Chapter 32: Firearms

Lunch break is a necessity for high school students.

Eight classes a day, plus exams and self-study, drain the mind terribly; one must sleep for dozens of minutes in between to recover energy—this is an objective law of the human body, independent of personal will.

Even if some overachievers sneak in study during lunch, their efficiency is hardly any higher; according to some teachers, most of it is just pretend effort.

「.」

Her eyelashes fluttered; Ye Jiaying suddenly woke up, lifting her head from the desk.

Her cheek, pressed against her arm, was faintly red, bearing the faint imprint of a button; her drowsy eyes caught the wall clock: 12:50 p.m., forty-five minutes left until lunch ended.

Should she go back to sleep? No, wait—something was off.

She frowned, glancing around; every object in the classroom—the ceiling, walls, curtains, air conditioner, podium, desks and chairs—even every sleeping classmate—was shrouded in shadow.

As if covered by a filter.

Li Cheng’s seat on the right was empty; she hesitated, then extended a finger and tapped the arm of the girl beside her.

Click.

Her finger sank straight through, as if piercing sand.

The girl remained in her nap posture, chest rising and falling slightly, still asleep. As Ye Jiaying withdrew her finger, the sandy depression on the girl’s arm instantly healed, leaving no trace of damage.

「?!」

Shock and terror surged through her; Ye Jiaying instinctively stood up and stepped away from her seat.

Through the gap in the curtains, she saw a vast, spectacular spindle-shaped rift slicing through the sky outside.

Countless brilliant stars of varying colors shimmered endlessly within the rift.

Everything pointed to the abnormality of the current situation.

She pinched herself multiple times, confirmed she wasn’t dreaming; her phone had no signal, no contact with the outside world; all classmates were like inhabitants of another world, unawakenable—or perhaps she herself was in another world.

After much hesitation, she walked to the back of the classroom and slowly pushed open the door, peering through the crack.

Her pupils contracted sharply; outside the corridor, a web covered everything—layers of white silk, like a gauzy canopy descending.

And in the corridor stood a familiar figure, untouched by shadow.

Yuan Zhixia, the notorious eccentric, the genius girl, stood with her backpack on, solemnly examining the web before her.

「Yuan」

Before she could whisper “classmate,” Yuan Zhixia noticed her and immediately raised a finger to her lips, signaling silence.

Rustle—

Six giant spiders, each the size of a medium-sized dog, crawled across the outer edge of the web.

Their shadows cast on the wall, their many legs tugging at the web, causing it to tremble slightly.

Among the six giant spiders, something was suspended by silk—a figure wrapped in a cocoon, twisting and struggling.

Intense fear gripped her heart. When the spiders’ shadows vanished, Yuan Zhixia moved silently to the back door of Class Five, joined Ye Jiaying, and stepped inside.

「Yuan classmate, what’s going on? Why are we awake? That spider—」

Too many questions crowded her mind; Ye Jiaying asked them in a rapid, hushed stream.

「This isn’t the place to talk.」

Yuan Zhixia scanned the classroom, her gaze passing over the dried black bloodstain on the seat to the right of the podium, then locking onto the tall wooden cabinet at the back of the room.

For the sake of classroom tidiness, brooms, dustpans, and other cleaning tools were stored inside the cabinet, so its interior was spacious.

The two squeezed into the cabinet; Yuan Zhixia turned on her phone’s flashlight and handed it to Ye Jiaying to hold for illumination.

She herself removed her backpack and unzipped it.

Only then did Ye Jiaying notice: Yuan Zhixia’s backpack was a rapid-response ballistic vest backpack.

In addition to shoulder straps, it had a waist belt, and by pulling two cords, the outermost flap could be flipped over the head to cover the chest like a vest.

The flap’s interior was hollow, lined with ceramic ballistic plates—similarly designed on the backpack’s back.

Come on, which normal student carries a backpack like this to school? This isn’t war-torn the Middle East, or warlord-ridden Africa, nor is it gunfight-every-day, free America.

Ye Jiaying’s eyes widened; compared to the ballistic vest, what was inside Yuan Zhixia’s pack was even stranger.

A buzzer alarm, pepper spray, taser, Swiss Army knife, hatchet, foldable multi-axis drone, handheld GPS radio, sponge earplugs, quick-release tourniquet, gas mask, paper map, glow stick, waterproof space blanket.

All items were secured inside the pack with straps and clips, so they wouldn’t clatter against each other during walking or running.

Yuan Zhixia reached into her backpack, pulled a hidden zipper, opened a concealed compartment, and pulled out a handgun?!

Ye Jiaying stared, dumbfounded, as Yuan Zhixia extracted the gun body, magazine, then found the barrel and spring from other compartments.

「Yuan classmate, what on earth—」

「Shh.」

Yuan Zhixia cut off Ye Jiaying’s whisper, then pulled out a fingertip spinner, disassembled it, and removed a bright yellow brass bullet hidden inside.

This gun was made by her own hands.

Students who illegally build guns know that with 3D printing technology increasingly mature, having a blueprint makes constructing a gun’s outline not too difficult.

Especially for a Glock 17, with relatively few parts—all components including the magazine body, follower, trigger assembly, and slide are made of plastic.

The real challenges are the barrel, spring, firing pin, bullets, propellant, and primer.

Yuan Zhixia earned scholarships as easily as eating and drinking; she occasionally traded cryptocurrencies online, and by the time she entered high school, she’d saved enough to convince her parents to let her buy the standalone garage beneath their apartment building.

She spent money renovating the garage, installing soundproof panels, purchasing a small CNC machine, a 3D plastic printer, a 3D metal printer, and a suite of chemical equipment.

After all these preparations, she first used an industrial printer to fabricate the gun body, magazine body, trigger, and other structures—strength equal to injection-molded engineering plastic.

Then she used the CNC machine to machine the barrel.

Some springs, firing pins, and casings were sourced via the all-powerful Taobao—casings aren’t illegal; discarded casings are everywhere at legal shooting ranges.

The propellant was her own formulation: nitrocellulose with a retardant, burning slowly and steadily, ensuring sufficient chamber pressure without exceeding limits and causing a catastrophic rupture.

(Fireworks prioritize light and sound effects, burning rapidly; using fireworks powder to load bullets would likely cause an explosion.)

For the primer, Yuan Zhixia used mercury fulminate—prepared herself from mercury and nitric acid. Modern ammunition primers commonly use non-corrosive compounds like tetrazene, antimony sulfide, or potassium chlorate, but considering difficulty and noise of preparation, she chose the corrosive mercury fulminate—it was good enough.

With all that done, only reloading remained—simple with professional equipment. Abroad, reloaded ammunition often achieves better accuracy than factory rounds due to precise powder control, and is cheaper.

Of course, manufacturing firearms and ammunition privately is absolutely illegal and hidden from sight.

She had to watch neighbors’ schedules, avoiding complaints to the property management about the noise from her machines.

She had to handle chemicals carefully, fearing odor leaks that might draw police attention.

Even after completing the gun and ammunition, she had to disassemble them into parts, hiding them across her backpack, disguising them as toy guns; she dared not take the bag on the subway.

All this hardship, just for self-defense, seemed excessive.

A taser, pepper spray, and buzzer alarm were enough to deter attackers.

If worse came to worst, modified crossbows, air guns, staple guns, or stun guns had enough power to kill large animals and serve the same protective purpose.

If caught, penalties for those were far lighter than for making real firearms.

「Click-click-click-click.」

Yuan Zhixia rapidly loaded bullets with a speedloader, her lips tightening unconsciously.

Her immense effort and dedication to owning a firearm stemmed largely from a deep sense of unease.

Unlike other ignorant, ordinary people, as a genius, she had long sensed the world’s anomalies through fragments online.

Beneath those fragmented urban legends lay some terrifying truth.

(End of chapter)