He realized something, looked up at the ceiling, and indeed, the originally flickering red lights gradually returned to normal, turning back to the ordinary incandescent lights from before.

And his vision once again started to shake. He knew that this round of Phantom Vision had ended.

The moment a thought crossed his mind, everything around him began to undulate, and the scenery beside him disappeared as quickly as a blanket being yanked away. When his vision cleared, a flash of white light passed through his mind, and then the only thing left in front of him was the door to the Convenience Store.

The door to the Convenience Store in his current layer.

He glanced down at the time on his watch.

17:01.

He looked at Li Huiyuan.

Li Huiyuan was right next to him watching him, and when she saw him look her way, she asked, "Is there a problem over there, Classmate Lin? You seemed to be spaced out for a minute—did something come to mind?"

Lin Yi didn't speak, but his eyes couldn't hide his shock.

This time, the Phantom Vision had lasted at least three to five minutes from Mao Feiyang's perspective, but in this layer, only a little over a minute had passed.

"Nothing... it's just that I feel the Convenience Store isn't safe enough either," Lin Yi said with a stern expression.

"Yeah… we might encounter that fake Convenience Store owner," Li Huiyuan nodded.

"No, it's not just that," Lin Yi said, looking towards the Convenience Store door.

In Mao Feiyang's view, the domain formed by the orange-yellow light outside the Convenience Store had been eroded by the darkness to almost nothing, and then the ghastly white mist had directly assaulted the door of the Convenience Store.

Now, from his perspective, a domain held back by the light still expanded in front of the Convenience Store, but just as it had been on May 6 when they entered the school area, the domain pushed back by the light was gradually being compressed by the abnormal weather, and it was difficult to say how much of the domain would really remain in the end.

And it was the same now at the door of the Convenience Store.

"I feel... the moment when the dense mist will eventually surge into the Convenience Store is coming. That's why the Convenience Store Notice advises us to shop quickly and then run," Lin Yi said solemnly, "The dense mist is a crisis from the Cafeteria, but it's also a crisis for the Convenience Store."

Upon hearing this, Li Huiyuan trembled, following Lin Yi's gaze to look outside the Convenience Store door. With this look, she seemed to see from outside the glow, faces with expressions of madness and greed, including one that looked like a human-shaped spider hanging upside down from the ceiling, the green Pocket Chef.

Li Huiyuan shivered, feeling a bit chilly. Lin Yi was right, these sinister entities riding the mist were indeed closing in on the Convenience Store.

She then pursed her lips and followed Lin Yi towards the shelves marked with other goods.

...

May 8, 2023, 17:05, in the Other Goods area of the Convenience Store.

Lin Yi and Li Huiyuan navigated through row after row of shelves, their gazes sweeping over each shelf like radar.

Their pace grew faster, creating a sort of fleeting glance feeling, but their expressions grew gradually worse; passing each row of shelves felt like stuffing a handful of flies into their mouths.

It wasn't because the goods in the Other Goods area were too intellectually challenging, but because... they hadn't found the Student Souvenir Coin there!

"Nothing... nothing on this side either."

"Nor here either."

The two stopped in front of the last row of shelves.

This was nominally the "last row," but in reality, there were countless shelves ahead, and walking further meant entering the area shrouded in darkness. In such a shadowy area, rows of shelves stretched into the gloomy region, then completely vanished into the dark.

The two stood on the border between light and dark.

Lin Yi stayed silent, while beside him, Li Huiyuan's lips were pursed, and her beautiful face was as pale as ash.

On the back shelves behind them, there were several cages, each storing seldom-used tools, paintbrushes, and the like.

Each cage had a label, but those marked "Student Souvenir Coin" were empty.

All the Student Souvenir Coins they had passed by on every shelf had been taken, as if specifically targeted.

But the truth couldn't be so simple; Lin Yi had a premonition that something had happened in the convenience store.

"Mu Daxian asked Maozi to collect Student Souvenir Coins... it means they are also looking for them! Could it be in the convenience store of another layer?"

The ominous feeling inside Lin Yi grew stronger.

With the help of the dim light, he could vaguely see what appeared to be coin-like objects on the shelves ahead, small but familiar.

"Student Souvenir Coin?"

Were there actually Student Souvenir Coins on the shelves in the darkness?

"Classmate Lin... that seems to be?" joy flickered in Li Huiyuan's eyes.

"It seems to be Student Souvenir Coins," Lin Yi said seriously. The Student Souvenir Coins on the shelves ahead were identical to those he had seen in his dreams, branded on the side facing them with the World Tree motif, while the unseen side was likely blank.

Li Huiyuan was about to walk towards the shelves, but just as she stepped beyond Lin Yi's position, half her foot entering the shadowed area, a sudden chill surged in Lin Yi's heart, making it skip a beat!

"Be careful!"

Lin Yi quickly grabbed Li Huiyuan's shoulder and pulled her back.

A strong look of confusion filled Li Huiyuan's eyes, but before she could speak, her brows furrowed, and she let out a painful cry.

"Ah!"

She immediately crouched down, removed her black square-toed leather shoes that matched her uniform, peeled off her lace-edged socks, and then looked at her foot.

On her pale little foot appeared a thin blood mark, as thin as a strand of hair, crossing over the back of her foot, encircling the arch as though it had been sliced by an invisible blade from top to bottom, creating a cross-section.

The area extending toward her toes from the blood mark started showing a grey-white color, distinctly different from the normal skin tone, while the area extending towards the back of her ankle and calf remained the normal pale skin.

"This, this... hurts, hurts so much..." Li Huiyuan looked at her foot, hissing in pain.

Lin Yi's expression changed slightly, he quickly crouched down to support her foot, then observed in shock: "Your foot, the part that crossed that boundary line... its color changed."

"It's not just the color!" Li Huiyuan said through gritted teeth in pain, "It feels like my foot was cut with a knife, my toes are sore and painful, like... wait, now it's not so painful anymore... No, something's wrong!"

Li Huiyuan touched her toes, then pressed and pinched them, finally her pretty face turned pale: "My toes... my toes seem to be losing sensation?!"

"What?!" Lin Yi exclaimed, he immediately felt her toes, but found that although the flesh at the toes still existed, it had become ice-cold and lacked the sensation of flesh, feeling more like touching some smooth rubber.

Li Huiyuan looked at Lin Yi, trailing off after a moment of shock: "If you hadn't grabbed me just now..."

She didn't finish her sentence, but if he hadn't grabbed her, it wasn't just that part now — she might have undergone that bizarre and terrifying change entirely!

"Is it a trap? Or something else?" Lin Yi thought of the street lamps mentioned in the school rules that didn't light up; could it be the same with the shelves ahead?

But why doesn't the convenience store notice mention it at all, as if intentionally set to trap people?

"Damn it..." Lin Yi cursed inwardly, but he couldn't show too much negativity, to keep Li Huiyuan, already scared, from becoming even more unstable.

"Do you still have any feeling in your foot?" he asked.

"A little... I can vaguely feel that these are my toes," Li Huiyuan's lips curled into a bitter smile.

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