From this direction, you could see the light from the remaining emergency lamps in the hallway of the classroom building, and farther away, the dormitory building ablaze with lights, bustling with seafood coming and going.
After staring for a long time, long enough for her eyes to start aching, Jun Beibei finally blinked and then softly spoke:
"I often think, if I were like them, staying in a world that's already mapped out, like a carousel horse fixed on a spinning disc, endlessly going around in circles, up and down, appearing so busy, living a life in happiness, it wouldn't be such a bad thing."
Wen Nan couldn't understand, "You could be the person riding the horse, yet insist on envying the horse being ridden?"
Jun Beibei turned her head and looked at the handsome profile of the sea cucumber next to her.
The other's eyes were like a cloudless night sky, pitch black, so pure, so complete, so unburdened by insanity.
She felt that she was very much like Ye Shenshen, yet she also clearly knew, she and Ye Shenshen were not the same kind at all.
Ye Shenshen could reply without any psychological burden to classmates' questions filled with doubt and ridicule: "Yes, I'm sick!"
But, she couldn't do it.
She didn't have the courage to admit she was completely different from the individuals around her.
She was an anomaly, yet unwilling to face this fact.
Because she was ultimately not a member of Ye Shenshen's kind.
So where did she truly belong?
Sometimes, Jun Beibei would think, if she were also a sea cucumber, it would be good, entirely isolated from the world she was in now.
But she wasn't, though she had a shell that was exceptionally white, she was, after all, just an Arctic Clam.
Ye Shenshen would say such things because from the beginning, he was the one riding the carousel horse; he was a guest at the amusement park, and after riding, he could simply walk away.
But Jun Beibei was originally just a carousel horse on the spinning disk, only different from the other horses in that the mechanical spindle in her broke, giving her a chance to leave that disk.
That did not mean she could transform from a carousel horse to a customer.
So what exactly was she?
Wen Nan didn't know what the Arctic Clam beside him was thinking, but he clearly saw that the numbers on her shell changed in silence—
[Candidate: No. 1; Testing Phase: Phase 2; Obsession Value Clearance Progress: 8%.]
No, why could the clearance progress still decrease?
Moreover, just standing here quietly, doing nothing, saying nothing, how could it decrease?
"Boom—"
A thunderous crash suddenly came from afar, as if the mountains were collapsing.
Jun Beibei and Wen Nan simultaneously looked toward the direction of the loud noise, finding that a row of low shops outside the school gate suddenly and thunderously collapsed, stirring up clouds of dust.
Soon after, the ground beneath their feet started to shake violently.
They could faintly hear the water underground rushing rapidly against the ground, making the sound of crashing waves.
The sea cucumber and the clam lowered their heads to look at their feet, discovering that the rooftop they were on was tilting to one side at a speed visible to the naked eye.
The frozen metal medical box, originally placed by Jun Beibei near her feet, started sliding away from the two due to the incline.
Jun Beibei hurried forward, extending her dress strap to hook the metal box and pulled it into her arms, but her own body then uncontrollably slid toward the other side of the rooftop.
She instinctively reached out with her dress strap, trying to hook the railing handrail behind her, discovering in a moment of panic that she had rushed too far, and even with the dress strap extended to its longest, she couldn't reach the handrail.
The white dress straps waved twice in the air; the next moment, her soft flesh was tightly snagged by a black spine.
She looked up to see one of Ye Shenshen's spines hooked onto the handrail and another pulling her in with force, every muscle in his body strained like a crane, trying hard to draw himself upward.
With one last burst of strength, Ye Shenshen suddenly jolt his body like throwing a discus, exerting all his might to hurl the Arctic Clam to the other side of the railing.
Immediately following, Ye Shenshen himself gripped the handrail tightly and jumped to the other side of the railing.
And at the same time, on the other side of the campus, shortly after the row of shops collapsed, the school gate quickly succumbed.
It was as if the ground had split open, those buildings successively crashed into the ground, and upon close inspection, the stirred dust was not gray dust but white mist.
The entire oval-shaped campus was like a seesaw, with the side of the school gate sinking, the abandoned dormitory side where Wen Nan and Jun Beibei were naturally lifted.
As the ground on this side lifted, the concrete building they were in was forcefully pressed against an invisible air wall, as if eager to pierce through it.
Wen Nan, such a soft sea cucumber, was pressed in the middle, almost suffocating.
At this moment, a layer of moist soft flesh suddenly covered over him from behind.
Wen Nan turned his head and found Jun Beibei had opened her shell, with its edges propped on both sides of Wen Nan's body, the soft flesh inside enveloping him, creating a warm little tent.
From the outside, they formed a strange hot dog-like shape together.
This posture protected Wen Nan completely, but also placed all the pressure on her shell.
The air wall rubbed against her delicate white shell, producing a sound like nails scrapping on a chalkboard, making Wen Nan's heart wrench.
Every spine on him could clearly feel the tender shell meat wrapping his surface, quivering uncontrollably due to extreme pain.
Something warm dripped down onto Wen Nan.
Wen Nan raised a spine to look and found a puddle of clear liquid.
It was blood.
Jun Beibei's shell, visibly, was about to be scraped through by the invisible air wall.
"Without your shell, how will you survive!" Wen Nan panicked, forcefully trying to push the Arctic Clam away, attempting to withdraw, finding that the other clamped too tightly, he couldn't get out, "Let go! Stop holding on!"
Jun Beibei refused to let go, her voice trembling,
"Even if the sky falls, I'll hold it up for you, Ye Shenshen."
[Candidate: No. 1; Testing Phase: Phase 2; Obsession Value Clearance Progress: 20%.]
"I said I'd take you with me, I'll never go back on my word."
[Candidate: No. 1; Testing Phase: Phase 2; Obsession Value Clearance Progress: 30%.]
"We absolutely must leave here, no matter what."
[Candidate: No. 1; Testing Phase: Phase 2; Obsession Value Clearance Progress: 40%.]
"We must, we must leave this world, no matter what."
[Candidate: No. 1; Testing Phase: Phase 2; Obsession Value Clearance Progress: 50%.]
Every word the other spoke, trembling, struck heavily at Wen Nan's heart.
Watching the numbers constantly changing on that blood-stained white shell, Wen Nan, at that moment, seemed to truly feel the other's inner obsession—
No matter what, to leave this world.
Wen Nan raised a spine, wanting to touch the other's face.
A burst of scorching steam suddenly poured in from the formless air wall ahead, making a huge "puffing" sound similar to a steam train starting.
The next moment, Wen Nan burrowed into a dense cloud of mist, suffocating almost beyond endurance.
After a couple of violent coughs, Wen Nan forcefully closed his eyes, and upon opening them again, he found the surrounding environment had completely transformed.
The mist surrounding them dissipated, as they propped themselves on the railing, taking in everything around them at a glance.
Seeing the scene before them clearly, Wen Nan and Jun Beibei both fell into silence.