Campus Turmoil, Early Signs of the Werewolf

The neon lights left purple spots on Bo Yu's retina as he watched Tang Yao's approaching figure, his throat tightening unexpectedly.

The moonlight dancing in the strands of her hair resembled a mysterious Morse code, its rhythm beating against his temples with the rhythm of the sea breeze.

"You..." Bo Yu began to speak, but the hairs on the back of his neck suddenly stood on end.

In the shadow of the experimental building three hundred meters away, a metallic reflection was slowly crawling up his spine.

He pretended to scratch his head, his peripheral vision catching a glimpse of Professor Lin's white lab coat fluttering from the ventilation opening on the seventh floor.

Tang Yao suddenly stood on tiptoe, her breath, carrying the scent of violet, brushing past his earlobe. "Someone's watching." Her fingertips grazed the inside of Bo Yu's wrist where the silver fur had started to fade, "Remember our agreement."

Just then, Zhao's loud voice rang out, "Bo! The academic office is looking for you!" He barged between the two of them, waving his phone with a message from Teacher Li—twenty seconds of voice memo.

Tang Yao took a half-step back, blending into the crowd. Bo Yu then realized his nails had pierced his palm.

Ding—

The electronic clock in the teaching building struck three in the afternoon, and Bo Yu slipped the metal circle into the back of his school badge.

Around the corner of the hallway, Teacher Li's gaze, sharp like a scalpel, cut through his disguise as he said, "You missed last week's quiz, and today your appearance doesn't meet the standards."

The cold air from the air conditioning, mixed with the dust of chalk, hit him in the face.

Bo Yu stared at the half-broken chalk in the blackboard slot, suddenly hearing the rushing of blood in his eardrums.

Teacher Li's reprimands grew distant and muffled, replaced by the sound of a basketball bouncing on the field thirty meters away, whispers from the third-floor girls' locker room, and the grinding of his own teeth.

"Speak!" The teacher slammed his lesson plan onto the podium.

Bo Yu suddenly lifted his head, and the fluorescent lights in his eyes split into six sharp white beams.

By the time he realized what was happening, his right hand had already shattered the wooden podium, the splintering wood embedding itself in Teacher Li's dark blue suit sleeve.

The girls screamed, and Bo Yu saw his own amber-colored pupils reflected on the multimedia screen.

"You...you're simply..." Teacher Li's trembling finger almost pointed at his nose, chalk dust falling from his sleeve.

Bo Yu inhaled deeply, his nostrils amplifying the lingering scent of nicotine from Teacher Li's collar, making him feel a surge of burning nausea in his stomach.

Grabbing the window frame to steady himself, he saw in the reflection his canine teeth slowly elongating.

"Report!" The door to the classroom was flung open with a crash.

Zhao, holding a dripping mop, rushed in. "Teacher Li, Director Wang says you need to go to the faculty meeting." He deliberately splashed water onto the podium. "Aiya, I just mopped the floor..."

Bo Yu seized the chance to break free, rushing out of the classroom. As the corridor wind whipped through his shirt, he heard Zhao's exaggerated tone say, "Your tie and the chalk color really match today!" Behind him, the sound of the director's shoes echoed, and Teacher Li's scolding turned into a sharp grunt of frustration.

As dusk descended over the playground, Bo Yu hid on the rooftop, nibbling on a cold sandwich.

The metal circle left a red mark in the shape of a wolf's head in his palm, and he counted his heartbeat, synchronizing with the waves in the distance. Suddenly, he heard Zhao, off-key, singing a love song on the fire escape.

The familiar scent of fried chicken wafted toward him with the evening breeze. The restlessness surging through his veins seemed to calm slightly.

"Director Wang's old man has switched to new blood pressure medication," Zhao sat beside him, shaking his phone with a secretly recorded memo from the teacher, "Next week's midterms are going to use fingerprint locks for the exam halls, but..." He stretched out his tone, waiting until Bo Yu kicked him, then grinned and revealed his secret. "The computer room ventilation shaft has a 90-centimeter-wide inspection hatch."

Bo Yu crushed the soda can in his hand. The polar bear image on the can twisted into the shape of some beast's outline under the twilight.

He glanced toward the port, where the navigation lights were flickering on, and the violet scent left by Tang Yao suddenly revived in his memory.

At that moment, a flash of red light appeared on the top floor of the experimental building, like a precision instrument calibrating its coordinates.

"Teacher Li, you know your deduction rules better than our school motto." Zhao swaggered into the classroom with a half-wet mop, the water droplets creating tiny rainbows in the sunlight. "Last week you said 'special circumstances should be handled specially,' right?" He deliberately tugged his school uniform zipper up to his chest, revealing a T-shirt with a wolf head design.

Bo Yu slung his arm around Zhao's shoulder and grinned. His fingertip casually traced the crack in the podium. "The academic office said the surveillance system was upgraded, and last week's attendance records..." He drew out the last word, watching as Teacher Li's pupils shrank in shock.

Chalk dust slipped out from the edges of the lesson plan folder, dancing in the beam of light like jittering dots.

Tang Yao's canvas shoes made no sound as she stepped through the corridor's puddles. The scent of violet, mixed with the coolness of early autumn, wafted into the classroom.

She leaned against the doorframe, unwrapping a lemon candy, the crackling of the wrapper startling the otherwise still air.

Bo Yu's silver fur on the back of his neck suddenly bristled, and in his peripheral vision, he saw the wind lift the corner of her skirt, resting on the door handle like a cloud that could blow away at any moment.

"Disrespecting your elders!" Teacher Li's veins bulged in his neck, his deep blue tie tightening with the tremors in his throat, "I'll tell your parents..."

Zhao suddenly raised his phone. "My dad says he'll treat you to hotpot to apologize!" On the screen, the reservation info for a hotpot restaurant appeared, accompanied by Zhao's father's raucous laughter in the background. "The brain matter's all-you-can-eat, just for you, Teacher Li!"

Bo Yu pressed down his trembling right hand, his nails scraping shallow grooves into the podium. "Last week, I sent a medical certificate..." He pulled out a crumpled document from his pocket, the red stamp perfectly placed over the diagnosis of "Acute Neuroexcitability."

Tang Yao's soft laughter was like a feather brushing against his eardrum. He felt the familiar itch in his canine teeth once more.

As Teacher Li stepped back, he knocked over the chalk box, sending colorful chalk rolling at his feet, forming absurd patterns.

Bo Yu suddenly heard the rapid thumping of Teacher Li's heartbeat, mixed with the humming of the metal circle in Tang Yao's pocket.

When the sound of the director's leather shoes reached the fifth floor, the deep blue suit disappeared hurriedly around the corner.

"Your acting skills have improved," Zhao jabbed Bo Yu's back with the mop handle. "Where'd you get that medical certificate?"

"The school clinic's printer ink wasn't even dry." Bo Yu tossed him a bag of spicy snacks, turning around to find that Tang Yao was already gone. Only a half-piece of lemon candy wrapper remained on the floor.

As dusk filled the hallway, Bo Yu froze in front of the storage locker.

A faint minty smell leaked from the crack in the locker door, and his nails uncontrollably grew three inches, screeching against the metal surface.

In the mirror's reflection, his amber pupils swallowed the last light of the day.

"Hey!" Tang Yao's voice startled him, causing him to pull back his palm, small droplets of blood forming as his nails retracted.

The girl stood in the backlight, holding a chemistry textbook, the golden edges of her hair tinged with the setting sun. "Your school badge," she said, her fingertip brushing the silver badge, the chain falling to cover the crack in the locker.

The moment Bo Yu took it from her, he felt the chill of her fingertip. The metal circle behind the badge suddenly grew hot.

He saw his own snarling reflection in her pupils, his canine tooth piercing his lower lip, a droplet of blood falling onto her canvas shoe, blooming into a dark red flower.

"Drink less soda recently," Tang Yao suddenly reached out, her fingertip brushing his forehead. The violet scent overwhelmed the low growl in his throat. "Electrolyte imbalances will worsen…" Her fingers curled slightly at the moment of contact, as if burned by something.

Zhao's footsteps saved him.

As the fried chicken smell mixed with the sound of a basketball bouncing closer, Tang Yao had already retreated to a safe distance.

Bo Yu chewed frantically on mint candy, hearing his heartbeat syncing with the cooling frequency of the vending machine twenty meters away.

The rooftop gate creaked in the night wind. As Bo Yu counted the seventh star as it appeared, the wolf head mark in his palm began to flicker.

Zhao pressed the cold can of cola against his neck. "The academic office's computer now has a new firewall, but..." With a hiss, he opened the can, revealing a USB stick with a cartoon wolf sticker on it.

Bo Yu drank the whole can of soda, the carbon dioxide exploding in his veins with a sharp pain.

He gazed toward the experimental building, the red light disappearing from its top floor, unaware that Tang Yao was standing in the next fire escape.

The silver chain on her wrist shimmered with the moonlight, reflecting his increasingly ferocious profile.

As the last shred of humanity suppressed the growl in his throat, Bo Yu glimpsed his twisted reflection on the pull-tab of the soda can.

Zhao hummed an off-key tune, arranging leftover chicken bones into the shape of the Big Dipper.

Neither of them noticed the lemon candy wrapper that Tang Yao had left by the locker, now being blown toward the experimental building by the night wind, landing on a surveillance camera flashing with red light.