the time he left the dream.

"Should I call them 'they' now, or 'it'?" Lin Yi couldn't help but think.

After staring at the other通道(tong1dao4) for a while, he glanced at the employee通道(tong1dao4) again.

But several times he didn't see any employees in the employee通道(tong1dao4).

Finally, his gaze lingered on the trash can for a moment, then he silently retracted it and walked towards the entrance of the student通道(tong1dao4) with Tian Bufan and the others.

"Everyone be careful, this student通道(tong1dao4) is a bit strange." He said, fearing that Wei Shan and Kuai Hongji hadn't heard his conversation with Tian Bufan last night, so he briefly explained his encounter.

Tian Bufan said: "What you said should be the case after the fog fills the entire通道(tong1dao4). When it's full of fog, you can't see the end, and there will be a kind of 'Penrose staircase effect' feeling…"

“But there isn't much fog now, so the problem shouldn't be too big… Still, you've said it, so let's all stay vigilant.”

“Mm.”

The group entered the student passage.

The fluorescent lights in the student passage were always on, and with the sun out, the thick fog that had accumulated had mostly dissipated, leaving only a thin layer like dry ice floating on the steps.

As they walked through the student passage, they felt like they were ascending a celestial mountain in the clouds.

Lin Yi silently observed the walls inside the student passage. The eerie feeling from his previous two visits had been too intense, so he hadn't had a good look. Now that discomfort had faded a lot, and with Tian Bufan and the others around, he had the opportunity to observe as he walked.

“These wall bricks seem a bit interesting.” Halfway through, Tian Bufan suddenly said, then stopped on the current step and slowly walked towards the wall in front of him, observing it quietly.

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Lin Yi was drawn in by Tian Bufan's actions and followed him closer.

The inner wall of the student passage was a kind of uneven wall, like the stone path beneath a bunker after being weathered by time. The arched ceiling also gave one the feeling of being in an air-raid shelter.

After the fog filled the student passage last night, traces of flowing water appeared on the inner walls, and even the steps underfoot were covered in a thin layer of water.

But now there was no sign of flowing water, as if the water encountered yesterday evening had never existed.

Approaching the wall, Lin Yi suddenly noticed that these pitted walls seemed to have traces of artificial markings, as if they had been chopped with knives and axes, and then smoothed over.

Tian Bufan reached out and gently touched the wall, his brow furrowing slightly.

“Did you find anything?”

“There are traces of some patterns or symbols on the wall here, but they've been smoothed away, unfortunately.”

“Perhaps it was caused by the water flow.” Lin Yi briefly mentioned what he had encountered yesterday evening.

Tian Bufan said, “Water flow does erode the terrain, but dripping water wears away a stone. How many years would that take?”

“So, are you saying… this was deliberately erased?”

Tian Bufan shook his head. “It's unlikely to be deliberately erased.”

“If you wanted to deliberately erase symbols, why not just choose a different material when building it? Why specifically wait until it's built and then erase it?”

“Perhaps… the people who built it and the people who erased it weren't the same group?” Lin Yi speculated.

“You can keep that conjecture,” Tian Bufan said. “I have another conjecture.”

“What conjecture?”

“Another conjecture is that the water flow did erode the terrain here. You just said that you heard the sound of water when you left yesterday…”

“Not just heard, I also stepped in water.”

“So, the water flow is real. There is another layer here. When the layer begins to fall, water will seep out from the walls.”

“Combining the dining hall rules mentioning the way to enter and exit the dining hall with your previous conjecture about 'non-existent water,' we might be able to draw a conjecture that, during certain time periods, the student passage will be flooded.”

“The dining hall's dinner opening time is 16:00 ~ 20:00, so this time period is likely after 20:00. It's dark, and there's abnormal weather, so the layer begins to fall, and water flows into the passage.”

“The flow rate of the water at that time might be far beyond our imagination, thus achieving the effect of rubbing the walls.”

“This…” Lin Yi revealed a look of surprise. He was shocked that Tian Bufan could always think of so many things.

“Of course, this is also just a conjecture.”

“Two conjectures, one caused by humans, one caused by the layer… Relatively speaking, I'd rather it be caused by the layer.” Tian Bufan narrowed his eyes. “Let's go, let's not waste time, let's go eat breakfast.”

The inner wall of the student passage certainly had some peculiarities, but it didn't delay them too much. After taking a quick look, they walked towards the exit of the student passage together.

Just as he saw the exit, a “familiar” feeling suddenly rose in Lin Yi's heart, which also made his spine tingle faintly.

He knew that greeting him ahead would probably be that chef with the iconic eerie smile on his face, wearing a blue apron.

He looked up and, sure enough, at the end of the student passage, he saw that chef in the blue apron.

This was a very strange fellow. Sometimes Lin Yi could see him, and sometimes he couldn't.

That guy was standing in the blank area between the exit of the student passage and the entrance of the student restaurant, and yet he could only not see him when Lin Yi was in that blank area. As long as he left the blank area, whether inside the student passage or in the student restaurant, he could see him.

It was as if the meaning of this blue-aproned chef's existence was to make Lin Yi doubt the reality of reality and illusion.

“Hah…” Wei Shan exhaled deeply in a low voice. He glanced at the blue-aproned chef with intense hostility, his lips slightly pursed, very much like a vigilant and extremely restrained beast.

“Wei Shan, can you see him too?” Lin Yi asked.

“We can all see him,” Tian Bufan said calmly. “Don't mind him, just follow the rules and ignore him.”

Wei Shan nodded and withdrew his gaze.

“Do you know what that thing is?” Lin Yi asked Tian Bufan.

If it were someone else, he might not have asked, like when he inadvertently asked Xu Shunkang about the basement of the teaching building the other night, causing Xu Shunkang's expression to change drastically.

At that time, he didn't have the concepts of “cognition” and “layer,” but now it was different. He knew that asking the sports students questions that exceeded their cognition might harm them, but Tian Bufan was different.

The scope of Tian Bufan's “cognition” was a mystery.

But Tian Bufan shook his head, speechless, and said, “I'm not a god, Old Lin. My information also comes from analyzing and observing abnormal phenomena. It's not like you ask a question, and I can calculate the answer with a pinch of my fingers.”

“The chefs in the dining hall are a relatively complex group. Although they only have the distinction between blue aprons and green aprons, the details within may be more complicated than the art students.”

“Just remember, blue-aproned chefs aren't necessarily normal, but green-aproned chefs are definitely abnormal.”

My cold is almost better, but my tinnitus seems to be getting worse. I'll make an appointment to see a doctor tomorrow.