Rules-related weird stories: 4016

Chapter 55 “They don’t eat… what about you?”

May 7, X023, 17:48, first floor of the cafeteria, student restaurant.

The afterglow of the setting sun spilled in from the entrance of the student restaurant, stretching all the way behind the green-aproned chef. He stood elegantly in the dim area woven from the ashes of the sunset and the incandescent lights, his face displaying a greed and desire that had nothing to do with his elegant posture.

The instant Lin Yi saw the green-aproned chef, his pupils contracted violently, followed by a slow dilation.

His whole body stiffened abruptly. The memories of his encounter with the green-aproned chef in the gymnasium had not yet faded and were already launching a frenzied assault on him.

"Damn it… Green Hat! What to do? Run, or…?!"

He didn't act rashly. Instead, he slowed his pace and replayed the scene of encountering the green-aproned chef at noon in the cafeteria in his mind…

As he was replaying the scene, Wei Liang's scream rang in his ears.

“Holy crap! Emma, holy crap… holy crap, holy crap…!!!”

“Old Lin, think of something! That guy is…?!"

Under the intense pressure of the crisis, Lin Yi's thinking became extraordinarily agile, and he quickly found a breakthrough.

When Wei Liang's exclamation awakened him, he suddenly interrupted Wei Liang's words— "What 'that guy'?!"

“That… that…” Wei Liang didn't react immediately, and subconsciously wanted to signal Lin Yi to look at the green-aproned chef.

“That what that! ” Lin Yi interrupted Wei Liang with an unprecedentedly stern voice, “It is true that the dish return area is a bit old, perhaps because the staff hasn’t wiped it for a long time! But that has nothing to do with us, you know! Please be sure to ig · nore · it, okay? Liangzi!”

He widened his eyes, afraid that Wei Liang would not be able to grasp the key hint he wanted to convey.

Wei Liang's rhythm was interrupted twice, and his panicked emotions also fluctuated.

Fear and excitement are sometimes the same. No one can continue the emotions of the previous moment when interrupted twice.

Wei Liang's fear was diluted a lot at once. As someone who could survive two days in a daze and wait to leave the school, his "wartime state" erupted at this moment, and he immediately reacted—

Lin Yi's words have a hidden meaning!

He immediately thought of the content of the cafeteria rules:

[All cafeteria staff stay inside the staff activity area and the ordering window, and will not appear in the student restaurant area. If you find an employee appearing in the restaurant area, please ignore him.]

So Lin Yi is asking him to… ignore him?!

Huge keywords jumped out of Wei Liang's forehead. He took a deep breath, suppressed the emotions in his heart, and then tried to make his voice less trembling, and said righteously: "Old Lin, you're right… the staff in this cafeteria are too careless!"

“Oh, look at this ground, it’s so dirty!” Wei Liang said loudly, while slowing down a bit and silently retreating behind Lin Yi.

He lowered his head and pretended to look at the stains on the ground, but in fact he was staring at Lin Yi's heel, following him towards the dish return area.

Seeing that Wei Liang had reacted, Lin Yi breathed a long sigh of relief.

He gladly accepted Wei Liang's actions.

Wei Liang had awakened him several times before, and now it was his turn to give Wei Liang a hand.

So he walked towards the dish return area with his plate, maintaining his original rhythm. Throughout the whole process, he tried his best to keep himself calm and control his breathing rhythm.

And just when he was replaying the scene, he found three more details:

[1. The last time the green-aproned chef attacked him, it was when he was about to leave the cafeteria, crawling out from ordering window number 10.]

[2. The last time he saw the chef at the dish return area, it was a blue-aproned chef, not a green apron.]

[3. The last time he encountered the green-aproned chef while queuing, he was not attacked. Wei Liang even stepped on his face.]

He also found the most important clue in the cafeteria rules, about the green-aproned chef attacking students:

[When leaving, if you find that you are being watched by a green-aproned employee, and he starts moving quickly towards you, please judge whether to go to the [Student Passage] or the convenience store based on your location.]

So, if he hadn't guessed wrong, then…

"The Green Hat will only attack me when I show my intention to 'leave'."

"So, if I don't leave and just dump the food, then it's safe?"

The cafeteria rules would not come out of nowhere. Perhaps that's why there is that rule that when the cafeteria aunt serves food with tomato elements, they should [go directly to the utensil return area and pour all the food into the recycling bin, and then go to other ordering windows to buy food again.] this rule!

Obviously, "dumping the food" is to prevent him from being harmed by tomato elements, and "re-ordering food" is to prevent him from being attacked by the green-aproned chef!

Just imagine, the green-aproned chef crawling out from the distant ordering window number 10 almost caught him. If he ran away in front of the green-aproned chef, it would be impossible to escape!

A glimmer of hope!

"Could this be the legendary glimmer of hope?!"

"If this is the case, then the purpose of this green-aproned chef should not be me and Liangzi…"

Lin Yi stared at the dish return area, but the corner of his eye caught the green-aproned chef.

"His target is scrambled eggs with tomatoes! Just like the weird guys behind!"

Lin Yi found the key to the problem, and carefully turned his head and whispered to Wei Liang: "Liangzi, I found the problem."

“Damn, do you still need to find it? Old Lin, I just prepared myself, don’t tell me you made a mistake!” Wei Liang wailed.

“Should be right.”

“'Should be'? Forget it, forget it, I'll go all in with you!”

“That's good, let's dump the food and then get another serving…”

“Okay… huh? No, still get another serving?!”

“If there's a chance, we'll definitely have dinner, right? Don't worry, follow me first, if there's a problem, we'll run together, watch my eyes and act accordingly.”

Wei Liang subconsciously glanced at Lin Yi's eyes, but before he could raise his head to see Lin Yi's face, he saw the green-aproned chef's weird pancake face with a smile on the corner of his mouth, but with crazy and greedy eyes.

He silently lowered his head.

Well, let's just watch the heels and act accordingly.

…

Lin Yi came to the dish return area under great pressure. Before he could stand still, the green-aproned chef couldn't wait to come up.

It changed its elegant posture, wandering around Lin Yi and Wei Liang like a nimble fox, its bizarre face observing back and forth between the two plates, wishing it could stick to the scrambled eggs with tomatoes.

Its mouth was open, its tongue licking back and forth on its lower lip, drool flowing down.

"Yes, yes, that's the taste..." It closed its eyes, greedily inhaling the aroma of the tomato and scrambled eggs, its eyebrows practically flying off its face.

"To just throw it away... what a waste, what a waste..."

It muttered to itself, but never actually moved to touch the food.

Seeing Lin Yi about to discard the food, it hurriedly reached out a hand: "Such a waste, such a waste, give it to me, let me throw it away... let me throw it away!"

Lin Yi silently handed the tray to it.

It beamed, its eyes curving into crescent moons, the corners of its mouth stretched to its ears, revealing an expression of utter infatuation.

But just as it was about to take the tray, Lin Yi, with an Indian-style camera movement, caused the tray to fluctuate slightly, cleverly avoiding its outstretched hand.

"You...?" The green-aproned chef spun around, craning its neck to follow Lin Yi's movements.

Lin Yi went to the dish return station and dumped all the food into the recycling bin, then, as if afraid it wasn't clean enough, banged on it forcefully.

While Lin Yi was doing this, the green-aproned chef slowly turned around, its gaze filled with intense malice, staring intently at Lin Yi's every move, as if wanting to skin him alive.

Lin Yi could also clearly feel a chill running up and down his spine, and throughout the entire process, he observed the green-aproned chef's every move through the blurry reflection of the metal shelves.

If the green-aproned chef made any unusual movements, he would immediately take off running towards the student cafeteria exit.

However, the green-aproned chef did not attack him; it merely stared at him, exhibiting a tendency to pounce at any moment, but without taking any actual action.

Lin Yi placed the tray back on the metal rack and slowly moved away.

Wei Liang, with quick eyes and hands, followed closely, perfectly replicating Lin Yi's action of dumping the food before the green-aproned chef could react, and then immediately followed Lin Yi's movements.

Even as the two brushed past the green-aproned chef, its attention did not shift back.

It lay on the leftover food recycling bin, reaching in to grab the tomato and scrambled eggs.

"Tomato... my tomato..."

It finally retrieved the tomato and scrambled eggs.

It almost buried its bizarre and hideous face in the tomato and scrambled eggs.

The corners of its mouth, stretched wide, dripped with stringy saliva, but it never ate the tomato and scrambled eggs.

It held the tomato and scrambled eggs in both hands, trembling incessantly, until all the eggs in the tomato and scrambled eggs slid into the food recycling bin, leaving only tomatoes in its hands.

Only large slices of tomato remained.

It held the tomato slices, its gaze devout and crazed, as if looking at a exquisite work of art.

Gradually, it turned its gaze to the surrounding crowd, inquiring in a seductive and sinister voice:

"They don't eat... what about you?"

He saw that one after another, a group of listless and dull students had already gathered in front of it.

Those students, with their pupils dilated and eyes vacant, staggered as they walked, approaching the green-aproned chef, vaguely searching for the scent of tomatoes with some kind of instinct.

Finally, they found the tomatoes in the green-aproned chef's hand.

"Swish!!!"

Their originally dilated pupils suddenly focused, they stared intently at the tomatoes, and a perverted smile gradually appeared on their expressionless, dull faces.

They lowered themselves like livestock, then stretched their necks and began to lick and devour the tomatoes in the green-aproned chef's hand.

"Slurp... slurp... slurp..."

A faint golden light flickered in the eyes of those students who were devouring the tomatoes.

As they devoured the tomatoes, their skin gradually lost its color, and some white powdery particles faintly permeated from their pores.

The green-aproned chef greedily sucked in the air, inhaling all these white powdery particles into its nostrils through breathing.

"Heh... heh... heh heh heh..." The green-aproned chef beamed as it watched this scene, a sinister golden light also flickering in its eyes.

Gradually, it turned its gaze to Lin Yi and Wei Liang, muttering in its mouth: "Tomatoes... delicious tomatoes... heh heh heh..."

...

Lin Yi, who was re-queuing with Wei Liang, recalled the scene of brushing past the green-aproned chef just now, and couldn't help but narrow his eyes.

He couldn't feel the slightest warmth from the green-aproned chef; passing by it felt like passing by a lifeless stone.

And when they returned, they inevitably encountered those strange students, but these people didn't pay any attention to them at all, and went straight for the green-aproned chef.

Lin Yi was certain that their target was also the tomato and scrambled eggs.

From this, it could be seen...

"For normal people, the 'tomatoes' that they are afraid of avoiding have a fatal attraction for those strange fellows!"

"But tomatoes... seem to be hearts?"

"Tomato sauce turns into plaster..."

"Tomatoes are hearts..."

"So... tomato sauce is a mixture of some kind of heart's blood?"

This line of reasoning suddenly popped up in Lin Yi's mind...

Then he broke out in a cold sweat.

It wasn't because he was alarmed by this deduction, but because he found that he had unknowingly "accepted" the "concept" that these seemingly unrelated things—tomatoes, hearts, blood, plaster—were the same thing!

If it had been last night, he would have shown some signs of drowsiness when he thought of this link.

But now... he was actually fine, even a little hungry, and still thinking about eating!

"Lao Lin, what do we do next?" Wei Liang asked in a low voice.

"We've been targeted by the green hat," Lin Yi said, lowering his voice.

When Wei Liang heard this, he immediately jumped up: "Damn! Then you still let us come back to eat? Isn't this just suicide?"

Lin Yi quickly added: "Don't be afraid, according to my experience, the green hat will only attack us when we leave the cafeteria. See, didn't anything happen just now?"

When Wei Liang heard this, he thought for a moment and couldn't help but nod: "What you said seems to be true... wait, no!!"

"Where the hell did you get this kind of experience?!"

Thanks to book friend "Street Lamp No. 555" for the reward!!