Yang Chen and Li Xue hurried out into the corridor. The three of them stood in the hallway and looked back the way they had come — pitch black, nothing visible at all.
"Where are these footsteps you're hearing?"
"I definitely heard them! It sounded like someone jumping around in the passageway."
"Stop scaring yourself and come help."
Li Xue dragged Wang Yan into the last room. Yang Chen lingered outside for a moment, muttering the word Wang Yan had used: "Jumping?"
The three of them began searching the last dormitory. Most of the junk piled on the beds was props made from sponge and wood blocks — they looked filthy and chaotic, but they didn't actually give off any strange smell.
"Was this dormitory meant to store garbage?" Li Xue covered her nose and mouth with her sleeve. "But then why does the bed closest to the wall still have bedding on it? Who would want to live in this kind of filth?"
"That's not what we need to be thinking about right now." Yang Chen picked up one of the garbage props from the bed and held it under his nose. "We smelled a stench as soon as we entered the hidden scenario, and this room has the strongest smell. That means the thing giving off the stench is in this room. We need to find it to crack the secret of this scenario."
"I think Old Yang has a point. The whole room is piled with trash, but the stench isn't coming from any of it — that's strange." Wang Yan walked over to the only bed with bedding. "This bed, the one with no garbage on it, actually has the strongest smell."
He grabbed a corner of the blanket and clenched his teeth as he threw it aside.
Underneath the tattered blanket, there was nothing horrifying — just a notebook lying there.
Wang Yan casually flipped it open and scanned a few lines.
"Sorry, I shouldn't have gotten so close to you. I just wanted to help you pick up the ball."
"Teacher, I didn't wet my clothes on purpose. Nobody was playing tricks on me — it was my fault."
"Dad, I'll definitely work harder. Please, please stop hitting me."
"I'm sorry. I don't know why my laugh makes people feel disgusted. It won't happen again."
"If you tell me what's wrong with me, I can change. I can change anything!"
"I really just wanted to be like the rest of you. I'm sorry…"
The notebook wasn't thick. It was filled cover to cover with words of apology. Reading it felt oppressive.
"Is this guy out of his mind? Apologizing for what? If someone's bullying you, you fight back!" Wang Yan was hot-tempered. He curled his lip, disagreeing entirely with the notebook's author.
"Come look at this." Li Xue had found some torn-up photographs in the dormitory's trash can. She picked out a few pieces, fitted them together, and could just barely make out the people in the picture.
"They look like a father and son."
The child was severely obese. You could tell he was self-conscious — he seemed afraid of the camera and was hiding behind his father.
His father, on the other hand, had a terrible temper. His face was twisted with rage and he was incredibly rough with the boy, one hand gripping his neck as he dragged him out from behind by force.
"Is this a stepfather?"
Wang Yan held the notebook open for the other two to read. The first few pages were somewhat normal, but the further they read, the worse they all felt.
The boy had no name. His classmates called him "Pig." His father was one of the investors in the Xijiao Private Academy — the family was wealthy, but his father was exceptionally cruel to him.