80: Chapter 37 “Suppose…”_2 80: Chapter 37 “Suppose…”_2 Lin Yi narrowed his eyes, recalling the scene in the Teacher’s Office.
The stopped pendulum clock…
The dim corner of the wall…
What appeared to be an impeccably tidy environment on the surface, yet trash and paper balls were strewn about the sofa and the floor cracks, a drawer brimming with disorderly papers…
Lin Yi suddenly linked the office with the homeroom teacher…
“The state of the Teacher’s Office…
could it reflect her personal state?”
“Seeming fine on the surface, but actually in utter chaos?”
That kind of psychological turmoil.
“Assuming all the above hypotheses are valid…
then the homeroom teacher also needs to firmly believe she is the homeroom teacher, so if the homeroom teacher’s ‘will’ is not strong enough, what would she…
Lin Yi thought of the golden eyes, thought of Tomato Sauce, thought of the plaster-like substance on the podium, thought of…
“Hmm?!” Wei Liang’s ears twitched, “Stockings, what about stockings?”
He seemed to be struck by an arrow as if waking up startled from a nap; his gaze, sharp as a hawk’s, began to sweep around.
Then, he heard Lin Yi muttering, “The homeroom teacher’s stockings were torn, is there any information here…”
The eyebrows under Wei Liang’s duckbill cap twitched suddenly, as if echoing someone from the past.
He couldn’t help but say, “A woman’s torn stockings are definitely going to be changed, unless she doesn’t know they’re torn…
but from my experience, that pair of black stockings looked like they were rubbed raw.”
Wei Liang’s voice reached Lin Yi’s ears, pulling his train of thought back a bit.
“Rubbed raw?” he mused.
Wei Liang nodded affirmatively, “That kind of intense friction, not just a simple snip with scissors or a knife, seemed as if it was scorched by fire after being torn.”
“If it were an ordinary tear, the thread ends would retract into the void, creating an elliptical area.
But the homeroom teacher’s stockings had no thread ends, nor did it seem like an area had been cut out…”
Lin Yi looked at Wei Liang in astonishment, “Haven’t you never touched stockings on legs, no, legs in stockings?
How can you study it so thoroughly?”
Wei Liang’s face turned red, “Having not eaten pork doesn’t mean one hasn’t seen a pig run, right?
Are you implying my 3TB of graduate exam materials is fake?”
Lin Yi suddenly sat up straight, looking at Wei Liang with newfound respect.
“Speaking of which, I sent you the magnet link of the latest release, have you watched it?” Wei Liang suddenly remembered this and whispered.
Lin Yi’s mouth twitched, speaking sternly, “Hey, I’m thinking about serious stuff here!”
“That’s precisely what I’m talking about!” Wei Liang pressed on.
“I’m talking about stockings!”
“We’ve been talking about stockings all along, haven’t we?”
“I…I’m not discussing that kind…”
“I understand, I get it…
once the experience class is over, I’ll help you ask for her contact information.
Although one is a teacher and the other a student in an experience class, if we can have some wonderful after-class plot, it wouldn’t be too bad…”
Daydream on your own!” Lin Yi held his forehead, as the image of the homeroom teacher’s shapely, straight black stocking-clad legs surfaced in his mind…
“That tear…really doesn’t seem like it’s from snagging or cutting…
it’s more like from running too fast, accidentally grazing against some rough wall corner, and then getting worn out…”
“But…does she need to run?
Even if she runs, it seems there are no abrasions on her skin…”
“Am I thinking in the wrong direction?”
He thought seriously.
The direction might be right because the homeroom teacher was clearly injured, limping as she walked.
“Hurt over the course of one night?”
“Running into a wall at night?”
“Yesterday evening, the mist was so thick.
And with strange things lurking outside, how dangerous…”
“Not only lurking outside, they even made it inside the classroom!”
Lin Yi again thought of that enigmatic creature standing at the podium, of being hit by chains, then dragged out of the class.
As he revisited that scene, he suddenly had an epiphany, with fragments of information colliding and converging in his mind, seemingly about to piece together a huge secret.
The flash of insight, like a moth to the flame, was on the verge of fading.
Lin Yi’s eyes were filled with countless pieces of information, like a jigsaw puzzle constantly being rearranged and shifted.
Just as the spark of inspiration was about to extinguish, he reached out and grabbed it.
In his heart, a terrifying hypothesis that defied all logic surfaced.
Just thinking about it made his complexion turn slightly pale, and his breathing subtly quickened.
He swallowed hard and began to construct a framework of deduction.
He flipped open his notebook and recorded a piece of information in symbols only he could understand:
“Assuming…” His hand trembled uncontrollably as he wrote:
“Assuming that the unidentified creature that entered the classroom last night was the homeroom teacher.”
Just writing this, he felt as though the pen in his hand weighed a thousand pounds.
He stared at the words he had written, unable to believe that this absurd hypothesis had come from his own mind.
He took a deep breath to steady himself and then began to reason backward:
the homeroom teacher was wrapped in chains by the security guard and dragged away from the podium…”
The security guard swung the iron chains rapidly, whipping them like a high-speed belt.
So, if it wasn’t the homeroom teacher’s movements rubbing against the stockings, but…
the high-speed movement of the chains rubbing against the stockings?
The stockings were torn by the chains, leaving wounds that looked as if they had been scorched by fire.
“Then the homeroom teacher was dragged down the steps by the security guard, and the two struggled together, ultimately leaving the teacher injured and hobbling…”
About the fight between the homeroom teacher and the security guard, although there was a significant discrepancy, Yi, considering that the homeroom teacher’s eyes emitted the same golden light as the security guard, he decided to assume they were similar to an extent.
“With this speculation, if one ignores the disparity in combat abilities, it does indeed…
look a bit like what might have happened.”
after the teacher forgot she was the homeroom teacher, who knows what she might do?”
“And if it really was the homeroom teacher who came in…
then the homeroom teacher locked the tongue of the lock several turns before leaving, not because someone in the classroom was picking the lock to leave, but to…
“Prevent herself from returning to the classroom after becoming ‘abnormal’?!”
Yi’s pen dropped onto the desk with a “snap!”, and although he did not know what the truth was, having speculated this far, he felt enveloped by an atmosphere so eerie it raised goosebumps on his skin.
He had scared himself.
But he still had to grit his teeth and conjecture…
“Assuming that after losing her ‘will,’ the homeroom teacher became abnormal, would she then bleed out…
He recalled the green Pocket Chef who, after being stepped on by Wei Liang, oozed tomato sauce.
“And tomato sauce under the sun becomes a white, plaster-like substance…”
“So if the assumption is correct, could the plaster-like substance at the podium be the tomato sauce that flowed out after the homeroom teacher was lashed by the security guard’s chains and then transformed by the sunlight?”
With these thoughts, he silently rose from his seat and walked towards the classroom door.
“Hey, Old Lin, it’s still early, heading to the gymnasium now?” Wei Liang’s voice sounded behind him.
“No, just stepping out for some air,” replied Yi, turning back.
Then, with a heavy heart, he walked down the steps and approached the podium.
The plaster-like substance was still on the ground, clearly visible.
He thought for a moment, then walked to the classroom door.
From the classroom entrance, one could almost immediately see the podium, and with a bit of attention, the plaster-like substance there was visible.
“From the homeroom teacher’s perspective, it’s impossible not to notice, unless…
she chose to ignore.”
Yi glanced at the classroom door.
Seemingly struck by a sudden thought, he pulled the door handle, opened the door, then moved to the side of the door facing the hallway.
He looked down at the door handle.
There was a bit of white powder on the door handle.
White powder also surrounded the keyhole, not only there but occasionally trickling out a little bit.
He took out a napkin, placed it at the keyhole.
Before long, something flowed out from the depths of the keyhole, clinging to the part of the napkin it touched.
A spot of dark red, viscous substance appeared on the napkin.