Playing the Mute Transfer Student - Chapter 1

Images flashed through my mind.

Just moments ago, the black-haired boy, Ji Siye, had aimed a mineral-water bottle at my face and drenched me in buffalo milk.

His lip curled in provocation. “Since you love sticking your nose into other people’s business so much, why don’t you use that mouth that can’t talk and lick up the milk you spilled for me?”

…

The cloying sweetness hit the back of my nose.

I instinctively tried to turn away, but Ji Siye had overwhelming strength. His fingers locked around my chin.

Ignoring my resistance, he spoke so softly that the threat in his voice was almost worse. “You’d better not move.”

My mind had yet to catch up, but my body had already obeyed.

Even as pain began to throb through my knees, I stayed at the same angle, head tipped back as I looked up at him.

Apparently satisfied by my compliance, Ji Siye let out a contemptuous snort.

Then he began settling old scores.

“Do you really like running to Jiang Shuo and telling him everything that much?”

The moment I caught the key name, a matching memory fragment unlocked. Frame after unfamiliar frame flooded into my head.

Jiang Shuo.

He was another transfer student, one who had arrived two days after the avatar. He was also one of Ji Siye’s gang’s favorite targets.

The avatar had felt sorry for him and secretly warned him about when and where the group planned to torment him, as well as what they intended to do.

With the avatar’s help, Jiang Shuo escaped eight or nine times out of ten.

But Ji Siye and his friends weren’t stupid. They soon rooted out the most likely suspect.

My thoughts snapped back to the present.

Ji Siye watched me with an unreadable half smile.

“What makes you think you’re in any position to pity him? When you finally worked up the nerve to betray me, did you never imagine you’d end up on your knees, begging like a dog?”

He leaned closer.

Perhaps he found the hair hanging over my forehead annoying. A threat lost some of its force when you couldn’t see the victim’s eyes.

Without ceremony, Ji Siye swept all my hair back over the crown of my head. His gaze paused.

By the time I realized what he was doing, the pad of his finger was hovering directly above my eyeball.

Plucking out someone’s eyes to keep as collectibles—

For some reason, I was certain the lunatic in front of me could do it.

Nothing was too strange for a horror scenario, after all.

I trembled despite myself. Too afraid to blink, I could feel the blood vessels spreading through the whites of my eyes.

It was as though he were staring at a fragile work of art he was dying to smash. A manic urge to destroy surged up from somewhere inside him.

Sick excitement saturated his voice. “Fuck. How can anyone be this pretty?”

…

Ji Siye seized my hair roughly. I had no choice but to tilt my head back as he forced me toward the bottle.

I had just begun struggling with every ounce of strength I possessed when something behind him caught the corner of my eye.

No one had been there before.

Now a hazy white figure stood in the empty space.

Before I could think, I blinked—and a deathly pale face lunged into mine.

Face pressed almost against face, I saw countless writhing maggots fighting their way out of its black, hollow eye sockets. They were so close they might tumble onto my skin at any moment.

My eyes flew wide.

My throat felt as though a car had crushed it flat. Not a whisper escaped.

Terror locked every muscle in my body as if they had already died. I couldn’t move even half an inch to dodge.

Was I going to die the moment the game began?

The thought had barely crossed my mind when Ji Siye shoved my head down without hesitation.

…

Scalding tears slid over my cheeks as I coughed desperately.

My eyes brimmed while I stared at the culprit.

I tried to get up, but Ji Siye kept a tight grip on my wrist. With his veined, bony hand, he patted my cheek.

It didn’t hurt.

That only made the humiliation worse.

Ji Siye lifted his eyelids, his expression indifferent and his tone impossible to read. “Is your memory really that bad?”

I froze for a second.

Then, under the amused stares of the boys my age, I lowered my lashes. With damp, humiliated fingertips, I wrote a line across Ji Siye’s broad palm.

—Thank you for the treat, Master.

When I looked up again, Ji Siye’s lips curved in satisfaction.

At last, he released the hand he had squeezed until it ached.

I turned away without expression.

…Yeah. Thanks a fucking lot.