BTO CH36

Linjiang Sixth High was a school with a ridiculous number of rules, and it was precisely this educational style that made Xu Sheng’s stunts send shockwaves across the entire campus.

Most students at Sixth High were single-mindedly focused on sprinting toward the college entrance exam, burying their heads in their studies. Even the slackers slacked off properly—take Zhang Feng, for instance. He might play games in class and go to the internet cafe after school, but the moment he was caught, he dropped to his knees and shouted, “I was wrong, I’ll never do it again!” faster than anyone else. He normally didn’t dare be late, let alone skip class.

But right now, Xu Sheng had no time to be surprised that his Class 7 classmates secretly harbored uninhibited, rebellious hearts. His fingers curled instinctively, and he tore his eyes away from the screen.

Hou Jun lowered his voice and whispered conspiratorially, “Shh, be quiet. The thrilling part is coming.”

Staring at the four words of the title, Murder Game, Tan Kai plunged into a deep silence. When the title flashed past and the opening sequence and cast list started rolling on the screen, he backhanded Hou Jun hard on the back of the head: “You told me this was an action movie?! And this is what you show me? What kind of fucking action movie is this!”

Hou Jun rubbed the back of his head: “They’re dismembering bodies, how is that not action? The range of motion is huge!”

Tan Kai and the other students: “…”

Hou Jun was a movie buff, with a particular love for crime thrillers of all kinds.

When Hou Jun enthusiastically invited them, his pitch had been “good stuff,” “thrilling,” and “action movie.” Consequently, this group of hot-blooded, energetic boys had already imagined a grand spectacle and let their imaginations run wild before even arriving…

“Let’s go, let’s go.” Another boy made a move to leave.

Xu Sheng recognized him. It was Shen Wenhao’s desk mate, the guy who occasionally used the classroom computer to play songs during evening self-study when King of Hell Gu and Old Meng weren’t around, and always loved to sing along. Rumor had it he harbored musical dreams, but his singing was truly something that couldn’t be complimented, always provoking the other students in the audience to shout: “Bro, don’t open your mouth, we’re all on the same side.”

“Don’t go,” Hou Jun pulled him back. “Yuan Ziqiang, next time you sing, I’ll clap for you.”

Yuan Ziqiang: “Really?”

Tan Kai laughed maniacally: “Monkey Bro, that’s way too big of a sacrifice.”

Although Shao Zhan rarely participated in class activities, sitting there, he actually didn’t look out of place.

He sat next to Xu Sheng, his back leaning precisely against the iron bar of the bed frame, showing zero reaction to the plot playing on the screen in front of them—he hadn’t even blinked once.

After tearing his eyes away from the screen, Xu Sheng didn’t know where to look. Finally, his gaze landed on the hem of the shirt of the person to his left, and then on the teenager’s lean wrist. Shao Zhan’s hand was braced on the edge of the bed, very close to him.

Maybe it was because they were too close.

Xu Sheng could clearly smell the scent of body wash on Shao Zhan—the same cool, minty scent from the first time he had showered in the dark in his dorm with his eyes closed.

The surroundings were pitch-black, with only the tablet resting on the desk emitting light.

The dorm was filled with terrifying sound effects and the voices of the students whispering and jumping at every plot twist: “Holy shit, this guy is about to die, right? I think he’s definitely next. Wanna bet?”

“Bet! I think it’s the woman next to him. I bet a newly released skin.”

“…”

While Hou Jun and the others were competing to place bets, Xu Sheng heard another low, cold voice sound by his ear:

“Are you watching the movie, or are you watching me?”

Shao Zhan hadn’t spoken since he walked through the door. Having changed out of his school uniform, sitting among the crowd, he looked exceptionally like the ringleader leading them in doing bad things. Hou Jun had even frozen for two seconds when he saw him—it was the first time he had seen the Study God not wearing a school uniform, and the few guys in the dorm were inexplicably reduced to looking like his lackeys.

After Shao Zhan said that, he turned his head, his eyes meeting Xu Sheng’s exactly.

The volume of their conversation was low compared to the movie, and Hou Jun and the others were still staring intently at the screen.

It’s inevitable to feel awkward when caught staring. Xu Sheng said, “I’m watching the movie, of course.”

Shao Zhan neither agreed nor disagreed.

Xu Sheng added: “Who’s looking at you?”

Shao Zhan gave an “Mhm,” and followed up with: “The person staring at me for half a minute without blinking wasn’t you.”

“…”

Left speechless, Xu Sheng quickly grasped a new line of thought and retorted, “How did you know I was looking at you if you weren’t looking at me?”

Unexpectedly, Shao Zhan answered cleanly and sharply. He shifted his posture, the damp strands of hair on his forehead half-dry. Looking away, his eyes were obscured in the dim light: “I admit the first half of your sentence.”

Xu Sheng froze.

Admitting the first half of the sentence means exactly…

I was looking at you.

Shao Zhan had no interest in this movie. The plot devices were incredibly cliché, deliberately playing the mystery card, using gore to compensate for a weak storyline. Coupled with the endless chatter of the bets happening right next to his ear, it was far too noisy. Having lost interest, he noticed that his normally talkative desk mate was unusually quiet.

Not only quiet—he hadn’t moved an inch since the movie started.

Shao Zhan: “Are you scared?”

Xu Sheng indicated that such a thing could never happen to him. What a joke. “You think this little bit of stuff could possibly scare me?”

Having talked big, he had to keep the act up.

Xu Sheng was forced to continue watching the screen in front of him. The screen happened to show this scene: a man in black wearing a black mask appeared behind the female lead. The female lead was in the kitchen, holding a freshly baked dessert from the oven, completely unaware of the danger quietly approaching. The man in black slowly raised the sickle in his hand—

Fuck.

Xu Sheng could watch any movie, except for this kind of gory slasher film.

The grayish, muted tones made the screen look stained with dirt. Coupled with countless gory scenes, it caused psychological discomfort.

Fear, at its root, stems from oneself. Xu Sheng himself might have even forgotten certain trivial childhood events that caused this fear.

When he was a child, he rented an apartment with Xu Yaping. At the time, Xu Yaping had just brought him to C City. Her job wasn’t stable yet, so they could only afford a cheap single room. After bouncing around looking at several places, they finally rented a pretty decent one. Xu Yaping was thrilled, saying: “It’s so much bigger than the other ones, and the price is basically the same!”

Only later did they learn that the previous owner, frustrated by career failures, had gotten into an argument one day and caused a bloody tragedy.

Xu Yaping was mostly busy with work, leaving Xu Sheng home alone.

However, they didn’t live in that single room for long, moving out in less than a month.

Watching up to this point, Xu Sheng’s hand involuntarily moved sideways, trying to find something to grab onto to distract himself for a moment. Anything would do; whatever was close at hand, he would grab.

His original intention was to reach out and grab the edge of the bed. However, the screen went dark, and there were no other light sources in the room.

Consequently, he unconsciously grabbed something a bit hard, yet warm.

A few minutes later, the gory scene ended, and the plot temporarily returned to calm.

Hou Jun slapped his thigh: “Holy shit, it really was that woman! Didn’t she lock the door earlier? How did this guy get in?”

Tan Kai: “There was foreshadowing earlier, you just didn’t watch carefully. But none of that matters. All you need to know is that starting from right now, you owe me a hero skin.”

Yuan Ziqiang: “And my applause, don’t forget.”

Hou Jun: “Fuck.”

Xu Sheng lowered the leg he had propped up on the edge of the bed, pulling himself out of the plot. Only then did he belatedly realize that what was pressing into his palm were the prominent knuckles of Shao Zhan’s hand.

Shao Zhan hadn’t spoken, simply letting him hold his hand for nearly five minutes.

“Fuck,” Xu Sheng yanked his hand back violently, as if he had been scalded by boiling water.

“Pretty brave,” Shao Zhan opened his hand, rolling his wrist a few times, speaking with pointed intent: “Not scared at all.”

Xu Sheng explained: “Grabbed the wrong thing.”

It was indeed grabbing the wrong thing, but saying it made Xu Sheng feel inexplicably guilty.

After all, no matter how you sliced it, he had been holding someone’s hand for a good while.

The plot didn’t stay calm for long. The second half of the movie shifted toward everyone slaughtering each other according to the rules of the game, descending into a crazed melee.

Having stretched his joints, Shao Zhan rested his hand back on the edge. His tone of voice was no different from usual, but Xu Sheng felt this person wasn’t actually as aloof as he appeared. He said, “If you’re scared, you can grab the wrong thing again.”

The battery on Hou Jun’s tablet barely lasted until the end of the movie.

After the movie ended, the group headed back to their respective dorms. Hou Jun walked them to the stairwell, unable to resist continuing to discuss the plot they had just watched: “That ending was really unexpected… wasn’t it, Sheng-ge?”

“Ah,” Xu Sheng hadn’t had the mind to care about where the plot was going during the entire second half, nor did he remember any of it. He froze for a second before saying, “Definitely unexpected.”

Hou Jun continued rambling: “How could the killer be him…”

Xu Sheng watched Shao Zhan walking in front. The collar of Shao Zhan’s T-shirt was loose. The windows on both sides of the corridor were open, and the dry night breeze swept through the hall. The skin from the back of his neck down was exposed, and further down was that tattoo that no one else but him knew about.

This guy, Shao Zhan… it seems he really isn’t that hard to get along with.

Zhang Feng received Xu Sheng’s message in the middle of the night. He had just returned from the Kings’ Rift to the real world and was preparing to pull up his AC quilt and go to sleep: “Middle of the night, who is it?”

Zhang Feng grabbed his phone.

S: What do you think of Shao Zhan?

Zhang Feng squinted as he typed, replying: Except for the fact that his brain seemed a bit messed up a while ago, overall, it’s just one word: cold.

Just because Zhang Feng hadn’t seen much of Shao Zhan before didn’t mean he hadn’t heard the legends of the Study God.

Zhang Feng: Isn’t the Study God famous for being cold and ruthless? Why did you suddenly think to ask this in the middle of the night?

After returning to his dorm and lying in bed, Xu Sheng remained wide awake for a long time. He thought to himself: My brain is the one that’s fucking messed up. Am I going crazy?

However, Zhang Feng was a man who believed he knew many things. He didn’t need any hints at all, quickly arriving at the most likely scenario on his own: Holy shit, are you seriously considering him just because he likes you?

S: …

Zhang Feng added: Actually, the Study God has good grades and is handsome. It’s not like he can’t be considered.

S: Scram.

Are we never going to get past this?

Xu Sheng simply steered clear of the topic.

S: Wanna game?

Zhang Feng: No more, just finished playing. By the way, do you know about the military training the school arranged for us this week? Well, not military training, what was it called again, I forgot… Education something?

“National Defense Education.”

During morning self-study the next day, Meng Guowei stood passionately at the podium, rallying the troops for the training: “That’s right, I believe everyone has been looking forward to it for a long time. To improve the comprehensive quality of our school’s students, the school launches various activities every year. This time, our National Defense Education is scheduled for Wednesday, lasting a total of five days. I’ll have Hou Jun hand out the notices in a bit, make sure to inform your parents when you go back.”