"You're overthinking it."
Whether it contained garbage or a corpse — what did that have to do with him right now?
Chen Ge remained perfectly clearheaded. His first priority was to figure out his identity and understand exactly what kind of person Lin Sisi was.
From his perspective, his body and appearance hadn't changed at all. He had no idea why Wang Xiaoming and everyone around him called him Lin Sisi.
"Maybe Lin Sisi isn't a person's name at all — it's a code, an identity."
"If you still want to go to the cafeteria later, you can call me. I'm heading back first." Chen Ge's expression didn't change much, as if he hadn't even noticed the bag.
"Sure." Wang Xiaoming shrank back into the dorm room, then suddenly seemed to remember something and called out to Chen Ge: "Xiao Lin, you were sleeping through class today, so I don't know if you heard what Teacher Bai specifically told us."
"What was it?"
"Recently, don't leave the dorm room at night — just stay in your own rooms. Also, lights-out has been moved up from eleven o'clock to ten thirty. After lights-out, someone will be patrolling the hallway, so everyone should be aware of that."
"That's it?" Chen Ge had expected Wang Xiaoming to say something important. He'd been behind this door for a while now, but everything and everyone he'd encountered seemed perfectly normal — or at least outwardly normal. This school was just like any ordinary night school, with nothing particularly noteworthy.
Wang Xiaoming bit his lip, appearing to want to say more, but perhaps because he wasn't sure, he kept quiet.
The door closed. Chen Ge stood alone in the dormitory building hallway. Everything around him was deathly silent — not a single sound.
"Lights aren't out yet, so how could the hallway be this quiet? Are none of these rooms on either side occupied?"
Chen Ge took the key from his backpack and looked at the door across from Wang Xiaoming's room. A number was written on it — 413.
"Is this Lin Sisi's room?" Staring at the number, Chen Ge suddenly felt it looked familiar: "Four stands for the fourth floor — what does thirteen mean? The thirteenth room?"
Chen Ge had seen the number thirteen in the diary he'd found beneath the Nightmare Academy. He remembered it clearly — the very last line on the final page of that diary read: "I, die, one three, Haunted Academy, escape."
"Is the thirteen in the diary referring to this dorm room? It probably isn't that simple."
In the deathly silent hallway, the only sound was the key scraping and turning inside the lock. Chen Ge tried several times before finding the correct one.
He opened the door, and the sight inside made his brow furrow deeply.
The room wasn't large. It contained six beds, all upper bunks, with wardrobes and desks beneath them, along with various odds and ends.
None of that would seem out of the ordinary. What caught Chen Ge's attention was the walls.
The walls and ceiling of this dorm room were covered with human silhouettes — life-sized, matching the height and build of an average person. It was impossible to tell whether they'd been pasted on or painted.
"One, two…" Chen Ge did a rough count. There were five human-shaped shadows in the room.
They were extremely conspicuous — impossible to miss.
For his own safety, Chen Ge first climbed the bed ladder to get a closer look at the shadows from the upper bunk.
He reached out and touched the nearest shadow, then gently scratched at the wall surface with his fingernail. "It's painted on with pigment. Who would paint this kind of thing in a dorm room for no reason?"
These life-sized human shadows were unsettling enough with the lights on — imagine looking up after the lights went out and finding the entire room covered in human figures. That would be far more terrifying.
After surveying all the shadows, Chen Ge hopped down from the bed. Without the help of his staff, he was more cautious than ever.
"Six beds in total, but there's only one thermos in the room, and just one pair of slippers on the floor. The only person actually living here must be Xiao Lin."
Chen Ge carefully rummaged through the wardrobes and desks corresponding to the other beds. While they also contained various miscellaneous items, none of it was everyday living supplies — it was all very strange things.
Drawing boards, buckets of paint, plaster broken hands, damaged electrical wiring, and so on.
This dorm room seemed to be a storage closet. Only Xiao Lin lived here — none of the other beds were occupied.
"Students at a night school rarely live on campus. Xiao Lin's financial situation is poor, so he'd be even less likely to spend extra money to stay at school. The only possibility is that staying here is cheaper than renting a place outside."
Normally, dormitory housing at a school would cost significantly more than the family-run guesthouses nearby. The abnormally low price here could only mean there was something wrong with this room.
Chen Ge had no idea what had happened in Xiao Lin's dorm room, but he felt a peculiar sense of urgency gnawing at him.
He climbed onto bed number four, the one farthest from the door. It was made up with fresh sheets and a blanket. The other beds had blankets tossed on them too, but most were coated with dust — so filthy they were practically unusable.
"If no one lives here, why leave blankets on the beds at all? Who would willingly use blankets that dirty?"
Chen Ge sat on bed number four and viewed the room from a different angle. It felt completely different — not so cramped at all.
"This is Xiao Lin's bed, all right." Taped next to the pillow were motivational notes and a daily schedule. If it weren't for being in this bizarre school, Chen Ge would have assumed Xiao Lin was a diligent, hardworking student.
"The sheets have been washed — they still smell like laundry detergent. The blanket is folded neatly too. When I was in school, I rarely saw anyone in the dorms fold their blankets this well. Xiao Lin must be someone who's clean and extremely self-disciplined." Chen Ge pieced together Xiao Lin's personality in his mind.
On bed number four, aside from the blanket and pillow, there were only books and pens.
At first glance, Chen Ge might have thought Xiao Lin truly loved studying, but after flipping through a few pages he spotted the problem.
Most of the textbooks related to his coursework were spotless — not a single annotation, as if they'd just been purchased. On the other hand, Xiao Lin's own notebooks had heavily worn edges, clearly indicating they'd been read over and over.
Chen Ge pulled out three notebooks hidden among the textbooks. They were stuffed with all kinds of clippings — some cut from newspapers, some from notices posted downstairs in the dormitory building, and others were small slips of paper in different handwriting.
"What is this…" A single glance pulled him right in.
"Man sneaks into dormitory during student holidays, unaware that not everyone has left. Hides in wardrobe. Discovered when leaving wardrobe in the dead of night."
"Body found in wardrobe early the following morning. Killer still at large. All faculty and students urged to take precautions."
The newspaper clippings were news articles — no detailed addresses, no specific names. They were simply reports of one sensational murder case after another.