Chapter 19: Inhuman Things

The cabinet door slammed shut before my eyes.
The world plunged into darkness and silence, leaving only suffocating blackness and cramped confinement.

A sharp stench of rotting wood and stale dust assaulted Jiang Yuxin’s nose.
She held her breath instantly.
Her obsessive-compulsive disorder churned her stomach with physical revulsion.
She was on the verge of exploding, ready to make the ignorant man in front of her regret touching her with his filthy, dust-covered hands.

But the faint glow of her phone screen, still active, revealed Chen Dongyang’s face clearly.
His skin was as pale as paper, lips drained of color, forehead beaded with sweat.
His eyes brimmed with a fear and panic she had never seen before.
This was no act—his body trembled faintly.

What could reduce him to this state?
The question stifled Jiang Yuxin’s anger.

Ta-ta-ta-ta…

The strange footsteps didn’t stop, even with them hidden.
They had entered the music room, clearer now than before.
A sticky, dragging sound, like something slimy slithering across the floor.
Each step carried a faint puffing noise, as if treading through a rotting swamp, slick with the sensation of leeches.

It was bone-chilling.

Jiang Yuxin held her breath.
Her mental power unfurled silently, like an invisible spider web, slipping through the cabinet door to envelop the music classroom.

But the feedback shocked her usually calm eyes.
Her mental power detected no conscious entity.
There was nothing outside.

How could there be nothing?
The footsteps hadn’t stopped, as if searching the classroom.
She could hear them clearly but couldn’t see them with her mental power.

Had her ability failed?

Jiang Yuxin quietly pulled out her phone, dimming the screen to its lowest setting.
She pressed the mute button swiftly.
In the faint light, she glanced at Chen Dongyang and mouthed for him to do the same.

Chen Dongyang, pale from a headache triggered by his flashbacks, understood immediately.
He pulled out his phone and silenced it.

Jiang Yuxin opened her notepad app and typed a line, tilting the screen toward him.
[There is no one outside.]

Chen Dongyang read the words and took a deep breath.
His trembling fingers tapped out a response on his own notepad.

Not a human.

Three simple words, yet they carried a chilling certainty.

Jiang Yuxin’s brows lifted slightly.
She understood instantly.
It wasn’t her ability failing.
That thing wasn’t within the realm of “life” or “consciousness.”
It was a phenomenon she couldn’t analyze or perceive—a “non-human being.”

Her gaze returned to Chen Dongyang’s pale face.
She opened her notepad and typed quickly.
[You used your ‘hunch’? What did you see?]

Chen Dongyang’s expression darkened further.
He seemed to recall some horrific scene, his pain genuine.
He shook his head, as if unsure how to describe it.
Finally, he typed a self-deprecating sentence.
[Can’t you read minds?]

Jiang Yuxin’s face turned icy.
Her fingers tightened around her phone, knuckles paling from the force.

His words felt like deliberate provocation, especially from Chen Dongyang—the one person immune to her abilities.
If the timing weren’t wrong, she’d make him regret angering her.
Suppressing her nameless fury, she pocketed her phone, cutting off communication.

In that silent standoff, a musty smell of dust and cobwebs invaded her nostrils.
She could feel sticky, silken threads clinging to her exposed arms.
‘My mysophobia is kicking in.’

A double chill—physical and mental—washed over her.
She could no longer endure the sensation of the cabinet’s inner walls, crawling with invisible, filthy bugs.
Instinctively, she leaned toward Chen Dongyang.

Chen Dongyang, tense from the nearing footsteps, froze as a soft, warm touch pressed against him.
Jiang Yuxin’s cool, fragrant hair brushed his chin, her shoulders tight against his chest.
To escape the cabinet’s filth, she practically burrowed half her body into his arms.

In the cramped space, their breaths mingled.
He could feel her heartbeat quicken from lack of oxygen.

The footsteps outside persisted.
He didn’t dare make a sound, letting Jiang Yuxin curl into him like a frightened cat fleeing the invisible grime.

Time crawled in the dead silence, each second stretching like a century.
The sticky footsteps paced the classroom—sometimes closer, sometimes farther, but never leaving.

Chen Dongyang felt her soft, slender frame, her faint breath and fragrance.
His spirit, strained to breaking by fear and flashback aftereffects, found strange calm in her embrace.
At least this reality in his arms proved he was still in the real world, not a nightmare hunted by monsters.

After an eternity, the footsteps seemed to stop.
The teaching building fell into deathly silence.

Chen Dongyang hesitated, then opened his phone’s notepad.
[Has it left?]

Jiang Yuxin stirred, as if snapping out of her mysophobic distress.
She took her phone and typed coldly.
[How would I know? Why don’t you go out and check?]

Chen Dongyang didn’t respond immediately.
His calmed expression froze, his body trembling violently, as if wracked by intense pain.

After a moment, he gritted his teeth, breathing heavily in silence.
The hot air grazed Jiang Yuxin’s face, making her uncomfortable.

With a trembling hand, he typed two words and showed her the screen.
Still there.

Jiang Yuxin stared at the words, then at Chen Dongyang’s pain-twisted face.
A realization hit her.
‘I see.’

He’d used his ability again.
Did he endure this excruciating pain every time?
Was this the “price” of his ability?

If so, was his ability truly just a “premonition”?

Jiang Yuxin studied Chen Dongyang deeply.