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Part 8. Memory classroom

Let's backtrack a bit in time. Amisa walked in and was immediately captivated by the upside-down structure of the room. There were three upside-down doors in the house. She curiously circled the room and happened to catch sight of Jasky, Toosb, and Mido still outside in the courtyard. As her anger subsided, she realized how embarrassing her outburst had been. She touched her forehead in alarm, saying to herself, "What... Why did I say those things just now... What happened to me?"

At this moment, she sensed an eerie black glow emanating from her pocket, reminiscent of the attraction she felt in the church. Her hand involuntarily reached for her pocket, wanting to touch whatever was inside...

Squeak-squeak-squeak-squeak-squeak-squeak─────────────────

Suddenly, the sound of water pipes reached her ears, and she looked up to see the title "A Key's Fragrant Pounce."

"Finding a tulip in the garbage heap? What a strange riddle..."

"They are all outside..." With neither Jasky's strategic planning nor Toosb's morale-boosting, Amisa had to face the challenge herself. Still feeling the weight of the previous level, she was hesitant to enter the middle door. Thinking about Toosb 's success, she decisively headed for the upside-down staircase on the right: "Maybe I'll understand once I get in..."

Amisa turned the doorknob upwards, and before her eyes was a familiar school classroom. There were no doors in the corners of the room, and the windows were tightly sealed. Student desks and chairs were neatly arranged in six rows, alternating between different colors and sizes—small, medium, and large.

In the right corner was the teacher's desk and chair. There were a total of 36 student desks and chairs, and each open drawer emitted a different scent.

"Finding a tulip's scent in the garbage heap... Does that mean I need to search for the scent of tulips in the drawers?" Amisa followed the scents and took out various miscellaneous student supplies from the drawers: "Math assignments, language textbooks, watercolors, bread, chalk, love letters... How did dodgeball end up in there?"

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"Well, we have an hour, plenty of time," Amisa decided to flip through the desks one by one. As she did, she accidentally smelled a putrid stench coming from the front corner of the room. She found a drawer emitting the smell and discovered rotten bread and crumpled paper inside.

"So smelly! Why would someone stuff these things in the drawer?" Amisa guessed that the tulip might be wrapped in one of the crumpled papers. She pinched her nose and approached the small desk, picking up one of the crumpled papers and unfolding it. However, her face turned pale when she saw its contents. She reflexively threw the paper on the ground:

"Delusional Alice is so ridiculous!"

More rotten bread and crumpled papers were ejected from the drawer automatically. Each one contained insults directed at her, and Amisa quickly distanced herself. She noticed that the tabletop of the small desk had been haphazardly scribbled with chalk, ballpoint pens, and correction fluid, all filled with various insults:

"Serves you right for being excluded!"

"Princess got roasted just right!"

"Thinks she's pretty!"

Simultaneously, two foul smells reached her, coming from the middle of the third row and the corner of the last row. Two desks were also covered in curse marks and dirty words, with knife marks even visible. The drawers contained more trash, torn textbooks, cockroach corpses, and the bottom drawer leaked a large amount of ink.

"Why are these things appearing?"

Amisa felt herself losing her strength to stand. She struggled to hold onto the desk's legs as she attempted to leave the classroom. However, when she looked up, she found that the blackboard was also covered in insults and curse marks, all centered around the most prominent sentence in the middle:

"I don't think there's a kid in the world who sings better than my Dreaming Alice~"

"No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no──────" Amisa screamed in despair, terrified, as she desperately picked up the chalkboard eraser to erase the words. However, no matter how hard she rubbed, the erased words would quickly reappear, as if the shadows couldn't be wiped away.

The incident from the past, when the uproar broke out, had her unfortunate remark deliberately written on the chalkboard by her classmates. Memories flooded back—she recalled the faces of her classmates, the damaged desks, and her teacher's cold gaze as he watched.

"Stop it! Just stop it──────" Amisa, on the brink of tears, fled toward the entrance of the upside-down house. She pinched her nose tightly, and it wasn't the stench but the nauseating smell of bullying that overwhelmed her.

Clash!

Once the door was closed, the stench was cut off, and the black glow on her dress slowly faded away.

Amisa sat down by the door, wiping away the tears that filled her face. She clutched her hair and shook her head vigorously. It had been a long time since she had felt so utterly shattered. "I was almost over it. Why, why, why, why, why, why, why!"

Remembering her usual phrase of encouragement in times of despair, she attempted to apply it to herself now, though not very smoothly. "The Law of Attraction, even in adversity, you need to... what else? Remember it!"

"Also stay positive, and your dreams will be attracted to you."

"Huh?" Amisa lifted her head, only to find Jasky, Toosb, and Mido standing in front of her. Toosb smiled slightly and crouched down, extending a hand.

"Can you get up?"

"Thank you..."

"Go sit over there; there's tissue on the table." Jasky, expressionless, pointed towards the only properly arranged coffee table and sofa in front of them.