"Back then, the attendance sheet Teacher Bai held was very clear—my class, teachers and students combined, had a total of seventeen people. But when I counted on my own, I found that class alone had seventeen students! In other words, there was one extra student in the room! The real number should have been sixteen! And Teacher Bai, whether due to carelessness or some other reason, overlooked this!"
Each student file had a photo attached. By comparing them against the memories in his mind, Chen Ge quickly pulled five files from the collection—and he hadn't seen a single one of those five people in the class.
"I'm missing five people from my class?" Chen Ge immediately connected this to something else. The wall of his Room 413 dormitory had exactly five human-shaped shadows on it!
"Is it a coincidence, or did those five missing people eventually become the shadows on the wall?" Chen Ge flipped through the student files again and discovered another problem: "Why didn't I find Xiaolin's file?"
He went through everything twice but couldn't find anyone named Lin Sisi.
"Was the extra person in the classroom Lin Sisi at that time? In other words… was that me?"
Chen Ge recalled what the Nightmare Academy diary had said about Xiaolin—because Xiaolin liked to pull pranks, the entire class had eventually played a joke on him.
"I think I'm starting to understand." He didn't voice the rest of what he was thinking. He had a feeling Lin Sisi didn't represent a single person, but rather an identity.
Here, no one was his friend—but at the same time, everyone had some unknown connection to him.
"No assistance, no leads, every single person an enemy—and in a situation where death could strike at any moment, you also have to face the Academy's near-impossible 'rules.' This is a four-star difficulty?" Chen Ge's grip on the files tightened involuntarily. He instinctively glanced at his own shadow. There was nothing unusual about it.
The truth was often the cruelest and heaviest thing of all. Chen Ge drew a slow, steadying breath. "It's fine. At least they're not a united front. I still have a chance."
Everyone in this school had their own agenda—they all wanted to achieve their own goals. And that was an opportunity for Chen Ge!
He committed the faces from those five files to memory, then stuffed the entire collection of files into his backpack.
He continued searching the bedroom while Wang Xiaoming pressed himself against the door panel, face tense, eavesdropping on the sounds outside.
"Xiaoling, open the door. Uncle's worried about you—afraid some bad person might have snuck into your room."
"A pet my dad gave me got out of its cage. I'm chasing it around the room."
"A pet your dad gave you?"
"Yeah. Uncle Zhang, please don't tell anyone. I promise it won't bother anybody."
"Old Bai really is something—school rules don't allow pets. I'll let it slide this time, but get rid of that thing as soon as you can."
"Okay, Uncle Zhang. Just please don't tell anyone."
"Relax, how would I possibly tell anyone about this?"
The voices in the living room faded. After a while, Bai Ling ran back and opened the bedroom door. "He's gone."
"Could he still be hiding by the door?" Chen Ge tilted his left hand—the one holding the bag—behind his back, worried the girl might notice how much fuller it had become.