Deep Within the Living

Chapter 53: The Girls’ Dormitory

“The girls’ dorm is usually strict about rules. I heard that if a boy enters, the minimum penalty is a warning. If that happens…”

Li Xiaoying spoke nervously, her head lowered, but her words were cut short by a firm voice from inside the dormitory building.

“What’s your room number?”

Luo Di had already entered the dorm lobby and was now standing at the staircase, completely disregarding any concerns about potential rule-breaking. His tone had shifted to one of command.

“0510. I’m going with you!”

Li Xiaoying quickly followed him, instinctively glancing toward the dorm supervisor’s office. Sure enough, it was empty.

Normally, the dormitory had two supervisors responsible for tasks like monitoring lighting conditions and feeding the corner parrots on each floor. Tonight, it seemed the supervisors had assumed all students were at the athletic field for the crucial physical test and were likely conducting a full lighting inspection throughout the building.

As they ascended the stairs, Luo Di kept his eyes on the floor numbers at each landing, ensuring there were no duplicated floors—a common sign of anomalies. They reached the fifth floor without incident.

The visibility on this floor was notably poor. At least half of the lights were either flickering or completely out, a sign that something was definitely wrong.

“Class lea—”Li Xiaoying, standing at the hallway entrance, began to call out loudly but was abruptly silenced.

Smack!

Luo Di pressed a hand over her mouth and gestured for her to stay quiet. He then moved silently toward the class leader’s dorm room.

Li Xiaoying immediately imitated his cautious movements, remaining utterly quiet. She noticed Luo Di holding his zombie blade, a weapon imbued with corner attributes, and though she wanted to say something, she held back.

Room 0510 was located at the center of the floor. The door was slightly ajar, indicating that someone had entered or exited recently.

Placing his palm on the cold metal surface of the security door, Luo Di applied gentle, steady pressure to push it open. However... The source of this content ɪs novel·fire.net

Creak.

The friction of the door hinges produced a sharp noise.

Since stealth was no longer an option, Luo Di threw the door open with full force.

Bang!

The door slammed against the interior wall as Luo Di rushed into the room.

It was empty.

The room’s lighting system had been disabled, and the curtains were drawn. Only faint light from the hallway filtered in, dimly illuminating the space.

While visibility was low, it was just enough to make out the surroundings. Luo Di quickly scanned every corner of the room but found no sign of anyone.

“What’s wrong with the lights?”

Li Xiaoying followed him in, heading to her own bed. She found that even her personal bedside lamp had been damaged.

Meanwhile, Luo Di moved toward the window. Gripping the curtain, he yanked it down with a sharp tug.

Snap!

The entire curtain rod broke away under the force.

What should have been a flood of light from the campus outside was instead a feeble trickle. The room remained dim.

It wasn’t that something was obstructing the dorm window—it was the school itself that was wrong.

“What is this?”

Luo Di’s expression twisted as he stared out at the sky.

The once starry night and bright moon had transformed into a pitch-black vortex, swirling as if it intended to devour everything below it.

A concept surfaced in his mind, one that had been marked in red in the textbooks—a special phenomenon discussed only in passing at the back of the curriculum.

Before he could delve deeper into his thoughts, a sound broke his focus.

Click.

The clicking sound of a tongue echoed in the room.

It was a reflex Luo Di had developed over time, something he did whenever he was in deep thought. But the noise reminded him to stay alert, and he turned his gaze behind him.

With the dim light from outside and his keen observation, Luo Di noticed something he had initially missed:

At the top of the doorway, in the shadowed corner where light barely reached, something twisted and contorted clung to the wall.

It had already locked onto its target—Li Xiaoying, who was checking her bed below.

Luo Di had never worked with Li Xiaoying in combat before. Even if he shouted a warning now, he wasn’t sure she would react in time. And in the confined space of the dorm room, even a successful reaction might not save her.

The twisted creature began to move, releasing its grip on the wall as it dropped downward.

Its long, thin arms were about to reach Li Xiaoying’s head when—

Whoosh!

Something flew through the air with immense speed, spinning as it struck.

Thud!

The sharp, rotating object—a zombie blade—embedded itself precisely into the creature’s body, halting its descent midair and slamming it against the security door with a loud impact.

Aaaaah!

The creature screamed in pain as the corpse poison inflicted unbearable agony. It immediately pulled the blade from its abdomen.

Having failed its ambush, the creature chose not to continue its attack. Instead, using its unnaturally flexible limbs, it crawled out of the dorm room like an insect, moving with astonishing speed.

Li Xiaoying, still standing by her bed, was completely stunned. She hadn’t even realized something had been behind her. All she could see was Luo Di at the window, holding a perfect throwing stance.

A moment later, Luo Di dashed forward, grabbed the zombie blade from the floor, and pursued the creature out of the room to determine where it had fled.

Strangely, the fifth floor was eerily silent.

Even though he had injured the creature, there wasn’t a single drop of blood in the hallway, and its presence had completely vanished.

Li Xiaoying followed him out, her voice trembling as she asked, “Was that... an impersonator?”

“Yes,” Luo Di replied.

“What... what did it look like?” Li Xiaoying was terrified. Her thoughts spiraled, fearing not just the impersonator itself but what it could mean if her worst suspicions were true.

“Don’t worry—it wasn’t the class leader.”

“Then who was it?”

“The dorm supervisors. Both of them.”

“Both?”

During the brief confrontation, Luo Di had seen the creature clearly. It resembled the spider woman he had once encountered in the neighborhood, sharing traits of stealth and crawling.

But this wasn’t just one person.

The bodies of the two dorm supervisors had somehow fused together, their bones twisted like strands of rope. Parts of their skin and flesh had merged as well.

They had four arms, four legs, and two heads grotesquely bound together at the neck.

Li Xiaoying struggled to process this. “The dorm supervisors always seemed so nice. How could they turn into something like that? Was it all an act? And how could two people turn into... that?”

“I don’t know. But the whole school is acting strange tonight.”

"We should look for the class leader first. If the dorm supervisors were lurking in your room, they might have been trying to hunt her down. She could have escaped to another location," Luo Di suggested.

“Got it!”

Both of them pushed the thought of the college entrance exam out of their minds. With such chaos unfolding, it was certain the exam would be interrupted and postponed.

The priority now was finding the class leader and escaping the dormitory as quickly as possible.

The fifth-floor corridor was eerily silent, offering no clues about where the class leader might have gone. However, based on her experience in handling anomalies and her own capabilities, it was entirely possible that she had escaped on her own. She might have even climbed out through a window on the opposite side of the building while they were on their way here.

As Luo Di mulled over the possibilities, Li Xiaoying suddenly spoke up.

“This is strange... Doesn’t the hallway seem longer than before? And weren’t there only twenty rooms? It looks like there are two new ones at the end.”

While she wondered if her nerves were making her misremember, Luo Di walked toward the corridor’s far end and motioned for her to follow.

To him, it was unlikely that Li Xiaoying would make such a mistake.

At the end of the hallway, the doors bore numbers 0521 and 0522.

Li Xiaoying’s memory snapped into place. “I wasn’t wrong! The last room used to be 0520. These two weren’t here before... Is this some kind of spatial extension caused by a pseudo-corner space?”

Luo Di reached for the door to 0521. Opening it revealed only a reinforced concrete wall—there was no room behind it.

He then turned to 0522 and opened that door instead.

What lay beyond was a staircase descending into darkness. Its steep incline and apparent depth far exceeded the actual dimensions of the dormitory building.

Could this be a pseudo-corner space? Luo Di felt a more sinister possibility brewing in his mind.

Detaching a ceiling light from the hallway to use as a makeshift flashlight, Luo Di didn’t hesitate. He stepped onto the staircase leading into the unknown, with Li Xiaoying following close behind, clutching her claw knife tightly in her right hand.