Chapter Five: Massacre and Footsteps

The noonday sun baked the earth, and though it was early autumn, the temperature still soared above thirty degrees Celsius.

Chen Qi sat alone in an abandoned, empty classroom. Perhaps it was because he hadn’t eaten lunch, but he didn’t feel sleepy at all. Through the not-quite-closed curtains, his eyes were fixed on the main doors of the auditorium.

He wasn’t sure when it began, but the doors to the assembly hall had been tightly shut. The distance was too great for him to hear any sounds from within.

“I am your principal. Any students who have not yet arrived, please come to the auditorium for the opening ceremony!”

The sudden blare of the campus broadcast startled Chen Qi. The voice, sounding like the middle school principal, was urging the remaining students to hurry to the auditorium. The message repeated several times, but Chen Qi did not move. As a visitor from another world, the principal’s words held no authority over him.

Gradually, Chen Qi saw a few students ambling toward the hall. Most of them walked with an air of nonchalance. He saw one student with a pineapple-shaped haircut, a nearly extinguished cigarette dangling from his lips. Their pace was leisurely, as if the broadcast had left them no choice but to reluctantly comply.

Bang!

Suddenly, the auditorium doors burst open and four masked men emerged.

“They’re holding guns!”

Chen Qi stared in shock, his body instinctively alert to danger.

And then, his pupils contracted sharply as he witnessed a scene that would haunt him for the rest of his life—the four men released the safety catches on their weapons, grinning savagely as they opened fire on the students approaching the auditorium.

Terror flooded Chen Qi’s body; he had never imagined that danger would arrive in such a form.

He stood frozen, his face drained of color, watching as one student after another fell in pools of blood. He wanted to scream, but no sound emerged—his power of speech seemed to have deserted him.

The students further back, seeing the carnage ahead, began to run. Their previously cocky faces twisted in horror. They scattered in all directions, many heading for the school gate. Others were paralyzed by fear, some raising their hands in surrender, some dropping to their knees, some covering their eyes.

But there was no mercy—they, too, were gunned down.

Screams, pleas for mercy, and the relentless crack of gunfire shattered the surface calm of Sterland Secondary School. More than a dozen bodies littered the concrete path leading to the hall.

The four masked men walked unhurriedly toward the school gate, reloading, aiming, shooting with cruel amusement. Though many students managed to escape the bullets through desperate running, some were still struck and fell.

Chen Qi watched as wounded students crawled toward the gate, death drawing ever nearer.

At last, Chen Qi regained control of his body. A surge of justice urged him to charge down and confront the gunmen.

Yet reason, or perhaps cowardice and fear, held him firmly in place.

He shifted to another window for a better view of the main entrance.

The school guards, sensing trouble, had already rushed out from the security office—only to be mercilessly gunned down. Meanwhile, the fastest students were approaching the school gate. As they caught sight of the open exit, a flicker of hope lit their lifeless eyes.

“Not good!”

Chen Qi couldn’t help but cry out.

From his vantage point on the fifth floor, he saw a truck speeding up as it approached the gate, as if exhilarated by the sight.

The students who had just fled through the gate, still breathless from terror, were mercilessly crushed under the truck’s wheels.

Blood spurted like a fountain; bodies were flung aside, the tires smeared with flesh.

Disgust welled up in Chen Qi, but since he hadn’t eaten, he could only dry heave, unable to vomit anything.

He curled up in agony, his body arching like a boiled shrimp.

But the scene outside did not pause for his suffering. When the truck stopped, eight more masked men jumped out, blocking the gate with the vehicle and fanning out to hunt for survivors.

Bang! Bang!

The four men from the auditorium quickly joined those from the truck, hunting down the remaining students like bloodthirsty hounds.

A few bystanders who tried to help were also shot.

Student corpses, bystanders’ bodies, the bloodstained truck—all these formed a tableau of tragedy at the school gates.

All the students who ran for the gate were wiped out.

Once he’d somewhat recovered, Chen Qi forced himself to his feet, eyes wide open, imprinting the massacre on his memory.

He tried to sear the image of the blood into his mind. Suddenly, he realized how desperately he craved strength. He hated his own weakness and helplessness.

“It doesn’t matter—they’re only fictional characters, not people from my world.”

He tried to comfort himself, but found no solace.

The heat of thirty degrees baked the corpses strewn across the schoolyard; Chen Qi could almost smell the blood.

If he had accepted the invitation from the “Sprout Space” because he was dissatisfied with an ordinary life, now there was another reason—he yearned for more choices, for power, for control over his own fate.

Now the carnage at the gate had ceased. The twelve masked men entered, leaving behind a field of silent corpses.

Chen Qi saw them begin to argue, then four split off to guard the exits of the teaching and administration buildings.

Clearly, they intended to let no one escape.

The brutality before him struck Chen Qi’s fragile courage like a hammer. He knew that if the gunmen searched each room, they would eventually find him. Then his life would be in grave danger.

It was one thing to watch others die from a place of safety; anger and indignation were distant compared to the terror he now felt as the blade circled closer to his own neck. Now, he found his mind void of thought.

The footsteps below grew louder. Clinging to a shred of reason, Chen Qi dragged himself behind a desk.

From this angle, he would be hidden when the door opened. His only hope was that the gunmen would be impatient in their search and overlook him.

Thud, thud, thud, thud.

He could now hear the footsteps and doors being broken open below. He didn’t know if any students were hiding downstairs, but he no longer cared.

For the first time, Chen Qi realized that waiting for death could be even more terrifying and cruel than death itself. The phrase “an ant on a hot pan” was no mere metaphor; it was a profound, gnawing despair.

Suddenly, a piercing scream erupted from below.

“It seems a student has been found.”

This thought made Chen Qi all the more anxious about his own fate. Would they show him mercy?

Bang!

The scream was instantly silenced. Any hope Chen Qi had was ruthlessly dashed.

Suddenly, he remembered the grenade in his inventory. He hurriedly summoned it into his hand, seeking a shred of comfort.

The gunmen’s footsteps did not abate; he could hear them coming up the stairs.

“I wonder if it’s one or two of them. Do I have any chance against just one?”

He calculated silently, his brain working at full speed, searching for a way to survive.

“Jump out the window?”

He dismissed the childish thought at once—this was the fifth floor. A leap would mean death or permanent injury, and the gunmen would surely finish him off.

“So it comes down to the brave winning when enemies meet.”

Resigned, Chen Qi gripped the grenade tightly, his survival instinct sharpening his focus.

“You go left, I’ll go right. Meet in the middle.”

He heard a gunman’s voice outside, and felt both relief and dread. Relief, because he would only face one at a time; dread, because even if he killed the one searching his room, he’d have to confront another armed man the moment he stepped into the hall.

Thud, thud, thud.

The footsteps drew nearer. The other abandoned classrooms were all locked—would the gunmen have the patience to break in?

Crash!

The wooden door of the neighboring classroom was kicked open. Chen Qi clearly heard a mocking voice:

“Any students in here? I’m here to save you—come on out!”

Terror gripped him. He pressed himself tighter against the overturned desk, grenade clutched in his hand, waiting for the door to be broken down.

At last, after another series of bangs, the gunman kicked open the door to Chen Qi’s classroom.

Chen Qi held his breath, his senses never sharper—he could even hear the man’s breathing.

“Any students in here? I’m here to save you—come on out!”

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