Chapter 22: Night Entry into the Art Building

The study schedule at Gaoshan High School was tightly packed.

After morning exams, students had self-study in the afternoon, teachers graded papers, and evening self-study was spent reviewing the exam papers.

Finally, they made it back to the dormitory.

The time was nearly midnight.

Twenty minutes remained until the dorm supervisor made rounds.

“Do everyone understand the plan?” Bailing Dao’s expression was grim.

This operation would determine whether they succeeded or failed in their duplicate task.

The Art Building could only be entered at midnight; if they failed to get in tonight, their chance of identifying the truant would be slim.

After all, the duplicate didn’t say the truant was escaping for the last time!

“Alright, I’ll handle the stealing. Bailing Brother and Shi Gandang will keep watch. Wei Wang will meet us inside the Black Room.” Tu Xing Sun declared confidently.

Today’s exam had driven him crazy.

He was a nine-leak fish who couldn’t even read a single character; if not for a skill tied to theft—stealing and copying the top five students’ papers—he’d have been sent to the Black Room by his homeroom teacher as trash during evening self-study.

Shi Gandang silently pulled a handful of pebbles from his pocket and tossed them onto the bed.

In an instant, the pebbles transformed into four stone statues, lying still on the bed pretending to sleep.

Skill: [Turn Stones into Soldiers]!

Bailing Dao walked to the window; his pupils gradually shifted into slits, sharp as an eagle’s gaze, even the whites of his eyes faintly tinged with yellow.

[Eagle Sight]!

It was his title skill.

It allowed him to easily observe distances invisible to the human eye and subtle movements—this was how he’d noticed Wu Wang’s gaze shifting upward earlier.

“One security guard per floor in the teaching building, none outside the principal’s office, but all stairwells are guarded. Shi Brother, can you handle them?” Bailing Dao asked.

The tall figure rumbled: “Yeah, I’ve got a device to knock them out for half an hour. We must move fast—grab the item and leave, lock the door, don’t let them wake up and sense anything amiss.”

Originally, they’d planned to knock the guards out.

But during evening self-study, he’d seen two guards patrolling—their nearly two-meter height, muscles straining their uniforms to bursting, eyes bloodshot and red, skin rotting on their faces.

Like Gargantua from Plants vs. Zombies, except they were missing only a little zombie on their back.

They knew defeating them was impossible.

This guy was clearly not human—he was a demon with nothing but muscle and brute force crammed into his skull.

No wonder students couldn’t just climb the wall to skip school.

Get caught, and you’d be beaten to death on the spot!

“Alright! Operation begins!”

————

“Shoes are torn, hat is torn, my robe is torn too~”

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

At his feet lay a corpse swollen from prolonged submersion, leaving a wet trail across the ground.

It was Liu Yang’s body.

He’d hidden it at the bottom of the school’s lotus pond, weighting down its limbs with stones to keep it from floating up.

Today, getting it to the Art Building had taken him tremendous effort.

“Buddy, since you turned into a ghost in the Black Room, you should be able to do it in the Art Building too?” He dragged the corpse slowly toward the back of the Black Room.

This was a realization he’d just had.

Principal Wang feared the tentacle ghost escaping from the Black Room; the tentacles were multicolored like a painting; the Black Room’s legend didn’t belong to the ghost school’s faction or the students; it was tied to the Art Building; the Art Building didn’t exist in normal time…

Combining all these fragmented details.

Wu Wang reached a conclusion.

Principal Wang truly feared—the tentacle ghost entering the Art Building might trigger some change.

So he brought Liu Yang along.

The corpse had no objections.

Didn’t say a word, just followed—though carrying a waterlogged corpse was heavy.

Moments later, Wu Wang arrived.

Behind the once-vast empty space of the Black Room now stood a three-story building.

On its roof, golden lettering spelled out “Art Building,” though long abandoned—the gold had faded, covered in moss and dry leaves.

“Gurgle… gurgle…”

Wu Wang felt something wriggling beneath his clothes, so he lifted his bulletproof vest to check.

There, the [Bloodstained School Uniform] was changing—the graffiti colors crawled and flowed across the fabric like living things.

The rusted iron door of the sealed floor ahead also pulsed with matching graffiti colors.

As he’d guessed.

Wearing this uniform, he didn’t need any damn paintbox to enter the Art Building!

“Now, the game truly begins!”

He grinned widely as he approached the door.

With this step, the duplicate’s core finally revealed its mystery to him.

Everything before had been mere child’s play.

Po—

Wu Wang reached out—not even pushing the dusty, graffitied iron door—and his entire body slipped through a thin curtain of water, the door rippling like a pond.

He and the corpse he dragged were sucked inside.

Huh—

As he entered, a pungent odor hit him—dusty, sharp, like cheap oil paint, more like formaldehyde from spray paint.

He surveyed the first floor.

The lighting was extremely dim, only faint yellow glimmers revealing vague shapes.

This surprised him—he’d expected no electricity or light at all.

He looked closer.

Desks, chairs, and debris were piled chaotically, the clutter on the left stacked to the ceiling, blocking all passage.

On both sides, classroom doors stood open or locked, faintly labeled “Vocal Room 1,” “Vocal Room 2,” etc.

This floor must be the music wing.

"Hehehe..."

In the deathly silent corridor, eerie laughter suddenly echoed—like demonic whispers lingering endlessly.

Someone was inside the Art Building!?

Wu Wang’s expression turned grim.

No, this place didn’t feel inhabited.

More likely some unclean entity tied to the Art Building’s legend.

That was—the laugh of a ghost!

“You’re… Chu Yuxun? Where are we?” A sudden voice came from his feet.

Wu Wang looked down sharply.

Liu Yang was awake!

Not only awake—his shattered skull from the fall and water-swollen limbs had fully restored to normal.

He sat on the floor like a living man, rubbing his head, eyes filled with confusion.

“Uh, buddy, do you remember what happened before you got here?” Wu Wang tilted his head.

Liu Yang frowned, puzzled: “I remember being in class, Teacher Yao called on me to come up, then… I was here.”

As expected—he didn’t remember dying.

Wu Wang had no intention of telling him.

Who knew if he recalled his death, he’d suddenly split open and become the tentacle ghost Bailing Dao and the others described?

After all, He Yikan had warned them before fainting—the Black Room legend was tied to students who jumped.

“Do you know about the school’s Art Building?” Wu Wang pulled him up. “When I was a kid, there was this Uncle Neil on the children’s channel who believed in me more than my mom—always telling me to create art.”

“Now we’re in the Art Building. There should be white glue I never found before. Want to try it?”

Liu Yang stared blankly.

After a moment, he pointed behind Wu Wang, uncertainly asking:

“I don’t mind, but… is that person also with us?”

“!?!”