Chen Ge stood sideways, his eyes fixed on the chair in the middle of the hallway, his grip tight around the tool hammer.
He waited for more than ten seconds. The chair in the hallway didn't move at all.
"Is it because I'm watching?" Chen Ge took a few steps forward, turned on his phone's video recording function, and draped it over the chain on the glass door.
After that, he retreated to the wasteland outside the dormitory building and waited quietly.
The campus at midnight was so quiet it was unsettling—he couldn't hear even the chirping of insects or birds.
About three minutes later, Chen Ge approached the dormitory building. He had already braced himself for the worst possible outcome. But when he stood at the entrance of the dormitory again, the chair was still in its original position, exactly one meter from the corridor lamp on the roof.
"It didn't move? What's going on?" Chen Ge stood beside the glass door and pulled down the phone he'd placed on it. He played back the video and found nothing unusual—the chair sat obediently in the center of the hallway the entire time.
"Could it be that it only moves when it sees a person?" The moment this thought crossed his mind, Chen Ge felt a twinge of unease. He turned to look down the girls' dormitory hallway. At some point, the chair had crept forward another two meters—it was now very close to the glass door!
"It moved closer again? What is this thing trying to do? It approaches whenever I come near—is it trying to tell me something?" Saying he wasn't afraid would be a lie, but Chen Ge's tolerance for fear was far greater than most people's, which was why he could still keep a clear head in this kind of environment.
"There's something seriously wrong with this school. Until I understand it better, I shouldn't provoke these things." In truth, Chen Ge desperately wanted to smash the glass with a single swing of his hammer, drag the chair out, and dismantle it. But considering the number of blind spots inside the dormitory building, he was worried about running into something else after going in. Rather than dragging the chair out, he might end up being dragged in himself.
"The key mission tonight is finding the red dancing shoes. As for all these strange things—as long as they don't interfere with me, there's no need to fight them head-on." Chen Ge backed away with his phone in hand. "I'll finish scouting the other areas first. If I haven't found the dancing shoes by then, I'll come back. As long as I find them before dawn, the mission counts as a success. I still have plenty of time."
Chen Ge mentally noted the location of the girls' dormitory entrance, then retraced his steps. He turned off his phone's light and crouched near the school's main gate, hammer in hand.
"Based on the timing, that taxi following me should have arrived by now. So why is the road outside still pitch black?" In total darkness, headlights would be extremely conspicuous, but Chen Ge waited for a long time without seeing any light approaching outside the school. "Could something have gone wrong?"
This had been weighing on his mind. In his view, such a coincidence was impossible in this world—someone who would go out of their way to come to Xicheng Private Academy, trailing right behind him, certainly had some ulterior motive.
"The other person might have guessed I'd be ambushing them along the road, so they got out early and walked over slowly. If that's really the case, then this is going to be tricky." He would rather be wrong about this. He would rather be outwitting thin air than have drawn the attention of a truly dangerous opponent.
"I need to pick up the pace. I have two advantages right now: arriving early means I can familiarize myself with the environment. The second is Zhang Ya's existence—there's no way that old girl would stand by and watch me get bullied on her turf, right?"
Chen Ge's eyes had already adjusted to the darkness. Perhaps because of his Yin eyes, he could see reasonably well even in the dead of night.
"Light gives away your position. Right now, whoever is in the open is the prey." He didn't turn on his phone. Instead, he carried the tool hammer and headed toward another building.
The tallest building at Xicheng Private Academy was the teaching building—five stories in total. Behind it lay an overgrown sports field, and on the far side of the field stood a solitary building.
Its walls were a faded red. Separated from everything else by the sports field, it looked distinctly out of place.
"The teaching building is where classes are held—the dancing shoes probably wouldn't be there. The boys' dormitory is even less likely. I'll check that red-walled building first."