Dimensional Store: Welcome to the Apocalypse Apartment - Chapter 273

Chapter 273

The homeroom teacher turned evasive, pressing her stretched grin closed. No matter what Gu Huaiwei asked, she refused to say another word.

The principal seemed to be some terrifying existence, enough to make the homeroom teacher tremble in silence.

Gu Huaiwei felt that if she twisted any harder, she might yank the teacher’s hand right off.

That wouldn’t do.

She still needed the homeroom teacher to write her a recommendation letter later.

“Fine. If you won’t talk, I’ll investigate it myself.” Gu Huaiwei magnanimously let the homeroom teacher in front of her go. “When should I come get my recommendation letter?”

The moment she was released, the homeroom teacher immediately retreated to the doorway, putting a huge distance between herself and Gu Huaiwei.

“Ka-ka-ka… I need to go do dorm inspection first.”

“Then I’ll go with you.” Gu Huaiwei had no intention of letting this good opportunity slip by.

Although it was already late, Gu Huaiwei was highly career-minded. Rather than sleeping in this dorm that reeked of blood, she’d rather follow the homeroom teacher and get the recommendation letter she needed.

“Ka-ka-ka…” The homeroom teacher seemed like she still wanted to say something.

Gu Huaiwei cut her off mercilessly. “Enough with the ka-ka-ka. Your objection is invalid.”

Under the teacher’s resentful gaze, Gu Huaiwei followed her out to continue the dorm inspection.

In the long, narrow Corridor, red light blinked on and off. The dorm keys hanging at the homeroom teacher’s waist clinked crisply against one another, and the sound of her high heels striking the floor was like a butcher’s cleaver chopping on a cutting board.

The homeroom teacher used her keys to open the doors one by one.

She didn’t turn on the lights. Instead, she went to each bed, craned her neck, and sniffed every bunk with her nose.

The students all seemed to be sleeping soundly in their beds. Gu Huaiwei could hear some of their hurried breathing; they clearly weren’t asleep at all.

When they reached one particular dorm room, the homeroom teacher once again revealed that familiar look of excitement. Her eyes glowed crimson as she moved to Bed 3. Then, like a spider, she hovered over the bed with her body suspended in the air, supporting herself on both hands and both feet as she leaned down to sniff the student pretending to sleep.

The student sleeping against the wall had to be terrified.

Even the blanket was trembling.

“You’re still awake… ka-ka-ka… Student, I saw you playing on your phone…”

Then the homeroom teacher lifted a corner of the blanket.

The student hadn’t actually been playing on her phone.

It was just that her phone had suddenly gotten a new ad pop-up, causing the screen to light up.

During bed check, turning on a light was apparently against the rules.

A phone screen’s glow counted as a light too.

Gu Huaiwei watched as the homeroom teacher violently threw back the student’s blanket and thrust a hand straight into her chest, ripping out her heart. The student struggled wildly, but it was useless. Then the homeroom teacher cradled the bright red heart in both hands and stuffed it into her mouth, blood spraying everywhere.

And at some point, the Fat Dorm Matron had appeared in the doorway.

“Oh dear, filthy, filthy… ka-ka-ka… points will be deducted. The whole dorm gets points deducted.”

The Fat Dorm Matron called in the cleaner to dispose of the student’s corpse.

The cleaner was someone Gu Huaiwei knew: the muscular man Zhang Wenwu.

At that moment, he was wearing an ill-fitting janitor’s uniform and a black mask. Holding a huge black trash bag in his hand, he silently covered the student’s corpse with it and dragged it out.

Throughout the whole process, Zhang Wenwu didn’t dare look at Gu Huaiwei even once.

As they brushed past each other on his way out, Zhang Wenwu secretly slipped Gu Huaiwei a note.

On it were the words: There’s something fishy about the place where they process the corpses.

After reading it, Gu Huaiwei tore the note into pieces and stuffed them into her pocket.

During the rest of the inspection, several more students violated the Rules.

Those whose offenses were minor only had their ears torn off, their fingers cut off, or were punished with forced labor somewhere else. But those who directly broke the Rules and failed to remedy it in time had their hearts ripped out on the spot.
The cleaners were different every time.

The cleaners who came to the dorms to dispose of the bodies were all students working part-time.

After the dorm inspection ended, Gu Huaiwei followed the homeroom teacher back to the office to get a recommendation letter for campus part-time work.

The lights in the campus corridor were all out.

There was no one left in the classrooms or offices.

The homeroom teacher returned to her desk and opened a drawer. Inside were many severed student fingers, all contraband she had confiscated that their owners had never come back to reclaim.

While the homeroom teacher wrote the recommendation letter, Gu Huaiwei let her gaze sweep across the office.

On the upper right corner of the teacher’s desk was a thick stack of medical leave slips.

Gu Huaiwei shot Lin She a look.

Lin She immediately understood.

Gu Huaiwei walked over to the homeroom teacher’s side and used her body to block the leave slips from view.

Then, in an unremarkable dark corner, from beneath Lin She’s black clothes, a black, cold, slick round tentacle curled around the stack of leave slips, whisked them away, and stuffed them into his pocket.

“Done.” After quickly finishing the recommendation letter, the homeroom teacher handed it to Gu Huaiwei.

“Thanks.”

With the letter in hand, Gu Huaiwei didn’t linger.

She had only just stepped out of the homeroom teacher’s office and was heading briskly toward the infirmary when, after only a few steps, a hoarse voice suddenly called out by her ear, “Shopkeeper Gu, come here a moment.”

The voice was both familiar and strange.

It sounded like nails scraping across a blackboard.

Gu Huaiwei stopped and looked toward the source of the voice.

It was the white-haired old man Zhang Guoqing. Earlier, he had been assigned to Applied Chemistry Class 9 together with Zhang Wenwu and Ou Doudou.

What was strange was that, so late at night, he was here alone near the nursing department classrooms.

In the darkness, Zhang Guoqing’s body swayed slightly. He stood beside the classroom window, its wooden frame already somewhat rotten, his eyes locked onto Gu Huaiwei.

The corners of his mouth were slightly raised, but there wasn’t a trace of warmth in the smile. It looked carefully arranged, a deliberate imitation of kindness.

“Shopkeeper Gu, come help me. My other hand is stuck in the window. I can’t move it.” Zhang Guoqing’s voice rang out again, this time with a hint of urgency.

The light coming through the window was dim, making it impossible to see the details inside the classroom.

One of his thin hands waved lightly, the motion slow. A chill crept up Gu Huaiwei’s spine. The Zhang Guoqing in front of her had, in all likelihood, already suffered Contamination.

What a pity. Another person had fallen to it.

Gu Huaiwei walked straight over. She saw that the hand Zhang Guoqing had injured before really was stuck in the window.

She helped pull that hand free.

But Zhang Guoqing suddenly lowered his head, opened his gaping maw, and tried to bite into Gu Huaiwei’s shoulder.

“Don’t move.” Gu Huaiwei grabbed him directly by the throat.

Then, with another pull, she yanked out the hand that had been stuck.

Because she was so close, Gu Huaiwei finally realized that Zhang Guoqing’s lower body was already gone. He hadn’t been standing by the classroom window at all; only half his body had been propped on the desk by the window.

His remaining two legs had been folded neatly at the knees and stuffed into the desk drawer.

At this moment, Zhang Guoqing no longer had any awareness of his own.

Once both his hands had been pulled free, he began waving them wildly in the air.

He kept repeating the same words: “Help me… ka-ka-ka… help me… I’m stuck.”

Gu Huaiwei didn’t know how much of a person’s own consciousness remained after they were contaminated inside an Instance.

She tested him with a question: “Do you still remember your little granddaughter who needs heart bypass surgery?”