71: Chapter 71 You are already dead.
"So?"
Gu Lang asked calmly.
The fluorescent lights in the classroom were still flickering.
The non-existent hanging shadow outside the window had already turned several girls pale.
After all, the incident with Old Zhou was still fresh in their minds.
If an even more powerful Strange Tales appeared, they would be done for.
Someone sobbed in a low voice.
The Homeroom Teacher stood on the podium, his hand holding the textbook frozen in mid-air, his lips moving twice, but no sound came out.
That gray-black aura spread along the floor.
Like the tide.
Ordinary students couldn't see it, but they could feel the cold.
Li Hao rubbed his arms, whispering a curse: "Is the air conditioner broken? What month is it even? Why is it like walking into a freezer?"
Chu Youwei sat in the front row, her spine straight.
She could feel it.
Gu Lang wasn't joking.
This new classmate was really unleashing something.
Su Yun pressed his hand on that black fountain pen, looking up at Gu Lang.
"So, during morning study, don't disturb others from reciting their lessons."
Gu Lang was silent for a moment.
He stared at Su Yun's hand pressing down on the pen.
That hand was very steady.
There was no spiritual energy fluctuation.
There was no aura of an Awakened.
Even the muscle engagement was completely ordinary.
Yet, after his Sequence aura was suppressed by that hand, it was as if its throat had been cut.
The Corpse-eating Dog growled low inside him.
That wasn't anger.
It was fear.
For the first time, Gu Lang felt it was absurd.
He was High Command's File Zero, a living bait specifically used to fish for high-level Strange Tales.
Yet now, the fish hadn't appeared yet.
The bait had been schooled by his deskmate with an eraser and a pen first.
Gu Lang released the pen.
The gray-black aura instantly retracted.
The lights in the classroom stopped flickering.
The few students who had just seen the hallucination rubbed their eyes, looking around in confusion.
The Homeroom Teacher also snapped back to reality and gave a dry cough: "What are you all staring at? Read!"
The sparse sound of reading resumed.
But the sound was much quieter than before.
Gu Lang turned his face to the side and said in a low voice: "What did you do just now?"
Su Yun opened his workbook: "Stopping my deskmate from violating classroom discipline."
"You know that's not what I'm asking."
"Then you asked the wrong person."
Gu Lang stared at him: "The Sequence inside me was trembling just now."
Su Yun didn't stop his pen: "Maybe it's also afraid of the teacher calling on it to recite the text."
Gu Lang: "..."
This guy was sick.
But this kind of sickness didn't seem like a mental illness.
It felt more like a condescending brush-off.
Gu Lang took a black metal piece out of his pocket.
The metal piece was only the size of a fingernail, with dense, fine lines engraved on it.
He pushed the metal piece to the edge of Su Yun's desk.
"This is High Command's spiritual identification chip."
Gu Lang said: "Any Awakened who touches it will leave a ripple. If a Strange Talk Sequence touches it, it will leave a serial number."
Su Yun glanced at it.
He didn't touch it.
"You want to investigate me?"
"I want to confirm what you are."
"I am your deskmate."
"A deskmate wouldn't suppress Sequence 033."
Su Yun finally stopped writing.
He turned to look at Gu Lang, his tone serious: "Is there a possibility that it's not that I'm too strong, but that you're too weak?"
Gu Lang's gaze froze.
Chu Youwei in the front row almost couldn't hold back a laugh.
Although she didn't understand what Sequence 033 was, she understood the last sentence.
This was so Su Yun.
As soon as he opened his mouth, it was low damage but maximum insult.
Gu Lang wasn't angry.
He reached out and picked up the identification chip.
His fingertips brushed across the edge of the metal piece.
A very fine bloodstain appeared.
Black-red blood dripped onto the metal piece.
The next second.
The patterns on the metal piece lit up.
A thin, gray dog shadow poked its head out from the metal piece.
It had no eyes, and its mouth was split back to its ears.
The dog shadow sniffed toward Su Yun's direction.
Gu Lang whispered: "The Corpse-eating Dog's sense of smell can sniff out secrets."
Su Yun looked at the gray dog.
The gray dog also looked at him.
No.
To be precise, the gray dog froze just as it poked half its head out.
It smelled it.
Not flesh and blood.
Not spiritual energy.
Not Strange Tales.
But a boundless darkness.
In the darkness, countless things were sleeping.
One of the things turned over.
The gray dog immediately retracted its head.
The metal piece cracked with a "click".
Gu Lang's pupils contracted.
He looked down at the identification chip.
This identification chip had never failed before.
Even when facing an S-rank Strange Tales, it dared to track the aura.
But now it had cracked.
Su Yun picked up his pen and wrote the final answer on his workbook.
"Your thing is of poor quality."
Gu Lang looked up: "Who exactly are you?"
Su Yun pushed his workbook forward: "Class 1, Grade 3, Su Yun. A good student, except for foreign language."
Chu Youwei turned back and added: "His foreign language isn't just 'not good', it's very dependent on luck."
Su Yun glanced at her: "No one will think you're a mute if you don't speak."
Chu Youwei hummed lightly and turned back around.
Gu Lang ignored their bickering.
He took the cracked identification chip back into his palm.
His fingers tightened little by little.
He couldn't confirm Su Yun's identity right now.
But he could confirm one thing.
This person had a problem.
A big problem.
Gu Lang whispered: "I was ordered to come to Linhai to draw out a high-level Strange Tales."
"Oh."
"It appeared at the Northern Reservoir yesterday, sealing the rift and devouring a Semi-King."
"Didn't the news say Executive Jiang Xu did it?"
"The news is for ordinary people."
Gu Lang looked at Su Yun: "The real thing is hiding in the city. It has intelligence, can disguise itself, and might even be sitting right in the crowd."
Su Yun nodded: "Sounds pretty scary."
Gu Lang continued to press: "If it's in the school, what do you think should be done?"
Su Yun thought for a moment: "First, notify the Dean of Students."
Gu Lang frowned.
"For an existence of this level, the Dean of Students is useless."
"Then notify the principal who is in prison."
"The principal is useless too."
"Then why are you asking me?"
Gu Lang was choked up.
He always felt something was wrong; why would the principal be in prison?
Chu Youwei's shoulders shook.
She was holding back very hard.
Gu Lang stared at Su Yun, his voice even lower: "You are evading."
Su Yun leaned back on his chair: "You are being clever."
The two looked at each other.
The air began to turn cold again.
This time, the cold didn't spread to the whole class.
Instead, it was compressed between the two desks.
The Corpse-eating Dog inside Gu Lang began to get restless.
It wanted to escape.
But Gu Lang forcibly held it down.
He wanted to see.
Even if just for one glance.
Deep within Gu Lang's pitch-black pupils, a circle of gray patterns emerged.
Strange Talk Sequence 033 ability.
Corpse Peering.
It could see the traces of death from a living person.
Everyone has a death appearance.
Some die by fire.
Some die by water.
Some die by the blade.
And the death appearance of a high-level Strange Tales will present its Origin form.
Gu Lang wanted to reverse-engineer Su Yun's secret through his death appearance.
He looked at Su Yun.
The next second.
The moment the gray patterns rotated.
Gu Lang saw Su Yun's death appearance.
Not the future.
Not some vague symbol.
But a death record that had already happened.
A dim alley.
A damp wall.
A woman wearing a mask slowly lowered her head, her split mouth torn all the way to her ears.
"Do you think I'm pretty?"
The next second.
Blood sprayed on the wall.
The boy fell to the ground, his eyes unfocused, his life aura completely extinguished.
The time of death, the method of death, the object of death, all were crystal clear.
D-rank Strange Tales.
Slit-Mouthed Woman.
Gu Lang's pupils suddenly contracted.
The gray patterns shattered instantly.
He leaned back violently, his back hitting the chair back heavily, making a dull "thud" sound.
Cold sweat soaked his back in almost an instant.
Su Yun looked up at him: "Is your chair leaking ink too?"
Gu Lang didn't answer.
He stared fixedly at Su Yun's face, which was so calm it was almost boring, his Adam's apple rolling with difficulty.
Not right.
This wasn't right.
Corpse Peering sees the traces of death.
As long as they are alive, they will present some possible future death appearance.
But the death appearance on Su Yun was not a possibility.
It was a settled fact.
He was already dead.
Dead in the mouth of the D-rank Strange Tales, the Slit-Mouthed Woman.
Dead as dead could be.
Gu Lang's brain went boom.
Then what was the thing sitting next to him now, flipping through a workbook, and talking nonsense with him for half a day—
What was it?
Gu Lang's fingertips turned cold.
The Corpse-eating Dog inside him was wailing frantically, as if it had been pressed into the mud by some indescribable existence.
This was the first time he had encountered such a situation.
A dead person.
A person who had already died in the mouth of a Strange Tales.
Was having a normal conversation with him.
And was even annoyed that he was disturbing morning study.
Gu Lang's lips moved, his voice so dry it didn't sound like his own: "You..."
Su Yun stopped his pen and looked at him.
"What about me?"
Cold sweat slid down Gu Lang's forehead.
He looked at Su Yun, for the first time, unmaskable horror appeared in his eyes.
"You are already dead."