CNC: Chapter 57

Mosaic School (8)

Guo Xian insisted on going to the school doctor’s office, but he was stopped halfway by the female teacher who suddenly came out. “Student, please come with me to the office.”

“Why? Did I make a mistake?” Guo Xian straightened his shoulders and became nervous.

The female teacher told him, “It’s nothing. I want you to help me carry something.”

“…Teacher, can I refuse?”

The female teacher glanced at him and smiled stiffly. “Of course not.”

“……” Thus, Guo Xian was forcibly separated and had to follow the female teacher to the office to work.

Chi Nan was able to escape and go to the infirmary in Room 211 alone.

The moment the door opened, the doctor turned back and spoke in little You Yu’s tone, “Brother, the infirmary has not been developed for the outside world.”

Chi Nan: “……”

He asked, “I have a question. Why are there no sweets served in the cafeteria?”

You Yu smiled. “I knew you would definitely ask this today, so I prepared it for you.”

Then he leaned over and showed Chi Nan the table of sweets behind him. “Go back after you’ve eaten.”

Chi Nan’s Adam’s apple couldn’t help moving. Due to living together previously, 229 knew his taste preferences very well.

There were all sorts of foods that he couldn’t refuse on the table.

Chi Nan wasn’t polite. He just wanted to go over and pick up a cream puff when—

“Wait a minute, drink the medicine first before eating the sweets.” The doctor handed him the warm medicine. “Try it. It should taste better than yesterday.”

Chi Nan: “……”

“The heat has subsided a bit,” the doctor spoke while touching Chi  Nan’s forehead with his gloves, “However, there seems to be a new problem.”

The doctor’s fingers followed the outline of Chi Nan’s face before finally stopping at his chin and neck.

 He slowly undid the top button of the school uniform and his index finger lifted Chi Nan’s chin slightly as he frowned imperceptibly. “Does it hurt here?”

He looked at the red marks that were half a finger below Chi Nan’s Adam’s apple and his fingers gently covered them. “Be careful in the future.”

Even through the gloves, the doctor’s cold temperature still spread to Chi Nan’s skin. This was very comfortable for the wound.

Chi Nan’s Adam’s apple moved unknowingly.

“I will.” Chi Nan didn’t want to die in 229’s nightmare.

The doctor smiled and said, “Drink the medicine.”

Chi Nan took the medicine bowl and tasted it lightly. Tears streamed down as he frowned slightly. The good taste mentioned by 229 was that it was even sweeter.

The taste might be average, but Chi Nan still drank it clean in one breath. Then he naturally ate the sweets while shedding tears, just like the days when they lived in the apartment of Zi City.

The two of them seemed to have cultivated a tacit understanding that transcended words and awkwardness.

The doctor admired Chi Nan’s tears without any scruples. The joy in his eyes made it seem like he couldn’t look enough.

His index finger on his knee moved and for a moment, he had the urge to reach out and press against Chi Nan’s teardrop mole.

Yet in the end, he resisted.

“By the way, I have something for you as well.” Chi Nan wiped the tears on his face and handed the little white flower with the broken branches that he had put in his pocket to the doctor.

It wasn’t kept in water, so this flower looked a bit wilted. Chi Nan really wasn’t suitable for raising plants.

The doctor was stunned for a moment before reaching out and taking Chi Nan’s flower. “Why give this to me?”

Chi Nan shook his head. His eyelashes and moles that were wet with tears made his emotionless face come alive. “I think it suits you.”

The doctor held the flower in the palm of his hand and leaned over to sniff it. “Do you know what this flower means?”

Chi Nan shook his head and waited for this person to continue.

“Praise death, happy funeral,” the doctor explained.

Chi Nan stared into his eyes. “In Candleman Town, we buried you directly. There was no funeral and no flowers. It shouldn’t be too late to give it now.”

The doctor smiled. “It isn’t too late. It is just right.”

“Yes.”

“Thank you for attending Ye Chang’s funeral.” The doctor nodded slightly and put the little white flower in the pocket of his white coat in a slightly nervous and cautious manner.

Chi Nan looked at the just baked caramel pudding. “You’re welcome.”

Not long after he came out of the infirmary, Guo Xian also happened to come out of the office. There were a few sleepwalkers around him and they looked very happy.

“Chi Nan, look at what we found.” Guo Xian took out his phone and opened the photo album.

“I took advantage of the female teacher’s absence to take photos of the attendance sheet and enrollment introduction booklet on her desk. Unfortunately, the name of the school on the booklet was still covered with a mosaic.”

Then Guo Xian showed the photos in the album to everyone.

The student attendance sheet was handwritten. The first line started with February 22nd, and there were three small blue flowers stamped below the 22nd and two under the 23rd.

“The flowers on this corresponds to our death toll, right?”

“Yes, it isn’t so much an attendance record as it is a death record. There will be as many stamps as the people who died that day.” Guo Xian was very certain of his thoughts.

“This stamp…isn’t it the same as the little white flower from the game? It is just a different color.”

“The shape of the flower is the same, but white isn’t easy to make into an ink pad. Therefore, it was changed to blue. Blue is said to symbolize melancholy death…”

“I don’t know if this female teacher will have her salary deducted if we succeed in avoiding the death taboos…”

One of the girls trembled and expressed her thoughts. The group immediately felt a chill go down their spines.

“Don’t set up a flag. What if she receives a bonus if we all clear the instance?” Another girl comforted everyone as well as herself.

No one answered her as they continued to have thoughts in their hearts. The next photo was of the so-called enrollment introduction booklet.

Apart from the school name being covered, there wasn’t much information in the booklet. It briefly introduced that the boarding school enrolled 18 students every year, and the behavior and habits of these 18 students would be corrected in the boarding school.

The purpose of the boarding school was to let every student learn to appreciate the aesthetics of death. The school motto was ‘death shouldn’t exist as a fear. It is the beginning of beauty.’

The school motto was equally creepy.

“Wait a minute. The admissions booklet states that 18 students are admitted every year. Why do we have…19 this year?”

It was Tang Yu who spoke and her voice gradually lowered as she finished. She looked uneasily at the sleepwalkers beside her.

A terrifying thought spread among the silent sleepwalkers.

The girl with the buns, Tong Yu, was relatively straightforward and directly expressed everyone’s doubts. “Could it be that one of the 19 people is a ghost?”

“Did a ghost enter this instance with a purpose? For example, to help the school achieve the death aesthetic target?”

“This type of thing isn’t good…”

“Who could this extra person be?”

Everyone looked at each other. If the extra person was a ghost, then they would definitely still be one of the living among them.

Guo Xian was the only one who didn’t show uneasiness. He raised his eyes and looked at Chi Nan, but didn’t say anything.

“It is me,” Chi Nan directly admitted it.

Tang Yu looked at him in surprise. “W-What? What is you?”

Chi Nan didn’t have any emotion on his face. “The 19th person who came is me.”

Everyone couldn’t hide the shock on their faces as they stared at Chi Nan. They couldn’t believe that the ‘ghost’ would reveal himself so easily.

“Chi Nan, can you tell us what is going on?” It was Guo Xian who opened his mouth. He seemed much calmer compared to the others, as if he had long since expected that the ‘ghost’ was Chi Nan.

Chi Nan honestly explained, “I’m not a ghost. Due to personal reasons, I consumed favorability points to enter this instance. Therefore, the enrollment quota was forcibly increased and the number of enrolled students became 19.”

“But why…must it be this instance?” Tang Yu couldn’t believe that someone would waste favorability to choose an instance.

Chi Nan lowered his eyes. “Sorry, I won’t explain this for the time being.”

Guo Xian smiled. “I believe you. In fact, I read the admissions list and your name wasn’t on it. Since it is for a private reason, you can naturally remain silent.”

Chi Nan nodded. “Thank you.”

Everyone was relieved, but the look in Chi Nan’s eyes became a bit complicated.

---

At 2 o’clock in the afternoon, everyone came to Classroom 103 on time. The class was an incredible ‘physiology class.’

“I really can’t understand why I have to take such a weird lesson in a nightmare instance…”

“Physiology class is a weird lesson? What feudal ideas do you have?”

“Physiology class isn’t weird but it is weird in a nightmare instance. An anatomy class is more understandable…”

The whispers below stopped abruptly when the female teacher stood at the podium.

The sleepwalkers looked up at the podium with nervousness and uneasiness, as if they were looking at their upcoming unknown fate.

“Before the physiology class, please get up from your seats and move the desks and chairs to the sides of the classroom to make room in the middle of the classroom. This is convenient for the class and follow-up exercise.”

The moment they heard that the physiology class needed a large empty space in the middle of the classroom, the sleepwalkers had shameful thoughts that were inconvenient to say.

Some people even secretly counted it. Currently, there were six girls and eight boys in the classroom… To be precise, it was seven boys and one transgender person.

There was also the female teacher…

“Excuse me, can I ask what the follow-up exercise means?” Tang Yu had always been a bit uncomfortable with the word ‘physiology’ so now she carefully raised her hand to speak.

The female teacher answered, “This student, don’t worry about it. I will explain it in detail later.”

Then the female teacher pushed out a huge iron box from behind the podium. There was a cardboard box on the iron box.

“Once this iron box is successfully opened, there will be a reminder of the key points of today’s lesson and today’s school rule.” The female teacher patted the box with a smile and the iron box made a banging sound. She smiled strangely. “However, I believe the process of opening the box might not be easy for the students.”

Everyone soon found that the junctions of the six sides of the iron box were welded together and there was no place that could be called the lid of the box. The upward side just had a deep depression that was half a centimeter deep, as if it was specially designed for some mechanism to be placed there. 

“How do we open it exactly? Can you give us any hints?” Chi Nan asked as he looked at the cardboard box placed on the iron box.

“Of course.” The female teacher opened the cardboard box and poured out the contents. The sound of something hitting the iron box filled the classroom and made people feel uncomfortable.

Everyone nervously held their breath as they watched the puzzle pieces from the cardboard box falling like snowflakes until they piled up as high as a hill. The bad premonition in their hearts grew stronger.

“You just need to put the broken totem in the box back together and the door to the taboo hint will be opened for you.” The smile on the female teacher’s face grew deeper and the stiff curvature made people’s hair stand up. “I have prepared a reference picture for you. The following time will be left to you. Please work together to complete it.”

“The school rule this time might be related to the future of half the students, so please be sure to take it seriously.”

The faces of everyone grew paler and heavier. They followed the teacher’s line of sight to the projection wall and saw an image that made them physically uncomfortable.

The picture was in the style of an ancient tribal totem. There was a group of men dancing frantically around a roaring bonfire like they were carrying out a sacrificial activity.

They were naked and the parts of the body that symbolized masculinity were exaggerated and enlarged. It was typical of totem drawings about reproductive worship.

“Reproductive worship… This is the so-called physiology class?” Tong Yu asked incredulously.

Guo Xian smiled bitterly. “It is very relevant.”

Chi Nan complained with a straight face, “This is too far-fetched. It should be called a jigsaw puzzle class.”

He had never been good at manual work that required meticulousness and patience. Now he looked at the pile of puzzle pieces and had a headache.

“Teacher, is the puzzle to be done directly on the box?” Chi Nan confirmed it again.

The female teacher nodded. “Yes, the box will automatically open once the puzzle is completed.”

Tang Yu walked to the side of the box and leaned down. She stretched out her hand to measure the distance using her middle finger and her thumb. Then she said, “The box is around 75 centimeters long and 50 centimeters wide. It is around the size of a puzzle with a thousand pieces.”

She quickly mastered the size of the puzzle based on the measurements.

“Oh my… a thousand piece puzzle is so much. Now there are only three and a half hours to go until the end of the class. How can we finish?”

“My brain isn’t suitable for this type of thing. I can put together a 150 piece puzzle in three days…”

Tang Yu casually spread out a few pieces of the puzzle. “This pattern is detailed and the lines are very clear. The overall difficulty isn’t large. The most difficult place should be the part without any lines.”

She pointed to the part of the image that had no characters. “The color tone here is too monotonous and it is a bit hard to distinguish. However, there are 14 of us. It shouldn’t be a problem if we cooperate for three and a half hours.”

Obviously, only Tang Yu was good at puzzles among the sleepwalkers present.

“Direct us and we will cooperate,” Chi Nan told Tang Yu.

Tang Yu nodded. “The box is too narrow. Please move all the puzzle pieces to the ground first. Pay attention to laying them with the pattern side up. Then divide up the line puzzle pieces and the solid color pieces separately…”

Tang Yu might usually speak cautiously and look hesitant, but she was very decisive and concise when it came to areas she was familiar with. She efficiently conveyed useful information to everyone.

Under her command, everyone sorted out the 1,000 pieces of the jigsaw puzzle according to the characteristics of the reference picture into striped color blocks, border areas, and horizontal and vertical layouts. The whole process took less than an hour and everyone was fully engaged. They could no longer afford to think about nonsense.

Once the classification was done, everyone started to put together the puzzle. They started with the border and the parts with rich lines. Then they gradually developed the silhouette and layout before reaching the most difficult solid color part.

Time passed quickly and three hours passed in the blink of an eye. The pendulum clock on the south side of the classroom rang five times, indicating there was 30 minutes before the end of the class.

Everything was moving forward in an orderly manner and it seemed that the puzzle was about to be completed with the efforts of everyone. However, the position in the middle of the totem was obviously empty and they had no more puzzle pieces.

Proofreader: Kat