After finishing its fruit feast, Bai Jie, on a whim, injected the little snake with two drops of Mutagenic Venom.
This delighted the little creature to no end.
The reason for this was that Bai Huahua was the first non-human creature to receive the Mutagenic Venom, and Bai Jie wanted to see what kind of changes would manifest in her.
However, after the venom was administered, aside from an increase in Vitality, there didn't seem to be anything particularly special—she neither inherited any spider abilities, nor showed any physical traits resembling a spider.
Bai Jie could only attribute the above to Bai Huahua's unique constitution.
Afterward, Bai Jie didn't keep the little snake overnight. Instead, it shooed the thoroughly satisfied little snake back to the pond.
This time, Bai Huahua was surprisingly obedient. With a bit of grumbling and a wobbly, swaying slither, she took her leave.
It was still nighttime, and Bai Jie—far too well-rested—had no desire to sleep. It decided to head down the mountain and take a stroll across campus.
...
"Thanks, Uncle. I've been discharged and I'm back at school. Nothing abnormal showed up in the tests."
"Mm, don't worry, Uncle. I'll take good care of myself." Xia Qimeng said into the phone.
"But what exactly happened last night... with all those terrifying sounds?"
The young woman's black pearl-like eyes swiveled around.
"What? Top secret again? Aiya, Uncle, just tell me, come on?"
Had any of her classmates seen Xia Qimeng in this tone, they would've thought they were seeing a ghost.
That always gentle, elegantly refined class monitor—actually capable of acting cute?!
"The Secret-Keeper Bureau is getting involved?"
Xia Qimeng abruptly covered her mouth, lowering her voice.
"The Secret-Keeper Bureau... can they handle these mysterious incidents?" After a moment, Xia Qimeng calmed down and asked casually.
On the other end of the line was her uncle—also the number one figure in the Criminal Investigation Department: Director Xia, Xia Xiyang.
Xia Xiyang covered his mouth with his hand and lowered his voice: "The people in the Secret-Keeper Bureau—to put it nicely, they're 'New Humans.' To put it less nicely, they're a bunch of arrogant 'freaks.'"
"But there's no doubt—there's nothing they can't handle. And if there is, they just throw more personnel at it, or blanket the area with firepower..."
"New Humans?"
Xia Qimeng said skeptically, "You mean they..."
"That's right."
Xia Xiyang affirmed: "The vast majority of them have undergone highly intelligent mechanized augmentation, as well as gene-editing modifications. That's why they possess abilities ordinary people can barely imagine."
"I believe Yongan City will be at peace very soon. So you just stay put at school, be a good little shut-in, and stop wandering around causing trouble for me!"
"Yeah, yeah, alright."
Xia Qimeng's face showed helplessness. "I'll head back to my dorm and wash up for bed."
After exchanging a few polite pleasantries, Xia Qimeng hung up the phone and headed straight for the girls' dormitory.
The time was now 11:30 p.m. Very few students could still be seen on the campus paths, frightened into staying indoors by the recent string of incidents.
Reaching the building entrance, Xia Qimeng suddenly noticed that the dorm manager's small duty room was completely empty. Over half the lights in the ground-floor lobby had also gone out, making it dark and eerie.
She rubbed her fair arms with both hands. For no apparent reason, she felt a chill.
"Autumn really is here. Time to get out the warmer clothes."
She stepped alone into the elevator and pressed the button for the 7th floor.
The elevator ascended. But at this moment, it abruptly stopped on the 6th floor.
Xia Qimeng assumed someone was about to come in.
But the moment the elevator doors opened... she saw no one.
Only the faintly flickering hallway lights, alternating between bright and dark.
Xia Qimeng figured whoever wanted the elevator had simply turned back, so she moved to close the doors.
But—
The elevator seemed to have malfunctioned. The doors were unresponsive, remaining wide open.
She felt a trickle of cold seeping into her heart. Her finger jabbed repeatedly at the close-door button.
The button's light flickered on and off, but the doors simply would not shut.
"Hm?"
Xia Qimeng let out a doubtful murmur. She then leaned half her body out the doorway, peering down the hallway on one side...
No one there. Empty.
Every single dorm room door was tightly shut. The other side was the same—nothing but dim lights flickering on and off.
Maintaining this posture made Xia Qimeng feel as though her upper body was stiffening. She had no choice but to pull herself back and stand dumbly inside the elevator, dazed.
The air seemed to grow even colder.
She suddenly recalled a rumor she'd seen on the campus forum.
When riding the elevator alone—or with very few people—it would stop one floor before your destination, holding for ten seconds, and the automatic door-closing wouldn't work.
Even more terrifying, sometimes a strange cat's meow could be heard from the far end of the hallway...
Then, in her mind, surfaced Xingchuan University's third campus legend.
It was said that inside the girls' dormitory, every night at midnight, someone would come out of their room, rummage through the trash bins in the hallway, and eat the garbage.
But whenever anyone went looking for that trash-eating girl, they found nothing at all.
Combined with all the recent bizarre happenings on campus, Xia Qimeng's body grew even colder.
"Maybe... I should just take the stairs..."
Xia Qimeng thought. After all, it was only one more floor.
This decision slightly eased her tension.
So she stepped into the hallway. The familiar scent of girls' perfume in the air gave her a faint sense of security.
Because it was, at the very least, a scent belonging to humans—not the strange odors of those mutated people from before.
"Whew..."
But after only two steps, before she even reached the staircase, she stopped dead in her tracks. Because her brain was transmitting a sense that something was wrong.
But exactly what was wrong, she couldn't tell.
Aside from the darkness at the far end, and the two rows of tightly shut dormitory doors.
She wanted to command the muscles in her legs to lift, to step forward—but no matter how hard she tried, she couldn't do it.
This was instinct, or her subconscious, at work.
It was preventing her from continuing forward.
And yet, right before her eyes... there was clearly nothing there?
"Huff... huff..."
Xia Qimeng heard the sound of her own nervous breathing.
At this moment, how desperately Xia Qimeng wished that one of the rows of dorm rooms would open—that a young woman would step out and tell her with a big, reassuring smile:
"The light fixture over there is just broken. Don't be scared—senior sister's here."
And then guide her to the stairs together.
But this "savior" never appeared.
She simply stood there, rooted to the spot, unable to advance or retreat.
Could it be that there was something invisible to the naked eye, yet truly existing right in front of her?
"Forget it... let me go try the elevator again. It should be a malfunction. Who knows, maybe it's back to normal already."
Thinking this, Xia Qimeng abandoned her plan to reach the stairwell and smoothly retreated back into the elevator.
Strangely, inside the malfunctioning elevator,
she actually felt as though she had returned to her comfort zone. Her taut nerves and tensed muscles both relaxed somewhat.
And so, as if bewitched, she began pressing the close-door button over and over without pause...
"Class Monitor Xia... what's wrong with her?"
"Her face is so pale, and her eyes are red-rimmed. I've never seen her look so pitiful before..."
Bai Jie took in Xia Qimeng's every move with full clarity, yet felt completely baffled.
The class monitor he'd always known was an elegant, intellectual beauty—composed, confident, refined. He never expected to see her frightened to this degree by a broken elevator and a dim hallway.
In truth, Xia Qimeng's instincts had been right all along.
At the far end of the hallway, something did indeed exist—
A giant spider, in stealth mode, suspended from the corridor ceiling.