Dimensional Store: Welcome to the Apocalypse Apartment - Chapter 249

Chapter 249

The man who had been speaking in the darkness had already left, leaving only the old-fashioned camera turning silently.

Gu Huaiwei looked in the direction Bai Miemie was pointing, and a black-and-white projection of Lulu appeared on the white wall.

The girl in the school uniform showed only half her face. Her bangs were a little too long, hiding the purplish-red birthmark beneath that side of her face. Her head was lowered, and she kept crying.

The room held nothing but the sound of sobbing.

She was like stop-motion animation, using performance to act out what had happened to her in the black-and-white film projected onto the wall.

Lulu was the only daughter of the Hospital Director of Gray Mist Town Hospital. Because of the birthmark on her face, she had been introverted since childhood. Although she had gotten into Gray Mist University, she had no way of fitting into any of those little circles.

Xiaoyu was her deskmate.

Or rather, one of her many deskmates.

The idle rich boys in the class loved picking poor students with strong pride and playing romance games with them.

First, they would pretend to be gentle and affectionate, taking the poor students out to spend lavishly and telling those girls who had no money that they deserved better.

Then, when it came time to break up, they would make those poor students pay the money back, humiliate them as people, and drive them to collapse.

They would bet on when the girls would fall for it and give them their hearts.

They would look forward to the moment the truth was revealed in front of everyone, to the disbelief on the girls’ faces.

To those boys, who only needed to inherit their family businesses, all of this was nothing more than a game.

But to those poor girls, it destroyed their entire lives.

Lulu only watched it all coldly.

The teachers always liked assigning poor students to be her deskmates.

Because she never said anything, the teachers assumed she had no objections.

Her previous deskmate had also been a victim of that kind of game.

In the end, at the end of that semester, on the so-called confession night, the girl was publicly ordered to return an expensive gown. Then, amid wave after wave of mocking laughter calling her delusional for daring to dream so high, she jumped straight down from upstairs.

Lulu had no pity for these poor students.

She would not expose those people’s tricks, either.

After all, there were so many unfortunate people in the world. She could not possibly sympathize with them all.

Xiaoyu seemed a little smarter than Lulu’s previous deskmates. She paid no attention to the boys’ attempts to curry favor, always maintaining a polite distance while focusing on her own affairs.

Xiaoyu became a challenge of a higher difficulty.

Lulu simply watched from the sidelines, as if watching a show, and paid a little more attention to what happened to Xiaoyu.

But Xiaoyu was different from the deskmates who had come before. She was warmer, filled with energy. Lulu’s attitude toward Xiaoyu had always been cold, but Xiaoyu would still take the initiative to talk to her, help her solve problems in her studies, pull her along to take photos together, and even bring her cheap little snacks.

Lulu only responded with hypocritical politeness, acting out a scene that might have been friendship.

She was only going through the motions.

Xiaoyu told Lulu that she would leave this small town and go to a bigger city.

Xiaoyu also said that once she got into a school in a big city, she wanted to study medicine, to treat illnesses and save lives.

Because the two of them had grown somewhat close, Lulu was also dragged into this troublesome game.

The blind date Lulu’s family had arranged for her was one of the players in that game.

At the same time, he was also the son of the Black-hearted Merchant.

The man spoke sweet words and used the final wager of the game as an engagement ring, asking her to help him.

And right at that time, Xiaoyu’s parents had an accident in the mine. They contracted Mist Lung Disease and were receiving treatment at her family’s hospital.
There was no miracle drug that could directly cure Mist Lung Disease.

But they had marketed a drug that, on the surface, seemed to provide some relief. In reality, the parts that were rotting were still rotting.

Even medicine with no real effect could look like hope in the eyes of the sick.

Regardless of whether it worked, the drug became impossible to get, and the price rose with demand. In the end, all the money those poor Miner laborers earned from mining was poured into it.

Driven to the end of her rope, Xiaoyu sobbed and begged Lulu to help arrange a hospital bed. She also wanted to buy the “miracle drug” for Mist Lung Disease.

Behind that drug was an enormous chain of profit involving many people. It was not only the hospital and Lulu’s parents. Many members of other families also held shares.

This town was not large.

There were only so many people in the upper class.

Their interests were all bound together.

Class determined position.

Of course Lulu would not ruin her own family’s business for Xiaoyu.

She and Xiaoyu had never belonged to the same world.

The drug itself was not worth much, but Lulu still helped Xiaoyu “pull strings,” charged her an enormous sum, and then handed over the medicine.

With cold eyes, she watched her fiancé approach Xiaoyu, playing the role of the perfect lover as he helped Xiaoyu buy medicine and cared for her sick parents.

“My fiancé asked me to introduce her to a job at Hot Spring Mansion. That idiot actually thought I would help her find work… click-click-click… I really hated the way she looked at me. So stupidly innocent.

“With such a huge gap between our families, what made her think I would be friends with her? Was it because of the birthmark on my face? Or because I didn’t have many friends in class?

“It’s true I wasn’t part of those little cliques, but that doesn’t mean I would be friends with an ordinary person like her… click-click-click…

“She must have thought that because of the birthmark on my face, I was isolated by the others in class just like she was, so she came running over to be my friend… Disgusting. So disgusting… Those stupid poor students are always staring at my face. They have no manners at all!”

At this point, in the black-and-white projection, the film that had been jerking along like stop-motion animation suddenly became smooth.

Lulu turned her head and stared straight past the camera at Gu Huaiwei.

A malicious smile spread across her face.

“Who gave you permission to look at my face like that… click-click-click… Stop looking! Stop looking at me!!!”

According to the Rules, a Trial-taker was not allowed to look directly at the birthmark on Lulu’s face.

Gu Huaiwei had never bothered looking for the Rules at all.

Not only did she look, she looked openly and brazenly.

The next second, two iron nails shot out from the camera, flying straight toward Gu Huaiwei’s eyes.

Gu Huaiwei could see the nails’ path through the air with perfect clarity. The sharp tips split the air as if everything had gone into slow motion. Calmly and effortlessly, she raised her hand and caught the incoming nails between her fingers.

“Honestly. I was so patient, listening to you ramble on and on, and you still tried to poke me with nails? Bad girl. Your fine is two boxes of diet pills.”

Gu Huaiwei tossed the nails in her hand, then flicked them with her fingertips, sending the two nails back into Lulu’s projected eyes on the wall.

The nails tore through the air and sank half a finger deep into the wall. From that spot, bright red blood began to flow.

Cracks appeared across the lens of the black camera.

“Click-click-click… click-click-click…” The quality of the black-and-white image began to waver.

Lulu seemed to be breaking down a little.