Chapter 15.1
Three hours ago.
Somewhere in the Rainforest Zone.
The trees rustled softly as Duan Hua emerged from the darkness.
Shi Rui raised his head and looked in the direction from which the voice came.
Seeing that it was Duan Hua, his face showed a seamless expression of surprise: "You’re back so soon? Is the problem solved?"
"Did elder brother accept your apology?"
Duan Hua\'s expression was weird, his eyes uncertain: "Yes."
He subconsciously reached out to touch his wrist, which was covered by his sleeve, but stopped himself.
The touch of his fingers still seemed to linger there—very cold, much lower than the body temperature of an ordinary person, like some kind of cold and soft cold-blooded animal, winding up silently. Although it was only a brief moment, the memory of being touched seemed to be burnt into his skin and bones, and could not be removed for a long time.
A strange itch spread from that small piece of skin, making him want to scratch it.
The expression on Shi Rui\'s face was still immaculate:
"You’ve worked hard, take a rest."
Then, without warning—
Something changed.
Darkness engulfed the sky, and the GPS and communication systems were simultaneously paralyzed.
From the depths of the dark rainforest came the manic howls and footsteps of the monsters, as if they were rampaging aimlessly.
Duan Hua looked up in panic and stared at the dark sky above his head: "What–what\'s going on?"
As a person with a guilty conscience, even if there was no evidence, he subconsciously associated the current abnormality with his actions just now, and the blood on his face faded away.
Could–could it be.....
Shi Rui was also flustered, and almost lost control of the expression on his face.
He lowered his head to check the watch on his wrist, and quickly recovered from his brief panic.
The current situation seemed more like the collapse of the system, rather than the academy discovering their little tricks.
Right then, he realized that the paralysis of communication also meant the failure of monitoring - this time, even if Shi An got into some accident during the examination, no one could trace it back to him.
It was as if God was on his side!
Shi Rui calmed down.
He said: "There’s probably something wrong with the academy’s system. Don\'t panic, everyone. At most, the communication and monitoring are disconnected. It should be restored after a period of time."
At this time, one of the freshmen said:
"This doesn\'t seem to be an ordinary system failure, haven\'t you noticed, the color of the sky has become a bit scary... In addition, the school\'s system is built with pure magic, and the probability of problems occurring is very small... Also, the response of the monsters seems to be different. Something\'s not quite right."
"Then, what do we do?" The others asked in a panic.
"Either stay where we are and wait for rescue, or go to the emergency exit in the middle of the Rainforest Zone; there are only these two options."
Duan Hua said almost impatiently:
"I think we should take the initiative to find an emergency exit! After all, who knows how long it will take for the rescue to come; it is too unsafe to stay here, not to mention, we started from the center of the Rainforest Zone and have left traces along the way. It shouldn\'t be difficult to find our way back."
They were too close to Shi An here.
Once something happened to him, as the last person who saw Shi An, Duan Hua would easily be the top suspect.
More importantly……
He knew very well what would happen to Shi An next, so he didn\'t want to stay nearby when he had an “accident”.
Coincidentally, Shi Rui agreed: "I think Duan Hua is right, this is the best plan now."
Since Shi Rui had said so, the others naturally had no opinion.
So, the group set off again and walked back along the path they came from.
Duan Hua walked at the end of the line wordlessly.
His face was pale, his forehead was covered with fine beads of sweat, his left hand was unconsciously pressing on his right wrist, and he looked extremely restless.
He didn\'t know when it started, but the vague itching gradually became unbearable.
It felt that there were countless tiny bugs wriggling under his skin, gnawing at his flesh and blood bit by bit, and a fiery burning sensation spread from that piece of skin.
Duan Hua lifted his sleeves and looked towards his wrist.
In the dim light, he could vaguely make out that the skin was smooth and flat, and it looked no different from before.
Was…….was it an illusion? Duan Hua thought in surprise.
In the dark forest, the passage of time became difficult to measure.
The team moved forward cautiously, feeling around slowly, looking for the path they had come from.
During this time, they also encountered a few sporadic monsters head-on.
Everyone was surprised to find that after the change in the sky, the monsters seemed to become more sensitive and agitated, and much more hostile. The same low-level monsters that were usually very easy to kill now needed the cooperation of several people to barely control.