Raising a Wife in a Supernatural World [Infinite] – CH10

Chapter 10: Spook High (10)

“It’s not like that,” Yake chimed in with reassurance. “Even though we’re bound to the livestream, we can return to the real world every time we clear a game instance.”

He explained the rules of the horror livestream to Zhao Jiayue in detail. Newcomers were forcibly dragged into an instance every seven days, but the system shop sold duration extension passes. Later on, once they had survived more games and accumulated a hoard of points, they could redeem them for extra downtime in reality.

“Still, I’d suggest putting your points toward things that matter more. Points can boost your base physical attributes, purchase tools and skills, and even buy unique perks that carry over into reality. It’s fair to say that if you can dream it, the system shop sells it,” he added as a tip, offering the frightened rookie a sliver of hope to cling to.

Sure enough, upon hearing this, Zhao Jiayue’s expression visibly softened. At the very least, she was no longer on the verge of tears, drowning in utter despair.

As they conversed, the group arrived at the cafeteria.

Compared to the teaching buildings and student dorms, the cafeteria was situated in the most remote corner of the campus. Just walking over took nearly five minutes, to say nothing of lining up for food.

Stepping inside, the scene proved drastically different from what they had envisioned. The cafeteria was as eerily quiet as an automated assembly line, with only the grating, tooth-aching sound of rhythmic chewing breaking the silence. In such a massive space, not a single soul was speaking.

Qin Fu’an swept his gaze across the room, noting that the student NPCs were all hunched over, devouring the meal before them. A single look gave the impression of a copy-paste template: identical uniforms, identical postures, and identical slop filling every tray.

Even the long queues winding toward the counters resembled lines of dazed, wandering specters. Every student kept their head lowered. From joining the line to receiving their food and taking their seats, the entire process played out without a whisper of noise.

“…Why does this place feel even creepier than the classroom?” Bai Song muttered under his breath.

“It’s probably because of the patrolling teachers,” Nan Zhu murmured, gesturing for them to look toward either side.

Aside from students, the cafeteria was staffed by meal-serving workers and patrolling aberrant faculty members.

Among them was a familiar face: their homeroom teacher from Grade 12, Class 4, the entity whose entire body sprouted horrific, roving eyeballs.

Caught off guard, Zhao Jiayue collided gazes with one of the eyes swiveling in her direction. A violent shudder ripped through her; clapping a hand over her mouth, she fought desperately to stifle a scream, her emotions tipping toward another edge of panic.

At that moment, the consistently quiet Chen Qi caught Zhao Jiayue’s trembling wrist and pulled the girl behind her back, severing the eye contact with the teacher.

Seeing this, the dense cluster of eyes coating the teacher blinked in synchronized discord, the threads of malice seeping from the pupils sending a chill down everyone’s spine.

“Don’t meet its eyes,” Yake warned in a low undertone. “The longer you hold its gaze, the deeper the brand it leaves inside your body.”

Otherwise, it was impossible to explain how the players from earlier had suddenly sprouted eyes from their own flesh before being devoured alive from the inside out.

Heeding the warning, the players lowered their heads in unison. Mimicking the student NPCs, they grabbed metal trays and fell into the queue to receive their midday rations.

Qin Fu’an thought: I suppose I know why all these students keep their heads down and shut their mouths.

It seemed that even NPCs at the very bottom of the food chain had evolved a practical set of rules to keep themselves alive.

Besides the eye-riddled teacher, the other patrolling monitor was a woman. She walked in slender high heels, dressed with impeccable neatness, appearing on the surface no different from an ordinary woman in the real world.

Yet Qin Fu’an keenly caught that whenever the two patrols crossed paths and their glances brushed, the homeroom teacher was invariably the first to avert its eyes.

Across its entire body, not a single one of its countless eyes dared to linger on that female teacher.

Qin Fu’an immediately bumped the female teacher’s threat assessment to the exact same tier as the Dean’s.

Before long, the winding queue reached the players.

Standing at the front of the group, Qin Fu’an lifted his head and found himself looking straight into the eyes of the entity gripping a massive ladle behind the counter.

It would have been a normal pair of eyes—if only they hadn’t been set inside the head of a pig.

Perhaps because Qin Fu’an had lingered a second too long, impatience flared within the pig-headed creature’s eyes. It slammed the heavy metal ladle against the stainless-steel serving trough, unleashing a deafening clang that echoed through the entire cafeteria.

“You eating or not?! If you’re not eating, don’t waste my time!”

At close range, Qin Fu’an could hear animalistic grunting woven into its raspy voice. The two fan-like ears atop its skull flapped with agitation, lending it a thoroughly menacing air.

Before the two patrolling teachers could pace over, Qin Fu’an pushed his tray forward.

The next second, a mound of mush emitting an unidentifiable stench dropped onto the metal plate.

Qin Fu’an looked at the mash, unable to decipher a single raw ingredient, and finally understood why his little deskmate would rather starve in the classroom than set foot in this cafeteria.

Amid the pig-headed creature’s snorting breaths, Qin Fu’an raised his eyes to give it a deep, measured look, then turned away in silence.

With him setting the precedent, the players trailing behind obediently offered up their trays one by one, each receiving a portion of the grotesque, nauseating slop.

“…Can this crap even be digested?” Yake couldn’t hold back a grimace.

Even the composed Chen Qi squeezed her eyes shut in revulsion. “Truth be told, the pigs back at my grandparents’ farm eat better than this.”

Modern agriculture practiced scientific livestock breeding; ensuring piglets ate well, drank clean water, and lived in proper pens was no empty phrase. A proper pigsty might well be cleaner than some human bedrooms.

Which brought them to the crux of the problem: this pile of slop… how on earth were they supposed to choke it down without vomiting it straight back up?

Nan Zhu: “…”

While the players stood paralyzed with disgust, Qin Fu’an picked up his tray and strolled straight toward the patrolling homeroom teacher.

Evidently unprepared for a student to approach it willingly, the teacher turned its clustered eyes toward Qin Fu’an in unison as he drew near.

“Teacher, did you come straight to patrol right after class?” Qin Fu’an pulled out a bench and sat down beside the creature, asking the question with effortless familiarity.

The homeroom teacher nodded with a slight lag.

“That really must be exhausting,” Qin Fu’an remarked with genuine, heartfelt sympathy. “Managing a graduating senior class is draining enough on its own. To have no personal downtime after teaching, and to be forced to stand guard in the cafeteria until every last student finishes their meal just to get a brief rest… Is there really no one to take turns with you on shift?”

From the moment Qin Fu’an began speaking, the teacher’s emotional strings had been plucked. Hearing such understanding concern, a wave of bitter exhaustion genuinely crept into its cold heart.

Seeing it shake its head, Qin Fu’an inquired with eager curiosity: “Then, Teacher, working so hard as both a homeroom head and a daily cafeteria monitor… does the administration provide double pay and standard benefit stipends?”

Without waiting for a response, Qin Fu’an answered himself with plausible musings: “There has to be, right? Leaving aside holiday bonuses, insurance, and retirement funds, a homeroom teacher’s base pay is already supposed to be higher than a regular subject teacher’s. Adding in this long midday patrol duty, it would be outrageous if they didn’t pay you two full salaries.”

Rambling on with earnest deductions, Qin Fu’an seemed entirely oblivious to the violent fury silently pooling in the teacher’s multitude of eyes.

By the time he finally took notice, the look of bewilderment on his face was entirely authentic. “Teacher? Why has your expression soured so badly? Could it be… the school didn’t give you a second salary at all?!”

The youth’s crisp, resonant voice bounced around the hushed cafeteria. To the homeroom teacher’s ears, every single syllable landed like a serrated needle driven deep into its brittle heart.

Because after toiling so bitterly, exhausting itself and sacrificing so much for the campus—let alone a second salary—it hadn’t received a single copper! From start to finish, it had been providing free slave labor for the administration!!!

“…Did I say something out of turn?” Seemingly alarmed by the teacher’s twisting, venomous countenance, Qin Fu’an turned toward the other patrol for help, though a flicker of theatrical mischief danced in the depths of his translucent green eyes.

The sharp, rhythmic clack of high heels against tile approached at high speed. Before Qin Fu’an’s eyes, the female teacher—who had been several meters away an instant prior—materialized before his table in the span of a single blink.

Such supernatural speed was so abrupt that it left no room for reaction or defense.

“Which class are you from?” The female teacher looked down, her piercing glare bearing down on Qin Fu’an as he sat at the bench.

Qin Fu’an’s pale green pupils narrowed for a fraction of a second before returning to an easy calm. Ignoring the homeroom teacher whose breathing had turned ragged and heavy beside him, he rose to meet her gaze on level ground, replying unhurriedly: “Teacher, I am a student from Teacher Liu’s class, and the substitute teacher personally approved by the Dean to take over Teacher Zhang’s curriculum for the coming days. My name is Qin Fu’an.”

“It’s you?” She seemed to have caught wind of his name, sweeping him with a critical, appraising glance.

Their dialogue ended there. Driven into a frenzied rage by Qin Fu’an’s insidious agitation, the homeroom teacher’s eyes began blinking at an erratic, hysterical tempo. Several docile students sitting nearby began to sprout fresh, aggressive crimson eyeballs across their own skin.

With the students erupting into shrill screams of agony, the female teacher had no choice but to lunge forward and pin the homeroom teacher down. Tossing a hurried command to Qin Fu’an to keep the students in line, she dragged the increasingly feral creature away, vanishing swiftly from the cafeteria.

“Judging by that direction, they’re probably heading for the Principal’s office,” Bai Song murmured, having already committed most of the campus layout to memory.

The players stared in profound awe at Qin Fu’an, who was currently dumping his tray of slop into the waste bin. It was almost impossible to fathom how he had pushed an aberrant homeroom teacher into a berserk frenzy with nothing more than a handful of casual remarks.

Could a person truly be this articulate, landing every single phrase right where it hurt most?

They couldn’t shake the feeling that if anyone else had tried reciting those exact same lines, the outcome would have ended in immediate butchery.

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