Old Campus, Jiangzhou University – 11:47 p.m.
The abandoned part of the university had been sealed for thirty years.
Rusted gates, collapsed lecture halls, weeds taller than a man.
Locals said if you walked here at night you could still hear the cries of students who hanged themselves during the 1994 entrance-exam scandal.
Tonight those cries had competition.
Forty-nine new students of "Class Zero" stood scattered across the central square, clutching whatever they had managed to grab in the last twelve hours: kitchen knives, baseball bats, one idiot even brought a limited-edition anime body pillow "for spiritual defence".
Some formed groups of five or six.
Some hid alone in dark buildings.
Some simply stood in the open, shaking, waiting for whatever was coming.
A cold wind blew.
Every phone in every pocket vibrated at the same time.
A single message from an unknown number:
[Trial 1: King of the Hill]
[Rule: When the bell tolls thirteen times, the last person still breathing on this square wins.]
[Current participants: 49]
[Time remaining until start: 8 minutes 14 seconds… 13… 12…]
The countdown was projected directly onto the night sky in blood-red numerals visible to every eye.
Lin Feng stood on the roof of the tallest ruined building, hands in his pockets, watching the ants scurry.
He had not moved since arriving two hours early.
Su Qingxue stood on the roof of the opposite building, flood-dragon spine whip coiled around her waist like a living snake.
She looked across the hundred-metre gap and raised two fingers in a lazy salute.
Lin Feng returned it with one middle finger.
Neither of them had any intention of hiding.
They were the apex predators tonight.
Everyone else was just food delivering itself.
11:55 p.m.
A boy with dyed blond hair and a steel pipe screamed at his five lackeys.
"From now on we only trust each other! Anyone else who comes close, we kill first!"
A girl in glasses hiding behind a pillar whispered to her phone, live-streaming to zero viewers:
"If I die tonight… mom, I love you…"
11:58 p.m.
The temperature dropped twenty degrees in five seconds.
Breath came out as white fog.
11:59:13
All light on the old campus streetlamps, phone screens, even the countdown in the sky went black.
Absolute darkness.
Only the sound of forty-nine hearts hammering.
Then
Dang…
The first bell.
An ancient bronze bell that had not existed five seconds ago now hung in the centre of the square, thirty metres above the ground, swaying by itself.
Dang…
Second bell.
Cracks appeared in the earth, spreading outward like black spider webs.
Dang…
Third.
Every student felt an invisible pressure crush down on their shoulders.
Those with weaker wills directly vomited blood.
By the seventh bell, six people had already fainted.
By the tenth, three had committed suicide on the spot, smashing their own heads against walls because the pressure whispered that death was easier.
Eleventh bell.
The darkness retreated slightly.
Everyone could see again.
And they saw him.
A little boy in tattered funeral clothes stood beneath the floating bell, dragging a small black coffin behind him with a red rope.
The coffin was child-sized.
Exactly the same size as the one Lin Feng had been nailed into twenty years ago.
The boy looked no older than seven.
Pale skin, black lips, golden eyes.
He smiled at the forty-three remaining students (six had already died from the bells alone).
"Hi," the child said in a sweet, milky voice.
"I'm late. Sorry."
Then he waved one small hand.
The twelfth bell tolled by itself.
Dang———!
The ground in a fifty-metre radius flipped upside down like a page being turned.
Screams lasted less than a second.
When the square flipped back, twenty-nine corpses lay neatly arranged in the shape of the character 死 (Death).
Only fourteen students were still alive—those who had been standing outside the fifty-metre radius, or who had instinctively leapt into the air the moment they saw the child.
Su Qingxue was one of them.
Lin Feng had never left the roof.
The child looked up at the two rooftops, tilting his head.
"Big brother," he called toward Lin Feng, voice carrying clearly despite the distance.
"And big sister who stole a drop of my blood."
He giggled.
"You two are not allowed to play in the first round. Teacher's orders."
He pointed at the fourteen survivors on the ground.
"These are yours now."
Then the child sat on his little coffin, swinging his legs, and began to count.
"One… two… three…"
The fourteen students paled.
They finally understood.
The child was not a participant.
He was the referee.
And the game had a new rule no one had told them:
Kill each other until only one remained or the child would kill them all when he finished counting to thirteen.
Chaos erupted instantly.
A boy with fire powers roared and sent a fireball at the person closest to him.
A girl turned into mist and slipped into shadows.
Someone pulled out a cursed talisman bought for 300,000 RMB on the dark web and screamed activation words.
The old campus turned into a slaughterhouse in the space of one breath.
Lin Feng watched from the roof, expression calm.
Su Qingxue watched from the opposite roof, expression excited.
The child kept counting cheerfully.
"Four… five… six…"
By "nine", only three students remained.
A boy covered in blood blades.
A girl whose lower body had become a spider.
And a thin, quiet boy wearing glasses who had not moved a single step from his original spot—yet everyone who attacked him had mysteriously died of heart failure.
The child clapped.
"Ten… eleven… twelve…"
The final three looked at each other, then at the child, despair in their eyes.
They rushed him at the same time.
The child opened his mouth.
No sound came out.
But the three attackers froze mid-step, eyes, ears, nostrils, mouth all seven orifices bleeding black blood.
They aged a hundred years in two seconds and crumbled into dust.
The child closed his mouth.
"Thirteen."
The bell tolled one final time.
Dang!
The entire old campus returned to dead silence.
Forty-eight new corpses.
One little boy swinging his legs on a coffin.
And a red line of text burning in the sky:
[Trial 1 completed.]
[Winner: None (collective failure)]
[Penalty: Class Zero reduced to 2 official students + 1 referee]
[Next class meeting: tomorrow 8 a.m. sharp]
[Topic: Why you should never piss off the teacher]
The child looked up at the two rooftops again.
"Big brother, big sister, you may come down now."
Lin Feng landed first.
Su Qingxue landed half a second later.
The three of them stood in a triangle around the small coffin.
The child smiled brightly.
"Let me introduce myself properly."
He bowed like an ancient scholar.
"I am what you threw away twenty years ago, big brother."
"I am the weakness you ate last night."
"I am the humanity you rejected to become a monster."
He opened his arms.
"Call me Little Feng. Or Original Number Zero. Or the part of you that was supposed to stay dead."
He hopped off the coffin and patted the lid affectionately.
"Teacher was very angry that you tried to quit the game, so she split us again and gave me a new job."
Little Feng giggled.
"From now on, I will be the class monitor."
"My duty is to make sure you never become whole again."
"Every time you try to accept your humanity, I will kill someone you might have cared about."
"Every time you fall back into monstrosity, I will save someone you wanted dead."
He spread his hands.
"Balance, big brother. The teacher loves balance."
Lin Feng stared at the child—at himself—for a long time.
Then he asked the only question that mattered.
"Who is the teacher?"
Little Feng's smile became extremely sweet.
"Guess."
He snapped his fingers.
The small coffin opened.
Inside lay a female university uniform, neatly folded, with a name tag:
Liu Ruyan – Homeroom Teacher
And on top of the uniform sat a single black jade token.
Number: 0000
Exactly the same as Lin Feng's student number.
Little Feng picked up the token and offered it to Lin Feng with both hands.
"She said to give you this."
"From now on, you and I are both Number Zero."
"Two halves of the same seat on the future throne."
Lin Feng did not take the token.
Instead, he looked at Su Qingxue.
Su Qingxue was staring at Little Feng with an extremely complex expression.
Because the moment the coffin opened, she had felt it
The drop of True Dragon blood in her forehead resonating wildly with the child.
Like a daughter recognising her father.
Little Feng turned to her and waved happily.
"Hi, mommy."
Su Qingxue's face went white.
Little Feng laughed until he had to hold his stomach.
"Just kidding! The blood you stole hasn't awakened that far yet."
Then his golden eyes became serious.
"But it will."
"Soon."
He looked between the two of them.
"Teacher said the three of us are going to have so much fun this semester."
He clapped once.
The old campus dissolved like ink in water.
When reality reformed, the three of them were standing in the original Classroom 301.
Morning sunlight.
Rows of empty desks.
Liu Ruyan sat at the podium, legs crossed, sipping coffee from a mug that read "World's Okayest Eldritch Horror".
She looked up and smiled.
"Good morning, my three favourite problem children."
Little Feng ran over and climbed into her lap like any normal seven-year-old.
Liu Ruyan patted his head affectionately.
Lin Feng and Su Qingxue remained standing.
Liu Ruyan's smile did not reach her eyes.
"New seating chart," she said.
She pointed at the front row, first seat.
"Su Qingxue, you sit here."
Pointed at the last row, first seat.
"Big Feng, you sit here."
Then she hugged Little Feng tighter.
"And Little Feng will sit with me on the podium every day."
She looked at Lin Feng.
"Any objections, Number Zero?"
Lin Feng was silent for three full seconds.
Then he walked to his assigned seat and sat down.
Su Qingxue did the same.
Liu Ruyan nodded, satisfied.
"Perfect."
She stood up, still carrying Little Feng, and wrote four large characters on the blackboard:
**今日课程:认清现实**
(Today's lesson: Accept Reality)
She turned back.
"Reality is very simple."
"None of you are leaving this academy until one of you sits on the Heavenly Throne."
"And the current Heavenly Emperor"
She smiled sweetly.
"is my ex-husband."
"So try not to die too quickly."
"I still need you to kill him for me."
Little Feng waved at Lin Feng from her arms.
"See you after class, big brother!"
Liu Ruyan snapped her fingers.
Every desk now had a thick textbook.
Title, stamped in gold:
**"How to Kill an Immortal God-King in 1,314 Easy Steps"**
Author: Liu Ruyan
Foreword by: The Current Heavenly Emperor (He doesn't know yet)
Below the title, in small print:
**Required reading. There will be a test.**
**Failure = painless death.**
**Perfect score = slightly more painful death.**
Lin Feng opened the book.
The first page had only one sentence.
**Page 1:**
**Step 1: Realise that the weak child you ate is now stronger than you.**
**Step 2: Cry (optional but recommended).**
Little Feng's laughter echoed through the classroom.
Lin Feng closed the book.
For the first time in twenty years and one night,
He felt something dangerously close to fear.
Liu Ruyan sat down again, opened her attendance book, and called roll with the gentlest voice imaginable.
"Lin Feng."
"Here."
"Su Qingxue."
"Here."
"Little Feng."
The child raised his hand happily.
"Here, teacher!"
Liu Ruyan ticked the last name and closed the book.
"Very good. Full attendance."
She looked up at the two students separated by forty empty desks.
"Class is now in session."
Outside the window, the morning sun was bright and ordinary.
Inside the classroom, the countdown to the end of the world had officially begun.