Chapter 4

The school was strange and quiet.

Everyone spoke softly, which put an end to Song Yuhuan’s plan to learn more by eavesdropping.

She flipped through the textbook they’d just handed out, sighed, and looked around.

No one here seemed particularly competitive about school.

The teacher lectured like a machine, talking to himself and paying no attention to what the students were doing.

After class, not a single student studied. In the real world, that was practically impossible. Back when Song Yuhuan had been in high school, she’d had to make every second count, even when she was drinking water. She’d bought a ridiculously huge water bottle just so she wouldn’t have to get up and refill it as often.

The day passed remarkably peacefully, aside from the fact that no one spoke to her.

The more peaceful everything was, the more anxious Song Yuhuan became. It felt like the calm before something terrible.

As she packed up after class, she heard a bang outside, like something falling from a great height.

Her heart gave a thump, but strangely, she also felt a sense of relief, as if the suspense had finally ended.

She wanted to see what had happened, but no one else reacted. So, curious as she was, she didn’t go to the window.

The maid was waiting at the classroom door.

With her schoolbag on her back, Song Yuhuan walked over with an air of studied indifference.

Downstairs, she got her answer.

Just as she’d guessed.

There was a person on the ground.

Song Yuhuan had seen all kinds of people fall from all kinds of heights.

But she’d never seen anything like this.

There was no blood.

No blood on the broken limbs, and none on the ground.

“Miss, don’t look. It’ll only spoil your eyes.” The maid stepped naturally to Song Yuhuan’s side and blocked her view.

Song Yuhuan glanced at her, then looked away.

“Let’s take a drive around before we go home,” she said.

“All right.”

The school was in a small town, while Song Yuhuan lived outside it.

They’d arrived early that morning, before anyone was out and about.

There should be people around now.

At first glance, the town seemed perfectly normal.

Song Yuhuan lowered the car window. People outside were talking as usual. She could even hear the bustle in the distance. The scene had a peaceful, unhurried quality.

Is the danger at school?

No…

The town was right next to the school. Someone had jumped from a building, and no one here had reacted. That wasn’t normal at all.

Survive. Survive.

Could she stay alive just by living like this every day?

But was she supposed to stay here forever?

Her goal was to survive and get out of here.

She didn’t want to stay here at all.

Dinner was nutritious and delicious.

The house was as silent as ever, enough to set her teeth on edge.

There was no homework, so after dinner Song Yuhuan worked up the nerve to wander around instead of going straight back to her room.

The house had three floors. She lived on the second.

As far as Song Yuhuan could tell, the servants only went between the first and second floors. No one went to the third. Most of the maids seemed to live in a separate building. The main house had only two smaller servants’ rooms on the first floor, alongside the Western kitchen, Chinese kitchen, dining room, living room, tea room, and four guest bedrooms.

There were five bedrooms on the second floor. Song Yuhuan occupied the master bedroom. The other four were spotless, with no signs that anyone had ever lived in them. Besides the bedrooms, there was a dressing room and a study.

The study held nothing special. It was clear the other Song Yuhuan never read. Every book was new.

Song Yuhuan decided to see what was on the third floor.

As she walked upstairs, wearing an impassive expression, she heard no footsteps following her. She didn’t look back, but when she reached the landing, she glanced down as casually as she could.

The maid was standing at the foot of the stairs, clearly not planning to follow.

She met Song Yuhuan’s eyes and smiled.

Song Yuhuan continued upstairs.

The first two floors were brightly lit. The third was pitch-black.

She paused, then felt along the wall until she found a switch. Relief washed over her.

She turned on the light, illuminating the hallway.

More pictures.

Song Yuhuan felt her Sanity Value plummeting.

Years of practice had made her pretty brave, but the sight before her still raised goosebumps all over her skin.

There were even more pictures here, packed tightly together in three rows across an entire wall. They covered the opposite wall, too.

Just like downstairs, everyone was frozen in the same pose.

But Song Yuhuan noticed that the pictures weren’t all the same.

She took one down at random. Unlike the pictures on the second floor, these had numbers in the lower-right corner.

She studied them, narrowing her eyes.

Years?

There were two hundred and thirty-one pictures on the wall. The numbers grew smaller as she walked from the stairs to the far end of the hall.

The largest was “3023.” At the end of the hallway was the smallest: “1824.”

If they were years, more than a thousand years seemed ridiculous. The place didn’t look nearly as advanced as the year 2028, where she’d come from.

But this place was already bizarre. She couldn’t judge it by what she knew. For now, she’d assume they were years.

She began examining the pictures themselves.

Mixed-race?

The one at the far end had blond hair and blue eyes, a Western face. The ones by the stairs had black hair and eyes, an East Asian appearance.

She studied them one by one.

Something was off.

They couldn’t all be one family. The East Asian and Western faces appeared in no particular order, and none of the people looked especially alike.

Song Yuhuan looked around at the pictures.

Then she realized something.

Where were the rooms?