When Tang Yu reached the fifth floor, he saw Yan Lang and Miao Dongli crouched by the stairwell. Upon seeing him, Miao Dongli lit up with excitement: “Good afternoon, Tang Yu! Do you need help with anything right now?!”
Tang Yu instinctively took a step back.
He remembered this player ID. The last time Miao Dongli had helped him run errands, his attitude had been lukewarm—borderline unwilling.
“Like, what do you want for dinner?” Miao Dongli’s eyes practically sparkled as he tried to approach. But his shoulder was held back by Yan Lang.
Yan Lang, who was half a head taller, stood behind him. Though silent, his gaze was just as intense—like a dog silently saying: “I’m at your service.”
Tang Yu had seen that same expression on many faces before.
“Thank you, but I don’t need anything right now,” he declined smoothly.
Worried they’d cling to him, Tang Yu added, “Oh right, weren’t you two trying to figure out where Shen Junxing might be?”
Tang Yu pulled out his phone and showed them the picture Shen Junxing had sent earlier of the cat. “This is the stray cat on campus. Shen Junxing’s been feeding it recently.”
Yan Lang’s eyes couldn’t help but fall on Tang Yu’s hand holding the phone—even though he didn’t have a hand fetish.
Tang Yu frowned slightly and lowered his hand.
His face was hidden by a mask and hat brim, but the exposed white skin of his neck was visible, and his muffled voice came from under the mask: “They might still be downstairs right now.”
Yan Lang’s Adam’s apple bobbed slightly.
“Brother Yan! Let’s go now!” Miao Dongli’s words snapped Yan Lang out of his daze.
Tang Yu also looked at Yan Lang, hoping he’d leave soon. But unexpectedly, the other man raised his gaze. The intense look in his eyes suggested he had a lot to say, but what came out was: “You… how did you break the stairwell loop?”
Tang Yu stared at Yan Lang, a little confused by the sudden question—and those strangely dark eyes.
Normally, very few people had truly pitch-black pupils. But Yan Lang’s were that dark, with no trace of reflected light.
Had Yan Lang accidentally wandered into the stairwell loop again earlier? That would explain his strange behavior.
Tang Yu felt a chill.
The player must have misunderstood and assumed he had broken the loop. No wonder Miao Dongli was being unusually enthusiastic.
But he didn’t have that kind of power. The last time he got caught in the stair loop, it was senior who had saved him.
It must’ve been the senior helping him secretly again.
“…I don’t understand what you’re talking about,” Tang Yu lowered his eyes and played dumb.
If he exposed senior’s abilities, the players would swarm him—causing him trouble, and also affecting Tang Yu.
“Then it was your roommate,” Yan Lang said suddenly.
Tang Yu widened his eyes and looked at Yan Lang. The brim of his hat shaded most of his face, leaving only a faint trace of blue in his damp eyes.
The full image of those blue eyes flashed through Yan Lang’s mind. Something like a sharp sting pricked at his heart. The surprise of that feeling made his brows furrow; his usual relaxed demeanor vanished, replaced by visible tension. “You slept in the same bed with him last night?”
Tang Yu couldn’t follow Yan Lang’s leap in logic and looked at him in confusion. His hat and mask hid his expression, and his silence seemed like quiet confirmation.
“There was a paper effigy on his bed. That’s not a good thing.” Yan Lang’s tone grew faster, even edging into aggression: “Do you know what kind of person he is? And you still slept with him?”
Paper effigy?
Tang Yu instantly remembered the crying little paper effigy and who had made it. But before he could even connect the cold and aloof Li Sheng with that cute paper effigy, he heard the rest of Yan Lang’s pointed words.
Something was off with Yan Lang’s emotions.
Something… disturbingly close to obsession. It wasn’t good.
“Yan Lang!”
Tang Yu’s voice suddenly rang out, loud and sharp with a clarity that cut through the air. Yan Lang’s twisted expression vanished instantly as he stared dumbfounded at Tang Yu.
Tang Yu didn’t push it further. After that single shout, he lost his momentum. “You’re talking nonsense.”
Yan Lang thought—Yeah. What was I even saying just now? He had meant to ask about the roommate, not this.
Tang Yu didn’t want to keep dealing with players. Seizing the moment of Yan Lang’s confusion, he lowered his head and quickly walked past him, climbing the stairs without looking back.
“…Did I bully him just now?” Yan Lang asked Miao Dongli after a long silence.
“Huh? I dunno either, bro.”
***
That afternoon, Tang Yu had no classes. He went off-campus to look at rental apartments.
He had originally planned to live in the dorms. But with players causing chaos around the school—and Shen Junxing apparently planning to feed cats at the dorm entrance daily—for the sake of his own mental health, Tang Yu decided to move out.
He visited three places, busy until nightfall before heading back to the dorm.
Passing the fifth floor without incident, Tang Yu was still weighing the pros and cons of the three apartments he’d seen. As he neared Room 623, he took out his keys. With a creaking push of the old door, he opened the dorm room.
A strong, cold fragrance filled the room. Even through his mask, it overwhelmed Tang Yu’s nose and mouth—so strong he found it hard to breathe.
“Did senior spray perfume in the dorm?”
Tang Yu reached for the light switch. The dorm room lit up. He lowered his head and saw a pair of shoes neatly placed at the entrance. The style was ordinary, but what stood out was that one was black, and the other white.
The tips of the shoes pointed directly at Tang Yu.
As if someone were standing straight at the doorway, toe-to-toe with Tang Yu.
Tang Yu tried to shake off this strange association in his mind. He sidestepped the shoes and walked a couple of steps, then suddenly stopped as if he sensed something. He turned around to look.
The shoes were still there at the entrance.
But Tang Yu couldn’t shake the feeling that their position had slightly changed. They seemed farther from the door—as if in the few seconds when he’d turned away, the shoes had taken half a step toward him.
And still, they were perfectly aligned with the door, as if they had taken a step backward—heel first—while keeping their toes pointed at him.
A chill rippled across Tang Yu’s back. He stared intently at the shoes. They didn’t move.
…Was it just his imagination?
Tang Yu walked toward the shoes again, hesitated for a moment, then bent down and placed them on an empty shelf of the shoe rack.
Only after that did he head toward his bed.
The opposite bed was still concealed behind a long, black-and-white curtain. He couldn’t see inside. Fearing that his senior was already asleep, Tang Yu deliberately kept his movements light as he quietly grabbed his toiletries and made his way to the bathroom.
The bathroom had been thoroughly cleaned, but the damp, cold air seemed even more oppressive after the cleaning—and that cold, faint fragrance lingered in the air.
Tang Yu took off his mask. His face was fully exposed under the bathroom’s cold white light.
Without the filter of the mask, the icy fragrance seemed to spread more distinctly throughout the space, invisibly wrapping around him.
Tang Yu had intended to take a shower, but there was no hot water. He had a weak constitution and caught colds easily. Thinking it over, he decided to just wipe down with a towel.
He dampened a soft towel with cool water.
His long, fair fingers lifted his clothes. The skin exposed to the cold air prickled instantly with goosebumps.
Tang Yu bowed his head. In the mirror, he saw the reflection of his narrow, pale waist. Water droplets slid down the curve of his waistline—and then, a pale, broad hand appeared and covered it. The bloodless fingers twitched slightly.
Whoosh—
A wave of icy chill crept up Tang Yu’s lower back. He instinctively looked toward the mirror.
The mirror showed his reflection, and the small, cramped bathroom behind him—completely empty. No matter how he looked, he was alone.
The cold water soaked into his clothes, and the chill felt like it was seeping into his bones. Tang Yu shivered and quickly pulled his clothes back down.
He hurriedly wiped himself clean, tidied up his toiletries, and opened the bathroom door.
But the moment he opened the door, he froze.
The shoes that had been placed on the shoe rack were back on the floor. This time, their toes pointed directly at the bathroom door.
As if someone had been standing right outside the door while he was inside.
That thought sent a jolt of fear through him.
What happened?
…Could it be that senior wanted to use the bathroom and saw him inside?
But then why were the shoes placed like that?
Was it that senior didn’t like his things being moved and purposely put them back, as a subtle reminder?
Tang Yu forced himself not to overthink. Holding his breath, he cautiously sidestepped the shoes again. After taking two steps forward, he couldn’t help turning his head slowly to look back.
The shoes were still neatly aligned, toes facing the bathroom.
One black, one white.
From how perfectly placed they were, it looked like senior had obsessive tendencies.
But then, why would someone with that kind of personality wear mismatched shoes—one black, one white? Did he put them on wrong by mistake? Or were the shoes intentionally designed that way?
Tang Yu looked away, put away his toiletries, and got ready to turn off the lights and sleep.
He walked back to the area near the bathroom, glanced once more at the shoes still sitting there, and then reached for the light switch on the wall.
Click.
The lights went out.
The dorm room suddenly went dark—but not pitch-black. Standing at the bathroom door, Tang Yu could see a faint white glow on the left side of the room.
Strange. Where was that light coming from?
To see more clearly, Tang Yu walked forward a few steps and turned to the left.
Inside the senior’s white bed curtain, two candle flames had somehow appeared. The shadows of the candles danced against the fabric. A strong, cold fragrance wafted steadily from behind the curtain.
Did the school cut the power, so the senior lit candles?
That wouldn’t be so strange, except…
Tang Yu’s neck stiffened as he stared at a figure standing upright in the right-hand candlelight. “Senior?”
A cold reply came from inside the curtain: “What is it?”
Tang Yu stiffly turned his head to look at the other figure behind the left candlelight. He heard his own voice, strained and dry: “Is it just the two of us in the dorm?”
…Why were there two silhouettes under the senior’s bed curtain?
“Are you talking about the things underneath?”
A pale hand reached out from the gap at the top of the curtain. Its nails were faintly bluish. The fingers hooked the white drape covering the desk, and as the curtain was lifted, the silhouette behind it turned into a paper doll wearing red clothes and pigtails.
Another hand reached out from the gap and lifted the left curtain. A paper effigy dressed in green with a small cap appeared, standing straight.
The two paper effigies were placed on either side of the desk. Behind them, white candles burned quietly. The ghostly candlelight lit up their pitch-black eyes and bright red blush. In the thick, cold fragrance, they stared fixedly at Tang Yu.
“They’re not human.”
