My Life as a Farm Owner in a Thriller World-Chapter 105: Yucai Middle School 6

Watching Wan Qian and Zhang Minglan disappear down the hallway, Yang Fan's knees nearly buckled. He almost collapsed to the floor.

He Fei caught him just in time, utterly baffled. How could the usually composed and effortless Yang Fan show such a fragile expression?

By now, Yang Fan had long lost the practiced ease he had displayed earlier when dealing with the security guards at the school gate.

His entire body was drenched in cold sweat, his hands and feet icy, his face pale without a trace of color. Even his faded, pallid lips trembled unconsciously, his teeth clicking together with a "clack, clack."

It wasn't until he had been supported by He Fei and rested for over a minute that Yang Fan seemed to return to himself. He suddenly grabbed He Fei's hand in a death grip.

He had to tell the others... he absolutely had to tell them... just how terrifying this so-called Ms. Wan truly was!

Yang Fan remembered it clearly: on the forum, out of the hundreds of survival rules recorded for Yucai Middle School, three were highlighted in glaring red. 𝘧𝓇𝑒𝑒𝑤ℯ𝑏𝓃𝘰𝑣ℯ𝘭.𝘤ℴ𝘮

Three absolute taboos. And one of them was—there are no restrooms in the teachers' office building!

But that... that Ms. Wan had just openly asked where the restroom was. And the Dean of Students—smiling, obsequious, almost groveling—was actually leading her there.

......

The Dean of Students guided Wan Qian down the corridor and up a stairwell on the far side of the office building.

After going up two floors and turning a corner, Wan Qian spotted the pale green glowing sign indicating the restroom.

It was clearly daytime, yet the restroom was very dark. Apart from a narrow entrance, all around were pitch-black walls, and there wasn't even a single ventilation window.

Wan Qian instinctively felt that the restroom was poorly designed. Without a window, how could it be ventilated? And if it couldn't be ventilated, wouldn't it stink unbearably?

Zhang Minglan looked at Wan Qian and spoke apologetically, "Sorry, the restroom lights have been broken for a long time."

Standing outside the women's restroom and looking in, one could only see the faint green glow of the safety signs in the four corners.

This weak green light barely allowed someone in the dimness to see the floor of the restroom, preventing total darkness. Anything higher up was completely invisible.

"Forget it, no problem." Wan Qian was considerate, and besides, and with the urge to pee pressing, she couldn't exactly go find another place.

She pulled out the phone, turned on its flashlight, and a white beam instantly illuminated a small area.

"Then I'll just go in like this," she said, stepping into the restroom, using the phone's light to guide her.

As she had expected, the poorly ventilated restroom indeed had a smell. However, the odor wasn't strong—far from unbearable.

Instead, it came and went intermittently, as if drifting slowly from some hidden source.

Wan Qian held her nose with one hand and chose the stall closest to the door. She opened the door and stepped inside.

The stall contained a typical squat toilet, quite old-fashioned. The white porcelain had accumulated a fair amount of yellow-brown stains, likely from a long period without thorough cleaning.

At least, mercifully, there was no unflushed waste left behind.

To her surprise, in one corner of the stall, three incense sticks were burning. They had clearly been lit for some time, their faintly glowing red tips flickering in the dark, drawing the eye.

Wan Qian sniffed the faint scent of incense in the air and guessed that someone had probably lit them here to mask the odor.

It made sense—restrooms always had that unpleasant smell. Even if it wasn't strong, prolonged exposure would certainly make anyone feel uncomfortable.

She figured the staff, unable to tolerate it, had spent a little of their own money to burn some fragrant incense for deodorizing.

Phone light in one hand, Wan Qian squatted down.

Halfway through, she froze. Whether it was her imagination or not, the odor in the air suddenly seemed stronger.

At the same time, Wan Qian heard faint, indistinct sounds coming from the other restroom stalls.

Low, muffled, with a "glug-glug" undertone, the noises sounded like bubbles rising from beneath the water to the surface.

Then came the low sobbing of a woman, mixed with indistinct mutterings, as if she were cursing something.

Wan Qian felt a little embarrassed. Perhaps some teacher or student, upset about something, was venting their emotions in the restroom.

She didn't know whether they were aware of her presence. If not, and she suddenly walked out and startled them, it would surely be awkward.

So Wan Qian decided to squat quietly a little longer, waiting for the other person to finish and leave before she emerged.

To pass the time, she fixed her eyes on the incense burning in the corner.

The sobbing and muttering continued, broken and uneven. The three sticks of incense flickered and glowed.

She watched them burn—and then, suddenly, all three dropped ash at once.

When the ash fell, their lengths changed: two tall, one short.

Wan Qian stared, stunned.

The faint sounds from the other restroom stalls seemed suddenly amplified, like a radio's volume knob had been turned up. Louder. Closer.

Instinctively, Wan Qian remembered what her superstitious elders had said when she was a child: burning incense in two long and one short sticks was unlucky.

Instinctively, she reached out, pulled the two longer sticks free, pinched their ends to snap them shorter, then planted them back into place.

Immediately, the scattered sobs and muttered curses outside fell silent for a moment.

Watching the three sticks burn evenly once more, Wan Qian nodded in satisfaction.

But outside, the noises shifted.

The sobbing and muttering surged back—this time louder, sharper. Added to it was the crash of fists against the partitions. Nails scraping violently, shrill and grating.

The sound of something trying to claw its way out.

Wan Qian couldn't help feeling a pang of worry. Whoever that girl crying in the stall was, her mental state sounded terribly unstable.

Originally planning to stay silent, Wan Qian finally couldn't hold back any longer.

"Ahem... hey, girl," she called softly, "if something's bothering you, you can talk to me. No need to hurt yourself."

What if this poor girl actually tried to self-harm? The sound of someone slamming against the wall was already frightening enough. She probably hadn't realized there was someone else in there.

Wan Qian clearly heard that after her words, the sobbing and cursing paused for several seconds.

But soon, the sounds grew louder again. The scratching of nails on the door and the banging against the partitions intensified as well.

Bang! Bang! Bang! Each blow rattled the very stall Wan Qian occupied, making the door tremble in response.