The security guard, clad in a black coat, held an old-fashioned kerosene lamp in his left hand and a mace in his right, and merely standing amidst the grey mist lent Lin Yi a sense of oppressive force.
On the mace in the guard’s hand was daubed a dark red tomato sauce mixed with white powder particles, some of which dripped towards the ground, yet before it could fall, it evaporated into white powdery particles...
The antique kerosene lamp he held continued to spread a radiant light, forming a screen that spanned a warm and safe absolute domain.
The security guard looked down at Lin Yi.
Lin Yi gazed up at the security guard.
Time and space seemed to stand still, with only the flowing mist and the constantly dripping tomato sauce signifying the passage of time.
The entire atmosphere was eerily silent.
It was not until the security guard gradually began to speak, issuing a deep, smooth, yet powerful voice:
"You’re... quite good."
Ah...? Lin Yi was momentarily stunned, but lacking the strength to respond, he could only say, "Thank you..."
The security guard said nothing more, just quietly watched him, then as if thinking of something, he slowly raised the old kerosene lamp and extended it toward Lin Yi.
The old kerosene lamp emitted a warm glow that seemed to recharge him, dispelling the fatigue from Lin Yi’s body and spirit, invigorating his spirit.
Soon, he felt strength surge through his body.
Seeing Lin Yi recovered, the security guard then retrieved the old kerosene lamp and coolly turned around, "Follow me."
Lin Yi quickly picked up Wei Liang and kept pace with the security guard.
"Um, Mr. Security Guard... it’s past 21:00, can we still go back to the dormitory?" Lin Yi noticed that the direction the security guard was walking seemed somewhat different from the "Dormitory Building-096" lamppost, though he strictly adhered to the rules and trusted the security guard, asking was still permissible, wasn’t it?
Though the security guard looked as cool as a "Terminator" who could handle a coffin and single-handedly fire a Gatling gun, the rules didn’t say he couldn’t talk to the security guard, besides, he might obtain some other clues from his words.
"Yes." The security guard affirmed, "Even though it’s just past 21:00, it doesn’t impede me from escorting you there."
"Oh, okay, but wait... just past 21:00?" Lin Yi’s eyes widened, and he glanced at his watch.
"21:02?! Wasn’t it 21:26? Has time reversed?!" he exclaimed.
This time... it seemed to be the same time he saw on the watch when the frame skipped, wait...?! Is that the real time?
Suddenly, the security guard halted his steps; the abrupt stop caused Lin Yi, who had been following, to hurriedly do the same.
The security guard swiftly turned his gaze toward Lin Yi’s wrist, his sun-like eyes showing faint ripples.
Then, he gradually bent down, lowering his head like a predator, slowly bringing his face closer while slightly frowning and gently flaring his nostrils as if sniffing something.
Lin Yi was initially startled, then as if realizing something, he began to look around him and whispered softly, "Are you here... ’me after falling asleep tonight’?"
The flame of the old kerosene lamp flickered, the security guard’s eyes gradually narrowed, and the atmosphere on the scene became oppressively heavy.
The security guard smashed the mace, large as a ham, onto the ground. The intense shockwave nearly caused Lin Yi not to stand firm.
"I understand." The security guard slowly straightened up, "Environmental contamination has influenced your perception of the flow of time."
"Ah?" Lin Yi seemed to understand.
"’21:26’?" The security guard continued, then led Lin Yi forward, "That was just ’time’ in your perception."
Once the truth was pointed out by the security guard, Lin Yi felt as if awakened from a dream, his brain seemingly exploding with a bang.
"Contamination from the layers affected my perception of time! From leaving the classroom till now, I thought I had experienced an hour and a half, but in reality... only an hour had passed."
This hour even included the time he had spent enduring harshly in the continuous fall through the layers, waiting for the security guard to arrive.
His struggle in the deep abyss of pain might not have lasted very long, but that scale of time, due to his descent, was being incessantly stretched!
So he was very likely truly making his way toward the dormitory building; that step he couldn’t take wasn’t because he couldn’t move, but because a step that should’ve taken a second, in his perception, was stretched to last ten or twenty seconds...?
What had him trapped was not the layer, but... ’time’?!
Lin Yi continued walking, following the security guard, his mind replaying the lamp posts they had passed along the way.
In the normal campus area, it takes about twenty to thirty minutes from the Teaching Building to the Dormitory Building.
Even when layers began to drop, according to Xu Shunkang’s words from that time, leaving the classroom at 20:15 would have been enough to get back to the dormitory by 21:00.
The head teacher had entered the classroom after 19:00 and had them leave after 20:00. Setting aside the point about the security guard patrolling, does it also mean that, even in the dropping layers, provided there were no accidents, an hour was sufficient for traveling?
In the stretched scale of time, he mistakenly thought it was past 21:00, using "strong willpower" to resist the erosion of layer contamination while continuously having his will eroded, embroiling him in a long and tough battle of willpower.