Aula 407

Capítulo 10

"Stinky...? No... I don't think so." Fang Yi spoke slowly, and Da Kai thought she was really refined. But when the two got closer, they smelled a similar odor on Fang Yi, mixed with perfume, which was particularly unpleasant.

Da Kai couldn't hold it in any longer. He blurted out, "I'm going to the restroom," and rushed out of the theater, heading straight for the restroom. Da Kai immediately felt that the restroom smelled much better than the theater.

After watching the movie, the two walked out of the theater with a great sense of relief. Fang Yi asked curiously and slowly, "Why did you go to the bathroom so often while watching the movie? Were you uncomfortable?"

Da Kai didn't want to mention the bad smell in the screening room, and he certainly couldn't say that Fang Yi smelled bad either, so he lied to Fang Yi and said that he had an upset stomach.

The two walked slowly down the road. Because Fang Yi was beautiful, Da Kai stared at her intently. Fang Yi turned her head away shyly, but then noticed a purplish-blue bruise on his neck. Upon closer inspection, Da Kai discovered several similar bruises on other exposed skin. Just as Da Kai was lost in thought, Fang Yi noticed him. She pulled her collar tighter, covering her neck and the skin below, and looked at Da Kai with suspicion.

"Oh no, they think I'm a pervert." Da Kai thought to himself as he quickly turned his head away.

Upon arriving at the girls' dormitory, Fang Yi turned to Da Kai and said, "Leave it here... Thank you."

"No need," Da Kai said with a silly grin.

Their eyes suddenly met, and Fang Yi gently closed her eyes, just like the first time. Da Kai thought to himself, this time I must succeed no matter what. He placed his hands on Fang Yi's shoulders and leaned in to kiss her. He was immediately hit by a mixture of perfume and stench, and felt like vomiting, but he held back and kissed Fang Yi.

Fang Yi immediately broke free of the open door, shyly said "Goodbye," and went back to her dormitory.

He laughed heartily and waved to Fang Yi, but muttered, "It stinks."

Da Kai returned to the boys' dormitory and saw a large group of people gathered in the square. Da Kai already knew what was going on. Looking around, he saw Gu Xing and his group in a corner, all of them holding their noses. Da Kai walked over and smelled that familiar stench again.

Da Kai pinched his nose and asked Gu Xing and the others, "Ugh, it stinks! Why don't you go back to the dorm?"

"The school supervisor said it was about fire safety and wouldn't let us go back," Li Xu said, his voice laced with sarcasm as he pinched his nose.

"Damn it, whatever, come with me." After saying that, Da Kai bent down and sneaked into the dormitory. The others followed him into the dormitory.

As soon as Li Xu entered the dormitory, he exclaimed, "Wow, it stinks! Why has it smelled so bad these past few days?"

"It should be said that the stench gets stronger with each repeated experience," Zhang Da calmly analyzed.

"I really don't know when this will end." Yang Mian sat back on his bed with worry, and the others followed suit and went to sleep one after another. Yang Mian and Gu Xing were both preoccupied with their own thoughts and didn't fall asleep until midnight.

At nine o'clock in the morning, Li Xu was already awake, sitting on the bed reading Buddhist scriptures, when there was another knock on the door.

"Damn it, Mo Xiaoqiang is really punctual." Li Xu stood up, and as soon as he opened the door, a stench hit him.

Li Xu covered his nose, took a few steps back, and stared at Mo Xiaoqiang. He saw that Mo Xiaoqiang had huge dark circles under his eyes, making him look like a panda. His eyes were lifeless, his lips were dry and cracked, and his whole body was covered with bruises.

"Are you there, Da Kai?" Mo Xiaoqiang uttered each word slowly and deliberately.

"No, no, let's go... hurry up and go."

The stench emanating from Mo Xiaoqiang was almost permeating the entire dormitory, and Li Xu wished he could kick him out the door.

"What are you yelling about? Fine, I'm leaving now." Mo Xiaoqiang walked away slowly and angrily.

Li Xu immediately closed the door. Zhang Da woke up at this moment and asked, "Is it Mo Xiaoqiang again?"

“Yes, it stinks! He must not have showered for months.” Li Xu pinched his nose.

Zhang Da walked to the window; he already knew what was about to happen.

Sure enough, in the square in front of the dormitory, two guys were pulling at each other, but their movements were very slow. Zhang Da turned around and said to Li Xu in a matter-of-fact manner, "They're fighting again."

Li Xu ignored him and simply sat back down on the bed to continue reading.

At noon, Gu Xing and his friends went to the canteen for lunch. As soon as they left the dormitory, they smelled the stench of dead rats throughout the campus. When they arrived at the canteen, the aroma of the food diluted the stench.

After the group took their food and sat down, they looked around and saw that everyone around them was listless, with dull eyes, and some even had frizzy hair that kept falling out as they walked.

"Damn it, I thought I'd stumbled into a mental hospital," Li Xu muttered.

After finishing their meal, the group returned to their dormitory. Along the way, they saw many people who seemed like zombies. Upon entering the dormitory, the smell inside was even stronger than outside. Gu Xing suggested, "Let's not go back to the dormitory; it stinks too much. Let's sit on the grass by the tree-lined path for a while."

Without prior agreement, the group all went to sit on the lawn. Gu Xing looked around and saw several bookworms like Zhang Da reading. Gu Xing looked at one of them with boredom. He saw that he was just like the others, listless and with his mouth half open. After reading for a while, he slowly touched his head and his hair kept falling out. He then slowly scratched his neck and scratched off a layer of skin.

Gu Xing approached him in surprise. On the wound on his neck, where a layer of skin had been torn off, only a little blood was seeping out, revealing a bright red interior. As Gu Xing moved, Da Kai and the others also noticed the bookworm.

At this moment, the man seemed to be unbearably itchy. He put down the book and kept scratching the itchy spots with both hands. After scratching for a while, his face was covered with scratches, but he seemed to be oblivious and continued to scratch his whole body. His clothes gradually turned from white to bright red.

He scratched for a while, then slowly stood up and dragged himself away. Gu Xing and the others looked at each other, speechless for a long time.

Chapter Seven: Saturday's End

The group ran back to their dormitory, which reeked of foul odors. Gu Xing had closed the door tightly, but the stench still wafted in. Everyone was still shaken by the memory of the person from earlier.

"Could that person just now have been a hallucination?" Gu Xing looked at Zhang Da, hoping to understand the incident from a scientific perspective.

Zhang Da nodded: "I once read in a book that the human brain can produce hallucinations. It's possible that the woman used some kind of psychological suggestion to make us hallucinate, but it's not real."

"Yes...yes, that must be it, Zhang Da is right." Li Xu kept agreeing, actually trying to comfort himself.

"Then, what about these stenches? How do you explain that?" Yang Mian asked Zhang Da.

"The human brain controls the five senses. We usually see strange things because vision is the most common way we understand things. When an object appears, we first use our eyes to see it, so hallucinations usually start with vision. In addition, hearing is also common. For example, sometimes we hear something strange..." Zhang Dazheng said incessantly.

"Damn it, can't you just say the important things? Stop going on and on." Da Kai looked at Zhang Da impatiently.

Zhang Da raised his voice in dissatisfaction: "So, the fact that our sense of smell detects these smells must also be due to our brainwaves..."

"Alright, Zhang Da." Gu Xing waved his hand, signaling him to stop, and continued, "So, what's your plan now?"

"A great man once said that as long as you bravely face the illusion, the illusion will disappear on its own."

Li Xu asked, "Is the great man you're talking about Freud?"

"No, that great man is me."

After Zhang Da finished speaking, everyone glared at him. Zhang Da immediately forced a nervous smile and said, "Ha...ha, I was just joking. Actually, there's an old Chinese saying: 'If you don't find the strange strange, it will disappear on its own.'"

Gu Xing sighed: "Well, whatever we see, we shouldn't panic, and whatever we smell, we should pretend we can't smell it. The hallucinations will surely fail on their own."

Gu Xing's insights did not affect everyone. Everyone sat on their beds in the dormitory, doing their own thing with unease. Li Xu recited Buddhist scriptures, Zhang Da flipped through related books, and Da Kai simply lay down on the bed and went to sleep.

When Da Kai woke up, it was already evening. Gu Xing and the others were all hungry. When they saw that Da Kai was awake, they smiled and approached him.

"Da Kai, you're awake?"

"nonsense."

"Da Kai, are you hungry?"

"Hmm. A little." Da Kai patted his belly.

"Okay, then when you go to the cafeteria to eat, please bring our food back with you."

"Why aren't you going?" Da Kai asked, looking at Gu Xing and the others with a puzzled expression.

"We want to eat here."

“Alright, but I can’t carry that much food by myself. Li Xu, come with me.” Da Kai glanced at Li Xu.

Li Xu jumped up. "What? I'm not going! The campus is full of those things, they're disgusting!"

Da Kai ignored Li Xu, picked him up with one hand, and walked out of the dormitory.

Gu Xing laughed and said, "Da Kai is really something else, he's not afraid of those people outside at all."

“Those are no longer human, they can only be described as things. Just now, I saw those things walking outside the window, and they were all covered in blood.”

Yang Mian chuckled and said, "Anyway, just call him Da Kai. But Li Xu is in a bit of a predicament."

At this moment, Da Kai dragged Li Xu to the canteen. The people along the way all had bloodstains on their faces. Li Xu covered his nose with one hand, held the lunchbox in the other, and shouted with his eyes closed, "Da Kai, you bastard, why did you drag me out too?"

"What are you afraid of? Didn't Zhang Da say that these are all illusions? A real man shouldn't be afraid of illusions!" Da Kai arrogantly dragged Li Xu into the canteen and walked up to Chef Chen. His face was covered in blood and gore, but there were many different kinds of food in front of him.

"What do you want to eat... Li Xu... Today we have your favorite... Tomato and egg stir-fry." Chef Chen spoke for more than half a minute before finally finishing a sentence.

Li Xu tried not to look at him, lowered his head slightly, and said repeatedly, "Give me one." As he spoke, he held out the lunchbox.

Master Chen slowly added the food for him, but then he saw a piece of skin about half the size of his palm fall out of his outstretched hand. Only a little bit of skin was still attached to his body. Because he was about to put the food into Li Xu's lunchbox, he lowered his hand a little, and the piece of skin immediately soaked into the food.

At this moment, Da Kai was sweating profusely but tried to remain calm. After packing three lunch boxes, he immediately dragged Li Xu back to the dormitory.

In the dormitory, Gu Xing and the others finished their meal with relish. Seeing Da Kai lying on the bed clutching his stomach, and Li Xu tapping a wooden fish, Gu Xing asked, "Aren't you guys eating?"

Li Xu hurriedly said, "We ate in the canteen."

"You guys eat really fast, you finished so quickly. It's amazing you can eat all that disgusting food in the cafeteria." Zhang Da licked his lips after saying that.

Upon seeing this, Li Xu immediately frowned, closed his eyes, and asked, "Zhang Da, do you think what we're seeing is all an illusion?"

“Well, from a scientific point of view, that’s how it should be explained. I firmly believe it.” Zhang Da said, as if he were a knight loyal to the Queen, with his hand on his heart.

After listening, Li Xu thought: I'm relieved that you said that. Since you said it was an illusion, then it's all fake. What difference does it make whether I tell you or not? With that thought, Li Xu tapped the wooden fish with peace of mind.

After a while, Gu Xing immediately thought of the group of people who had come to watch the football live stream. He stood up and was about to lock the dormitory door when it was too late. The group of people sauntered in and said the familiar line to Gu Xing: "There's a football live stream online, let us watch it here."

As they spoke, their upper and lower lips stuck together and then separated, causing several layers of skin on their lips to peel off, filling the entire dormitory with a strong stench of corpses.

Gu Xing said with difficulty, "Whatever, don't be shy," and rushed out of the dormitory. Yang Mian and the others followed Gu Xing outside the dormitory.

Zhang Da took deep breaths of the fresh air outside, but the air also carried a certain odor. Zhang Da spat and said, "These hallucinations are really powerful." Just then, he saw a woman slowly walking towards him not far away. Upon closer inspection, he realized it was Fang Yi.

The stench of death emanating from her completely masked her perfume. As she approached, Gu Xing unconsciously pinched his nose. She seemed oblivious to his reaction, and said to Da Kai the lines he had heard three times: "You...didn't you...ask me to go see...a movie?"

Da Kai looked Fang Yi up and down. Apart from her listless appearance and sunken eyes, there was nothing disgusting about her. She was still as beautiful as ever, but Da Kai was still a little scared. Just as he was hesitating, Zhang Da walked up to Da Kai's ear and whispered, "Don't be afraid, go ahead. It's just an illusion anyway."

Da Kai already liked Fang Yi a lot, and after listening to Zhang Da's explanation, he made up his mind and walked hand in hand with Fang Yi toward the screening room.

Fang Yi walked very slowly, while Da Kai, who was impatient, dragged her along. Fang Yi, unable to bear being dragged so much, slowly said, "Don't... walk so fast." Da Kai had no choice but to slow down, but he still felt Fang Yi was walking too slowly. When he held Fang Yi's hand again, he felt that the skin on her hand had no elasticity at all.

When they arrived at the screening room, it had been nearly thirty minutes since they arrived. Da Kai still patiently accompanied her slowly into the room, only to find a few other people inside, all of whom seemed to be walking around like zombies, dragging their feet back and forth.

Da Kai kept telling himself it was a hallucination, and sat down with Fang Yi. At this moment, the space in the screening room was filled with the stench of corpses. Da Kai remembered Zhang Da saying that this was also a kind of hallucination, so he took deep breaths, hoping to face the stench head-on, but it was too disgusting. After a few breaths, Da Kai felt like vomiting. He held back and dared not breathe too deeply anymore. Then, the stench made Da Kai's eyes water. Da Kai really couldn't stand it anymore, so he immediately told Fang Yi that he needed to go to the toilet and rushed out of the screening room.

The movie was almost over when Da Kai returned to Fang Yi's side. Fang Yi was so engrossed in watching that she didn't notice how long Da Kai had been in the restroom. After the movie ended, Fang Yi slowly stood up. Da Kai, unable to bear the stench, rushed out of the theater by himself to wait for Fang Yi.

Fang Yi came out and, with a hint of displeasure, slowly said to Da Kai, "What... why didn't you wait... why did you run out like that?"

He apologized profusely, saying, "I'm sorry, the air inside was too stuffy."

"Really? I don't think so."

"Don't say any more, I'll take you home." Da Kai said nervously, pulling Fang Yi away.

When they arrived at the girls' dormitory, Fang Yi turned around and said to Da Kai, "Thank you so much for tonight~~~~~~~~~~".

After Fang Yi finished speaking, she took the initiative to move closer to Da Kai and closed her eyes. Da Kai wanted to kiss her like he had the last two times, but the stench of death emanating from Fang Yi made him hesitate. Finally, Da Kai remembered what Zhang Da had said: it was all an illusion.

“Yes, those stenches are hallucinations, but Fang Yi is real. Never mind.” Da Kai thought, and leaned in to kiss her. Just then, as Da Kai and Fang Yi got closer, under the streetlight, Da Kai saw Fang Yi’s skin wriggling. After a while, several maggots crawled out. Da Kai took a few steps back in fright and couldn’t speak.

Fang Yi waited a while but Da Kai didn't make any move, so she slowly turned her body away, looked shyly in another direction, and said, "The wind is so cool~~~~~~~~~ Ah, so refreshing, I~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ I'm going back~~~~~~~~~~ Goodbye."

Da Kai stood there, stunned, watching Fang Yi slowly drag herself back to the dormitory before snapping out of his daze and running towards the boys' dormitory. When he was still some distance away, he smelled the strong stench of decay again. Da Kai secretly went to the edge of the bushes to peek. He saw all the boys from the dormitory gathered in the square. Most of them didn't look sick on the surface, but their eyes were sunken, as if they had been smoking opium. Some of the boys Da Kai recognized were unrecognizable because their faces were sore. Da Kai looked around but didn't see Gu Xing and the others. He heard someone calling him from behind. Da Kai turned around and saw Yang Mian. Da Kai went over, and Yang Mian led him to the bushes where the streetlights couldn't reach. Gu Xing, Zhang Da, and Li Xu were there eating snacks and drinking beer.