Rules-related weird stories: 4016

But just at that moment, something suddenly occurred to him!

He stared intently at the notice board, and then, before his whole body turned limp, he lunged towards it like a madman.

"Thud..."

He fell heavily to the ground, his body unable to even manage a final leap!

But he grabbed the pole of the notice board.

“Got it… Got it!!”

“Haaah—”

He burst out with his last bit of strength, dragging himself to the base of the notice board.

He used one hand to desperately cling to the pole, and then reached into his pocket with the other!

He fumbled around for a moment, finally feeling a thick booklet.

Struggling to control his trembling hand, he pulled the booklet from his pocket, and then shakily opened it to the last section—the campus map.

Before his vision completely faded, he located the positions of the notice board and the cafeteria on the map—

“That’s right! That’s right!! The cafeteria is here! It’s here!”

He slowly moved the map away from his eyes, like scraping away the anti-counterfeiting ink on a scratch card.

The scenery behind the notice board reappeared before his eyes.

The cliff was gone, and a perfectly square cafeteria lay quietly in the afterglow of the setting sun.

The cafeteria had always been there.

The cafeteria had always been there.

And he was still hugging the pole of that notice board.

Lin Yi's tense body relaxed all at once, feeling the weight of a thousand pounds that had been pressing down on him instantly dissipate.

He released the pole and lay down on the road paved with distinct pebbles, looking at the normal world before him, a world with inherent rules and logic, and breathed a long sigh of relief.

He gasped for breath, letting the air mixed with the fragrance of soil tell him that the crazy, oppressive, twisted world full of extreme malice towards him was just a hallucination!

That indescribable sense of horror disappeared completely with his breathing.

Only when that feeling had completely vanished did he believe with unwavering certainty that he was back, he was really back.

“I found it! I found it!”

“My idea was right! It was right!”

“Reference points are relative. The distorted pebbles can no longer be used as reference points, and the only true notice board that has never been distorted is the absolutely correct reference point!”

Under Wei Liang's incomprehending gaze, he covered his face and laughed loudly.

“Hahahahahaha…”

He laughed heartily, laughing until he was exhausted.

Then, he saw the golden sky and yellow clouds, and beneath the clouds, Wei Liang's face looking down at him with a deep look of incomprehension.

“Liang…zi?” He was stunned, these two words popping out of his mouth.

Wei Liang looked down at him with a face full of doubt: “Yeah, it’s me, what the hell… what was that just now?”

“Uh… just now…” Lin Yi propped himself up from the ground, took a deep breath, blew the dust off the campus map, carefully folded it up and tucked it into the back of the student handbook, putting it back in his pocket.

Then, he looked at Wei Liang and said seriously: “You definitely wouldn’t want to know what I just experienced.”

He grabbed the pole of the notice board and stood up.

Looking at Lin Yi's embarrassed and strange appearance and strange behavior, Wei Liang's expression changed from confusion to seriousness. After maintaining a very serious expression for three seconds, he finally shrugged his shoulders and asked with a frown and concern:

“Lao Lin, are you… okay?”

“Your actions just now were very strange.”

“Oh?” Lin Yi also showed some curiosity about his behavior just now, “In your eyes, what did I just do?”

Wei Liang wanted to say something flirty, but the atmosphere didn't allow it, so he said seriously: “You fell behind me just now, and then inexplicably crashed into that notice board.”

“Your appearance startled me. If I hadn't reacted quickly and stopped, you would have definitely eaten my full combo today.”

The corners of Lin Yi's mouth twitched: “Uh… was that what I was like just now? No, I mean… just like that?”

Wei Liang held his forehead and said speechlessly: “Seriously, what else do you want? You don’t even know what you’re doing?”

Lin Yi lowered his eyes, looking at the cobblestone road under his feet.

The road was normal.

He looked around again.

The surroundings were also normal.

“So just now… what exactly happened?”

“Hey, never mind, never mind!” Wei Liang waved his hand, then punched him in the chest, interrupting his thoughts, “Let’s eat, let’s eat!”

As Wei Liang spoke, he walked to the shelf below the notice board, grabbed a copy of the cafeteria rules and stuffed it into his pocket, then walked straight towards the entrance of the student passage.

Lin Yi glanced at Wei Liang's back, his brow gradually furrowing.

He suddenly thought of something, and looked down at his watch.

17:20.

“3 minutes…”

He narrowed his eyes.

Perhaps it was because he was wandering on the edge of madness and chaos, but he felt that he had just experienced an extremely long and obscure period of time.

But that period of time was only 3 minutes.

“Too short…”

Short and long, like… a slice was cut from eternal time, and he fell and sank in that slice.

…

May 7, X023, 17:21, in front of the cafeteria notice board.

Lin Yi took a copy of the cafeteria rules from the shelf on the side of the notice board and put it in his pants pocket, then stood there, looking at the cafeteria again, properly, carefully, and seriously.

His expression was extremely focused and solemn, as if he wanted to imprint the appearance of the cafeteria in his soul.

After looking at it for more than ten seconds, he realized that he was really going to fall behind, so he quickly lifted his foot to chase after Wei Liang's back.

However, when he crossed the notice board and hadn't walked a few steps, that almost forgotten, faint sense of resistance, like a claw probing out from the shadows, gently scratched his body again.

He stopped, turning his gaze back to the cafeteria.

He felt that this cafeteria… might be a little different for him.

Or rather, he had become a little different towards the cafeteria…

The cafeteria in the afterglow of the setting sun was dyed with a thin layer of red, like a tower that had been baptized by war in the old era, rooted in a sunken pit.

The mountains and forests surrounding the cafeteria seemed to have been replanted with maple trees all over the mountains, rendering a faint red light. The evening breeze urged the mist to crawl out of the mountains and forests, little by little surging towards the location of the cafeteria.

“Huh? This basement… has mist?”

Lin Yi suddenly noticed that the cafeteria's basement, because it was built in a pit, had already accumulated a layer of mist…

It was as if someone had pushed the mist from the mountains and forests out, driving it into the basement.

“Is it because of the geographical location?”

He narrowed his eyes, but his reason told him not to think about this kind of problem from a “normal” perspective.

“Let’s settle the meal first, and discuss this issue with Young Master Tian at night.” His intuition told him that in Tian Bufan's “cognition,” there must be more secrets that he didn’t know and urgently needed to know.

So he chased after Wei Liang's back and trotted all the way over.

But he found that Wei Liang was standing not far from the entrance of the student passage, his eyes watching something not far ahead.

“Liangzi?”

Having some experience, he didn't pat Wei Liang on the shoulder, but called out to him first.

Wei Liang's body trembled slightly, as if he had been interrupted in some kind of thought.

"Old Lin, I'm fine," Wei Liang said.

"Huh? Was something wrong with you just now?" Lin Yi asked back.

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"Emmm... nothing, nothing at all," Wei Liang said definitively.

He paused, then shook his head and said, "Even if there is, it has nothing to do with us. See for yourself..."

Lin Yi immediately looked in the direction Wei Liang was pointing—he saw students in twos and threes, heads drooping, walking at a leisurely pace into a passage without any markings.

Lin Yi's eyelids twitched violently: "Other passages?"

He immediately understood the meaning of Wei Liang's words and quickly turned his gaze back.

"I was careless. I should have kept my head down like before!" Wei Liang muttered softly, his tone full of regret, "This time, I've seen a little too much again!"

Lin Yi didn't pay attention to what Wei Liang was muttering. The content of the cafeteria rules immediately surfaced in his mind:

【Students entering and exiting the cafeteria should use the student passage to the first-floor restaurant (the entrance and exit of the passage have clear student passage signs). Do not use the staff passage, and especially do not use passages without any markings.

If you find someone entering a passage other than the student passage, and there is security nearby, you can inform the security at the first time, or you can choose to ignore it.】

At this time, there is no doubt that choosing to ignore it is better.

But when he turned his gaze back, he suddenly realized one, no, many problems.

First of all, when he had lunch, he saw Xu Shunkang and Xie Huayang entering the cafeteria through other passages.

And according to the gymnasium rules, he obtained another piece of information: sports students do not have student IDs.

But the notice board in front of the cafeteria clearly stated: 【Entry to the cafeteria is prohibited without a student ID!】

So…

「Sports students actually belong to the category of 'entering the cafeteria without a student ID'.」

「Their behavior obviously violates the warning given on the notice board, but… nothing happens to them!」

「Could it be that sports students don't have to abide by the cafeteria rules?」

He thought of Xu Shunkang specifically emphasizing earlier that he didn't need to take the cafeteria rules.

「Or is it that… the 'students' walk in the student passage, while sports students are no longer within the scope of 'students' and belong to 'others', so they enter the cafeteria through 'other passages'?」

「Or perhaps… 'Entry to the cafeteria is prohibited without a student ID' really means 'Students are prohibited from entering the cafeteria without a student ID'?」

「Because only students have student IDs.」

「So sports students don't abide by the cafeteria rules, or rather, they abide by another set of rules for entering and exiting the cafeteria… perhaps related to other passages.」

「But…」

The people who walked through the other passages just now were not all sports students.

Sports students wear uniform blue and white striped sportswear, even the boss is no exception.

But those people just now… obviously weren't wearing sportswear.

Lin Yi simply recalled the appearance of those people and found that they indeed lacked the vitality of sports students, and were somewhat different from the classmates who went to physical education class together.

They gave him a strange feeling, like being dull and numb from constantly thinking about problems, or like being dazed from some kind of blow.

In short, they were clearly not normal.

He thought of the girl wearing a sailor suit with a hair clip that he saw at noon. He remembered that the girl also walked through other passages.

And that girl… belonged to the group that followed the fake female teacher away in the fog!

「They are not sports students, they are not normal students either, but they still need to go to the cafeteria to eat!」

「Can you eat in the cafeteria without a student ID?」

「Wait! So… people without student IDs can enter the cafeteria through other passages, while 'students' with student IDs enter the cafeteria through the 'student passage'!」

「Student ID! Student ID?」

Lin Yi instantly thought of something. A picture flashed through his mind. When he obtained his student ID and the teaching building rules, the class teacher told him very seriously:

【"This is your student ID. Remember to keep it safe. If you lose it, please come to me as soon as possible."

"This booklet is the 'Teaching Building Rules'. You can slowly read it when you get to the classroom."

"Remember, for your own safety, both the student rules and the teaching building rules must be followed. At any time, if you encounter two conflicting rules, then judge for yourself based on your current identity and environment."

…

"You don't need to know what I'm called, you just need to remember this badge and uniform."

"From now on, your class teacher is not me, but the person wearing this badge with the number 'Class Teacher - B2-039'."

"And you, Lin Yi, you are not my student either. My student is the person holding the student ID in your hand."

"So remember my words, from now on, please keep your student ID safe. You can talk to others about the student ID, but at no time should you hand it over to others."

"Do you understand?"】

It was not until this moment that he suddenly woke up and completely understood the meaning of the class teacher's words.

Obviously, in this school, identity is not as simple as it appears on paper—even more not as simple as he initially predicted.

【The school will continue to provide you with corresponding help to solve problems until you retrieve or confirm that you cannot retrieve your student ID.】

During the seven-day trial period, he, Lin Yi, will spend it as a "student". Once he loses his student ID, he will no longer be a "student", but… "others"!

So the three passages into the cafeteria actually correspond to three identities—normal students with student IDs, "staff" with cafeteria or campus employee ID badges, and "others" without any identification!

And "others"… this broad and vague concept seems to be terribly complex.

Thinking of this, he couldn't help but recall the heavy echo from the depths of the staff passage, the kind of echo that even Xu Shunkang seemed to be affected by to some extent.

Could it be that people whose identities do not match the passage will cause that kind of terrifying change after arriving at the wrong passage entrance?

「That's very likely the case!」

Lin Yi recalled the shape and appearance of the cafeteria food server. In his established impression, let alone the cafeteria auntie, even King Kong Calabash Brothers would probably get slapped and told to leave if they walked into the staff passage.

If a specific "identity" cannot get certain protection in the corresponding occasion, then he can't figure out why the cafeteria auntie can enter such a terrifying staff passage.

Unless she is not human.