Chapter 885 - My Canvas Broke
A heart raced, and the sound of beating came from the chest. It was cold, painful, and hard to breathe. The mouth opened, and the smell of blood was solidly stuck in the throat. “This is the memory I’ve lost? This is the taste of memory?”
Voices like this echoed around the school. Broken monsters came out from all corners of the school. Their eyes were filled with venom as they cried and roared. The mirror that loomed over the school had more cracks. As more students regained their memory, the mirror got more out of control.
The mirror was made from the students’ memories and consciousness. A human’s negative emotion and forgotten memories became the ghosts’ power behind the door, and it was them who made up the school’s consciousness, something that was beyond a Red Specter. The school’s consciousness had been protecting the school, but that day, due to Chang Wenyu’s betrayal and many other reasons, it suffered unprecedented damage.
“Everything has returned to the beginning.” The painter held the broken canvas with one hand, and his other hand slowly rose to reach toward the crumbling blood red mirror above him. “My canvas... broke.”
It did not feel good to have one’s memory stolen. How innocent the students on the eastern campus had been was how ferocious they were now. Slowly, some of the blood vessels left the mirror, the buildings in the campuses became blurry, and the dream that the painter weaved was slowly dispersing. The blood curtain dropped, and the inverted campuses were slowly overlapping.
The point of overlap was the lab building where the painter was. He was standing in the middle point of the mirror world and real life; that was his current situation. The red world was filled with students who rejected him and the threat from the red city while the campuses from the mirror had students who slowly had their memories returned and were trying to find the culprit. Both worlds were pressing against the painter, but his expression did not change too much.
“If the canvas broke, I’ll just get a new one. The world will never lack paint and canvases, just painters.”
When the blood mirror was about to crumble, the canvas that the painter was holding dissolved into dust. This appeared to be a signal, and blood leaked out from the buildings around the campuses. A monster with blinded eyes walked out from the eastern campus’ library, and a bloated carcass floated out of the manmade lake at western campus. One of the doors in the eastern campus’ male dormitory was pushed open. A small boy pulled off the nails pinned on the back of his arm. There was a student ID left next to him, and it had the name ‘Lin Sisi’. The last building was the trash collection center between the two campuses. One of the closed doors was opened by a monster crawling on the ground with four limbs. A horrible stench rushed out, and endless negative emotions crashed forward. The four buildings were like four supporting points. The mirror was still crumbling, but the four temporarily stopped the two worlds from recombining.
“It’s pointless. The basis of the campuses is the school’s consciousness. Once the mirror is attacked by the ghosts outside of the school, it will still collapse.” Yin Hong looked at the mirror in the sky, and her eyes were scarily red. “The school’s consciousness can resist a Greater Red Specter, and that is why the School of the Afterlife hasn’t been consumed by the red city. Now the two who have the biggest approval from the school have fallen out. The reality and dream are being cut into two; this place is over.”
BANG!
The school’s front gate was blasted open. Black vines appeared in the fog. They looked like plants or the limbs of zombies. Anyone who touched them would be dragged into the fog and disappeared.
“Chen Ge, shall we leave through the well? The school is now being targeted by the red city; they probably won’t expect there to be another exit in the school.” It was not that the old headmaster was cowardly. However, this was a situation that a Half Red Specter like him could not change. The old headmaster was kind, but after experiencing so much, he was not blindly kind anymore.
“If we leave, this school will really be over.” Chen Ge gritted his teeth and looked at the painter and Chang Wenyu’s red dress on the rooftop. “Everyone is saying their own thing. Who do you think opened the door?”
“Chen Ge?” The old headmaster noticed the strangeness in Chen Ge’s tone. “Are you alright?”
“Of course, I’m alright. I am much better than I’ve ever been.” Chen Ge narrowed his eyes, and his pupils shrunk. “It’s still the same. The scenario behind the door belongs to the door pusher, and the person who killed the door pusher will be the new owner here.”
The old headmaster did not know what Chen Ge meant. He knew that Chen Ge was one child that would always make people worry, so he did not think much of it, but he softly suggested, “Shall we head toward the well for now?”
“Sure, with backup, things should be easier,” Chen Ge said, his eyes fixated on the lab building. “Many clues in my mind have been linked together. It is not an accident that I entered the School of the Afterlife. I still have something to discuss with the person who’s used me.”
“Then... shall we move toward Mu Yang High School now?” The old headmaster was afraid that Chen Ge might do something rash. He hoped that Chen Ge would be honest, but he soon realized how wrong he was.
“It’s no problem to go there, but before that, I have to capture that person.” Chen Ge pointed at Chang Gu who was running at the field. The school’s consciousness was collapsing. The painter was held back by Chang Wenyu, and Chang Gu, who had opened the gate, was rushing toward the education block with the ‘doctor’s’ help. The doctor had a wicked plan of his own as well. He had formed some kind of contract with Chang Wenyu, but he was worried about Chang Wenyu turning on him, so Chang Gu was his hostage.
“It’s not good to meet them now, is it?”
“I will leave after I’m done. I will try to avoid a direct conflict.” Chen Ge had a reason he needed to capture Chang Gu. He could not tell anyone else about the real reason because the black phone was his biggest secret, and that secret was probably with Chang Wenyu now. Opening the comic, Chen Ge summoned all the Red Specters. “Find a chance to strike. Anyone who blocks your way is our enemy!”
At the same time, Chang Gu and the doctor escaped back to the education block. As they planned, once they ran back to this place, harrowing cries came from the gate. The cries were louder than the wails of the students, and they drifted into everyone’s ears. A figure appeared in the fog. She stood at the front gate, but she did not enter it. The fog that rolled into the school thickened, and more monsters were mixed in it.
That was not all. Not long after, the sound of munching could be heard mixed in the crying, and a large shadow appeared next to the first figure.
The fog blocked everything. The people in the buildings only saw a rough outline, but just from that, it was enough to strike fear and helplessness in their hearts.