The cycle begins to repeat itself today.

While it's possible that Zhiyun was holding my arm and leading me, preventing me from getting close to others, it's impossible for me to maintain such a distance from everyone the entire way. Besides, Zhiyun only led me to the bottom of the main building; I walked the rest of the way to the classroom by myself. It's impossible for me to precisely avoid everyone under such circumstances, yet I didn't sense anything unusual. It wasn't until I returned to the classroom and fell asleep due to intense drowsiness, only to be woken up by Yezi, that I realized for the first time that approaching these unseen beings could induce sleepiness.

Are there any differences between them? I thought about the differences carefully, but apart from environmental factors, the only difference was my own subjective thoughts.

On my way here, I was puzzled because I couldn't see anyone moving around, but it wasn't something that really caught my attention. It wasn't until I was sitting in the classroom and Yezi woke me up that I realized class had started, but there were only Yezi, March, and me in the classroom.

From my perspective, Yezi and Sanyue were in this classroom where no one else could be seen. They were listening attentively to the lecture, even taking notes on information that was not in my sight. This made me realize that the "class" was taking place in a way that I could not see.

Realizing this, I naturally realized that right in front of me, there was a classmate I couldn't see sitting. I realized that someone wanted to exist there and was trying to touch it, which resulted in a strong drowsiness and I fell asleep.

The differences during this period are quite obvious.

Nothing happened on my way from home to school until I realized that there was no one on the street because I couldn't see them. When I finally realized this, I tried to touch the person in front of me, but they almost fell asleep. The closer I got, the sleepier they became, and they wouldn't let me touch them.

I can't even remember whether the person sitting in front of me was male or female, let alone what would happen if I touched them. But at least, I have a vague idea of ​​why I suddenly felt sleepy.

As long as I can't be sure that someone actually exists somewhere, they won't affect me. But I'm not sure if my ignoring these people will seem strange to Yezi and Sanyue. After thinking about it, I think that's unlikely. I walked back to school with Zhiyun the whole way; she held my hand, and we looked very intimate, but nothing happened.

While it's possible that others are simply too lazy to meddle, at least you'll know once you try it out.

I glanced again at Ye Zi, who was sitting next to me. Although she was still looking at the blackboard, I could tell from her profile that she was slightly distracted. What I had just done must have been keeping her occupied. I looked away.

You can't use something like that to test things; it would send the leaf plummeting back into the abyss. I have plenty of other ways to verify these things.

Chapter 260 Dining Out

In the classes that followed, I pretended to be paying attention. Although the classroom had become quite strange, I didn't dare to experiment with my ideas without asking Yezi and Sanyue any questions about my behavior and causing unnecessary trouble.

The bell rang, signaling the end of get out of class, but I didn't hear it. It was as if the bell had never existed. I could only check the time on my phone and try to guess whether class had started or not, or if the teacher had gone overtime, by observing Ye Zi's behavior and that of March. Nothing went wrong during this time, which I attributed to the positive influence of my established habits. I didn't attract attention, and consequently, teachers rarely called on me. In a way, I was practically invisible, which suited me perfectly.

I endured until school let out in the afternoon. I saw Yezi next to me let out a sigh of relief. After she closed her notebook, I put my book away too. Yezi stood up, walked out of her seat, and looked at me. I stood up as well, nodded to her, and we walked together towards the front of the classroom where March was.

She packed her things quite quickly in March. Although she's not usually in a rush, she's been mostly with us lately. There were probably students reading books next to her.

When March followed, she linked arms with Yezi, like close friends. I walked downstairs with the two of them side by side.

"What should we eat later? The shredded potatoes we had for lunch weren't very good, but we're getting tired of the other dishes." March chatted with Ye Zi, but it was more like she was talking to herself than asking Ye Zi's opinion, because Ye Zi didn't have any opinions of her own and mostly listened to other people's opinions and ideas. Even if you asked her, the answer you got was sometimes not accurate.

"Let's eat out together." I directly relayed Zhiyun's earlier suggestion, which greatly helped to quickly bridge the gap between them, although I felt they didn't need to deliberately try to get closer in this way: "I had just discussed with Zhiyun whether or not to eat out together. After all, the cafeteria is always crowded, and the food gets a bit tiresome after a while. There are five of us now, and we've had trouble finding a good seat several times, so eating out is more convenient. Anyway, we're not boarding students, and we don't get the cafeteria's boarding student allowance, so it doesn't matter where we eat."

The so-called boarding student subsidy isn't really a real subsidy. Because our high school is the most prestigious in this area, many students from other less developed towns or villages around the town choose to study here. Our school naturally provides dormitories, but the accommodation fee has actually been increased. It's said that this was a measure taken after discussion and accepted by students and parents.

Specifically, the increased accommodation fee will be distributed to students as a subsidy on a regular basis, credited to their meal cards as food expenses. The exact amount is unknown, but the extra money will be credited to the cards at a rate of 120 times the original amount. Given that the cafeteria food is already relatively inexpensive, eating in the cafeteria is clearly more cost-effective for boarding students. Furthermore, the cafeteria food is reasonably good, and the school guarantees its safety, making it a better option for parents who cannot be with their children.

Therefore, the extra amount paid is restricted to use in the cafeteria, which benefits the school, ensures students' food safety, and reduces expenses for students' families—a win-win situation for all three parties. However, the situation is different for local day students. Due to the limited size of the cafeteria, one cafeteria cannot accommodate all students. Therefore, the school stipulates that while day students can use meal cards, they do not receive the extra 20% subsidy. This effectively forces day students to eat at home or outside the school. Although it may seem unfair, the quality of food in the cafeteria is generally inferior to that of restaurants outside the school. Overall, it doesn't feel unfair.

However, for day students, eating at home, eating at a restaurant, or eating in the school cafeteria is pretty much the same. Although the cafeteria is indeed cheaper, restaurants outside the school offer a wider variety of dishes. Occasionally, boarding students will also go out of the school to improve their meals.

"How about eating out?" March thought for a moment. "Sure, it's much easier to find a good spot if we eat outside of school. Plus, there are more dishes to choose from. It's only a dollar or two more per person, which isn't unacceptable. What about you, Yezi?"

“Me too.” Yezi nodded. To be honest, Yezi is probably the wealthiest girl in our group. She had previously tried to stay by my side by offering money, but I refused.

Although things are like this now, and it doesn't seem like things are any better even if she gives me her whole heart and soul, at least she didn't die, which is some comfort to me.

"I wonder if Zhiyun has found Xiaoyin yet. I'll give her a call, and we can go over together."

March walked beside me, arm in arm with Ye Zi, as I continued on my phone. The call connected quickly, and I told Zhi Yun that I had met up with Ye Zi and March and were heading towards the main building. A few minutes later, I saw Zhi Yun and Lin Yin chatting downstairs at the main building.

We walked over, and Zhiyun, seemingly unconcerned, took my hand. I looked around, and although I couldn't see anyone, I still felt uneasy.

There are still people here.

"What does it matter? Can't I even hug my brother?" Zhiyun said, but she still let go of his hand. I didn't know if anyone around us had seen what was happening, but after waiting for a while and nothing happening, and the girls around us didn't show any change in expression, I breathed a slight sigh of relief.

"Let's go. Even though we're going out to eat, we need to find a good restaurant quickly."

Chapter 261 The Wriggling Gate

After our meeting, I walked with the four girls to the school gate. Using the excuse of avoiding suspicion, I stood beside them, keeping a distance of one person from them as they chatted intimately. This was to test my previous assumptions. This distance, separating me from the four girls, confirmed my theory: as long as I wasn't certain that a person actually existed in a certain place, and that there was indeed a corresponding, unseen entity there, they wouldn't be a distraction. This should be good news for me, but bad news was still looming.

I arrived at the school gate with four girls. The gate had changed significantly since I last saw them. It wasn't just the size that had changed; in some ways, the iron gate itself had even reverted to its original size, but its structure had been drastically altered. The black-painted iron pipes were twisted at the fence section, forming an irregular S-shape from top to bottom, and several sections were joined together in the middle, forming a clump of something I couldn't quite describe.

The iron gate had been completely transformed into something that could instill fear in a person, and I even had a vague feeling that this was not its final form.

My gaze shifted to the small door that was originally meant for passage. That part of the structure was also distorted; what was once a passageway was now completely unrecognizable and impassable. The four girls stopped at the doorway.

Zhiyun sighed, "We're still too late... I didn't expect there to be so many people at the entrance. I wonder if there are any restaurants that have seats available."

"Don't rush, there's still plenty of time. It's impossible for all of us to eat outside the school; I think it's more likely we'll eat at home," March said, offering her guess. Then she looked at us and said, "Let's go out and check first. This iron gate is such a hassle. Even with so many people, they won't open the main gate, only a small one. It's such a pain to come in and out every time. They say it's for school security, but even the security guards don't know where they are."

March's complaint was echoed by Zhiyun: "Anyway, let's go out now. Even if there's nowhere to eat, we can get back to the cafeteria as soon as possible. But I don't think it's that bad."

I watched the four girls slowly move towards the gate, and followed behind them, wondering what would happen next. What seemed like a distorted, sealed iron gate to me should be no problem for Zhiyun and Yezi. Would they be able to pass through? What would happen when they did? I would have to see for myself.

After slowly moving around for a while, it was clear that the area around the gate was really crowded. Finally, I managed to get to the side of the iron gate, and March was the first to walk towards it. I stared intently at her, and then I witnessed this amazing scene.

The twisted iron pipe, upon encountering March, recoiled as if it had encountered something extremely dangerous, causing the exit of the gate to briefly return to its original shape. But precisely because of this, after March passed through the gate, the iron pipe, which had just returned to its original state, slowly began to wriggle again, as if it were a living thing, slowly spreading back towards the place where it had previously retracted in a way that I found somewhat disgusting. While this movement was visible to the naked eye, it wasn't actually very fast.

After March passed through the gate, Lin Yin, Ye Zi, and Zhi Yun followed suit. Each time they passed a gate, it would return to its original state. It wasn't until Zhi Yun moved a little further away from the iron gate that I saw it start to move again, and I quickly walked out through the gate that had returned to its original state.

I deliberately touched the twisted iron pipe... it was as rough and hard as I remembered, not at all like a living thing. But then I watched it slowly return to its original shape.

My touch has no effect on it; it doesn't change at all because of my movements.

I averted my gaze and quickly followed Zhiyun and the others. That door made me feel a little uneasy, and I instinctively moved closer to where the girls were, as if doing so would bring me a sense of security.

My gaze swept to both sides of the street. March and Zhiyun were eliminating restaurants one by one, citing various reasons such as being too crowded or looking unhygienic. As they talked, I observed the corresponding changes in the buildings. Sudden widening or narrowing of buildings and streetlights was quite common. I saw that when Zhiyun approached a streetlight, it would even immediately straighten from a distorted state, and the buildings would also change, but such changes only affected a small portion of them; most of the distorted buildings remained unchanged.

I couldn't find anything in common between the girls' descriptions of restaurants and what I saw. The height, width, and degree of twisting of the buildings were irrelevant to their evaluations. A full restaurant might be wider or narrower; there were no fixed characteristics.

In the end, Zhiyun and Sanyue chose a restaurant to visit. Judging from their testimonies, the restaurant seemed quite clean, and apart from being a little small, there shouldn't be any particular problems. In my opinion, however, this restaurant belonged to the kind that had been distorted and expanded. I followed Zhiyun inside. My feet touched the ground, and the building didn't react at all. It felt like an inanimate object—even though that's how it should be.

Led by the girls, I arrived at a table further inside and sat at the very back. Zhiyun and Yezi sat next to me, while Sanyue was ordering. In this slightly secluded spot, I felt Zhiyun take my hand. I looked at her, but she wasn't looking at me; she was talking to Sanyue and the others. However, her fingers were intertwined with mine. I initially thought she just wanted to sneak some physical contact, like a prank, but I soon noticed a change in my gaze. The once spacious restaurant was gradually transforming.

I looked at the leaves that were closer to me and noticed that they seemed to have become smaller.

Chapter 262 A Familiar Feeling

Including the fact that touching the twisted iron gate temporarily restored it, and the fact that these four girls seemed to be able to see other people I could no longer see, I felt like I had discovered something strange about them, like a microscope that couldn't see microorganisms even when surrounded by them. I thought of something I felt was being taken away from me at home at noon…

That didn't seem to be a hallucination caused by my mental confusion.

In addition, the edge of my vision is clearly abnormal, that area is much redder than the normal color in the center of my vision... If, if something was indeed taken from me and I became like this afterward, could it be a "microscope"?

A kind of "microscope" that allows me to see things that I cannot see with the naked eye.

After all, that's all that had happened before I realized I couldn't see anyone else. I didn't feel any relief as time went on; although it was slow, my strength was definitely recovering, and I still couldn't see anything I used to be able to see—no one except myself and the four girls. Does this mean that my inability to see others has nothing to do with my physical strength?

And this unseen influence from others even extends to objects.

I watched as March reached her hand into the air, making a gesture as if to receive something. Then, in the blink of an eye, a plate of food appeared in March's hand. I stared wide-eyed at March's hand, trying hard not to blink, but as March's hand kept rising and falling, I couldn't see anything. Only after a blink, everything was quickly revealed before my eyes.

There was no warning whatsoever.

Similarly, the other three girls were doing the same thing; food, bowls, chopsticks, and plates kept appearing before my eyes, like magic. But my mood wasn't calm at all, as if I were watching a magic show.

I'm starting to lose track of what's going on. While listening to the four girls chatting happily and enjoying the unremarkable food with them, I spent this rather meaningless time in quiet silence.

It can't be said that it was completely meaningless; at least the four girls seemed to be quite happy.

When it came time to pay the bill, I didn't know exactly how much it cost, so I asked Zhiyun to pay for it first, promising to pay her back later. She readily agreed, but I felt that what she wanted wasn't the money I owed her.

After leaving the restaurant, I looked around, and nothing had changed since I arrived. There were still no people, the buildings hadn't returned to normal, and the streetlights were still crooked.

This could go on forever... I can't find any useful clues, and I don't even know what happened to me. But there are some things that are somewhat satisfactory; at least I know some suspicious things, although generally speaking, it's impossible to investigate them now.

But I am not ordinary.

Seeing that twisted door again made me realize once more that I am not an ordinary person.

I went back to school with a few girls. We parted ways downstairs in the main building. Zhiyun and Linyin went upstairs, while Yezi, Sanyue, and I continued walking towards our classroom.

I looked at the rooftop of the main building, which was now visible, and started thinking. If I still couldn't find any clues during tonight's self-study session, should I just die?

If I could do it all over again, the doubts I already knew would make me even more concerned. If I investigated the situation before it happened, I would naturally be able to understand the source of my current predicament.

Go back in time, wipe the slate clean, and start over.

Actually, I could do it right now if I wanted to. Life is a fragile thing; if you want to die, you can easily do it by hitting your head on something sharp or jumping from a height that will kill you. My near-death experiences have almost all come from being pierced through the heart by a sharp weapon, so perhaps that method would make me feel a little more at ease.

Before we got to the classroom, March dragged Yezi and me into the lecture hall again. Her meaning was clear: she wanted me to pamper her for a while. Yezi, who had been teased by me during class earlier, also showed the same expression.

I shook my head and brought up the topic of taking a break today, which we had mentioned earlier. Yezi and March both seemed a little disappointed, but March quickly transformed that disappointment into another kind of desire.

She stared intently at Ye Zi, then hugged her from behind and began to grope her. I remembered the extraordinary sisterly relationship that had long existed between March and Lin Yin, and shook my head.

Noticing that Yezi's resistance wasn't very strong, I didn't stop March. The two girls kissed shamelessly in front of me until March gently pushed Yezi onto the table and slowly undressed her. This scene made me, who had already made up my mind, start to have wicked thoughts again.

After a while, I realized that the lecture hall was not a good place to hide.

I was about to remind them when I realized that the view in front of me was slowly curling up like plaster on a wall weathered by time, looking as if it might collapse at any moment. I noticed something bright red in the crack, clearly visible even in the now very dimly lit lecture hall.

I wanted to reach out and touch the crumbling "wall," but what I touched was something else I was very familiar with—the soft body of a young girl.

The scenery before my eyes vanished like mist in an instant, and I couldn't pull my hand back. March pressed it against Ye Zi's body and began licking both my fingers and Ye Zi's body.

Once again... the moment I had any contact with the girl, that scene vanished in an instant.

What exactly was it? I became increasingly curious.

I should have had a chance to come into contact with that thing... I don't understand why that scene suddenly appeared, but it gave me an extremely strong sense of familiarity, making it impossible for me to ignore it.

I thought about the scene I witnessed at noon today, and I realized I might have to die once...

Chapter 263 A Special Night

After both Yezi and March seemed satisfied, I kissed them both on the forehead to express my feelings. I didn't participate further in the end, as my energy simply couldn't keep up. Watching them straighten their clothes, and then each return a kiss on my cheek, March even playfully licked my cheek with her tongue: "I'm looking forward to the weekend!"

I know that "March" refers to the weekends when my parents are usually not home, and Zhiyun has invited Yezi and the Lin sisters over for dinner. Zhiyun's intentions were quite clear to the three girls, which made them all seem to be looking forward to it.

I was just about to take out my phone to check the time when the bell rang for evening self-study before I could even get it, giving me time to take out my phone. I urged the two girls to come back to the classroom with me. I cautiously went to the door of the lecture hall and looked outside, but didn't see anyone. I then realized I wouldn't see anyone else, so I simply walked out confidently and turned to observe Ye Zi and San Yue's expressions.

They didn't look around from the doorway, so it seemed no one was there, which relieved me slightly. I then walked into the classroom first, to avoid March talking to the other students and making me realize someone was there, thus affecting my actions.