Rule Five: Do not question the rules.
My deskmate stood up and said, “Doesn't anyone else think these rules were just written?”
Then he vanished. The remaining forty-three of us sat in place, staring at his empty seat.
Three words were carved into his desk: Dig down.
I flipped the desk over.
On the underside of the desktop were three more words, in the same handwriting: Keep going.
My name is Lin Xi. I'm third from the bottom in Class 4, Senior Year. I'm the most useless person in this whole book.
I have no golden finger, no System panel. The only thing I'm good at is this: when I see a rule, my first instinct isn't to follow it. It's to find a way around it.
Later, I discovered the rules hadn't been written in advance. Someone was updating them in real time.
Every second, new rules seeped out of the walls.
Every second, someone vanished.
And everyone who “vanished” left behind a sentence before they were gone.
Put those sentences together, and they say:
This rulebook is only half complete.
The other half is in the school that was destroyed four years ago.
Tao Wu came from there. She wears a uniform from four years ago and blends in among us.
She doesn't remember who she is.
Rule Eight: Do not ask her.
I carved a line beneath my desk: I crossed out Rule Seven. Rule Eight is being written now.
Rules are meant for people to follow.
I'm not human. I'm a loophole.
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