“Lu Ying?!” Upon hearing the name, Ji Bingyao paused, her brow furrowing slightly. ‘Who was that again? It sounds a little familiar…’
“She’s a member of our great, glorious Campus Mystery Research Society, just like you!” Xia Hua’s expression immediately shifted to one of indignation upon realizing Ji Bingyao drew a blank. “Besides me, your genius president, there are only two other regular members in the entire society—you two! What do you mean you can’t remember other people’s names?!”
“Ugh… because you only asked me to be a nominal member back then,” Ji Bingyao replied with an embarrassed flush. “You said I just needed to be registered under your name so the Campus Mystery Research Society wouldn’t be disbanded. You also said I could skip regular club activities. So, not remembering names…”
“Forget it, we can talk about this later,” Xia Hua said, pressing the communication button on her cute-looking radio. “How are you, little Yingying? Did you miss me? What did you say? Uh… really? The dorm is safe, and everyone’s inside? That’s great, we’ll be right back.”
“How do you have something like this?” Shirley asked.
“Uh, actually, Lu Ying gave it to me. Besides being a member of the Campus Mystery Research Society, she’s also part of the Children’s Radio Enthusiast Club, so it’s not strange for her to have a kids’ walkie-talkie,” Xia Hua shrugged, a casual air about her. “Normally, we use it to play games… ah, no, to investigate inexplicable phenomena on campus. Although it only has a communication range of five hundred meters, it’s enough for talking within the school.”
“So what did she just say? Our dorm is safe?”
“That’s right,” Xia Hua said, taking a few steps closer to Shirley. She suddenly gripped one of Shirley’s hands firmly, suggestively kneading her palm. Xia Hua’s bold gesture instantly drew gasps and indignant stares from the onlookers, yet she remained utterly unfazed. “It seems only your dorm building hasn’t been breached yet.”
“That’s wonderful!” Alice exclaimed. “God must have seen Shirley’s heroic actions and decided to bestow a blessing! It must be! Shirley saved us all!”
“Yes, it’s safe there,” Shirley said, releasing Xia Hua’s hand and, in turn, taking Alice’s. In that instant, a flush of pure delight blossomed on Alice’s cheeks… followed by an unsettling flicker in her eyes. “Let’s go quickly.”
No one raised any objections.
For the next few minutes, as they moved forward, the group continued to converse quietly with Lu Ying, who remained in the dorm, using the children’s walkie-talkie that required no cell signal. Lu Ying reported that since the exploration team had ventured out that morning, the entire dorm building had remained untouched by any attacks. Only a handful of terrifyingly large insects would occasionally flit past the windows and doors, startling the remaining occupants. Once the pervasive fog had lifted entirely, even these monstrous creatures had ceased their unsettling movements. Furthermore, Lu Ying asserted that by afternoon, a significant number of elementary, middle, and high school students had sought refuge in Dorm Building 7, rendering it quite crowded.
“Since most people are there, that makes things easier,” Shirley said, drawing near the entrance of the dorm building. In stark contrast to the previously encountered dorms, which lay exposed with open doors and shattered windows amidst utter chaos, Dorm Building 7 presented a picture of intact security: its doors and windows remained firmly sealed, devoid of any suspicious stains or damaged objects outside. This pristine sight immediately ignited a spark of hope within the group. “After all, as the saying goes, there’s strength in numbers. It’s safer to be concentrated than dispersed. Uh, excuse me, could you open the door?”
“O-okay.” Lu Ying’s voice, small and hesitant, came through the walkie-talkie. Moments later, the dorm’s main door swung open from within. The person who greeted them was not Lu Ying, but a middle school student in a sailor-style uniform, who, for reasons unknown, appeared remarkably timid, shrinking away like a shy kitten once the door was ajar.
“Where are the people who came here for refuge?” Shirley asked after stepping into the expansive hall. As a dorm building for an aristocratic school, even the ground-floor lobby was decorated like a high-end hotel, furnished with massive leather sofas, lush greenery, colossal decorative porcelain vases, and bookshelves, with ample space deliberately left for social activities. Logically, people from other dorm buildings seeking refuge should have gathered here. However, apart from the middle school student who opened the door, only two or three individuals sat sparsely in the corners, seemingly entirely uninterested in them.
“Everyone has already been arranged into the empty dorm rooms,” said a girl who appeared to be in her late elementary or early middle school years, her voice surprisingly steady. She looked remarkably frail, her limbs as slender as kindling, seemingly struggling to bear the weight of her own small body, and her skin was unnervingly pale, like bleached paper. “The teacher said that continuing to panic isn’t a solution, so everyone should settle into the dorms first, calm down, and wait for rescue.”
“A teacher? Are there faculty and staff who escaped here too?”
“Yes, there are.” The sickly loli replied, her voice soft, as the timid middle schooler who had let them in slowly closed the door once more. “The life guidance teacher who stayed on campus during the summer vacation fortunately escaped, and she’s currently arranging all affairs within the dorm building.”
“It’s good to have an adult around,” A wave of relief washed over Shirley’s face as she cast a meaningful glance at Xia Hua. The latter, understanding the unspoken signal, simply nodded and approached the frail girl. “Hey, you don’t look too well. Do you need to go to a dorm to rest?”
“N-no, thank you.” The sickly loli said. “I’m still—Agh!”
Before she could complete her thought, Xia Hua, whose hand had just been reaching out as if to offer support, suddenly conjured a stun gun in her palm and thrust it directly into the sickly loli’s back. A gut-wrenching scream tore through the air as the small body crumpled instantly onto the plush carpet.
“Quickly, tie her up!” Shirley hissed. “Subdue her.”
“Got it!” With a decisive “Got it!” Ji Bingyao, ever the athletic beauty, led the charge, her movements swift and purposeful. She lunged towards the middle school student who had earlier opened the door for them. Witnessing the assault on the frail loli, the student instantly produced a fruit knife from her pocket and lurched unsteadily towards Shirley’s group. With practiced ease, Ji Bingyao evaded the sluggish, ill-aimed thrust, then delivered a sharp punch directly to the girl’s face.
The middle school girl collapsed to the ground like a marionette with severed strings, lying motionless.
Witnessing the scene, the three other girls who had been listlessly occupying the hall’s corner suddenly sprang into action, brandishing “weapons” such as sticks, table legs, and utility knives, and charged forward in a desperate attempt to rescue the incapacitated loli. Yet, none proved to be any match for Ji Bingyao. Within mere moments, every one of them lay sprawled on the floor, their bodies twitching as a putrid concoction of saliva and excrement slowly seeped from every orifice.
“Shirley was right after all!” Eileen exclaimed. “The people in the dorm building have already been parasitized!”
“Indeed, how unfortunate.” Shirley nodded mournfully. Despite having suspected this outcome minutes earlier, a lingering hope that her premonition was false had persisted until the moment they crossed the dorm’s threshold. “This is a trap set for us.”
Even as she spoke, a chaotic chorus of footsteps erupted around them. Within moments, over a dozen figures burst forth from various dorm rooms, swiftly encircling the group. Roughly half were refugees from other dorm buildings, while the remainder were members of the exploration team who had earlier ventured out from Dorm Building 7. As expected, Miss Huang and Li Nini were conspicuously present among them.
Both, however, now bore vacant stares and unnervingly crooked smiles, their eyes devoid of any recognizable human emotion. It was chillingly evident that over the preceding half-day, the parasites within them had completed their irreversible process, utterly consuming their consciousnesses.
“Uh, there are quite a lot of them.” Yurizumi raised her bow. “Are we really going to fight them?”
“No, I want to test a hypothesis,” Shirley said, drawing her self-defense pistol, which had only one bullet remaining, and pressing it against the sickly loli’s forehead. “Hey, little one, please make them stop.”
“You…” The sickly loli glared back, a flash of fury in her eyes. An ordinary sixth-grade girl, having suffered Xia Hua’s electric shock, would almost certainly have lost consciousness, even if her life wasn’t in danger. Yet, this girl had only temporarily lost her mobility, a peculiar resilience mirroring that of a previous girl who had claimed to lead them to the vanished exploration team. “How could I possibly…”
“Oh? Is that so? I’ll give you five seconds,” Shirley uttered in an icy tone, the sheer frigidity of her voice causing the sickly loli to flinch. For some inexplicable reason, Shirley found herself feeling a sudden, unsettling proficiency at playing the villain. “Five, four, three…”
The surrounding crowd halted their advance.
“Sure enough, you ‘hybrids’ do have a certain degree of control over ordinary parasitized individuals,” Shirley exhaled softly. “Just as I suspected.”
“How did you know—”
“Based on basic logic, and some educated guesses—and, of course, with Lu Ying’s help.” Shirley shrugged. Earlier, upon observing the orderly patrols of parasitic hosts around campus, she had realized that some form of commander must exist among these people and creatures. While the minute brains of the insects made them unlikely candidates, even ordinary parasitized humans couldn’t lead effectively; their brain functions would progressively degrade during the parasitic process, eventually leaving them with little more than muscle memory.
Thus, the only plausible explanation was the presence of “hybrids.”
After her encounter with Dianna, Shirley had harbored suspicions that individuals with fully autonomous thought, like Dianna, were, in fact, the “commanders” of these parasitic hosts. This suspicion was solidified when Lu Ying contacted Xia Hua via walkie-talkie. Despite repeatedly assuring them that “the dorm building is safe,” Xia Hua noticed Lu Ying’s speech was unusually slow, punctuated by constant, low “thump-thump” sounds of her tapping the walkie-talkie.
Xia Hua, who knew Lu Ying was a member of the Children’s Radio Enthusiast Club and had learned some relevant knowledge from her, recognized the tapping as Morse code for “SOS” after just two repetitions.
Though often eccentric, Xia Hua possessed a remarkably sharp mind. Instead of immediately questioning Lu Ying or ending the communication, she deliberately maintained the pretense of normalcy, continuing their conversation as if nothing was amiss. Simultaneously, she conveyed her discovery to Shirley by writing in her palm.
Shirley immediately deduced the truth: Lu Ying was being controlled and forced to lure them into a trap with false assurances over the radio. Such an act could not be orchestrated by human hosts, whose cognitive functions degenerated to the point of drooling and incontinence, nor by the massive, unintelligent insects. There was only one possibility…
“Hey, where’s Lu Ying? Is she alright? Are there any unparasitized people left in the dorm?” Ji Bingyao demanded, raising her double-barreled shotgun and pressing the muzzle directly against the sickly loli’s pale, small face. “Answer my questions!”
“Don’t worry, your little friend is perfectly fine… like everyone else left in the dorm, her assimilation into the hive has already begun…” The sickly loli sneered. “You can’t stop it.”