Chapter 176: The Wrong Answer

According to the information I found on my computer, students from four majors still attended classes at the old campus of Jiangcheng Medical College. However, arriving to investigate in person, I found the entire school incredibly deserted.

It was nine-thirty at night. Vehicles occasionally passed by on the street outside. A security guard sat at the campus entrance, enjoying the cool evening breeze. Inside, a scattering of lights flickered, but most of the campus was pitched in darkness.

"Stop right there! Are you a student? Let me see your student ID." The security guard was very responsible. As soon as he saw me approach, he immediately stood up from his chair.

I handed him a cigarette and stood at the gate, holding my Black Leather Suitcase. "Why aren't there any students in your school? It's pitch black in there. Looks pretty creepy."

Accepting the cigarette, the security guard's expression softened a bit. "This is the old campus. The students are all taking classes over at the new campus."

As if deliberately slapping him in the face, a fashionably dressed girl carrying a satchel confidently walked out of the school right after he spoke.

She wore light makeup and had an average face, but her chest was shockingly well-endowed. She was incredibly curvy and walked with a bouncy, energetic swagger.

"Zhang Jiaqi, the dorm locks at ten-thirty. Don't go running around, hurry back inside." The security guard seemed to know her.

"I'm just going to buy a couple of large Band-Aids. If you're so worried, you can come with me." The girl spoke sharply. The security guard choked on his words, unable to squeeze out a single syllable in response.

"Not coming? Then I'm leaving." The girl rolled her eyes at the guard, then shot a glance at me. "You from outside?" she added casually. "Don't go wandering around our school in the middle of the night. There are several times more cadaver specimens stored here than living people. Walk the night roads too often, and you might bump into something that doesn't breathe."

"Zhang Jiaqi!" The security guard chased after her, but the buxom girl took off like a shot, sprinting to the other side of the street.

"Don't listen to her nonsense!" the security guard yelled back at me as he ran. "This is a medical college! It's perfectly normal to have a lot of cadaver specimens."

His explanation only made things sound worse, but I didn't take it to heart. "You seem to know that girl pretty well?"

"How could I not? She's the only student in the entire human anatomy major." The security guard gave a bitter smile. "As soon as night falls, she runs off campus. She acts secretive every day and has more guts than any of us grown men. If you know what's good for you, don't mess with her. You'll only end up suffering."

"Studying anatomy?" Anatomy was the foundation of all medicine, and any medical major touched upon it to some extent. However, very few people actually specialized in human anatomy.

I grew somewhat interested in the girl. Compared to asking the security guard about the strange things that had happened in this school, that bold female student seemed like a much easier breakthrough point.

Carrying my Black Leather Suitcase, I left the school and trailed the girl from a distance.

She wandered along the street for a while before ducking into a supermarket. I waited by the door for thirty minutes, but she still didn't come out. I felt something was wrong.

'Did she spot me?' I walked into the supermarket and found her by one of the counters. The girl seemed to be deliberately killing time, sitting on a chair inside the store and playing on her phone.

"Your dorm is about to close. Aren't you heading back?" I bought two cups of milk tea and sat down next to her.

"For me?" Zhang Jiaqi took a cup of milk tea and shook it in front of her eyes. "You didn't drug this, did you?"

"What do you think?" I lit a cigarette and set my Black Leather Suitcase on the floor. "Let me ask you something. Does your school still have a west gate?"

"How did you know? Scouting things out so clearly... are you trying to hit on me?"

"I'll leave a beautiful swan like you for the other toads to obsess over." I took a drag of my cigarette. "Jokes aside, I circled your school earlier and didn't see a west gate. Was it torn down?"

"For the sake of the milk tea, I can tell you. But you'll have to wait," Zhang Jiaqi said mysteriously.

"Wait? Why?"

"You'll understand when eleven o'clock rolls around." She cupped the milk tea in both hands and stared at the clock on the wall.

The Underworld Live Show required me to arrive before midnight. I didn't have any better options right now, so I just sat there with her in the 24-hour supermarket.

"You're still single, aren't you?"

"You look like you're twenty-five or twenty-six, though you don't show your age."

"Actually, drinking milk tea at night is bad for you. Straight guys like you just don't know how to care for girls. You need to fix that habit, or you'll end up a bachelor for the rest of your life..."

Listening to the incessant chattering beside my ear, I finally understood why the security guard's gaze held a hint of dread when he looked at this girl.

We finally made it to eleven o'clock. Zhang Jiaqi and I walked out of the supermarket. She pointed toward the school gate; the security guard had retreated inside his booth at some point, and there was no one patrolling outside.

"There are a lot of weird things about this school. Even the guards don't dare wander around late at night." She excitedly grabbed my hand and led me to the westernmost edge of the campus. "There, the west gate is right here."

The surroundings were completely desolate. There wasn't a single household on the west side of the school. The only few buildings in the area were totally abandoned, without a sliver of light to be seen.

I set down my Black Leather Suitcase and tore away the dense ivy clinging to the wall, finally revealing a small door hidden underneath, just wide enough for one person to pass through.

"So it's over here." I rattled the large, rusted lock hanging on it. Going through normally was definitely out of the question. However, the wall wasn't too tall. With my agility, I could easily vault over it.

"Thanks for leading the way. The roads are hard to navigate in the dark. Here is my phone number. If you run into any danger on your way back, give me a call. I'll rush over to help you immediately." After giving the girl my number, I urged her to leave.

"Bro, are you kidding me?" Zhang Jiaqi watched as I eagerly prepared to scale the wall. "This is my school. If anyone should be leaving, it's you, right?"

"The west section of your school is extremely dangerous. I can't explain exactly how dangerous right now, but long story short, this place is bizarre. It isn't normal." I patiently tried to dissuade the girl, but her response left me both amused and exasperated.

"I already knew it was dangerous. Ever since I enrolled, the teachers, the directors, and the senior students all warned me never to go to the west section. They said it's a restricted area. But that's exactly why I'm so curious about it." Her eyes shone brightly as she rummaged through her satchel for something.

"You aren't expecting me to take you inside, are you?"

"I know this school better than you do. I know the exact location of every anatomy lab inside. If we go in together, we can keep each other company."

"Why would a girl come here in the middle of the night? Looking for a thrill? Aren't you scared at all?"

"I've dissected more corpses than the number of women whose hands you've held. Give me a straight answer."

"No, it's too dangerous." Zhang Jiaqi had an eccentric personality, and I couldn't begin to guess what she was really thinking. To avoid dragging her into this mess, I had no choice but to walk away first.

I circled halfway around the campus. By the time I returned to the west gate, Zhang Jiaqi was long gone.

'Did she head back to her dorm?' I checked my watch; it was already eleven-thirty. I couldn't afford to delay any further. Glancing left and right to ensure no one was passing by, I hoisted my Black Leather Suitcase onto the top of the wall and swiftly vaulted onto the campus.

Touching the ground, I dropped into a half-crouch and scanned my surroundings using the faint light of my phone screen.

It looked as though no one had maintained the place in a long time. Overgrown weeds spread everywhere, and a few crooked trees jutted sporadically out of the waist-high brush.

"No one's here." I straightened up and looked further into the distance. Several buildings of unknown purpose stood silently in the darkness like dark tombstones.

'Is the truth hidden in there?'

I took a deep breath, pulled out the Underworld Live Show Phone, opened the camera function, and plugged in the Portable Encoding Stick.

"Acquiring image..."

"Connecting to live chat..."

"Data stabilized. Start the live stream?"

"Yes."

"Welcome Teletubbies Died of Murder to the live stream. Welcome Master Tieling Biao to the live stream. Welcome..."

The image gradually sharpened. By the time my full figure appeared on the screen, the viewer count had already broken five hundred.

"I don't know whether watching the Underworld Live Show's broadcast is a good or a bad thing for you all. But since you're already here, don't be in a rush to leave."

I held the phone screen out in front of me. "Welcome everyone to the Super Thriller Live Broadcast Room. Before we start today's stream, I have to tell you something. I once gave the wrong answer to a test question about murder. As punishment, I will have to personally experience that terrifying night. Don't think I'm lying. Keep your eyes peeled and watch closely as we uncover the truth behind this life-and-death game!"