Rules-related weird stories: 4016

“Other avenues can be analyzed slowly once we find clues.”

“But be careful, any blue-aproned chef not at windows 1 through 9 is definitely the one.”

Lin Yi heard this and nodded solemnly: “I understand, when in doubt, ignore.”

“If you can't ignore it, get rid of it.” Wei Shan added in a low voice.

Kuai Hongji chuckled sinisterly, but crossed his arms in front of him, and for once didn't retort to Wei Shan.

Wei Liang covered his ears and silently followed them, not saying a word the whole way, nor causing any trouble, as obedient as a chihuahua enjoying a free ride, with no presence at all.

Exiting the student passage, Lin Yi glanced down at the time.

7:20.

「Everything normal.」

He quickly passed the place where the blue-aproned chef was standing.

Even though it wasn't in his field of vision, he still clearly felt a sense of "passing by"—that cold, spine-chilling gaze.

As they passed by one by one, the blue-aproned chef, like last time, kept his feet facing the student passage, but his upper body began to slowly twist around like a marionette.

He looked at Lin Yi, Tian Bufan, and the others as they passed in front of him.

Suddenly, as Kuai Hongji brushed past him, a golden spark suddenly surged in his usually empty eyes.

Immediately afterward, a pale, emaciated hand stretched out from his white chef's coat, grabbing towards Kuai Hongji like lightning.

A cold glint flashed in Kuai Hongji's eyes for a moment, but suddenly Wei Shan grabbed his arm and pulled him out of the blue-aproned chef's attack range.

“Yin Bi, didn't you eat? Why are you walking so slow?” Wei Shan mocked.

Kuai Hongji shook off Wei Shan's hand: “Superfluous.”

“Tch!” Wei Shan snorted, lifting the plastic curtain and entering the student cafeteria.

Kuai Hongji didn't say anything more and also walked into the student cafeteria.

Wei Liang was the last of the group to enter the student cafeteria. He remained silent the entire time until he entered the cafeteria and let go of the hands covering his ears.

As he lowered the plastic curtain, he glanced outside the student cafeteria and saw that the blue-aproned chef's signature smile had inexplicably curved upwards a bit, his hand still in the grabbing motion, the whole person exuding a chillingly eerie and evil feeling.

Wei Liang swallowed a mouthful of saliva and silently retracted his gaze.

When he turned his head back, he suddenly saw a face that was almost pressed against his own.

Wei Liang was startled, his pupils contracted, and his body suddenly tensed. He saw a green-aproned chef with a wooden expression and unfocused eyes, who had moved like a ghost behind him at some point.

It appeared too suddenly, appearing out of nowhere in the gap between Wei Liang lowering the plastic curtain, glancing outside, and then turning back.

At this moment, the air seemed to freeze. Wei Liang's nose was almost touching it, not to mention that Wei Liang could feel the bloody, nauseating, foul breath emanating from the gaps between the green-aproned chef's teeth…

But even with such eye contact, Wei Liang's gaze seemed not to see it at all. His line of sight seemed to penetrate the green-aproned chef's face, focusing on Lin Yi and the others behind it.

At this moment, if he took one more step forward, he would bump into the green-aproned chef.

But if he didn't move forward and chose to go around the green-aproned chef, it would mean that he saw the green-aproned chef.

Although only ignoring it was needed, deliberately avoiding it meant that there was no complete ignoring…

He seemed to be stuck in a dead end.

The corners of the green-aproned chef's mouth turned up slightly, revealing that signature eerie smile in front of Wei Liang.

Just then, Wei Liang still stepped forward…

“Oops, why did my shoelace come undone?”

He suddenly stopped, bent down, and started tying his shoelaces.

The green-aproned chef was slightly stunned, then twisted his body like a pretzel in an incomprehensible way, then pressed the back of his head tightly against the floor tiles, and slowly probed towards Wei Liang…

But just then, Wei Liang finished tying his shoelaces and stood up.

“Damn, Lao Lin, why are you guys walking so fast! Wait for me!”

He easily stepped forward, easily stepping over the green-aproned chef who had twisted his body into a pretzel and was lying on the ground, planning to attract his attention, and then walked towards Lin Yi and the others.

The green-aproned chef froze there, completely unable to understand what had just happened.

Lin Yi heard Wei Liang's call and looked back from the line at window number three. This one look instantly made them aware of the green-aproned chef's existence, and their hearts jumped to their throats.

“Liangzi, you…?! ”

“Damn, my shoelaces came loose, I tied them and almost fell behind!” Wei Liang said this, but the muscles all over his body began to relax, and fine sweat was streaming down his forehead, looking like he had just escaped death.

He waved his hands repeatedly, indicating to Lin Yi that he had indeed encountered the green-aproned chef's interception: “Don't mention it, don't mention anything… This old man has been around for a while, and has a few tricks up his sleeve, just trivial skills, not worth mentioning to outsiders.”

Lin Yi also breathed a sigh of relief for him, couldn't help but nudge him, and scolded with a smile: “Using so many idioms, are you taking the postgraduate entrance exam?”

「Damn, Liangzi can't hide it anymore. Under the pressure of the situation, he really exposed some extreme operations!」

「But what's with that green hat? Why did it appear without any warning? I didn't have any premonition at all?」

「Is its target Liangzi? Or… did Liangzi trigger some kind of mechanism in it?」

As soon as Lin Yi started thinking about these questions, a feeling of being watched grew in his heart like a sprout.

This feeling had been a little distant for him, but even so, it was still extremely familiar.

「I'm being watched already?」

「Heh, it has a bit of the inhuman classmate mechanism to it.」

Without a doubt, the green-aproned chef who had been staring at Wei Liang just now shifted his attention to Lin Yi when Lin Yi thought of it.

As the green-aproned chef watched, Lin Yi gradually began to sense that cold, eager, and vicious feeling, but he didn't show much abnormality. He simply thought of the scene of Boss Fei's flying kick in his mind and shifted that attention away.

During the ordering process, the green-aproned chef floated around them like a ghost, but after being ignored for a while, he silently walked away and began to look for other targets.

The breakfast in S City University's cafeteria includes white porridge, pastries, buns, fried dough sticks, etc. Lin Yi, unsure of the ingredients in the meat buns, chose a fried dough stick, an egg, a bowl of thin porridge, and a cup of soy milk.

What's outrageous is that the breakfast fruits provided by the cafeteria include cherry tomatoes.

Lin Yi and the others silently bypassed the cherry tomatoes and chose yogurt instead.

During this time, the blue-aproned chef who liked to secretly swap yogurt for tomatoes reappeared, except this time he had a single tomato in his hand instead of trying to swap their yogurt with cherry tomatoes.

There weren't many people lining up for breakfast, so it only took them five minutes to buy it. By the time they sat down with their trays, it was already 7:27.

Lin Yi glanced at the perimeter of the student cafeteria. Students were still trickling in to line up.

“When the athletes come to the cafeteria, they seem to take off their tracksuits,” Lin Yi said, taking a bite of a fried dough stick. “I wonder if it's required by the athletes' code.”

“Most likely,” Tian Bufan said slowly, peeling an egg. “Anything with commonality is almost always part of a pattern.”

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Lin Yi nodded: “Speaking of which, shouldn't we have a general direction for exploration? For example, what should we explore first?”

Tian Bufan took a sip of soy milk: “I have a preliminary plan, but it doesn't apply to you. For you, I have a suggestion on a general direction.”

Lin Yi put down his fried dough stick: “Tell me quickly.”

“Didn't you dream about Mao Zi and his trip to the art building? Then use the round trip route on the art student code you saw in your dream as a clue to find related things.”

“As long as there are enough fragments, even if you can't put together a complete picture, you can still piece together a rough idea.”

“Then, when we meet again, we'll integrate the information.”

“The trial period is a total of seven days. I estimate that seven days is the average number of days from zero contamination to breaking the contamination threshold.”

“Because for people who are not contaminated, theoretically, there is no problem with experiencing it for any number of days, so the seven-day limit is very intriguing and is likely what I guessed.”

“In other words, Mao Zi theoretically has seven days of safe time. Of course, this time may be a conservative value. Once his contamination intensifies, he may not be able to last that long.”

Tian Bufan stopped here and took a sip of porridge.

Lin Yi was thoughtful. He originally had a vague plan in his mind, but after listening to Tian Bufan's words, his thoughts instantly became clear: “Okay, let's do it.”

“Be sure to remember that the premise of exploration is to abide by the code,” Tian Bufan repeatedly urged. “For the things written in the rules, before clearly understanding the underlying logic followed when they were formulated, try to complete the compliance requirements from the 'literal meaning'.”

“For the rule-like opinions given by others, be sure to retain your own guesses and judgments.”

“And if it is content that is not mentioned in the code or by others, try to think in a conservative direction that maintains your own safe state.”

“Okay,” Lin Yi nodded.

“There's one last point… Remember, rules are dead, people are alive, don't be forced into a dead end by the rules.”

“Huh?”

“Anyway, 'living' is the most fundamental core.” Tian Bufan raised his head and finished the last sip of soy milk. “This soy milk tastes okay, I'm going to get another bowl, do you want any?”

“I don't need it.” Lin Yi had no intention of enjoying breakfast. Thinking about Mao Feiyang, he just wanted to finish breakfast quickly and fill his stomach.

Wei Shan and Kuai Hongji also ate their breakfasts in silence.

Kuai Hongji's breakfast was even lighter than Lin Yi's, but Wei Shan took six meat buns alone.

Wei Liang was eating silently by himself. When Lin Yi and Tian Bufan were chatting, he seemed to have closed himself off.

But before Tian Bufan came back, someone sat down in Tian Bufan's vacated seat without saying a word.

Lin Yi and Tian Bufan were sitting face to face. Seeing this, he couldn't help but look up, but as soon as his gaze moved up and landed on the other person's plate, he was immediately stunned.

He saw that the other person's plate was full of cherry tomatoes.

Lin Yi's scalp instantly went numb, and chills seemed to be rushing out of the top of his head.

He didn't continue to look up, but slowly lowered his gaze. The other party ate cherry tomatoes, so they must not be a trial student. It's better to avoid trouble, so he shouldn't make eye contact.

So he lowered his head and slurped his thin porridge, and took another bite of the fried dough stick, but his eyes fell on the smooth metal surface of the alloy plate, trying to peek at what was sitting opposite him through the mirror reflection.

But the plate was not a mirror after all. Even if there was a reflection, the lines were distorted like a funhouse mirror, but he still saw some of the other person's outline, and… the other person was wearing some green-colored fabric.

「Sure enough, it's a contaminated person, but not a 'chef'. They also don't have the aura of those inhuman classmates… It should be a unit from the art building.」

Even so, Lin Yi still couldn't determine the other party's exact identity, because he remembered that the art student code said that normal art students could also eat tomatoes under certain circumstances, but Lin Yi didn't know what those circumstances were.

But what he could be sure of was that the identity of the person sitting opposite him should be between 「normal art student」, 「weird art student」, and 「someone like the 'sailor suit girl'」.

He had heard Xu Shunkang say that the sailor suit girl was an art student, but perhaps Xu Shunkang's level of knowledge was not as detailed as that of art students like Mu Daxian when it came to the classification of art units.

Just as he was speculating, the guy opposite him stuffed a cherry tomato into his mouth and began to chew "gua zha gua zha".

As he threw them into his mouth one by one, the unique smell of tomato juice quickly spread out, but Lin Yi had the perception that 「tomatoes are hearts」, so he quickly and faintly smelled some nauseating blood…

「Tomato elements are indeed flesh and blood elements… Tomatoes are hearts, so what are cherry tomatoes?」

A day ago, he would have been afraid that at the moment this thought popped up, he would have started falling into the layers due to the distortion of cognition, and fallen into the darkness of some abyss.

But now his expression only changed slightly.

Since he had already overwritten his cognition, when this thought came to his mind at this moment, all the mental operations seemed to be as smooth and fluid as water flowing into a canal.

The good news is that the ear check came back negative for otitis media, but the bad news is that the ear has nerve tinnitus and is already a little deaf… Sigh… Sigh…