They clamped their hands over their mouths, holding their breath, eyes wide with terror.
I was still confused.
Then the dorm door was forced open, a crack of light slicing through—
And from that crack, seven or eight hands reached out.
Those hands seized Lauren.
She let out one piercing scream before the hands dragged her bodily through the gap in the door!
"Run!"
Jessie screamed at the top of her lungs.
She grabbed me and without hesitation, jumped out the window.
10
Our dorm was on the second floor.
Jumping wouldn't kill you, but it hurt like hell.
Fighting the pain in my body and my skull, I let Jessie drag me as we stumbled away from the building.
"To the academic building!"
Trent's voice came from behind us.
"Who are they? Why did they take Lauren?" I shouted as we ran, terrified.
"They're not 'them.' It's Aria."
Trent's answer was flat.
I froze.
Aria? One person?
That was impossible.
Those were seven or eight different hands.
Seven or eight hands, belonging to different people.
I was about to ask more, but Jessie panted between breaths:
"She accepted someone's tip!"
11
Accepted a tip?
What happens when you accept a tip?
My brain was in too much pain to process any deeper logic.
But at least—
Our dorm building wasn't far from the main building.
Jessie led us to the stairwell of the main building.
In the narrow stairwell, a barred gate separated the stairs from the underground parking garage.
Trent was fumbling with a key, struggling with the lock.
I finally had a chance to ask: "Jessie, what the hell is going on?"
"I don't know."
Jessie's face was a mask of confusion and despair. "We were talking on the field. We thought it was just an app mission for rewards. Right after the first round, Aria shouted that she'd received a tip."
"And then?" I pressed.
"Then—" Jessie swallowed hard, still shaken. "A lump of flesh grew on Aria's face."
"A lump... of flesh?"
I frowned.
"It wasn't flesh."
Trent, focused on the lock, cut in calmly.
It was too dark to see his expression.
He paused, then said: "It was a human heart."
For a moment, the stairwell was silent except for our breathing.
12
A heart grew on Aria's face?
Why?
The pain in my skull made it impossible to think clearly.
I could only crouch in the dark corner, clutching my head.
Thud... thud... thud...
But the muffled sound was back.
Aria seemed to be tracking us specifically.
The air turned to ice.
Trent was sweating buckets.
Jessie sobbed quietly.
And this damn headache!
I was frantic. I pounded my own skull again and again.
The external pain seemed to drown out the internal struggle.
For a brief moment, my mind cleared.
I remembered—the app's reward.
The Administrator said it could repair physical defects?
So the heart on Aria's face, and those seven or eight hands...
I hadn't seen Aria's current form yet, but wasn't she essentially a body with extra defects?
If she performed well in a round, could she use the reward item to remove those defects?
Then... what about my headache?
With this kind of pain, I couldn't think at all—let alone survive the next task!
As soon as I figured this out, I yanked out my phone and opened the chat with the Administrator.
I typed fast: "I want to use the 'Yi Hang' reward. Repair my headache!"
The Administrator responded quickly.
"Please describe the specific repair effect you wish to achieve."
What kind of description!
I was losing my mind. I typed a stream of words:
"Cure my dissociative identity disorder!"
"Get it out of my head!"
"I don't care where it goes, just make the headache stop!!!"
After I sent that, the Administrator was silent for a moment.
Finally, a message came through.
"Reward delivered."
And in that instant—
My headache stopped. Completely.
13
Time: 13:35.
Twenty-five minutes until the task deadline.
Twenty minutes until the next countdown.
Thud. Thud.
The muffled sound crept closer.
I exhaled and walked over to Trent at the gate.
"Let me try."
Trent gave me a surprised look. "You can pick locks?"
I shook my head. "But you're too nervous to steady your hands."
I looked at him calmly.
He seemed skeptical but handed me the key.
I inserted the undersized key into the lock.
At that moment, I could almost hear the blood flowing through my own brain.
It was a long-lost feeling—clarity. Rationality.
I felt the key's teeth against the lock's pins, and kept my hand steady.
Click.
Amid the rhythmic thudding, a crisp sound echoed through the stairwell.
The gate opened.
"Go."
I went through first. After all three were inside, I asked Jessie, "Lock it?"
Jessie was still in a daze. She nodded quickly and said, "The school gates are blocked. We saw some students run outside and just... vanish. I don't know if the underground garage is safe."
"Okay."
I handed the key back to Trent and noticed his expression was strange.
My guard went up. "So how did you save Jessie, exactly? Can you fight that thing?"
"Not exactly. But..."
Trent hesitated.
I caught the evasiveness in his eyes.
"But what?" I pushed.
Jessie cut in. "How are we supposed to fight it? We need to get out of here! Look what happened to Aria!"
"Right, she's so pitiful," Sable—wait, I—added from the darkness, my voice tinged with pity.
"Don't pity her. Worry about yourself first," Jessie scolded, then complained, "What kind of app has the power to turn people into that?"
Sable shrank back with a sigh. "Who knows."
I, meanwhile, was turning the puzzle over in my mind.
Something was beginning to connect.
I wasn't certain, but I ventured: "The app's tipping system... might involve physical body parts."
14
"Body parts?"
Sable asked timidly from the dark.
"Yes."
I followed the thread:
"The most likely scenario is that one of Aria's admirers told her he'd give her his heart, and Aria accepted."
"Then that admirer must have messaged the Administrator."
"The admirer submitted the tip for verification, and it was approved."
After I laid out this theory, Jessie hesitated. "That's... a bit of a stretch, don't you think?"
Before I could respond, Trent gave a bitter laugh.
"Is any of this NOT a stretch?"
He said, "I had the same theory, but I didn't construct the scenario as completely as he did."
"But..." Sable spoke up behind me. "Even if that's true, why did Aria turn into... that?"
"Probably mindset," I said. "Once she became that, she gave up and decided to become the most-tipped user in this round."
"Then we just need to survive until the test ends," Jessie said quickly.
I shook my head. "There's a penalty. Remember our roommate Kira?"
The underground garage fell silent.
"...Oh my god!" Jessie said in horror. "Why do I keep thinking we only had three roommates!?"
"That's the penalty for breaking the rules. If you don't complete the task..." I trailed off.
"Then what should we do?" Sable worried. "Would a single strand of hair count as a tip? We could help each other."
"Wait—" Sable had barely finished when Jessie spoke.
She looked at me strangely.
"Our roommate? Dude, Kira wasn't YOUR roommate."
What?
I stared at Jessie, just as confused, then at Sable, who was equally bewildered.
Wait. Wait...
Something was wrong.
In the darkness, we all stood still, staring at each other.
A four-person dorm.
Jessie. The missing Kira. Lauren, dragged out the door. And me.
But—
I looked at Sable, standing beside Jessie with her long hair and pale skin.
A chill shot through me, sharp as a blade.
Sable was standing across from me.
She was Sable.
Then...
Who am I?
15