The freight elevator rose slowly before finally stopping on the sixth floor.
The silver-grey elevator doors slid open in front of Chen Ge, and the chill from the air conditioning blew into the car. The temperature inside this laboratory building was significantly lower than outside.
Bright lights reflected off the tiled floor. The corridor was spotlessly clean — not a single piece of trash in sight.
"The laboratory building on the East Campus looked pretty much the same, except the lights weren't on there."
Chen Ge stared at the glass panel on the door, which reflected his own image.
"I think I've been here before, but why can't I remember anything at all?" Zhang Ju lifted his head slightly and caught sight of his own face in the glass — the fire had left his skin twisted and pitted, and just looking at it was unsettling.
He rubbed his head, seeming to struggle with some effort to recall something.
"It's fine if you can't remember. I get that feeling sometimes too — arriving somewhere new, a place you've never been before, yet it feels familiar, like you dreamed about it." Chen Ge placed his hand on Zhang Ju's shoulder. The warmth and steadiness of his palm chased away the unease in Zhang Ju's heart.
"Thank you, Teacher. I'm fine, but I really think I have been here before." Zhang Ju added another sentence: "Not in a dream — in real life. There are still some hazy things floating around in my mind. They're like a big lump of charred meat, and I'd have to dig through the bloody, mangled surface to see them clearly."
"That's quite the vivid metaphor." Chen Ge noticed that Zhang Ju was different from the other children — for some reason, he had retained quite a lot of his memories. "Come on, let's head to the dissection room first."
Chen Ge had Zhang Ju lead the way, and the group found the dissection room at the very end of the long corridor.
"The lights are off, and nobody's inside." Zhu Long pressed his face against the window in the dissection room door and peeked in. Using the light from the corridor, he could make out row upon row of cold metal dissection tables.
Just looking at them made his body tremble slightly — it was almost instinctive.
"Teacher Bai, are we going in?" Zhou Tu was getting a bit agitated. "If we don't go back soon, there won't be any hot water left in the washroom."
"Hold on!" The one who spoke wasn't Chen Ge — it was Zhu Long, still pressed against the door. "Since we're already here, why not take a look inside?"
"The door's locked. Are we supposed to go find the custodian right now? Tell him we want to break into the dissection room to look for supernatural phenomena? Give me a break." Zhou Tu was beginning to feel that the club he'd joined was seriously abnormal. He bit down hard on the tip of his tongue. In truth, he had been feeling deeply uneasy ever since setting foot in this school. Having the same dream night after night for days on end had ground him down to the edge of despair.
He had been putting on a brave face, pretending everything was fine in front of everyone else, but in reality he was barely holding it together.
"A creepy school, and an even creepier club."
"No need to trouble the custodian. I have keys." Chen Ge said this as he pulled a large ring of keys from his pocket. "My authority goes a lot further than you'd expect."
None of the club members had anticipated that Chen Ge would have so many keys. They were stunned — and nobody noticed that the numbers on the key tags didn't match the West Campus, or that some of the keys still had bloodstains on them.
Chen Ge stood with his back to the students, his body blocking the door. One hand rattled the key ring noisily while the other fished out a scalpel and a piece of wire he had taken from the tool room.
He had never intended to use the keys from the start. Given his line of work, he had seen all sorts of locks and visited all manner of schools — he was fairly confident in his lockpicking abilities.
A full minute passed, and beads of sweat had begun to form on Chen Ge's forehead.