Chapter 445: It’s All a Calamity’s Plot!

With the sound of the explosion, the entire school shook violently. The already dilapidated classroom building’s walls cracked, stones fell, smoke and dust billowed, as if it could collapse at any moment.

Was it the Alchemical Bomb buried at the school gate that exploded?

The sudden turn of events left Lu Yibei no time to pick up the photo that had fallen to the ground. She flashed to a corner of the classroom, her back against the wall, the Pure Lotus Sword held protectively before her.

Moments later, the tremors subsided. Amid the thick smoke, the entire campus fell into a deathly silence.

Then…

The school, which had always exuded an eerie atmosphere, shed its disguise.

As if something terrifying had suddenly descended, a faint, secretive, yet extremely widespread psychic energy fluctuation spread out, enveloping the entire Ban Shan Primary School, then extending outward, beyond the range of Lu Yibei’s psychic sense.

This psychic energy fluctuation…

Was it deliberately spreading the psychic energy fluctuation as far as possible to prevent me from pinpointing the exact location?

Lu Yibei pondered, quietly waiting in place for a moment, then cautiously approached the window and looked toward the school gate.

Just as she suspected, the loud noise and screams just now were all caused by the explosion of the Alchemical Bomb.

To prevent any enemies who might be trailing behind her and capable of dodging a single Alchemical Bomb explosion, when she set up those bombs, she had deliberately linked all the trigger-type spell formations together-pull one, and the whole thing goes off.

As soon as one was triggered, the remaining forty-plus would explode together, covering the area around Ban Shan Primary School’s gate in a fifty-meter diameter with firepower, delivering a powerful strike against any possible enemies.

Now, someone really had followed her into Ban Shan Primary School, and those Alchemical Bombs had been detonated.

The ground near the school gate was torn apart, sinking into the hidden mine pit below, flames roaring within.

From afar, it was reminiscent of Turkmenistan’s famous landmark-the Door to Hell, which has burned for nearly fifty years and still hasn’t gone out.

But… where was the enemy?

Lu Yibei stared at the blazing fire in front of the school gate, frowning.

The deafening blast and that psychic energy fluctuation had occurred almost simultaneously.

According to Lu Yibei’s deduction, it was highly likely that one or more powerful enemies had followed her and accidentally triggered the Alchemical Bombs buried at the gate.

Now, that psychic energy fluctuation still enveloped the campus, proving the enemy hadn’t suffered fatal injury in the explosion. Yet the enemy had vanished, likely hiding swiftly after the blast.

Realizing this, Lu Yibei’s mood grew heavy.

Although she already knew someone had followed her into the school and could prepare in advance to avoid being caught off guard in a direct encounter-

But for the other party to hide so quickly after being hit by dozens of Alchemical Bombs, that level of skill had already exceeded her expectations.

“……”

Maybe… I should just retreat for now?

I’m not some righteous hero; there’s no need to talk about chivalry. This is Hua City turf-group fights are fair game. Why should I fight alone?

Once I get out, I’ll head to Xingfu Community, or just report the abnormal psychic energy fluctuation here to The Midnight Watchers Society, gather my backup, and come back later!

Tsk, I really messed up this time. I should’ve brought seventy or eighty hauntings from the start, stormed this place, and turned it upside down!

Thinking this, Lu Yibei quickly reviewed her planned escape route in her mind.

However…

Just as she was about to pack up the commemorative album and half-photo she’d found and temporarily leave Ban Shan Primary School, she realized only the commemorative album lay on the ground, face down, quietly resting there.

The photo that had been torn in half had vanished.

What’s going on? Where’s the photo? Did the blast’s shockwave blow it away?

Could it be under the commemorative album?

Lu Yibei wondered, scanning the classroom filled with broken desks and chairs, but found no trace of the two halves of the photo. Her gaze landed on the commemorative album.

After a brief hesitation, she cautiously approached, used the Pure Lotus Sword to lift a corner of the album, flipped it over forcefully, and then…

“Crash-!”

With a soft rustle of scattering paper, a flood of photos poured endlessly from the commemorative album, spilling all over the floor.

Some of the photos were already yellowed, some brand new, recording all sorts of moments-travel snapshots, birthday group photos, or simply a captured instant in a corner of the campus.

However, upon seeing the contents of the photos, Lu Yibei’s heartbeat skipped a beat. Her eyes widened, and she jumped back a distance.

More than half of those photos featured her.

From her birth up to eighteen or nineteen years old, almost every period was represented, but all were images of her in a non-haunting transformation state.

Someone had been monitoring my life for a long time, taking photos, and I never noticed?

Could this be Qi Nanzhu’s doing?

Even eating and sleeping are photographed-why not bathing, you pervert!? You must be a real freak!

Suddenly, a terrifying thought crept into Lu Yibei’s mind.

Since the person secretly watching her could take these photos, they must have known she would come to Ban Shan Primary School.

After she arrived, she hadn’t seen that person; maybe they’d just left, or were about to arrive, or perhaps they’d never left at all, just lurking in some corner of this abandoned school, watching everything.

The explosion at the school gate just now was caused by that person.

At this thought, Lu Yibei tensed up, feeling the environment around her suddenly turn cold, a biting chill crawling up from her ankles to the top of her head like a swarm of ants.

The atmosphere in the messy classroom grew increasingly eerie.

The photos still pouring out made Lu Yibei’s scalp tingle. She couldn’t help but curse, “Damn it, forget it, there’s no way I’m staying in this haunted place any longer!”

As she spoke, she tore her gaze away from the photos, preparing to turn and leave.

Suddenly, as if a faint ringing sounded in her ears, a stream of fragmented noise flooded in.

Lu Yibei instinctively turned to look, only to see the photos on the ground trembling slightly, emitting strange, subtle noises that intertwined, like gravel constantly rubbing together-a soft, rustling sound.

Staring at the photos on the ground, Lu Yibei felt that within those “rustling” sounds, there seemed to be some indistinct whisper, carrying a bizarre allure, drawing her closer.

Just as Lu Yibei’s eyes grew vacant and she slowly walked toward the photos, a heart-wrenching scream suddenly echoed through the corridor outside the classroom.

“It’s eating people! This school is eating people! Someone, someone save me-!”

Startled by the scream, Lu Yibei snapped back to her senses, looked at the photos just inches away, shuddered, jumped back, squinted at the corridor, took a deep breath, and tiptoed out.

Just as she left the classroom, a brand-new photo flew out from the commemorative album, drifting gently to the floor.

The photo captured a scene at dusk, on a pedestrian path near Mudan Street. A handsome young man wearing headphones waited at a traffic light. Amid the crowded throng, a somewhat disheveled, round-faced girl with chestnut long hair gazed at him, tears of excitement welling in her eyes…

On the other side.

The corridor seemed to have been twisted by some kind of force, with all sorts of strange bulges sprouting inexplicably from the walls-some resembling geometric protrusions from the corner of a building, others taking on the shapes of people or animals, with a faint warmth and pulse felt upon touch.

It felt as if this school had suddenly been given life.

In the corridor, two men and one woman from Berses’s Team A felt like they were having the worst luck of their lives today.

The three huddled together, fleeing in panic along the twisted corridor that seemed to stretch endlessly like a maze, arguing as they ran.

“I told you already, that explosion at the entrance meant the Calamity had found us! We should have retreated and reported to Lord Berses immediately. Why did we have to take such a risk? Why?” the woman sobbed, her voice tinged with tears.

“This is all the Calamity’s scheme-she knew all along! She lured us here on purpose. We’ve all fallen into the Calamity’s trap!”

Watching helplessly as one teammate was blown to dust by an Alchemical Bomb and another was swallowed by the wall, their fate unknown, plus this indestructible, never-ending corridor, her nerves were on the verge of collapse.

The long-haired man with them said in a low voice, “Shut the hell up! The operation was exposed, and the decision to forcibly capture the Calamity was made by the captain. Now the captain’s dead-what’s the point of yelling at me?!”

“Stop arguing!” the short, chubby man shouted. “If you have the energy to fight, use it to figure out how to get out of here!”

“It’s useless. We can’t get out.” The woman shook her head, muttering, “Haven’t you noticed? We’ve been going in circles, only the scenery around us keeps changing. I just saw the mark I made earlier.”

“The Calamity must be trying to trap us here and slowly torture us to death!”

The two men looked in the direction she pointed, their faces instantly turning pale.

Not far ahead, on a curved indentation in the wall, the glowing mark the woman had left with a spell formation was now half-sunken into the wall, vanishing from sight.

But…

She had clearly left the mark on a tree-shaped bulge just now, so why…?

Could it be that the scenery really has been changing all along, and we really have been going in circles?

As the two men thought this, sweat beaded on their foreheads, and a heavy sense of despair slowly rose in their hearts.

—-

The moment Lu Yibei stepped out of that strange classroom at the end of the second floor, she saw a bizarre scene in the corridor.

The pitch-black corridor looked as if a pair of invisible hands had grabbed both ends, twisted it several times, and then stretched it out, making it grotesquely distorted.

On the wall not far from the classroom door, a body seemed to have been swallowed by the wall-or perhaps grown out of it-half of it hanging from the wall, legs dangling.

Was this the guy who screamed just now?

Why did he look like… a scene from some kind of special-interest doujin? But even those don’t have a male protagonist, right?

No, no, I must be looking at this the wrong way!

Lu Yibei grumbled to herself, quietly retreating back into the classroom. After waiting a few seconds, she cautiously stepped out again.

When she returned to the corridor, the half-hanging body had vanished, and in the darkness, wisps of white mist swirled and slowly rose.

Laughter drifted faintly from behind her.

Turning around, she saw that the corridor, which should have ended, now stretched out infinitely.

Amid the swirling fog, the outlines of a city and streets faintly appeared.

Far, far away, under the glow of warm lights, blurred figures waved at her, beckoning her to come closer.

In a place like this, warmth only means danger-it’s probably some kind of weird trap, Lu Yibei thought.

Just then, the light suddenly dimmed, and the danger, as if its disguise had been seen through, revealed its claws without hesitation.

The twisted walls on both sides, with distorted faces and deformed human-shaped bulges, slowly emerged as if awakening from slumber.

They ran along the walls, played, whispered… doing all the things people might do in daily life, like projections cast from another world.

Then…

The moment Lu Yibei appeared in the corridor, all the human-shaped bulges froze, struggling and twisting, craning their necks to look at her.

For a moment, the entire corridor seemed to writhe with life, countless arms stretching out as if to break through the walls, waving back and forth in the center of the corridor, faces displaying a myriad of expressions, as if celebrating something.

“……”

Damn! This is even worse than before!

In that earlier situation, if I’d tried to cross the corridor and leave, one wrong move and I might never have come back, right?

Lu Yibei complained inwardly, quietly retreating back into the classroom behind her, carefully avoiding the photos that nearly covered the floor, and went to the window to look outside.

Completely different from the bizarre and lively scene in the corridor, the campus outside the window was as quiet as before.

Seeing this, Lu Yibei secretly breathed a sigh of relief.

If I can’t leave through the corridor, jumping out the window should be fine, right?

Is there any other choice?

Anyway, I have to leave, but definitely not through the corridor.

With that in mind, she opened the window. As a cold wind swept in, she leapt out.

However…

The expected rush of wind and falling sensation never came.

The moment she jumped out the window, she felt as if her body had suddenly entered a zero-gravity environment, becoming weightless and suspended in midair.

Crap, this is a trap too!

Lu Yibei’s heart skipped a beat. In an instant, she snapped back to her senses and looked back sharply, only to see a vast expanse of white mist-the school building had vanished.

Before her, droplets of muddy water and stones, as if drawn by some force, slowly floated upward…