In my high school, a new restroom was built. It had two floors, covered in white ceramic tiles, looking very elegant. It was said to have cost 200,000 yuan, making it the best restroom in the city's public schools. Naturally, everyone opted for the new one, and gradually, the old restroom was left in neglect.

Though it was abandoned, it wasn't entirely deserted. I went there a few times, and while I never saw anyone, I often found fresh cigarette butts in the stalls. It seemed some students secretly went there to smoke.

One afternoon after school, my deskmate and I started talking about the old restroom.

“Highchuan, do you remember the old restroom?” he asked.

“Yeah, isn’t it abandoned? When are they going to tear it down?” I replied, though deep down, I didn’t want it demolished just yet. Sometimes, the old restroom’s secluded location and state of disrepair brought certain conveniences. I’m sure those who still used it often felt the same way.

Even though it did have a rather unpleasant smell due to lack of cleaning.

By the way, the restroom was located behind the teaching building, in a patch of overgrown weeds. It took about ten minutes to walk there from the classrooms. Not far from it, there were three stone ping-pong tables, which had been quite popular for a while but were now covered in moss.

“I haven’t heard anything about it being torn down. I guess people still go there sometimes,” my deskmate said.

“I go there sometimes too.”

“Really?” My deskmate looked surprised. “Isn’t the new restroom better?”

“I guess it’s a bit nostalgic,” I casually offered as an explanation.

“I see. But I heard there have been a few disappearances there. You should be careful,” he said.

I was taken aback.

“Disappearances?”

“Yeah, disappearances. Some people went in and never came out,” he continued, his expression oddly enthusiastic, as though discussing a school ghost story, with no sign of fear.

“How do you know?”

“It’s just rumors that’ve been going around. But you know, there’s that saying—‘No smoke without fire.’”

“Rumors like that aren’t trustworthy,” I dismissed casually. “If something serious had happened, the school wouldn’t just stay quiet, and the police would’ve shown up by now.”

“Oh, they did,” my deskmate leaned in with a conspiratorial whisper. “A student from the third year went missing for a few days. The parents called the police, but the search only happened on a Sunday. The school locked down the information, so not many people know about it.”

“Did they find them?” I asked, trying to sound indifferent, but my deskmate sighed.

“They found them, but not at school. They found the body somewhere else.”

His tone was almost dismissive, as though he wished that the missing student had never been found. It was clear he found some twisted amusement in the whole thing. After all, since they’d found the student, it didn’t really matter, did it?

These days, students did all sorts of strange things under the pressure of their environment. Compared to running away from home, suicides were far more serious.

“Isn’t that good, though? Did they go back to school?”

“Yeah, but when people asked where he went during his disappearance, he said he didn’t know.” My deskmate spoke seriously. “It’s like he has amnesia. He doesn’t remember where he went or what he did.”

Honestly, I wasn’t too surprised by this outcome. If I had disappeared, I wouldn’t have confessed to what I’d done either—it would be too embarrassing. Of course, I wouldn’t just disappear casually. My grades were good, and I prided myself on being able to handle stress better than most.

Although the newspapers and news had reported similar incidents recently, it was still a small fraction compared to the total number of students in the country. It just seemed more shocking when these few cases were put together.

The media just loved to stir up drama. They needed to make a living out of sensationalism, so everything was blown out of proportion.

But then my deskmate made a surprising conclusion.

“I think that student definitely encountered something unbelievable, and that’s why he got brainwashed.”

Such a wild theory. I thought to myself. My deskmate had a particular fascination with mysterious events, and no matter how ordinary something was, he could twist it into something eerie. But none of his stories were ever true.

Not wanting to discourage him, I changed the subject.

Lost in his own thoughts, my deskmate didn’t seem to notice my obvious attempt to end the conversation.

After class, I went to the old restroom again.

As usual, it was empty, with no one around. I didn’t see anyone on the way there either.

Inside, the stalls were covered with yellow urine stains and moss, and I found a few new cigarette butts.

I nodded to myself, pulled out a cigarette from my bag, and lit it with my lighter.

In most cases, good students didn’t smoke, but despite my top grades and being considered a prime candidate for a prestigious university, I did some things that would make teachers gasp.

Like smoking.

I first tried smoking when I was ten, at a friend’s house. I saw his father drying tobacco on the balcony, with a pile of cigarette papers. Curious, my friend and I secretly rolled a cigarette and smoked it.

He didn’t dare inhale, just puffed and complained about the bitterness. 

I took a deep drag, initially worried it would choke me, but surprisingly, my body adapted.

After that, I occasionally bought a pack of Camel cigarettes. It was an expensive brand, hard to find, so I had to save up my pocket money each month to afford a pack. Even though smoking ate into my pocket money, I liked the taste.

I didn’t particularly love smoking, but once my body had gotten used to the bitter taste of burning tobacco and the flavor of the additives, quitting became a real test of willpower.

It wasn’t that I lacked self-control. While doctors warned about the health risks of smoking, there were far more people who died without smoking than those who lived past sixty after smoking. My only goal was to live past sixty, so quitting smoking didn’t seem essential.

Every time I went to the old restroom to smoke, I wondered if I might run into a fellow smoker.

I probably was the only good student who smoked in the school, the others were considered “bad” students by the teachers. They wouldn’t all turn into delinquents, of course. It was foolish to judge a person’s future based on their student years.

I knew a few of them. Apart from their bad grades, their rough manner of speaking and dressing, they were no different from anyone else.

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I only had one common point with them—smoking. Though we could talk, our bond was a weak one.

They knew I smoked but had never reported me to the teachers.

I expected to run into them in the old restroom, but never did. The first time could have been coincidence, but after multiple visits, I started wondering if there was some decisive factor. Maybe they didn’t want to run into me either.

I lost myself in such thoughts as I finished my cigarette, and suddenly, I heard footsteps at the entrance of the restroom.

Someone had entered.

For some reason, I felt a little nervous—perhaps because it was the first time I encountered another person here.

I hesitated, unsure whether to leave or stay. Maybe the person didn’t want to meet anyone either, and bumping into each other would be awkward.

Smoking wasn’t a terrible thing, but students usually smoked in secret.

In the end, I decided not to leave.

The person went into the farthest stall, and after listening for a moment, the restroom fell silent again.

I didn’t want to stay any longer, so I pushed open the stall door.

Just as I was about to leave, a sudden scream came from the furthest stall.

I jumped, turning to look, but then everything went quiet again.

I waited for a while, but there was no sound.

It’s hard to describe the mix of emotions I felt—worry, curiosity… Something was driving me, and I walked over towards the sound.

As I walked, I thought back to my deskmate’s words about disappearances.

I wasn’t sure which stall the person was in, but I guessed they had stopped at one. I paused and called out, “Hey, are you okay?”

No answer.

“I heard you scream. If you’re fine, I’ll leave.”

Still nothing.

Since there was no response, I started to leave, but then a strange feeling tugged at me.

I turned back, trying to make sense of the fleeting moment of intuition.

It hit me—wasn’t the person here to smoke? But I didn’t smell any smoke.

Even though the old restroom was dirty and smelly, if someone were smoking near the door, I should have smelled it.

If they were just using the restroom, there was no reason to remain silent when someone asked if they were okay.

Of course, there were other possibilities. Maybe they weren’t in this stall at all, or maybe they had stepped into something unpleasant and didn’t want to be seen in a messy state.

Despite the possibilities, I kicked open the stall door.

It was empty.

I didn’t care. It was a warning, a signal—if you were in there, speak up now, or I wouldn’t let it go.

There was no response.

I kicked open the doors of the other stalls without hesitation.

Something strange happened—what should have been there was gone.

There wasn’t a single soul in the restroom, except for me.

But I clearly heard someone walk in and enter the stalls earlier.

The ventilation window in the restroom had long since broken, covered in rust. No one could escape through it. And even if they could, why would anyone crawl through a restroom window? There was only a wall behind it.

This bizarre occurrence made my classmate’s words echo in my mind once again:

“I heard a student went missing in the old restroom.”

A living person had vanished into thin air in the restroom, and the shock it gave me surpassed any fear. I wasn’t hearing things, I wasn’t seeing things—I definitely heard someone come in. So how did they disappear? The exit only had one way out.

I realized this was nearly a classic locked-room mystery.

Reasoning and solving problems—this was a game that anyone who loved logic could get lost in.

People with tight logic usually have a natural talent for mathematics. To be blunt, I was good at math and I particularly enjoyed puzzles and detective stories.

This was the perfect opportunity for me to put my skills to the test.

I began searching the stalls, mentally marking their positions, studying the traces on the cement floor and walls, just like Sherlock Holmes and Dupin in *The Murders in the Rue Morgue*. Then, in the second-to-last stall, I found something written in cigarette ash in a discreet corner:

“Don’t put your hand in the dog’s mouth.”

The handwriting was messy, it had been there for some time, mostly covered by moss, and if you weren’t looking carefully, you wouldn’t have noticed.

I squatted down in a typical restroom posture and lit a cigarette.

The missing person was wearing sneakers with rubber studs, and there was grass stuck to the soles, likely someone who had just finished playing soccer.

They screamed before disappearing.

Judging by the sound, it didn’t seem to be something disgusting or creepy—it was a true, unexpected shock.

As I thought about it, my mind paused for a moment.

I suddenly realized: People scream not only when they are shocked but also when they are caught off guard.

I replayed that scream in my mind. Yes, it was a scream of surprise.

I looked down as I inhaled from the cigarette. Right where I was crouching, the footprints had disappeared, but faint traces of dirt were left behind.

He fell.

Following this line of thought, I stood up, holding the cigarette, and tried to recreate his movements—how he entered, the direction he fell, and his posture as he fell.

His feet slid forward, and his body tipped backward. A person who falls like that might try to grab something in front of them or brace themselves with their hands.

Where was his gaze? Down, forward, or up?

I flicked the ash off my cigarette and looked up. Above me, in the shadows filled with spider webs and dust, I saw a strange pattern.

Ah, that’s what I’d been overlooking.

I squinted, trying to make out the pattern.

Part of the pattern looked like eyes—there were three pairs from top to bottom.

An image flashed in my mind.

That person had hurried in, slipped, tried to grab something to steady themselves, but fell flat on their back. The fallen position allowed them to see the three pairs of eerie eyes.

Then, they screamed?

No, something was missing. There was one crucial detail.

His hands.

Which way were his hands facing when he fell?

The three pairs of eyes?

My arm instinctively rose and pointed at the pattern of eyes above.

Then, a phrase flashed in my mind:

“Don’t put your hand in the dog’s mouth.”

Suddenly, the eerie pattern above me lit up with red light, glowing like blood. The full pattern broke free from the spider webs, dust, moss, and shadows, and clearly reflected in my vision.

It was a wolf, or a dog, but real wolves and dogs didn’t have three pairs of eyes.

The monstrous dog was biting a cross, and the three pairs of eyes glared at me, full of bloodlust.

It seemed to have human traits—its split lips and exposed fangs seemed to be mocking me.

It felt as though it would leap at me in the next moment!

“Don’t put your hand in the dog’s mouth.” The phrase echoed in my head, and a dark wave surged, drowning my vision and consciousness.

Before the darkness faded, my mind wasn’t entirely clear.

It was like a long dream, though in reality, not much time had passed.

When I woke up, my mind snapped back to full clarity.

It felt like a straight line that had been erased in the middle, leaving behind a black smudge.

I woke up to find myself still in the restroom.

I was lying on the tiled floor, and the tiles were polished to a gleaming shine.

There was no ammonia stench, no disgusting urine stains, or moss.

It was pristine, bright.

The ceiling light shone brightly.

This wasn’t the school’s restroom.

Where was this? I didn’t know.

I still remembered what happened before I blacked out: the missing student, the cryptic message, the eerie red light, and the six-eyed monstrous dog.

“Don’t put your hand in the dog’s mouth.”

I reached out toward the six-eyed beast, but it wasn’t so much that I was reaching into its mouth—it was as though it had bitten me.

It really bit me. My soul ached faintly.

Was the missing student here too?

Standing in this unfamiliar place, I felt no fear, which surprised me. 

My rational mind was working, while my emotions hid away in a corner.

Logic was rational.

The blank space created by my unconsciousness created gaps in my logic.

I wanted to know where I was.

So, I walked out.

Beyond the restroom was a corridor, with rooms on one side and large glass windows on the other. Outside the windows, the sunlight was bright, the green grass carpeted the ground, small trees dotted the area, and a small pond bubbled from a stone mermaid sculpture. Under the trees were benches, and scattered around were monkey bars, sandpits, swings, and seesaws—community playground equipment.

Warm, peaceful, serene—this place should have been described by such words.

But everywhere, there were human corpses.

The ground had been dug up, dried blood was scattered around, and severed limbs, arms, and entrails littered the area.

It was like a battlefield that had been swept clean, leaving behind shocking scars.

The sights and smells overwhelmed the senses and made me gag.

In the distance, half-destroyed buildings revealed their steel structures, faint black smoke wafted into the air, and strange shadows jumped on the rooftops, like spirits wandering in a concrete forest.

Strangely, I felt no fear.

My rational mind was working, while my emotions hid away in a corner.

Logic was rational, it whispered in my ear.

This was a slaughterhouse at the end of the world.

The screams of the dead were clear.

The brick wall surrounding the land was high, about two meters. Broken glass embedded in the concrete glistened under the sunlight. The entrance was a five-meter-wide, ornate iron gate, tightly shut. A four-wheel-drive vehicle was parked outside on the road, its black trunk visible.

A group of ragged, shriveled, and ugly figures wandered outside the gate.

No matter how you looked at it, people who had half their heads blown off, their chests torn open, with their entrails dragging on the ground, couldn’t possibly be alive.

They, no, *it*, was a group of walking corpses—revived undead.

Zombies.

A fitting description.

What a ridiculous scene, like a dream.

I lit a cigarette.

Beyond this, there was no sign of life—neither in the garden nor the road outside the gate.

This was a place abandoned and desolate.

Only strange silence remained.

It was enough to make your heart race.

Were there others here? I didn’t know.

The zombies were wandering outside the gate. Had they been lying in wait here? Perhaps.

I walked down the corridor. This was the third floor. All the rooms had numbers beginning with three, and they were all closed. I didn’t open any of them.

In the middle of the corridor, there was a staircase with a winding ramp beside it. I had seen such structures in public places; the ramp was likely for wheelchairs.

This place resembled an orphanage or nursing home.

At the stairwell, there was a standard fire safety cabinet. I took off my jacket, wrapped it around my arm, and smashed the glass, retrieving the fire axe.

From above, the sound of barking dogs reached my ears.