Chapter 17: The Fifth Survivor
These two people, one was a messy, bearded uncle, the other was a young man in a fancy suit.
They held flashlights and, even after seeing the four survivors up close, they remained vigilant.
When they saw that the newcomers were not the expected police officers, Cheng Jie and the others cautiously hid behind Chu Jiang.
The uncle looked all around the group and then revealed a warm smile. "You've all worked hard. I know you're very scared and afraid right now. But we need to evacuate from here first. We can talk when we reach a safe place."
"Who are you?" Chu Jiang asked first.
"You can think of us as people from the police, handling special events." The uncle briefly flashed his identification, but quickly put it away.
"Are you the only survivors?" the uncle asked again.
Chu Jiang nodded.
Unexpectedly, at this moment, faint laughter could be heard from the darkness deep within the school, mixed with voices. This made everyone tense up.
Could it be that the ghost hadn't left yet?
"Haha, hahaha~"
"Dead, dead, everyone's dead......"
This sounded like the ramblings of a lunatic or a person with a mental illness.
However, as Chu Jiang and the others listened, their eyes widened. Cheng Jie even said, "It sounds like Zhang Haoran's voice."
"No way? He's still alive?" Liu Mingming had just finished speaking when he realized that his words were a bit unlucky, as if he was hoping for someone's death. So he obediently closed his mouth.
Gao Yifei was worried, "Could it be a trap?"
Otherwise, why couldn't they hear the sound at the beginning, but only heard it when the rescue team arrived?
While everyone hesitated and pondered, the sound grew closer, as if the person making the sound was wandering aimlessly in the vast empty campus.
Like this, it was normal for Chu Jiang and the others not to hear it initially. It was possible that at that time, Zhang Haoran was still on the other side of the campus.
Next, instead of getting closer to here, the sound actually moved farther away. It was unclear where it had drifted off to.
Seeing this, the old man glanced at his companion and the young man understood. He quickly left on his own.
In no time, the young man forcefully dragged Zhang Haoran over to this side.
At that moment, Zhang Haoran seemed truly insane.
His clean face was splattered with blood, the left lens of his glasses was shattered with only the frame remaining, and his white school uniform was dyed crimson, making him look like a ghost from a horror story.
The blood was dripping from his body. Zhang Haoran looked numb and empty, with no light in his eyes. He only had an occasional twitch or a grimace on his lips, forming an unpleasant smile. He had lost his knife somewhere.
He kept muttering to himself, "Dead, they're all dead..."
Seeing this scene, the few survivors felt very sad. They probably guessed that something bad had happened.
Before, both Teacher Yu and the vice class monitor had probably asked Zhang Haoran to lead everyone out of the school.
But one after another, the people around him died. The vice class monitor and Teacher Yu died too.
In the end, there were nearly thirty people with Zhang Haoran, and none of them survived except for him. Only a few people could bear this kind of pain.
As for how Zhang Haoran survived and why Slender Man didn't take him away, everyone couldn't quite figure it out, but they knew he must have some secret.
"How is he?" the uncle asked first.
"He's an ordinary person, without any supernatural powers, and there's no evidence of him being possessed or his body being invaded by ghosts," the young man replied seriously.
"And looking at him like this, he must have experienced intense emotional stress in a short period of time, temporarily causing a state of mental illness."
After the young man finished speaking, the old man cautiously approached and checked Zhang Haoran's body, finally coming to the same conclusion.
"Nevermind, let's withdraw from here first," the old man felt very insecure staying in this place.
And so, a group of five students, led by two mysterious people, left the school.
When they went out through the school gate, Chu Jiang was surprised to see that both the gate and the surrounding wall were not intact. They had been neatly cut in half, with the side closest to the school completely missing.
It was said that at least several thousand people died in the school, and even the school itself disappeared. Could such a major event really be kept under wraps?
Of course, no matter what, Chu Jiang shouldn't worry about this kind of thing.
Besides Gao Yifei, who was seriously injured and taken to the hospital by a specialist, the others needed to go to the police station first to make a statement.
Zhang Haoran was supposed to be taken to the hospital, but before he got on the car, Chu Jiang requested to speak a few words with him.
The police officer in charge on the scene looked at the old man and nodded.
So, under the watchful eyes of the crowd, Chu Jiang walked up to Zhang Haoran who was muttering to himself and had lost focus in his eyes.
As mentioned earlier, Chu Jiang and Zhang Haoran had a good relationship.
Before, Chu Jiang didn't go to save Zhang Haoran not because he didn't want to, but because he was truly helpless. It was already difficult enough to save Cheng Jie and the others.
Therefore, Chu Jiang was glad that Zhang Haoran could survive.
However, at this moment, Zhang Haoran's condition was very bad. If he couldn't quickly come out of today's nightmare, it was likely that his mental illness would accompany him for the rest of his life.
Standing in front of Zhang Haoran, Chu Jiang didn't speak at first because he knew that this guy in front of him had a secret. Perhaps he was only pretending to be mentally ill to hide his secret.
Just like how Chu Jiang also didn't want anyone to know the secret of his right hand and diary.
But after observing for a while, Chu Jiang could determine that Zhang Haoran was really having problems.
How do you say they have been getting along for several years, and some details and actions can still be determined. At this moment, Zhang Haoran is trembling all over, and I am standing right in front of him, but he completely ignores me.
As he watched, Chu Jiang suddenly reached out his hands and held onto his shoulders.
"Wake up! It's me, Chu Jiang."
Zhang Haoran had a blank expression and didn't react.
So Chu Jiang had a few other classmates come closer, "Look, there's Cheng Jie, Liu Mingming."
"Including the recently sent away Gao Yifei, the four of us didn't die, Class 2 of Grade 12 is not completely gone."
Zhang Haoran seemed like a puppet until Chu Jiang shook him several times and repeated it multiple times, his eyes regained some focus.
He glanced at Chu Jiang with a slightly confused look, then looked at the others. Zhang Haoran started to laugh, but it was an ugly laugh, "Dead, everyone is dead, it doesn't matter, you will also die."
"Don't worry, I will come to accompany you soon."
"They were torturing me, deliberately not killing me, so that I could witness how all of you would die. I won't let them succeed, I'm going to die now..."
