It has been around five minutes.
Yuan was still sitting next to the bush, with a very unlovable face, contemplating the great mystery of life, his bag thrown nearby at random.
Hang on, why did this whole self-consciousness process have to include falling flat on his face? That sounds so uncool. So where are the other background information about the novel? Yuan scratched his head in confusion, hissing suddenly. Right, he also got hit on his head! And he can still see stars as a master of point!!
Yuan stared at the golden light in front of his eyes in a daze. He was being serious, aren't they still here? He sighed looking at his scraped elbows. He should've known better than to support himself with his elbows..
Suddenly he saw the scattered golden light spots gathering together, forming a golden light sphere that seemed quite unstable. The sphere jumped in place a few times and then crookedly flew a few inches toward the direction he came from before.
A confused Yuan dusted his hands and rubbed his eyes. When will these stars finally disappear so he can get up and leave? Forget about leaving school early, at this rate he might barely make it to the final bell. So he promptly ignored the light sphere and started examining his head once again.
However the golden sphere appeared in his vision once again inexplicably; it seems to have come back to the original place, floating a bit more energetically and even more crookedly.
Just as Yuan was watching, it flew back to that direction a bit and stopped, wobbling in place.
Ooh, so it was beckoning him to follow or something? This is a light ball with sentient?! But even he could understand that following a light that appeared in his vision after a hard knock doesn't seem to be the smartest idea. Conflicted, he searched his new memory for any information that might come in handy in recognizing what this thing might be, with no avail.
Even through he supposedly awakened, he seem to have no other information except the fact that this seem to be a novel and that he seems to be the main character. Very particularly useless information except for the purpose of stirring unrest within him. No background information, no information on future events, no golden fingers. Ooh wait, he seems to have a golden ball!
Noticing that the ball was already spinning in high speed, he was afraid it would start smoking next and tried to get up, like a rickety old man trying to use his old bones.
The golden sphere soon started leading the way. Yuan was surprised to discover that even though this was true same path he had taken earlier, there were many trails and footpaths he had never seen in those places. It seems that his vision has really gone through changes after this experience. Or could it because the golden sphere was leading him? Is it trying to take him somewhere that otherwise he would've never found out by himself?
After another few turns the light sphere suddenly flickers unstably for a while, and vanished with a quite pop.
"Hey, did you really disappear? Just like that?"
Yuan was left confused in the middle of a trail, surrounded by bushes and overgrown vegetation. Wasn't the light ball taking him somewhere? This place looks hardly worth noticing. Did it perhaps confuse the directions or something? Now that he thinks about it, that light ball indeed looked a bit unreliable.
He had no choice but to continue forward, at least hoping to reach a familiar place, so maybe he could head home finally. Honestly, he never expected that their school still had such an unexplored remote areas. LlDespite taking all kinds of shortcuts to the back-gate, he has never stumbled upon this part of the school before.
As he was walking, something that looked like a small shack came into his view. It was quite old, with a dilapidated look, some of its walls appearing to be misshapen and slanted. As he was observing from a distance, he heard some noises coming from the shack, much to his surprise.
Wait, so there are people there in it? How strange, the school has quite a few decent areas for studying or other club activities… unless, they're doing some sort of unauthorized stuff here? He heard that recently some students of the nearby school had been caught by the cops after selling drugs secretly, could this also be a hideout of the dealers? He really didn't expect to bump into something like this after bumping into a rock.
Yuan crept closer to the shack silently, being careful not to draw their attention. Just as he was about to peer from a cracked window, he heard somebody calling from inside.
"Come in, what's the password?"
S**t! He was discovered so soon? He didn't even make any noise! Today sure is an unlucky day. After competing for a second, he decided to go in anyway. Running away now might invite more trouble, since he has already being discovered. And since they adopted for the password, maybe they're just assuming he's another customer or something, which seems okay for the time being.
He slowly walked to the door of the shack and stood outside.
"Password?" The voice inside asked again, clearly a bit impatient. The speaker didn't sound much older, which further verified Yuan's hypothesis about the hideout. The guy who spoke now is definitely a student! But what is the password, he really has no idea. Jumping from the school gate is probably the most wayward thing he has ever done as a student.
"Open Sesame?" Yuan tried, clearly clueless.
"Try again" As expected, Yuan wilted. "You're almost there" the voice sounded again, and surprisingly this time he sounded a bit encouraging? What the h*ll, are they philanthropists in the drug dealing world or what?
But since the voice said he's almost there "OpenSesame123" well, he's not the sharpest knife in the crowd.
And so the door of the shack was pulled open from the inside.
Yuan stared at the door with utter confusion. So that was it? Really? Looks like these dealers are not very smart people either, then again it should be pretty obvious considering that they chose such a place inside the school to do such things.
Surprisingly, the inside of the shack had no signs of it's dilapidated look from the outside. On the contrary, it was neatly furnished with several chairs and stools, appearing like the standard living room.
"What are you doing standing at the door, come on in" Another voice sounded from inside, urging Yuan who was wondering how on earth the cracked window seemed not-so-cracked from inside.
Once Yuan stepped inside the door closed on it's own behind him, and three pairs of eyes were directed at him, mixed with confusion.
Wait, this seems like a new face? They thought in bewilderment.
"Did you just get in with the password?" The voice from earlier questioned Yuan. Yuan followed the voice and saw a scrawny boy with a head of disheveled hair with a white headset, looking a bit familiar and propping up a laptop.
"Um.. yeah" Yuan nodded, itching to raise a hand to wipe his sweat.
"And you are?" This time it was another guy, with a quite rebellious aura around him, perfectly fitting the image of a school boss. And his lush straight hair with red undertones didn't help at all.
"Hi, I'm Yuan" Yuan tried to offer a smile, only to end up looking uglier than crying. Why did he have to play the hero and come here? He regretted it so much in these few seconds. He should've just ran off and notified somebody.
Immersed in his inner world, Yuan failed to notice the impact his words caused on the people present.
Even the guy who remained calm as this while seemed a little shocked as he hurriedly picked up the book on the nightstand again and hurriedly scrolled through it's pages.
'Holy cr*p, they had failed to notice it earlier cause he had several dirt marks on his face, but looking carefully, this is indeed Yuan! So this is the big guest they have been waiting?! But what happened to him exactly? he seems to have crawled from a ditch or something. He didn't look like this an hour ago.
"What about the light?" the guy with the bookish aura and the spectacles closed his book and inquired.
"Light?" Is he perhaps referring to a lighter?
"The light ball? Did it not guide you inside?" The bookish guy explained, pushing up his glasses. Usually the guiding light would guide the awakened characters into this shack, right through the door and the door would open automatically for the newly awakened. Most importantly, the book would light up when the characters are being guided. But the situation this time seems quite bizarre; not only the guiding light was nowhere in sight, but also the character had to open the doors by himself. Then again, how did he even figure it out that easily? Maybe it's a good thing that they had set up such a password that is 'easy to figure out', otherwise who knows where the awakened would have ended up.
"You know about the light ball?" This time Yuan couldn't hide his bafflement. "How do you know about the light ball? It popped halfway there" he pointed to the direction he came from.