ABMSI Chapter 38

He wanted to bite.

The thought slipped out before he could suppress it. Fu Duqiu’s throat bobbed, the motion sharp and noticeable in the quiet space. Duan Wei, sitting beside him, was too focused on the sounds outside the cabinet to notice anything odd.

Faint, soft footsteps brushed past the cabinet door from time to time. Through the narrow gap, Duan Wei caught a flash of a white figure drifting by, and he instinctively backed up. Their backs pressed straight against the wooden wall as they listened to the movements outside.

And then—suddenly—the familiar scent of pheromones filled the cramped cabinet.

Duan Wei frowned, thinking it was just a leftover trace from the previous mark. But the scent of white pine resin only grew stronger. He turned his head and met Fu Duqiu’s gaze—direct, unblinking, piercing even in the dim light like a blade that could cut straight into one’s soul.

Feeling uneasy, Duan Wei turned his eyes away and whispered, “What are you doing?”

A bad premonition flashed through his mind.

If Fu Duqiu suddenly went into a rut like Peng Yan had before… he had no idea what he’d do.

Would he need to find an inhibitor? What if Fu Duqiu suddenly pounced and bit him??

His brain went into overdrive, spinning wildly, dragging up memories of what had happened at the bottom of the pit. Before he knew it, his thoughts had gone completely astray.

Fu Duqiu, sensing that his own pheromones had fully overridden Duan Wei’s Omega scent, slowly pulled his presence back and looked through the sliver of space in the cabinet. The NPC pretending to be a ghost had already left the room. He turned to Duan Wei and said, “Let’s go out.”

“Ah? Oh—oh, okay.” Duan Wei blinked, snapping back to reality, and followed him out.

The two stepped out of the cabinet together. Strangely, though they had entered the hidden passage with others, Duan Wei now couldn’t see anyone except Fu Duqiu. He trailed behind as Fu Duqiu began to examine the new room, trying to solve the next puzzle.

Duan Wei poked around here and there while Fu Duqiu stopped in front of a table, rummaging through a drawer. Inside, he found a clue—

The drawer was filled with photos of children, each labeled with their birthday and disappearance date. Only one girl’s photo had her birthdate left blank, with a math question scribbled next to it.

Duan Wei read it aloud: “My birth month and day are both single digits. When you write them together as a two-digit number, its cube is a four-digit number… blah blah blah—what kind of nonsense is this? Since when do seven-year-olds write like cryptic math professors?”

He didn’t even finish reading before tossing the photo aside. Fu Duqiu glanced at it, paused for a moment, and said calmly, “Try 0108.”

“So fast? You already solved it?” Duan Wei shot him a skeptical look as he crouched down to spin the lock’s dial. “You didn’t just guess, did you? What if it opens another creepy secret room?”

Fu Duqiu didn’t answer, simply watching as Duan Wei turned the lock. When the numbers stopped at 0108, there was a crisp click, and the hidden door rumbled open to reveal a bright passage ahead.

“Damn, nice,” Duan Wei whistled. “Knew following the class genius would pay off.”

Fu Duqiu smiled faintly and led the way down the passage.

Sure enough, on the other side was another room—and the remaining four people were already there.

Earlier, Peng Yan had used the wrong method to solve the first room’s puzzle, accidentally triggering an NPC and a side chamber. Duan Wei had dragged Fu Duqiu into that side chamber by coincidence, while the other four had progressed to the main one.

Seeing the two return, the girls both sighed in relief. The long-haired girl approached, intending to walk with Duan Wei again—but as soon as she got close, she caught a heavy whiff of Alpha pheromones.

It was an intensely rich scent—white pine resin, potent and unmistakably marked by possessiveness toward an Omega. There was no way such a scent could linger on someone by accident.

She instinctively glanced at Fu Duqiu, who was busy solving another puzzle with Peng Yan.

Whether deliberate or not, Fu Duqiu’s gaze flicked toward her just then. He looked at her—just for a moment—then withdrew his eyes. But even from across the room, she felt a subtle chill ripple through her.

“…”

Her steps faltered.

Back in the first chamber, before anyone had understood what was happening, they had seen Duan Wei grab Fu Duqiu’s hand and dash forward without hesitation. And Fu Duqiu—the usually silent, distant one—had followed without a word, neither stopping him nor pushing him away.

Now, putting everything together, the long-haired girl glanced at Fu Duqiu, then back at Duan Wei—and realization dawned instantly.

Duan Wei noticed her sudden silence and asked, “What’s wrong?”

“…Nothing.” She stepped aside, moving to walk with her short-haired friend instead.

With Fu Duqiu’s help, the rest of the escape room became a breeze. They avoided side chambers, didn’t trigger any NPCs, and cleared the game effortlessly.

When they finally exited, Duan Wei checked his phone—there was still half an hour left before Lao Qin’s curfew to return to the hotel.

By now, the amusement park had entered its midnight session. The paths were crowded and lively. Duan Wei walked down the exit corridor with Fu Duqiu, and soon the two girls split off.

He was a little surprised; he’d thought they’d at least ask for contact info—if not Fu Duqiu’s, then his. But they hadn’t. Neither of them even looked back. They just turned and hurried off into the crowd.

Weird.

He instinctively glanced at Fu Duqiu. The man looked much the same as ever—expression calm, unreadable, not betraying a hint of emotion.

Noticing Duan Wei’s gaze, Fu Duqiu turned his head. The light shifted across his face, finally settling at the corner of his eye.

At that moment, Fu Duqiu’s looks seemed to have ascended to a whole new level of devastatingly handsome.
Duan Wei frowned and quickly turned his head away, forcing himself to focus on what was in front of him.

He thought something about the whole situation was a little odd, but whatever—no big deal. After all, Fu Duqiu wasn’t the type to spark romance with anyone. Best to just stick to the main storyline and stay alive.

So, the group walked through the passage for a while, then caught a taxi back to the hotel.

And just like that, the last winter camp before graduation came to a close.

The students of Class 8 returned to No. 1 High School the next afternoon. Since everyone was still in vacation mode, there were no classes. Instead, Old Qin assigned an essay—
A 1000-word reflection on the winter camp.

Duan Wei sat in his chair, pen in hand, crossing out and rewriting sentences. After over an hour, he’d only managed to write about 500 words. Around him, classmates who had already finished were rushing out of the classroom, leaving only a handful of struggling souls still racking their brains.

“If I write about how I fell into a pit during winter camp,” Duan Wei said, looking up from his notebook at Peng Yan across the table, “do you think our school will make the front page tomorrow? Maybe they’ll even shut down for ‘reform’—I’d be a hero for my fellow students!”

“You’d have to get past Old Qin first,” Peng Yan replied with a smirk. “You think he’d let Comrade Duan’s report reach the education bureau?”

Duan Wei considered that for a second, then nodded seriously. “You make a fair point. Looks like our road to reforming the school is long and full of hardship…”

After that, he added a few hundred more words to his essay before pausing again. “Hey, where’s Fu Duqiu?”

Thinking back, Duan Wei realized that after they got off the bus at school, Fu Duqiu had received a call and left immediately. He hadn’t seen him the entire afternoon.

“No idea,” Peng Yan said, chewing on a sausage he’d just bought. “Heard something might’ve happened at home. I saw Old Qin looking worried too—he even ran out to the school gate.”

“…”

The mention of Fu Duqiu’s family made Duan Wei pause.

He remembered the original novel—Fu Duqiu’s family background had been the root cause of his character’s entire personality arc.

Peng Yan’s comment might’ve been just speculation, but Duan Wei still felt uneasy. He took out his phone and sent a message.

[Where are you?]

Only after sending it did he realize—he’d forgotten to switch accounts and had sent it from his flirting alt account.
He tried to log out and switch, but the app wouldn’t load properly. In the end, he gave up.

He shoved the phone back into his desk and was just about to resume writing when a commotion broke out outside. A group of students passed by the corridor, their voices loud enough to reach inside.

“Someone’s causing trouble at the gate! I heard he’s got a knife!”

“Oh my god, who is it? That parent who made a scene during open day?”

“Yeah, I think so! I just saw Teacher Qin from Class 8 out there too!”

“The guy’s been shouting for his son nonstop, but no one can figure out who his son even is!”

“Let’s go see! Come on!”

Their gossip carried clearly into the classroom. Peng Yan, catching most of it, frowned and looked toward the door. “Sounds like it might be someone from our class, Duan-ge. Wanna go check it out?”

Before he even finished speaking, Duan Wei’s phone buzzed twice on the desk. He glanced at the screen, swiped a couple of times, then immediately stood up and walked out of the classroom without a word.

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