Chapter 353 - 199: Terrifying Stormy Night: The Bloodthirsty Vine King’s Revengeful Invasion

Chapter 353: Chapter 199: Terrifying Stormy Night: The Bloodthirsty Vine King’s Revengeful Invasion

Night had completely fallen.

A torrential downpour raged, punctuated by occasional flashes of lightning. The entire school was plunged into darkness, save for a few faint glimmers of light in certain places.

The sound of the rain drowned out everything else, echoing through every corner of the school...

Ever since the crossing, the power grid had completely collapsed. The lights in the classrooms, hallways, and dorms had long since become useless fixtures.

Candles had become everyone’s primary source of light.

But as a precious and limited resource, few could afford to use them. Even those who had candles would choose to stay home in the dark if they didn’t have to go out at night.

A step down from that was to get a bowl of animal fat and a wick to fashion a crude oil lamp.

It didn’t provide much light, but at least it offered a sliver of comfort in the dead of night.

But animal fat was also incredibly precious to the students, so not everyone had the means to fashion such a lamp.

When night fell, most people were left in utter darkness, able to do nothing but lie in bed and sleep.

However, with the loss of entertainment like phones and computers, coupled with the high-intensity labor during the day, the students had developed a habit of sleeping early and rising early. They would fall asleep the moment they hit their beds, with almost no one able to stay up past midnight.

Lulled to sleep by the rain, the students slept especially soundly that night.

Less than two hours after nightfall, more than half of the students were already in the land of dreams.

The other half lay in bed trying to coax sleep, while wondering if they should continue sheltering from the rain at school tomorrow or risk venturing into the jungle for resources...

...

Xingde Building, the academic building closest to the school’s main gate, stood just past the Central Square.

There hadn’t originally been any beds here.

But after the crossing and the emergence of various teams, the boys’ and girls’ dorms grew crowded and chaotic, and conflicts inevitably erupted.

In order to better manage their resources, or perhaps to avoid other teams, many students made the same choice Chen Chong had and left the dormitories.

They didn’t move into the faculty apartments, though. Instead, they dismantled their metal bed frames and relocated to the more spacious academic buildings.

Compared to the other academic buildings, Xingde Building’s classrooms were smaller, so fewer students had moved here. But because it was closer to the main gate and convenient for heading out, it was still home to seven or eight teams, scattered across different floors.

Aided by the heavy rain, most people were sound asleep that night. But Zhou Dong couldn’t fall asleep...

’Why can’t I sleep? Is it because I snuck some of the captain’s prized coffee today?’

Zhou Dong tossed and turned. He looked at his teammates beside him, already asleep and starting to snore, and felt a strange sense of irritation.

After a long while, still unable to fall asleep, he decided to go sit in the hallway. Maybe watching the rain and feeling the wind would make him drowsy.

Carefully opening the classroom door and stepping out into the hallway, Zhou Dong found a discarded metal stool and sat down.

Gazing at the torrential rain and the lightning that occasionally streaked across the sky, his restless heart did indeed calm down a bit.

But just then...

"Hm?"

’What was that sound?’

He glanced warily toward the end of the hallway. It was pitch-black, but he could hear the intermittent sound of something being scraped and dragged across the floor.

RUMBLE!!!

A flash of lightning cut across the sky, briefly illuminating the school.

The hallway was empty, containing nothing but scattered metal stools and the residue from cooking fires.

’There’s nothing there...’

But just as he sat down again, the sound returned.

SCRAPE, SCRAPE—

This time, he finally heard it clearly.

The sound wasn’t coming from the hallway on his floor, but from... upstairs!

’The floor above should be Boss Fang and his crew’s territory. What are they doing in the hallway in the middle of the night instead of sleeping? Don’t tell me they got hungry and are cooking something?’

SCRAPE—

The sound continued, sometimes scraping, sometimes bumping, making it hard to tell exactly what was causing it.

Not many teams lived in Xingde Building, and while they were on different floors, everyone got along relatively well.

While they didn’t go so far as to pool their resources, they did occasionally trade for supplies, so relations were amicable.

Mistakenly thinking the team upstairs was cooking in the hallway, and hearing his own stomach rumble, Zhou Dong decided to go up and take a look.

’If I give Boss Fang this half-bag of coffee I swiped from the captain, he should let me have a little soup, right?’

’This stuff is a rare commodity, after all. I just don’t know what they’re eating...’

Filled with anticipation, Zhou Dong pulled the coffee from his inner pocket and briskly headed upstairs.

But as soon as he set foot on the staircase, he felt something strange under his feet.

’Why are these stairs... so uneven?’

Zhou Dong didn’t think much of it, just assuming that one of the teams upstairs had thrown out some trash and forgotten to clean it up.

Taking the stairs two or three steps at a time, he quickly reached the next floor.

Just then, a bolt of lightning flashed, illuminating the area ahead of him.

Three figures were squatting on the floor of the hallway, huddled in a circle as if eating something.

Zhou Dong grinned.

’So they really were up cooking in the middle of the night because they were hungry, huh?’

’Looks like my insomnia couldn’t have been timed better. Between the relationship our two teams have and this half-bag of coffee I’m offering, I should be able to get a bite no matter what.’

"Hey, Boss Fang, what’re you all eating that’s so engrossing?"

"How come I can’t smell anything? Huh?... Why is one of you asleep while you’re eating?"

Zhou Dong said as he walked briskly toward them.

But when he was less than five steps away, lightning once again flashed across the sky.

The three figures squatting on the ground turned in unison.

At some unknown point, dark, greenish-black vines had started creeping across the floor and up the walls.

Vines were even writhing out from the faces of the three people before him.