Chapter 22: Entering the Art Building at Night

The study schedule at Gaoshan High School is tight.

After finishing exams in the morning, students self-study in the afternoon while teachers grade papers; evening self-study will involve explaining the exam content.

It was hard work just making it back to the dormitory.

The time was already close to midnight.

There were still twenty minutes before the dorm supervisor's inspection.

"Does everyone understand the plan?" Chen Baili asked with a serious expression.

This operation would determine the success or failure of their instance mission.

The Art Building can only be entered at midnight; if they fail to enter successfully tonight, their chance of discovering who the truant student is will be slim.

After all, the instance never said the person was running away on the last day!

"Mm, stealing the item is my job; Brother Chen and Shi Gandang will help with lookout, while Brother Weimang will receive us in the Dark Room." Tu Tu Xing Sun said confidently.

Today's exams had frustrated him terribly.

He was a nine-leaked-fish who couldn't read a single character; if not for a certain skill of his related to theft, having quietly stolen the exam papers of the top five in the class to copy, the homeroom teacher might have sent him to the Dark Room to be treated as trash during evening self-study.

Shi Gandang silently grabbed a handful of gravel from his pocket and threw it onto the bed.

In the blink of an eye, the gravel turned into four stone statues resembling people, lying quietly on the bed pretending to sleep among the crowd.

Skill 【Scatter Stones into Soldiers】!

Chen Baili walked to the window; his pupils gradually changed into slit shapes, filled with sharpness like an eagle hunting, and even the whites of his eyes had a faint yellowish attachment.

【Eagle Vision】!

This was his Title Skill.

It could easily observe distances and micro-movements invisible to the human eye; this was also the reason he had previously noticed Wu Wang's gaze shifting upward.

"There is one security guard on each floor of the teaching building; none outside the principal's office, but people are guarding every staircase entrance. Brother Shi, are you sure you can handle it?" Chen Baili asked.

That tall figure spoke in a muffled voice: "Mm, I have a prop that can knock them out for half an hour. We must act quickly; take the item and leave, locking the door, so they cannot wake up and notice anything amiss."

At first, the plan was actually to knock out the security guards.

But during evening self-study, they happened to see two security guards patrolling; the opponent's height of nearly two meters, muscles straining the clothes to the point of bursting, plus bloodshot red eyes and rotting skin on the face.

Just like the Gargantuar in Plants vs. Zombies, only missing a small zombie on his back.

They knew winning a fight was unlikely.

This guy was obviously not human, but a ghost whose entire brain was stuffed with muscle and strength.

No wonder students couldn't simply climb the wall to skip school.

If caught, they would surely be beaten to death on the spot!

"Good! Operation start!"

————

"Shoes are broken, hat is broken, the cassock on the body is broken~"

Wu Wang hummed a little tune as he arrived at the Dark Room.

At his feet lay a corpse swollen from soaking, dragging a trail of water across the empty ground.

This was Liu Yang's corpse.

Previously, Wu Wang had hidden it at the bottom of the school's lotus pond, even tying stones to its limbs to sink it and prevent it from floating up.

Today, going to the Art Building, he had to exert great effort to carry the corpse back onto the shore.

"Brother, since you can turn into a ghost inside the Dark Room, you should be able to do so in the Art Building as well, right?" Dragging the other slowly toward the back of the Dark Room.

This was something he had just figured out.

Principal Wang feared the tentacle ghost running out of the Dark Room; the tentacle monster's tentacles were multicolored like oil paintings; the Dark Room's ghost story belonged neither to the Ghost School's faction nor to the students; they were related to the Art Building; the Art Building did not exist during normal time periods...

Combining these tedious pieces of information.

Wu Wang drew a conclusion.

What Principal Wang truly feared was—the tentacle ghost entering the Art Building, which might trigger some kind of change.

So, he called Liu Yang along.

The other party had no objections.

He followed without saying a word, though carrying a water-soaked corpse was a bit heavy.

Moments later, Wu Wang arrived.

Behind the originally vast and empty Dark Room, a three-story small building had now appeared.

The roof was decorated with large golden characters reading "Art Building," but it looked abandoned for a long time; the gold had become dim and was even covered with moss and dried leaves.

"Gulu-gulu... gulu-gulu..."

Wu Wang felt something wriggling beneath his clothes and couldn't help but lift his bulletproof vest to take a look.

He clearly saw that set of 【Blood-Stained School Uniform】 undergoing change; the various colors painted on it crawled and flowed across the fabric as if alive.

On the long-sealed iron door of the floor ahead, a large amount of painted colors was also flowing in response.

Indeed, my guess was correct.

Wearing this clothes, one does not need that damn oil paint box to enter the Art Building!

"Now, the game officially begins!"

He grinned wildly as he approached the main gate.

Stepping in from this point, the core of the instance truly began to unveil its mysterious veil to him.

Before, it was all just trivial matters.

Boop—

Wu Wang reached out; without even pushing open the large iron door covered in dust and graffiti, his whole body seemed to sink into a barrier formed by a thin water curtain, causing ripples like water waves to ripple across the large iron door.

He was sucked into the floor along with the corpse he had been dragging.

Hush—

The moment they entered the building, a pungent smell mixed with dust hit them; it felt somewhat like cheap oil paints, or even more like the formaldehyde odor from spray-painted paint.

He surveyed the first-floor environment.

The lighting was extremely dim, with only a faint pale yellow glow barely enough to make out the general shapes.

Wu Wang was quite surprised by this; he had originally thought the building had no power or light at all.

He observed more carefully.

Various tables, chairs, and other items were piled up in a complex tangle in the corridor; even the clutter on the left side had been stacked up to the ceiling, making it impossible to go around and pass.

On both sides, numerous classroom doors could be seen, some open and some tightly locked, with faint writing on them such as "Vocal Music Classroom No. 1" and "Vocal Music Classroom No. 2".

It seemed this floor was for music classrooms.

"Hehehe… hehe…"

In an environment so silent that the drop of a pin could be heard, a strange laughter suddenly appeared, echoing in the corridor like a demon's sleep-talking and lingering for a long time without dissipating.

Is there someone inside this art building!?

Wu Wang's expression grew serious.

No, this creepy place doesn't look like it has anyone in it.

It's most likely some unclean thing; it should be related to the urban legend of the art building.

That is—the laughter of a ghost!

"You are… Chu Yuxuan? Where are we?" A more abrupt voice came from beside his feet.

Wu Wang suddenly looked down.

Liu Yang had woken up!

Not only had he woken up, but even his head, which had been shattered from the fall, and his limbs, which had swollen from being soaked for a day, had completely returned to normal.

He sat on the ground as if he were a living person, rubbing his head, his eyes filled with confusion.

"Uh, buddy, do you remember what happened before we came here?" Wu Wang asked, tilting his head.

As a result, Liu Yang only frowned and asked in confusion: "I remember I was in class, Teacher Yao called my name and asked me to come up, and then… I appeared here."

Indeed, he did not remember that he had died.

Wu Wang had no intention of telling him.

Who knows if, upon remembering that he was already dead, this guy's skin might suddenly crack open and turn into the kind of tentacle ghost that Chen Baili and the others talked about.

After all, He Yikan had warned them before losing consciousness—the Black Room legend is related to the student who jumped off the building.

"Do you know about the school's art building?" Wu Wang reached out, grabbed the other person, and pulled him up, saying: "When I was a kid, there was an Uncle Neil on the children's channel who believed in me even more than my mom did; he told me to create art every single day."

"Now we are in the art building; there should be some white latex here that I never found before. Want to try it together?"

After hearing this, Liu Yang was somewhat stunned.

A moment later, he pointed a finger behind Wu Wang and asked uncertainly:

"I actually don't mind, but… is that person here with us too?"

"!? "