Finally, after a long vacation, I returned to school. Even though I have been at this school for a long time, I still can't remember all the paths in the entire school. I have even forgotten the reason for the vacation.
My school is located in a remote area, with no other buildings nearby. The entire school looks like a huge fortress from the sky, surrounded by dirt paths and a few asphalt roads, with no elevated highways in sight. The rest of the area is covered in yellow grass.
Inside, all the facilities are mixed together. The boys' and girls' dormitories, commercial center, cafeteria, and classrooms are all like a huge modern village.
I returned to the school alone, but instead of getting off at the boys' dormitory, I got off at the entrance of the girls' dormitory. In my memory, the girls' dormitory leads directly to the boys' dormitory. But when I looked at the dormitory entrance and the dormitory supervisor who was staring at me, I dismissed the idea of passing through here. I decided to go back through the commercial center.
Strangely, I couldn't remember how to get from the entrance of the girls' dormitory to the boys' dormitory. It seemed like there was no such path. When I entered the commercial center, I was dumbfounded.
This place didn't look like the familiar commercial center. Inside, I lost all sense of direction and memory, like a newcomer. But I have been studying here for a long time, right? Wait, when did I come here to study? I can't seem to remember clearly.
At this moment, it seemed to me that this was an extremely complex commercial center. There was no other way, so I decided to wander around here, hoping to find something strange.
However, the more I wandered, the stranger it felt. Why were there only high-end luxury stores in a university's commercial center? What's even stranger is that people who seemed like students were casually consuming and shopping here, just like buying street food. If it weren't for the fact that I took the school bus back and the geographical location and architectural style here were exactly the same as my school, I would have doubted that I had been kidnapped to a strange place.
Finally, I found a connection between the commercial center and the girls' dormitory, and I thought to myself that I could enter from here and reach the boys' dormitory. Normally, girls can bring their boyfriends to the dormitory without any obstacles from the dormitory supervisor. I don't know what happened to that lady today.
But when I reached that connecting point, something strange happened. The small passage that could only accommodate three or four people now had a single bed placed in it, with a half-naked woman sleeping on it. There were narrow gaps on both sides of the bed that could only be passed through sideways.
The fear and tension brought by the unfamiliar commercial center didn't allow me to think too much. I tried to pass through there to get back to the familiar boys' dormitory.
Every time I tried to pass through that passage, the woman would sit up a second before I stepped into the passage, staring at me angrily as if warning me. When I stepped back and gave up on the idea, she would lie down again as if nothing had happened. After a few attempts, I gave up on passing through there and continued wandering in the commercial center.
At this moment, I suddenly noticed a group of strange Asian teenagers who didn't seem like students here. Because this is a university, they all looked like middle or high school students, and they were looking around with curious eyes. The only difference was the girl who was about the same age as me, who was walking at the back.
She was beautiful and the only person who looked at me with kindness and a smile since I entered the school.
When I wanted to go up and strike up a conversation, she ran forward to catch up with the Asian teenagers who had scattered out of curiosity.
Suddenly, I found myself at the bottom level of the entire school, which looked like a slum with houses divided by cloth. And there was no one around, as if they were all working in the back of the shops upstairs.
After searching the entire floor, I couldn't find the stairs to go upstairs, but I found an Asian woman squatting next to a well, washing clothes. It was strange, why would they use a well to get water here?
With no other options, I mustered up the courage and asked her in broken English how to get to the nearest road. She asked me in return, white or black? It took me a while to realize that she was referring to whether it was a dirt road or an asphalt road.
With her guidance, I walked out of this unfamiliar fortress and onto an asphalt road. This exit was not the same as the one I entered.
On the way, I had an idea: I could ride a bike back and catch a school bus halfway, asking the driver to drop me off at the entrance of the boys' dormitory. He would surely know how to get there.
So, I found a shared bike on the road. There were many bikes of different colors but with the same design. After unlocking the bike with my phone, I found that the password on the bike lock was exactly the same as the one on my phone.
I thought to myself, who would be so careless as to not change the password. Oh well, I ignored it and continued riding.
On the road, I didn't see any cars with four wheels, but instead, there were students riding bikes all around me, densely packed like a cycling army.
After riding for a few minutes, we encountered police checking the bikes and they stopped everyone. They checked who didn't use the app to unlock the bikes, and those who seemed to be riding for free were detained.
When it was my turn to be checked, I showed the police my phone, which showed that I had been riding for more than 10 minutes, which was about the time it took to ride from the school. So I was allowed to go. After that, there were significantly fewer bikes on the road.
So it turns out that the bikes there had passwords that weren't changed.
On the way, I successfully found a school bus and got off at the entrance of the boys' dormitory.
I couldn't remember which floor and room my dormitory was on, whether it was because of the long vacation or some other reason. So I asked the students chatting in the corridor. I learned how to get to the area where my college's dormitories were located.
Hmm. Once I get there, I will meet people I know.
But I walked for a long, long time, why is this corridor so long??
When I turned around, yes, this is the boys' dormitory!
When I turned back, I was back in the commercial center.
When I turned around again, there was no way behind me.