The Rules of Shadow

Chapter V

"Congratulations to all of you for making it through the morning's studies alive. At the end of the fourth class, there are 60 students left in our school, and the lunch that has been talked about for so long is finally here."

The bell rang and a familiar accent came over the radio as the number of survivors plummeted from 220 to 60. it seemed that the fourth class was quite treacherous in every classroom, not just ours.

"Please make your way to the cafeteria area on the fifth floor of the school building to be seated on time by 12:00, the cafeteria doors will be closed until they open again for lunch at 13:45 p.m. During this time there will be an elimination operation in the area outside of the cafeteria, and those who will be entering the cafeteria will be served dinner by the school staff."

I glanced at Kate in the body hall, "The cafeteria is open, get ready to go upstairs. I'm going to wait for someone in the hallway, want to join me?"

She gave a timid nod. Side by side, we walked up to the stairway, watching the gap that spiraled between the stairs, and waited a good ten minutes before we finally saw the familiar reflection of the lenses.

At twelve o'clock, the doors to the fifth floor cafeteria officially closed as time expired. The area here is large, there are many cabinets, thousands of tables and chairs are densely lined up, it's just a pity that only a handful of 60 people can really hold out until meal time.

The three of us found a corner and watched in silence as the cafeteria staff shuttled in and out, constantly bringing dishes to the tables, even if they were far from full, they filled every table to overflowing.

Taking advantage of the lull in their serving, I inquired of Brian, "We guessed wrong, the rules have changed, what did you come across on your end? "

"On my side it's a poker game," Brian glanced at Kate next to him, "There's only three people in the classroom, the rules are to play a game of poker, ten rounds in total, the person with the highest number of points lives, the rest of us just explode. " He then shrugged, "As you can see, I've got a good hand, I just got too much blood on my face and the cleaning took some time. "

I shook my head, "Sounds like it was more sinister on our side. "Even Brian couldn't help but freeze after I recounted the rules of the classroom and what followed, "That sounds like a dead end, how did you survive? Even brought a girl out. "

"The way to survive is out of the rules," I sighed softly, "I'm guessing that the rules that say anyone out of bounds will be eliminated is including the teacher. Which means finding a way to lure him outside the classroom, well it worked."

Hearing this, Brian let out a long sigh: "I was sweating for you after I found out that the rules had changed, I didn't realize that you'd actually become so perceptive. This detail is really not easy to spot, but once you do, it can kill this game outright."

Just as I was about to respond to him, the sound of a broadcast suddenly sounded, drilling into our ears.

"Everyone, meal time is here, the school is quite a humane place, in order to satisfy your different eating habits, we have specially created three different dishes, of course the selection of ingredients is uniformly from your classmates, which you all should have already witnessed with your own eyes. The first is Chinese food, located in the east area of the cafeteria, shredded meat stir-fried shredded meat, in addition to seasoning, without adding any side dishes, to ensure the purity of meat dishes. The second type is Western food, located in the west area of the cafeteria, various degrees of ripeness of meat steaks nuisance, aromatic, knives and forks have been prepared, can be opened at any time. The third type is industrialized cooked food, located in the middle section of the cafeteria, which is uniformly churned and steamed to set the shape of the lunch meat, neatly shaped. With the morning's classes behind us, I'm sure the students are starving, so please make yourselves comfortable for the rest of the day."

The trumpet ended, and I stared blankly at the shredded pork stir-fry in front of me in the East End, a wave of vomit-inducing discomfort already hovering between my throat and my gastric tube.

Brian, who seemed the calmest of us, looked first at Kate, whose brow was furrowed, "Are you eating?"

Kate was just busy shaking his head, "No, no, I'd rather starve."

He then looked at me, "Just kidding, how can you possibly eat this?"

I hastily waved my hand, and Brian skimmed his mouth, "Well, I don't want to eat it either."

After he said that, he got up and left the East Side and walked towards the Central Side, coming back with three lunchmeats and giving one to each of us.

I looked at him in wonder, I thought I said I didn't want to eat it.

"Of course I don't want to eat it," he stuffed the lunchmeat into the bag, "but just because you can hold it in now doesn't mean you can hold it in all the time, there are still four more classes in the afternoon, don't you dare guarantee that you have the stamina to hold on indefinitely, take it, even though you don't always use it, it's a way of giving yourself a chance to live and be a little bit nauseous It's better than dying."

After hearing this, Kate and I also had to express our conviction and hurriedly put our lunch meat into our pockets. Brian looked at the Central District where there were people and shadows, and if it was really for the purpose of limiting the meal to noon, the combination of Chinese and Western food was already enough, so why did they have to specifically set up a portable meal type? I'm afraid this lunch meat is not as simple as we think.