Chapter 82: Terrifying Campus, Sunshine Doll (20)

"Alright," Zi Yushu replied.

Though his subconscious was screaming for alarm, his actions were in complete contradiction to it. If reason had prevailed, it would have commanded him to firmly reject this poisonous rose. Yet in reality, he did not even take half a step back.

"When will you give it to me?"

"Hmm... tonight at eight," Tang Mu responded, whether intentionally or not, choosing the very same time as before.

"I definitely won't be late today. Wait for me," she said, her smile sweet as honey. "I'll make sure to gather all the flowers needed for the bouquet within the set time~"

In truth, there was no real need to gather them all. But this thought, Zi Yushu did not voice. He pressed his lips together and chose silence in the end.

With the arrangement made, Tang Mu waved at Zi Yushu. "Then I'll head back to the dorm. The teacher isn't giving class anyway. Bye-bye."

"Bye-bye."

The old Zi Yushu would never have used such a childish, affectionate phrase with anyone. But this was Tang Mu.

For the first time in his life, Zi Yushu broke his own rule.

What he did not know was this:

As soon as Tang Mu turned away, the sweetness vanished from her face as if switched off. There was no trace left of the gentleness or understanding she’d just shown.

Of course, she would bring Zi Yushu flowers.

But the flowers she would give him—

Were funeral blooms for his burial.

"Ahhh!"

Before Tang Mu could even return to her dorm to continue reading her romance novels, screams erupted from the classroom.

"He—he's dead!" Qiu Haoyu shouted, covering his mouth in panic as he pointed to a classmate foaming at the mouth. "He just drank water from the dispenser and started convulsing! Everyone, don't drink the water!"

But Qiu Haoyu’s warning came too late.

With that student’s death, others in the classroom began to convulse and foam at the mouth in quick succession.

It looked as though they had all been poisoned.

"Who is it that keeps trying to kill us over and over again?" Sun Huilan sobbed, clutching her face. She had already been devastated by Zi Yushu’s cold rejection, not to mention that the little weather doll with the orange scarf had been swapped with him.

Now, she was about to die too.

No, she wasn’t supposed to die today!

"Zi Yushu!" Sun Huilan grabbed at the hem of Zi Yushu’s shirt like a madwoman. "The weather doll with the orange scarf was supposed to be yours! You must have known you’d be on the death list today, that’s why you swapped with me. If you give it back to me, I’ll live!"

Watching Sun Huilan’s hysteria, Zi Yushu’s patience wore thin.

He yanked his hand away from her grip, his expression cold and indifferent.

"Weren’t you the one who agreed to the swap?" Zi Yushu’s tone was chillingly inhuman, as if he cared only for his own survival. As for everyone else? Whether they lived or died had nothing to do with him.

"Did I not make it clear that once we swapped, there would be no changing back? You agreed to that yourself. What sense is there in trying to take it back now?"

When faced with the terror of imminent death, the good and evil in human nature are magnified severalfold, even dozens of times over.

At this moment, all trace of Zi Yushu’s former elegance was gone. All that remained was an ugly, desperate desire to survive.

"Sun Huilan, listen to me—no one can stop me from doing what I want! As for you... so many people like me; whether there’s one more or one less of you makes no difference to me. To me, you’re like a weed in the garden—easy to pluck and toss away."

"A girl begging for pity like this, without even a shred of self-respect. Truly shameless!"

Sun Huilan was dumbfounded.

She never imagined that the boy she once found so graceful and charming could say something so cruel.

How she wished she hadn’t traded dolls with Zi Yushu when he’d suggested it in the first place!

Compared to her budding feelings, her life was worth infinitely more.

"In the face of death, who cares about pride?" Sun Huilan, driven by madness, no longer cared about her feelings for Zi Yushu. She lunged at his backpack, trying to snatch the doll. "Give it back to me! If you don’t, I’ll kill you first!"

She didn’t care that she was a girl, that she wasn’t as strong as a boy. In their struggle, Zi Yushu shoved her hard, sending her crashing into the corner of a desk.

The back of Sun Huilan’s head struck the edge, and she collapsed to the floor, unconscious. Ten minutes later, blood began to seep slowly from the wound at the base of her skull.

Tang Mu crouched down, placing two fingers under Sun Huilan’s nose.

Then she sighed.

"She’s dead," Tang Mu announced, rising to look at Zi Yushu. "You killed someone."

"It wasn’t me," Zi Yushu retorted, not a trace of guilt in his voice. "She hit the desk by accident. It had nothing to do with me."

"Alright then." Tang Mu showed no intention of blaming him. "Given our current situation, it doesn’t matter whether it was murder or not."

Tang Mu had no intention of staying in the classroom any longer.

As she turned to leave, perhaps shaken by the fact that he had just killed someone, a tiny crack appeared in Zi Yushu’s usually cold and indifferent heart.

It was this crack that made him suddenly want to hold onto something—something tangible, something that could anchor him amidst the panic and fear.

"Are you leaving?"

"Yes," she replied, as if it were the most natural thing in the world. "I’m going back to the dorm to read my romance novels."

To hear Tang Mu speak so casually, saying things so out of place in such an absurd situation—

Zi Yushu began to wonder if, after killing someone, he was perhaps overreacting.

"Fourteen people in our class will die today."

"I know," Tang Mu responded, as if she clearly understood and wondered why Zi Yushu felt the need to repeat it. "Let them die and let us live. Just because the world is ending doesn’t mean we stop living as we wish, does it?"

Ignoring the way Zi Yushu’s pupils contracted, Tang Mu was almost exasperated.

"So, Zi Yushu, don’t disturb me while I’m reading. Tonight at eight—don’t be late."

With that, she skipped off toward her dorm, leaving behind the boy questioning his life and his values, completely disregarded.