140: People will remember your dedication and sacrifice_2 140: People will remember your dedication and sacrifice_2 Just as he darted out, his peripheral vision caught the figure of the class teacher—somehow, the class teacher had appeared like a specter at his original spot!
“Bang!”
The door shut heavily!
He leaned against the door, first looking upward along the right side.
The classroom nameplate boldly displayed “Group B, Class 2.”
“Phew…” he let out a long breath and then started to catch his breath with a pat on his chest.
“She really didn’t eat the Tomato Meat Sauce Spaghetti!”
He realized that at this time yesterday, when he had seen the class teacher, she had asked through the office door whether he was there to deliver a meal!
“In other words, the class teacher indeed received the Tomato Meat Sauce Spaghetti delivered by Green Hat, but she didn’t eat it and threw it into the trashcan.”
“After that, she had been waiting for the normal meal delivery from the blue aproned Pocket Chef…
yet, she had never seen them come!”
“Because there…
is also likely a problem in the Cafeteria!”
“So her contamination…
is it from the food, or the spirit?”
Lin Yi thought of the class teacher’s will…
“Given her strong will, she should not have suffered from spiritual contamination, so…
the contamination came from a physical level!”
“Is it…
from the Tomato Sauce?”
“Boss also said ‘not eating it doesn’t mean it’s safe’…
so, does anything containing Tomato Element, even if not consumed, still contaminate a person?”
Cafeteria rules state:
[After leaving the Cafeteria, please remove your clothing immediately, check whether there is any Tomato Sauce on your body, and if there is, throw the clothing in the nearest trashcan.]
Moreover, it was emphatically marked that one must dispose of it in a trashcan and not just anywhere!
“So…
could the Tomato Element be similar to some kind of radioactive source of contamination, where merely being close to it results in subliminal contamination?”
As for the class teacher…
“She stayed near the trashcan with the Tomato Meat Sauce Spaghetti, and the Tomato Meat Sauce Spaghetti in the trashcan was even from much earlier!”
“Why wouldn’t she dispose of the trash?
Could it be that the process capable of handling the trash…
also had problems?”
“Damn…
what the hell is this!”
He lifted his hand and looked at his watch.
19:43.
“Almost half an hour has passed.”
He pushed himself up to stand and went to hold the doorknob.
“Phew…”
Just as he grasped the doorknob, he felt a chill on his back, a sensation as if a thorn were in his side, silently descending upon him.
It seemed that something, from the unknown darkness, threw a glance at him.
He did not turn back, his peripheral vision slightly skewed.
He saw the fog starting to spread outside the Teaching Building, advancing slowly under the moonlight like a tide.
“20:30 then…” he muttered.
“Just another quarter of an hour…”
He pressed down on the doorknob and pushed the classroom door open.
No sooner had the door opened than a mix of noises and human spirit emanated from it.
Noisy, chaotic, but perhaps that was the spice of life.
It was just like the atmosphere during a regular evening self-study break.
He entered the classroom and shut the door.
“Bang!”
The classroom door, like a blade, severed the thin, white mist that had followed him into the room.
…
Office.
“Huff…
huff…”
The class teacher stood where Lin Yi had been, bracing herself on the heavy fire door of the isolation room, bending down to catch her breath in silence.
Her hair naturally fell, under the flickering fluorescent light in the office, the tips of her hair seemed to have taken on some translucent snowflakes…
“Huff…”
“Huff…”
Her breathing gradually stabilized, and she slowly straightened up.
She gently adjusted the glasses on her nose bridge, and behind the lenses, her golden eyes shimmered with a serene glow.
“I am the class teacher of Group B, Class 2, my designation is…
‘Class Teacher-B2-039’…”
She glanced at the white acrylic badge in the palm of her hand, her gaze flickered slightly.
“Is this ‘Contamination’?
At this stage, it seems I can still maintain some rationality…”
She walked back to her desk and opened the drawer.
In the messy drawer was a neatly placed envelope.
She slowly picked up the envelope, looking at the bizarre and brilliant color changing between blue and green, like a chameleon card, and fell silent.
“Heh…”
A mocking smile curled the corners of her crimson lips.
“I still overestimated myself…”
She took a deep breath and placed the badge on the desk.
Her actions were cautious and careful, as if she was feeling every second of change during the process of disengaging the badge.
Then, she looked at the envelope in her hands.
The dark green envelope, like a jester’s rampant smile, mocked her insignificance and overestimation.
“Green…”
“Heh.”
“Green it is.”
She bent down, carefully folded her uniform, and placed it neatly on the desk, putting the badge on top.
She looked at the damaged stocking, thought for a moment, and put it in her pocket.
After all this, she glanced at the wall clock.
19:50.
“Fifty minutes… It seems to be soon.”
She went to the trash can, looked down into the abyss-like bin.
The tomato sauce pasta in the trash can wriggled like nauseating flesh, emitting a vile, foul smell.
“Disgusting,” she said coldly, then picked up the trash bag, tied a knot, and held it in her hand.
Next, she held the trash bag in one hand and the green envelope in the other and stood at the office door.
She stood there, silently counting time in her mind, listening for the clock’s sound with her ears.
“Tick-tock!
Tick-tock!
Tick-tock…”
Time elapsed by the minute and second.
Finally, there was a knock from outside.
“Bang!
Bang!
Bang…”
The sounds were heavy, like beating drums.
“Is it…
the delivery place?” the headteacher asked, with a calm face but a voice that conveyed haste and panic.
The voice outside fell silent for a moment and then said, “See for yourself.”
The headteacher slid the peephole open, looked outside, and then, she silently opened the door.
A chef wearing a blue apron, holding a lunchbox, stood at the office door.
The chef, expecting something, looked at the headteacher’s face.
Their eyes met, the headteacher’s cold golden pupils, like the moonlight split apart, were painfully cold.
The chef in the blue apron clenched his hand holding the lunchbox and slightly bowed his head, the difficult words squeezed through his teeth filled with apology: “I’m sorry…
the cafeteria also…”
“It’s alright,” the headteacher interrupted him, calmly asking, “Where is the security guard?”
“I am here,” a deep voice, like the sound of morning and evening bells, emanated from the darkness outside the Teaching Building.
A towering figure, holding an old kerosene lamp, parted the darkness and mist to arrive at the office door.
The appearance of the old kerosene lamp made the headteacher subconsciously squint her eyes, the golden glow in her eyes quietly dispersed a bit.
The security guard looked down at the headteacher, waiting for her to continue.
The headteacher handed out the green envelope and the folded A4 sheet that noted the chef’s identification number.
The chef’s eyes twitched severely.
The security guard took the green envelope and the paper.
“Come with me.”
He turned and reentered the mist-filled darkness, the thick iron chain trailing on the ground, with a “clang, clang, clang…” sound, sparking off flecks of light.
The seemingly extinguishable old kerosene lamp, like a supreme weapon, cleaved through the chaotic world.
Beyond the light, countless stealthy figures trembled among the trees.
The headteacher handed the trash bag to the chef in the blue apron.
The chef took it while saying in a deep voice, “People will remember your dedication and sacrifice.”
The headteacher nodded and followed the security guard’s steps.