The Creatures That We Are

Chapter 160: Aerobics

Something was wrong.

Gao Yang instinctively knew that Niu Xuan wasn’t acting. Even if he wanted to scare the girls for revenge, he was too vain to act like a crazy fool.

Gao Yang entered the system without thinking. His Luck points hadn’t spiked.

It seemed that things weren’t too bad yet.

He took a deep breath and carefully walked up to the flagpole.

“Niu Xuan,” he called out again.

Still, Niu Xuan continued with his exercises. He was now doing jumps. He swung his arms while jumping in place, his breathing growing heavier as his movements increased in intensity.

“One, two, three, four. Two, two, three, four. Three, two, three, four...”

Gao Yang clenched his teeth and went up to grab Niu Xuan’s hands. “Stop, Niu Xuan!”

But he didn’t. His arms kept swinging with unusual force. Even when Gao Yang secretly applied more power to stop one of his arms, his body continued carrying out the same motions robotically, like a machine without emotions or sense of pain.

Gao Yang could rival the force, but he let go. He had a feeling that Niu Xuan’s arm could break should he go against the motion.

His intuition shouted in his head that Niu Xuan hadn’t been doing this out of his own will, but under the control of a great intangible power.

[Warning: You have entered an unknown area. Analysis unavailable. Luck points acquisition increased to two times.]

Gao Yang jumped.

The last time he got a notification like that, he had fallen into the Rune Cave at the Gu Family’s Village.

Without the time to think, he quickly backed away from the flagpole, and the acquisition rate of Luck points went back to normal in an instant.

What’s going on?!

The flagpole platform was only a few square meters big, but it was actually a Rune Cave?

Before Gao Yang could follow that thought, Niu Xuan finished a full set of aerobics. He stood for a moment before walking off the platform, as if he was merely a student in charge of leading the exercises, and he had completed his task.

Finally, Gao Yang got a good look at Niu Xuan’s face. The boy looked numb, his expression frozen by some unknown force, and his widened eyes were like an icy lake.

Arms dangling weakly, he stopped walking once he got off the platform.

Snap!

There was a sharp sound, fleeting and faint. It sounded like a strand of hair suddenly breaking. It was so quiet that Gao Yang thought he had merely heard it wrong.

The next instance, Niu Xuan’s frozen eyes turned back to normal.

He slowly closed his eyes and toppled to the ground with a thud.

“Ahhh!”

This time, all three girls screamed with genuine fear.

Hesitantly, Gao Yang walked up to Niu Xuan and crouched down to put a finger to his nose. He was still breathing.

“He fainted,” Gao Yang called out over his shoulder. “Call 120!”

...

Beiyong District Police Station, five o’clock in the morning.

Gao Yang, Zhou Jing, Huan Huan, Can, Cucumber, and Fat Hu sat in the waiting hall. They had each given their statements. Now they were too exhausted and sleepy to say anything.

Niu Xuan was sent to the closest hospital and still hadn’t woken up. There was no visible injury on him, and no internal damage had been found during examination.

In the police’s eyes, this was nothing but the typical case of young people doing something unwise for the thrills, and one of them ended up unconscious for some reason.

Once the police made sure that their statements didn’t contradict each other, they were let off with their contact information noted down.

They walked out of the station and hailed taxis to go home.

Fat Hu and Gao Yang were going the same way. After everyone else left, they stopped one taxi for the two of them. Just when he was going to get in the car, Gao Yang spotted something and closed the door. “You should go, Fat Hu.”

“Aren’t you going home?”

“No. I’m gonna play a few matches at the internet cafe and go straight to school.”

“It’s amazing that you can still do that,” Fat Hu said in a depressed tone.

After seeing the taxi off, Gao Yang crossed the road to a car parked on the other side and knocked on the window. It opened to reveal Gray Bear. He grinned at Gao Yang with a baseball cap on his head and his face covered in stubbles.

“Come on in, Captain.”

Gao Yang got into the passenger seat, and Gray Bear started the car.

“Hey, Captain. I didn’t know you were actually a highschool student,” Gray Bear said with an amused smile.

Gao Yang groaned silently. Shit, this means that everyone knows.

“How did you know where I am?” asked Gao Yang.

“Haha, Can told me. She thought she was going to jail and messaged me for help. I happened to be on my nightshift, so I came to check.”

Can, dear Can, is this how you keep a secret?

Gao Yang nodded nonchalantly. “Did you hear everything?”

“Can gave me a rundown.” Gray Bear seemed excited, his eyes glinting. “Did you find a Rune Cave, Captain?”

Gao Yang didn’t immediately respond. Instead, he asked, “Has the Guild not looked into the Eleventh High School?”

“Of course we have! We haven’t left any place with an urban legend unchecked!” Gray Bear sounded impassioned. “The Guild checked the school no less than three times, but we never found anything.”

Gao Yang nodded. That made much more sense.

“Did you find something, Captain?” Gray Bear was interested.

“There is something, but I’m not sure yet,” Gao Yang said with reservation.

“Let’s just get everyone together tomorrow and go on the mission without reporting! Finding a Rune Circuit will give us great merit! We can’t let someone else beat us to it!”

Ah, so he’s looking for merits.

Gao Yang thought differently. What he had experienced back in the Cattle Farm Station left him quite traumatized. If the Eleventh High School truly was a Rune Cave, the fifth team would end up dead given their level of power.

“Gray Bear,” Gao Yang said coldly. “Have you ever been to a Rune Cave?”

“No.”

“I’ve been to two.”

“And?”

“Both times I ended up seeing the mouth of hell.”

Gray Bear was quiet for a moment as he continued driving. After a while, he corrected himself, “Why don’t we report to Elder Black Tortoise first?”

Gao Yang nodded with a smile. He sure learned fast.

“I’ll leave that to you.” Gao Yang was a little tired. “Drive me home first.”

“Alright. Where do you live?”

“The Shanqing District.”

“Sit tight.” At the crossroad ahead, Gray Bear made a U-turn.

...

Gao Yang cleaned himself up and took a short rest after returning home. He woke up to the morning sun.

He finished breakfast at home. Then he grabbed his backpack and went to school.

After the morning self-study, he, Cucumber, and Fat Hu were called to the office by their homeroom teacher. Naturally, the teacher asked them about Niu Xuan.

They had agreed on a story and stated that Niu Xuan dragged them to the Eleventh High School at midnight for fun, but ended up falling off the flagpole platform and losing consciousness.

Their homeroom teacher sighed, rubbing at his temple. He had aged by several years this semester. The last two months before the college entrance exams were crucial, yet he had already lost two students, and now one was unconscious. If things went on like this, he would have to resign before the big day came.

“Alright, you may leave.” The teacher let out a long sigh. He didn’t even have the presence of mind to scold them.

The three of them turned to leave. Then the teacher added, “You stay, Gao Yang. Someone’s looking for you.”

And that someone pushed the door open and entered at that moment.

Gao Yang looked up in surprise.