allonlinenovel Chapter 48
Chapter 48
Chapter 48: The Pen Holder and the Discipline Master
【High-Energy Warning! Brace for Jump Scares!】
Thud-thud-thud...
Kamiya Konan's head rolled across the floor several times before finally coming to rest at the Half-Head Ghost's feet.
His wide-open eyes held no disbelief—only...
...a look that said of course.
Thump.
The headless corpse collapsed to the ground, spraying blood.
The Half-Head Ghost, as if it hadn't noticed a thing, wore that same expression of eager anticipation on its face.
It ignored the corpse and blood pool at its feet and sat down in Kamiya Konan's chair with a look of utter contentment.
‘Finally got to borrow it~’
The Half-Head Ghost patted the desk and politely straightened a nonexistent tie.
"Hey!!"
Just then, Wang Meng, seated in the 2nd-to-last row, couldn't hold back anymore.
He slammed his hand on the desk and shot to his feet, pointing at Lu Shiyan on the podium, eyes blazing.
"Old man! What do you think you're doing?!"
"Couldn't you have let him finish?! What if there really was a 4th ghost?!"
Lu Shiyan stood on the podium and unhurriedly put away his Scalpel, then pulled out another cigarette and lit it.
"Ha, little fatty."
He exhaled a smoke ring, his gaze contemptuous.
"You don't actually believe that guy had some special ability, do you?"
"I've spent far more time with him than any of you. I know exactly what kind of person he was."
Lu Shiyan flicked off some ash, his tone certain.
"Nothing but a cowardly liar who'd run his mouth off about anything to stay alive."
"People like that in the apocalypse—their deaths are no great loss."
"Don't you think so... Jiang..."
Just as he wore a faintly provocative smile and shifted his gaze toward the man in the back row who had been sleeping the whole time—
His pupils instantly dilated to their absolute limit!
Because the figure that should have been leaning back in his chair was gone!
Whoosh!
A gust of wind hit him square in the face.
Lu Shiyan felt his vision blur for just an instant.
A cold, strikingly handsome face instantly filled his entire field of view.
No, wait...
More accurately.
It was a fist the size of a sandbag, hurtling straight for his face!
‘Damn! I should have seen this coming...’
Lu Shiyan's train of thought didn't even have time to finish.
Bang!!
A thunderous impact rang out through the classroom!
Jiang Nan's fist landed dead on target!
"Ugh!"
Lu Shiyan felt his nasal bone shatter in an instant.
The pain hadn't even reached his brain before that overwhelming D+-Grade brute force launched him clean off his feet!
His back slammed hard into the chalkboard wall behind him.
“Cough-gasp!”
Because of his tough constitution, Lu Shiyan didn't black out on the spot. Instead, the rebound sent him lurching forward, crashing down.
Blood, saliva, and the still-half-smoked Huazi all went flying through the air.
But in the instant before he hit the ground, he didn't lose consciousness.
Instead, through sheer force of will, he fixed his sharp gaze on the man charging at him again!
‘You're not done yet...’
Lu Shiyan's eyes turned vicious.
Jiang Nan was already on him, throwing another punch!
"Stop right there!!"
Lu Shiyan forced himself to push through the dizziness. His left hand shot out to grab Jiang Nan's wrist for a takedown hold, while he loaded his right fist, ready to counter!
However—
In the very instant his hand was about to make contact with Jiang Nan's wrist—
That straight punch, which had been driving forward with raw, unstoppable force, made an impossibly fluid shift!
A Feint!
The fist that had been driving forward smoothly converted into an open palm, which hooked back around and locked onto Lu Shiyan's blocking forearm!
At the same time, his body surged forward explosively, shoulder driving straight into Lu Shiyan's chest!
Solar Plexus Elbow Strike!
‘This is bad...’
Lu Shiyan felt as though his chest had been rammed by a speeding truck, his breath instantly cut off.
‘That's... Eight Extremes Fist?!’
‘This guy... his close-combat technique is even stronger than I imagined!!’
That was Lu Shiyan's final thought before his consciousness faded.
The next second—
The world spun.
Jiang Nan hooked his arm from behind, his waist and stance moving as one, and executed a Shoulder Throw!
Crash!!
Lu Shiyan's back slammed hard into the floor, sending up a cloud of dust.
His eyes rolled back, and he was completely out cold.
Jiang Nan straightened up, adjusted his collar, and rolled his wrist with an utterly calm expression.
He despised anyone who disturbed him while reading—even if it was just a notepad.
And listening to a story was no different.
Though he wasn't sure whether what Kamiya Konan had been about to say was true or false—
That was still no reason for Lu Shiyan to forcibly silence someone and cut off information.
And besides...
This old fox had been trying to manipulate his people all along.
'Most importantly...'
Jiang Nan looked down at the unconscious figure on the floor, his gaze cold.
'You dare act that smug in front of me?'
'Don't you know...'
'In cartoons, there's only ever one character who gets to be smug?'
Rip!
Jiang Nan casually tore off a slip of notepad paper and tossed it onto Lu Shiyan's face.
【Next time, you die.】
For someone who hadn't taken the initiative to attack him first, this was already his greatest mercy.
People say: fool me once, fool me twice, but never a 3rd time.
But for Jiang Nan, there was no 3rd time.
Because anyone who dared to cross him a 2nd time was already dead in that very moment.
"......"
Inside the classroom, everyone was dumbstruck.
Especially the Sakura Nation students, each of them with their mouths hanging open wide enough to stuff an egg inside.
They hadn't expected Jiang Nan to be so decisive—so ruthless!
In their eyes, Lu Shiyan had, at the end of the day, only killed what might have been a "lying fraud."
Yet just because Jiang Nan didn't get to hear the end of the story, Lu Shiyan ended up in this sorry state?
Wasn't that a little too brutal (awesome)?!
"The Boss is incredible!!"
Wang Meng was the first to snap back to his senses, waving his fist with excitement.
"Great job, Boss!!"
Liu Yuqing even raised her hand and cheered outright "I've been sick of that stinky old man forever! Always putting on that brooding act! He had it coming!"
Meanwhile, as Lu Shiyan's ostensible teammate, Yekaterina didn't move from her seat—didn't even shift an inch.
She simply watched the scene unfold in silence, her expression not the least bit worried, but rather filled with quiet amusement.
It seemed...
Their bond wasn't as solid as one might have imagined.
Jiang Nan ignored the group's theatrics.
He walked straight to the front of the classroom and came to stand before Chen Tong, who was still rooted in place, visibly shaken.
Rip.
Another slip of paper.
【Teach the class as you normally would.】
【I'm here.】
Chen Tong took the slip and read the characters pressed forcefully into the page, and the heart that had been pounding furiously instantly settled.
Sometimes, that was just how it was.
With a single word from that man, even standing in the depths of hell would feel like strolling through a castle garden.
She raised her head and looked at the retreating figure with a smile.
"I will."
10 seconds later—
Jiang Nan had just settled back into his throne.
Ring-ring-ring-ring!!!
That class bell—the one etched into everyone's bones, burned into their very DNA—rang out in a thunderous peal!
Buzz!
Everyone in the room, even the survivors who had been fighting tooth and nail through the apocalypse for days—
Every single one of them instinctively tensed up at that sound!
Even Jiang Nan was no exception.
The hand resting on his desk gave a visible tremor.
Others had merely suffered through years of school.
But as someone who had transmigrated, counting both his past and present lives together, he'd endured at least 20 years of this torment!
This had already carved itself into his muscle memory!
......
Class began. English.
Instructor: Chen Tong.
On the podium—
Chen Tong snapped into the zone instantly.
As a lecturer at Binhai University—a top-tier 985 institution—the 28-year-old had long since achieved a native-level command of English!
Her teaching experience and classroom management ability were both top-class.
"Ok, class, begin!"
Chen Tong picked up a piece of chalk and turned to write several words on the chalkboard.
Whether out of reverence for the rules, or simply because Chen Tong was genuinely that good a teacher—
The next half-hour saw the classroom maintain a surprisingly excellent level of discipline.
Even the ghosts seated among the students were listening intently.
The Empty-Eyes female ghost was even using her umbilical cord to doodle on her desk.
Aside from Jiang Nan continuing to sleep in the back row, everyone else was absorbed in this eerie yet strangely harmonious atmosphere of learning.
However—
It didn't last.
When the hands of the clock hanging above the chalkboard quietly crept to 2:44—
Buzz!
On the lectern—right in front of Chen Tong—a black Pen Holder suddenly materialized out of thin air, radiating a cold, ominous aura.
Inside it were 3 sticks that appeared to have been ground from human bone.
On each was carved a name:
【Sakura Nana】
【Sakuragi Yukishita】
【Nagano Ryo】
Then, a line of blood-red text surfaced on the desktop:
【Question Segment: Please, Teacher, close your eyes and shake the Pen Holder to draw a stick within 5 minutes.】
【The drawn student must answer a question. Those who answer incorrectly, or are not drawn... will receive punishment.】
The moment she saw the Pen Holder, the color drained from Chen Tong's face.
Yet among the students below the podium—among the few surviving Sakura Nation students—
two of them, upon seeing the Pen Holder, let out a long breath of relief, their expressions visibly easing.
"Hmm?"
Yu Shishi, seated in the 1st row near the door, hadn't been listening to the lecture at all and was about to zone out entirely—but she caught that reaction.
Puzzled, she lowered her voice and quietly turned to ask the girl sitting behind her, who had just let out that sigh of relief.
"Hey... classmate..."
"Have you guys been in class here before? What does this Pen Holder mean?"
The girl behind her wore thick-rimmed glasses—clearly the studious type who lived and breathed textbooks.
Her name was Momohana Rika.
Seeing that it was someone from Jiang Nan's group asking, Momohana Rika didn't dare hold anything back, and whispered in reply:
"Actually... this isn't our 1st time attending class."
"We've been pulled in twice before."
"But it was always at 4:44 AM, and each time only a random few people were brought in—nothing like today's full forced attendance."
"This Pen Holder... is a lucky draw."
Momohana Rika explained.
"Every class, at the 44th minute, a Special Event gets triggered."
"If it's one of the other events, the teacher and students alike are likely to die in droves."
"But this Pen Holder... is already one of the luckiest items among all of them!"
"We all hope nobody dies, because everyone who dies here ends up becoming this school's..."
However—
Before Momohana Rika could finish her sentence—
Her expression suddenly twisted into one of sheer terror. Her mouth fell open, but not a single sound came out.
Because in her pupils, a face was reflected—a face outside the window.
"What... what's wrong?"
Yu Shishi was confused. Why had she gone silent?
Just then—
A putrid, foul stench seeped in through the gaps in the window.
Yu Shishi reflexively turned to look.
Hiss!
There, right outside the 2nd-floor window, at some unknown point in time, a massive face had pressed itself flat against the glass!
It was stretched out like a horse's face—a terrifying, grotesquely elongated visage!
The face was over a meter long, skin hanging slack and drooping, eyeballs bulging outward!
Its mouth was split all the way back past the ears, baring a mouthful of uneven yellow teeth.
It was dressed in a blue business uniform stretched to the point of bursting, and it stared fixedly—directly at Momohana Rika, who had been whispering!
That was...
The patrolling Discipline Master.
Shariki...
Sanae.
The next instant—
It opened that cavernous mouth and let out a hoarse voice identical to the one on the broadcast:
"Violation!!"
"Classroom discipline... talking is forbidden!!"
"Punishment must be administered!!"
The words had barely finished when—
Crash!!
The window glass shattered in an instant!
That enormous horse-like head rammed its way inside!
Crunch!
It clamped its jaws down on Momohana Rika, who was seated right beside the window!
"Yaaah!!!"
Momohana Rika only managed a single shriek.
Splurt!
The immense biting force detonated in an instant.
The girl—along with her desk and chair—was chewed to pieces in a single crunch!
Blood erupted from between the monster's teeth like a burst water balloon, spraying across the entire classroom!
"Gulp."
The monster tilted its head back, throat bobbing.
Swallowed her down.
"Burp~"
It let out a satisfied belch, its massive cloudy eyes rolling once as they swept across the horrified students.
At last, a contented smile spread across its face.
"Delicious... continue class."