Chapter 20: Escape

The air inside the cabinet grew thinner.
Each breath carried the sting of turbid dust, irritating Jiang Yuxin’s nose and throat.

She leaned toward Chen Dongyang as much as possible, desperate to keep even a millimeter between herself and the grimy cabinet wall.
The forced closeness made her skin crawl, but compared to the unknown, inhuman thing outside, his warmth and steady heartbeat were at least tangible.

Time dragged on.
The sticky footsteps outside finally faded completely.
The teaching building sank back into deathly silence.

But the quiet was more unnerving than the earlier noise.
No one could tell if that thing had truly left.

Chen Dongyang, frayed by another brutal headache, seemed to hit his limit.
Physical and mental exhaustion crashed over him like a wave.
His breathing slowed, steady and deep.
His head tilted, and he slumped into a deep sleep against her shoulder.

His warm breath grazed her neck, bringing a faint itch.

Jiang Yuxin froze.
She instinctively wanted to shove him away, but the thought stopped her cold.
Pushing him now would unbalance him, likely forcing the cabinet door open.
The consequences were unpredictable.

She tilted her head slightly, using her phone’s fading light to study his sleeping face.
His brows remained furrowed, as if pain lingered even in sleep.
That face, usually marked by helplessness and tension, now lay defenseless, revealing the untouched features of a young man.

After an unknown stretch of time, Chen Dongyang’s eyelashes fluttered.
He slowly opened his eyes.

He woke to Jiang Yuxin’s gaze, her eyes strikingly bright in the dark.
They stared at him, unfocused, emotionless, purely analytical.

Chen Dongyang’s heart skipped.
“What’s wrong?” he whispered, voice barely audible.

Jiang Yuxin looked away.
“There’s been no movement outside for a while,” she said coldly.
“Go out and check.”

Her tone was an order, not a suggestion.

Chen Dongyang showed no fear or hesitation.
Instead, he seemed relieved, as if given permission to act.
Without a word, he reached out and pushed open the creaking cabinet door.

Fresh, cool air rushed in, banishing the cabinet’s suffocating stench.
Jiang Yuxin scrambled out, breathing greedily, as if another second inside would choke her with mysophobia.

Night had fully descended.
Pale moonlight replaced the setting sun, streaming through the tall windows of the abandoned music classroom.
It cast twisted, snarling shadows across the scattered objects on the floor.
The room was eerily silent, broken only by their soft breathing.

Chen Dongyang scanned the room cautiously.
It seemed the thing had left.

He glanced at Jiang Yuxin.
She stood in the moonlight, head bowed, meticulously wiping her fingers with a tissue, as if cleansing invisible filth.
Her profile, lit by the moon, was pale—almost translucent—stunning yet coldly inhuman.

“It seems gone,” Chen Dongyang said quietly.

“Yeah,” Jiang Yuxin replied curtly.
She switched on her phone’s flashlight, its pale beam illuminating the dusty floor.
“…Only our footprints.”

She reached that conclusion after a moment.
“Are you sure you saw that thing in your ‘hunch’?” she asked Chen Dongyang.

He nodded slightly.
“I’m sure. It was… hard to describe. Like a shadow, constantly twisting and folding.”

Shadow?

A thoughtful glint passed through Jiang Yuxin’s eyes.
“Could your ability be faulty? Maybe you mistook a regular shadow for a monster?”

Chen Dongyang wanted to deny it, but they needed to consider all possibilities.
He followed her logic.
“What about those footsteps? You heard them too, right?”

That was undeniable.
A shadowy, inhuman thing with audible footsteps but no footprints, lingering in this old building.
What was it, and why was it here?

The question sparked a realization in Jiang Yuxin.
She hurried to the table with the music box, opened the drawer, and found it empty.
The item was gone.

Her brows rose.
It felt like missing a key item in a game.

“I don’t know when it’ll return,” Chen Dongyang said, glancing around nervously, as if expecting something to crawl from the dark and drag them away.
“We can’t stay. Let’s go.”

Jiang Yuxin was reluctant but nodded.
Her mental power couldn’t detect the thing, suggesting it was immune to her ability.
Two people with no combat skills would likely be outmatched by an entity of unknown origin and power.
Better to return another day, fully prepared.

They left the music classroom cautiously, one behind the other, stepping into the corridor.
No more words were exchanged as they quickened their pace, eager to escape the eerie building.

They climbed through the broken first-floor window, stepping onto solid ground.
The air, scented with grass and trees, eased their tense nerves.

They paused briefly in the small clearing outside the old teaching building.
“What happened today…” Chen Dongyang began, but Jiang Yuxin cut him off.

“Nothing happened today,” she said, fixing him with a cold stare.
“We just happened to meet on the way home from school and went home. Understood?”

“…Understood,” Chen Dongyang replied, meeting her unyielding gaze with a helpless nod.

Jiang Yuxin said nothing more.
She turned and melted into the distant night, her silhouette as lonely and aloof as when they first met.

Chen Dongyang lingered, reflecting on the surreal events.
His life had never felt so “lively.”
Whether that was good or bad, he couldn’t say.

He glanced back at the eerie building.
A cold wind sent shivers through him.
Quickening his pace, he vanished into the dark night.