In this way, after Jun Beibei's last attempt to warn the campus, calling for the seafood inside to save themselves, she failed again, and her obsession value's cumulative progress was completed.
Soon, a prompt appeared on her shell—
[Candidate No.1, first test stage, completed.]
[Now entering the second test stage: Obsession value clearing stage.]
[Candidate: No.1; Test stage: Second stage; Obsession value clearing progress: 0.]
Leaving the principal's office, Wen Nan quickly caught up, shouting "Beibei," making Jun Beibei's skirt hem pause, as she turned around to wait for him for a moment.
Wen Nan walked up to her side, raised his spine, took hold of her skirt hem, and softly said, "Shall we go, leave together?"
Jun Beibei's shell opened slightly with a small smile of an arc, "Mm."
Meanwhile, the degree showed a subtle change—
[Candidate: No.1; Test stage: Second stage; Obsession value clearing progress: 4%.]
At eleven o'clock in the evening, the bell signaling the end of the evening self-study rang on time, and the originally quiet teaching building suddenly became restless.
Various shapes and sizes of seafood noisily, laughingly poured out together from the staircase entrance of the teaching building, dividing into three groups heading to the canteen, dormitory, and school gate.
The incoming moist salinity of seawater and the fishy smell of seafood engulfed Wen Nan and Jun Beibei, making them appear like two walkers on the beach caught by an unexpected surge.
The one sea cucumber and one shell, one black and one white figure, tightly held together, forming an "IO" shape, moving against the current towards the playground behind the teaching building.
Finally stepping into the spacious, dark playground, away from that wave of seafood, Wen Nan let out a long sigh of relief.
Yet, the spine at his side still tightly grasped the skirt hem of the shell beside him, showing no sign of loosening its "hand."
Jun Beibei lowered her eyes, glancing at their tightly held hands, the skirt hem slightly swaying, as the degree on the shell jumped slightly again—
[Candidate: No.1; Test stage: Second stage; Obsession value clearing progress: 12%.]
Crossing the playground, they walked into the abandoned staff dormitory building again, all the way down, through the damp and stuffy passage, into the subterranean area.
In just a few hours, the temperature in this underground location rose again, and the ground closest to the water surface exceeded 50 degrees.
Jun Beibei, being a shell type, was fine, but Wen Nan, a sea cucumber, was extremely intolerant to high temperatures. Standing on that ground for a while, he felt a few small spines underfoot were almost cooked, moving left and right ceaselessly to prevent himself from ending up like squid on a grill.
Jun Beibei initially intended to pry open the door on the ground to explore the situation of the water surface below, but upon looking up and seeing the sea cucumber swaying like a piece of seaweed beside him, she ultimately gave up on the idea.
"The temperature rose too quickly, there's no way to directly jump into the water now..." Jun Beibei said softly.
Wen Nan was shocked upon hearing this, "You still want to jump in? Isn't that just foolish?"
Jun Beibei's eyelashes lowered.
This water area was the junction between the campus and the world outside. Before Ye Shenshen appeared, she would often come over alone, open the door, sit on the ground, extend her skirt hem into the water, watching as circles of ripples arose from her movements, as if a part of her body had reached the outside world.
Back then, unlike the campus where it was cold as ice and snow, the water temperature here was only one or two degrees above zero, comfortable enough that she wished she could take off her shell and jump in for a bath.
So, when Jun Beibei first planned to leave this world, her plan was to directly dive into this underground water area to explore a path.
Clearly, with the current rate of temperature rise, this path was no longer feasible.
Even if the Arctic Clam herself could barely tolerate this temperature, Ye Shenshen beside her, along with the Sea Gourd in the freezer, certainly couldn't withstand it.
After a moment of thought, Jun Beibei stood up, pinched the freezer with one side of her skirt hem, while the other side held onto the spine of the sea cucumber, and began to head upstairs,
"Plan changes, take a different path."
No matter the speculation and thoughts in his heart, Wen Nan vaguely felt that everything happening at this moment was actually centered around Jun Beibei, and he was more like an observer. As an observer, he shouldn't intervene too much in the other's actions and plans.
Therefore, Wen Nan said nothing more and let her lead him up to the rooftop.
Eventually, Jun Beibei led Wen Nan to the top floor of the staff dormitory, stopping once more at the center of the handrail, looking at the tear in the air.
If their campus was enclosed by an invisible curved wall forming an ellipse, then Jun Beibei and Wen Nan were presently standing at the pinnacle on one side of the ellipse.
Facing the direction of the gap, Jun Beibei closed her eyes, remaining motionless for a long time.
"What are we doing now?" Wen Nan softly asked.
"Shh." Jun Beibei interrupted him quietly, the skirt hem slightly swaying, feeling the warm wind blowing from the gap.
After a while, Jun Beibei opened her eyes again, "The wind direction is blowing from top to bottom."
Wen Nan extended a spine, feeling the gap's wind direction for a moment, "Mm."
"We'll just wait here," Jun Beibei said.
"Alright." Wen Nan agreed without objection.
A sea cucumber and a shell silently stood for a moment, Jun Beibei turned around, leaning against the railing, looking at the distant campus.