Her delicate face was speckled with purple bruise-like marks. She had a pair of lively eyes, thin lips, and her smile was truly beautiful.
It was Pei Hu's first time being this close to a girl. He stared at the face that had been twisted a hundred and eighty degrees backward, and his mind went completely blank.
"Why did it turn out like this? For the first time, I wasn't rejected by a girl, and I didn't let fear drive me to abandon a friend. Two happy things happened at the same time, and those two happinesses brought me even more happiness. What I should have gotten was a dreamlike stretch of blissful time… but why? Why did it turn out like this?"
The puppet — whose head hung off her back, twisted a full hundred and eighty degrees — blinked gently, her delicate skin swollen and purplish as though she were suffocating.
Staring at those bulging eyeballs, Pei Hu's entire being went slack with shock.
"Help!"
A piercing male scream rang out from Muyang Middle School. Pei Hu, clutching the school badge, bolted for the classroom door!
The badge was tied around the puppet's neck. The puppet's body was yanked upward, overturning every desk and chair in its path. All the puppets in the classroom began to move.
Pei Hu charged desperately toward the door. The enormous commotion he'd caused froze Wang Wenlong, who had already been suspicious that the puppet was following him. Without a word, he made a break for the entrance too!
The two of them were close to the classroom door — one right after the other — but the same couldn't be said for Wang Hailong, who had wandered alone to the very back of the room.
The entire room of puppets crashed and swayed, heads rolling, limbs toppling. It looked as though every last one of them had come to life!
"Holy crap! What the hell is happening?!" Wang Hailong, standing alone in the corner of the classroom, felt as though he had plunged straight into hell — a scene he would never forget for as long as he lived!
"Wait for me!"
He grabbed the school badge on the nearest desk and scrambled desperately out of the pile of puppets. He hadn't even made it to the door when he heard Pei Hu scream again: "Don't chase me! Don't chase me!"
Pei Hu had forgotten that the school badge in his hand was tied around a puppet's neck. In his panic, he burst out of the classroom dragging the puppet along with him.
"Stop chasing me!"
He felt like something was clinging to his back, and without thinking twice as he stumbled through the doorway, he grabbed the classroom door and slammed it shut behind him!
"You son of a —!" Behind him, Brother Long's face twisted with fury. He had been sprinting at full speed, couldn't stop in time, and crashed headlong into the door with a resounding bang!
"Thud!"
He crumpled to the ground. In the pitch-black, dimly lit classroom, heads rolled in every direction, and countless pairs of eyes fixed themselves on him.
Puppet faces swam before Wang Hailong's vision. He felt his body lose all strength, a chill spreading from head to toe. Before he knew it, his eyes were brimming with tears.
"Pei Hu, I swear to your grandpa…"
Outside the last classroom, Pei Hu and Wang Wenlong burst through the door and braced themselves against the wall, gasping for air.
"That scared me to death! Something's wrong with that classroom — definitely something wrong!"
"The puppet moved! She winked at me!"
"Pei Hu, your back! Look at your back!"