Chapter 6
Chapter 6: Imposter Jiang Nan, Quintuple-Split Classmates
In the dark and twisted jungle, a beam of light swayed erratically.
That was Yang Wei's escape squad.
They trudged through rotting fallen leaves, one foot sinking deeper than the other, surrounded by absolute silence—broken only by the sound of breathing and the crisp snap of dead branches underfoot.
Yang Wei walked at the front, gripping the High-Powered Flashlight he'd picked up from beside Master Wang's corpse.
His other hand clutched the Glass-Breaking Hammer, every nerve pulled taut.
"Lao Yang…"
A deliberately hushed voice came from beside him.
The speaker was Guo Shuai—point guard on the school basketball team and Yang Wei's closest brother.
He glanced warily back in the direction of the bus, then leaned close to Yang Wei's ear.
"Actually…you saw it too, right?"
"That Bai Lianhua woman runs her mouth nonstop, but what she said earlier wasn't wrong…"
"That crow died in a way that was way too strange, and Jiang Nan's gesture…"
The hand holding the High-Powered Flashlight gave a violent jerk, and the beam swept a blurred arc across a tree trunk.
Yang Wei went silent for 2 seconds, then gritted his teeth and nodded.
"I saw it."
Yang Wei's voice was dark.
"That's exactly why I took you all out of there."
"Guo Shuai, think about it—if that was some kind of ability, or a system…why does only he have it?"
Fear bled into Yang Wei's eyes.
"No server-wide announcement, no phone notification, everyone else is completely ordinary!"
"So why does Jiang Nan suddenly get to look at us like we're already dead? And kill people from a distance?"
"And did you notice his expression?"
Yang Wei thought back to the cold indifference on Jiang Nan's face when he'd used Li Xin as a human shield—and then the look in his eyes when he'd pointed that Finger-Gun Shape straight between Yang Wei's brows.
That was not the expression a human being should have.
No anger, no hesitation, not even the faintest ripple of feeling.
Like he was looking at a pile of walking meat.
"That kind of expression…I've only ever seen it on one kind of thing."
Yang Wei swallowed hard. "Remember that horror game we pulled an all-nighter playing at the internet café a few days ago?"
Guo Shuai froze—then his pupils shrank sharply, as if something utterly terrifying had just clicked into place.
"You mean…an Imposter?!"
"Exactly."
Yang Wei narrowed his eyes.
"I have reason to believe that the real Jiang Nan…Died the moment we were transported—or maybe even earlier."
"Whatever is wearing that body now is a thing that replaced him. A monster native to this world."
A chill shot up Guo Shuai's spine from the soles of his feet straight to the top of his skull. The more he thought about it, the more his blood ran cold.
"Right…why does only he have a special ability? and why is he hiding it and refusing to say anything…?"
"If it were some kind of transport bonus, or a Spiritual Awakening, there's no way only one person would awaken! Unless……"
"Unless it was never an awakening at all."
Yang Wei let out a cold laugh. "That's a monster's instinct."
"And think about it—why did he absolutely refuse to get off the bus?"
"Why did he insist on staying in that place reeking of corpses and the smell of blood?"
"Maybe that's his nest. Or maybe some kind of rule is stopping him from leaving the vehicle!"
The logic was shaky at best—but in the grip of overwhelming fear, it felt disturbingly plausible.
Guo Shuai wiped the cold sweat from his forehead, still rattled.
"Holy sh*t…Lao Yang, you really do think faster than anyone!"
"So by that logic, Teacher Chen Tong and Liu Yuqing and Wang Meng…they're probably done for."
"Living alongside an Imposter—they'll get picked clean sooner or later. Maybe even assimilated!"
Yang Wei clapped Guo Shuai on the shoulder. "Don't overthink it. We're brothers—of course I'm getting you out of there."
"Let's keep moving. The farther we get from that monster, the better!"
The 2 of them reached their silent agreement, and their footsteps quickened without thinking.
The group pressed on in silence for another hour.
By now, the sky had gone completely black. A Blood Moon hung overhead.
"Look! Up ahead!"
Suddenly, Bai Lianhua—walking somewhere in the middle of the group—let out an excited cry.
Everyone followed the beam of light.
There, no more than 200 meters ahead, the twisted purple tree line came to an abrupt end.
In its place stretched a vast, endless wheat field, swaying gently in the night breeze.
No trees.
A real Open Ground.
"Finally! We're out of this cursed forest!"
"Yang Wei was right! No trees means no crows!"
The tension that had been building the entire way finally snapped—and the group erupted in cheers, the relief of survivors washing over all of them.
Bai Lianhua wasted no time, striding up beside Yang Wei and fawningly holding out an unopened bottle of water.
"Yang Wei, you've worked so hard. Here, drink something!"
"At least you have real foresight—unlike that mute, just sitting there with his broken bus, waiting to die."
Yang Wei didn't stand on ceremony. He took the bottle, threw his head back, and drank deeply. The euphoria of escape made him feel almost lightheaded.
"Everyone push through! Once we clear this last stretch of trees, we'll rest at the edge of the wheat field tonight!"
Yang Wei wiped the water from his mouth and called out in encouragement.
The guys high-fived each other. The girls finally broke into smiles they hadn't worn in hours.
As if reaching that wheat field would make every last danger dissolve into nothing.
And yet.
When they were less than 50 meters from the edge of the wheat field—
Caw!!!
A shriek exploded directly above their heads.
The horn of death.
Before anyone could react, countless pairs of crimson eyes blazed to life in the dark canopy overhead.
The Mutated Crow flock—the very ones Jiang Nan had suppressed and scattered with his firepower—had regrouped here.
They had been lying in ambush the entire time.
Or rather: Yang Wei's group had walked directly into the arms of a flock of ravenous predators.
"Ahhhhh!!!"
Two screams rang out almost simultaneously.
The two female students on the outer edges of the group never even had time to cry for help.
four or five enormous Mutated Crows seized their shoulders and hair all at once.
"Save me! Someone save me!!"
One of the girls reached out in despair, trying to grab onto anything.
But in the next instant, more crows descended.
They moved like butchers who had drilled this routine a thousand times.
Some grabbed the head. Some grabbed the feet. Some grabbed the arms.
Caw!!!
A single unified beat of wings—and the 2 girls were hoisted into midair, ripped upward by sheer force.
TEAR!
The sound of flesh splitting apart echoed through the night sky.
Quintuple-split.
Under the tremendous pulling force, the 2 girls were torn apart in midair in an instant—a rain of blood.
Organs and severed limbs splattered down onto everyone's faces.
"Urgh!"
"Run! RUN!!!"
The guys who'd been high-fiving seconds ago completely fell apart.
"Ahhh! My leg! My leg!"
Two more male students in the rear were tackled to the ground, swallowed instantly beneath a mass of black wings.
Only a few short screams—then silence.
4 dead in the blink of an eye.
"To the wheat field! Get to the wheat field!"
Yang Wei was terrified out of his wits. He sprinted madly toward the wheat field, High-Powered Flashlight swinging.
The group collapsed into chaos.
Everyone was running on pure survival instinct, wishing desperately they'd been born with two extra legs.
Yu Shishi was at the very back.
She was wearing ill-fitting heels, stumbling and lurching over the tree roots.
"Wait for me! Wait for me!"
She looked ahead through tears.
The three guys who'd sworn to be her Knights in Shining Armor—every single one of them was sprinting like rabbits.
Not one of them looked back.
"Help me—Bai Lianhua! Pull me up!"
Yu Shishi spotted her best friend not far away.
But Bai Lianhua glanced back at the Mutated Crow flock closing in behind them—and something vicious flashed in her eyes.
Rather than reaching out, she deliberately shoved a dead log into the path where Yu Shishi was running.
"Don't come near me! Don't drag them over here!"
Bai Lianhua screamed, and used the gap to accelerate and merge with the men running ahead.
Thud!
Yu Shishi was tripped by the log and hit the ground hard.
Despair.
In that moment, the image that surfaced in her mind was Liu Yuqing's face—the look in her eyes when she'd closed the window.
‘I was wrong…’
‘I really was wrong…’
Caw!
A crow plunged downward, razor-sharp talons about to rake across her back.
The will to survive detonated inside Yu Shishi with a force that stunned even her. She rolled and scrambled forward in a desperate lunge—
Just barely evading that lethal strike. She ignored the pain and threw herself at the golden wheat field on all fours.
That was the only way out.
All 12 of them—like a pack of spooked strays—tore out of the tree line and plunged headlong into the golden wheat field.
They ran until they were dozens of meters in, lungs burning like fire.
"Stop…stop!"
Guo Shuai suddenly grabbed Yang Wei, who was still sprinting, and pointed back the way they'd come, his voice trembling.
"They…they didn't follow!"
Everyone skidded to a halt, still gasping, and looked back.
What they saw froze them in place.
Hundreds upon hundreds of Mutated Crows lined up in perfect formation along the border between the tree line and the wheat field.
They wheeled in the air, they shrieked, they tore into the 4 corpses.
But not a single crow dared to cross that line by even one step.
Not even one meter.
"Ha…haha…we made it…"
Yang Wei collapsed onto the ground, staring at the flock that refused to cross the threshold, and let out a laugh.
"You see that? I was right!"
"No trees…and they won't come near us! We're safe!"
The other surviving students sagged to the ground one by one, sucking in ragged breaths, relieved they'd chosen the right path.
Only Yu Shishi—the last one to crawl her way in—huddled in a corner, clutching her bleeding knees, shaking uncontrollably.
She stared at the flock pacing back and forth along the "boundary line" in the distance.
Those crimson eyes held something more than hunger.
There was something else there—deep, unmistakable…
Fear.
As if this golden wheat field, seemingly so calm and peaceful, concealed something a hundred times more terrifying than they were…