Xiao Muyu felt something was wrong, but Shen Qingqiu pulled her back, preventing her from moving. Soon, a gust of wind blew in through the window. Even though it was late April, the wind felt scorching hot. Coupled with her extreme nervousness, Xiao Muyu soon broke out in a sweat.
The sound of footsteps, “thump thump,” came from Luo Zihao. Their dormitory was on the third floor, so Luo Zihao shouldn’t have been able to come in, yet the sound was so close, it couldn’t have been from the third floor.
He was inside!
Xiao Muyu had no idea what this meant. Had the second hunt begun?
Out of the corner of her eye, Xiao Muyu could see the dormitory. Luo Zihao pushed open the glass and jumped into the room, thumping around and laughing lowly.
“You’re all awake, aren’t you? Why don’t you take a look at me? Aren’t you curious?”
A putrid smell emanated from his body, and his laughter was coarse and hoarse, completely unlike when he was alive.
Shen Qingqiu tightened her grip again, blocking Xiao Muyu’s view. Luo Zihao’s words were definitely not good. If he wanted them to look, then they absolutely shouldn’t.
Shen Qingqiu, lying on the outer side of the bed, protected Xiao Muyu inside. Xiao Muyu, extremely nervous, quickly reached out and covered Shen Qingqiu’s eyes with her hand.
Her warm, sweaty palm pressed hard against Shen Qingqiu’s face. Despite the intense tension, Shen Qingqiu felt an unexpected sense of comfort.
However, the current situation made Shen Qingqiu angry because she could feel Luo Zihao standing right next to her.
He continued laughing and muttered, “Couldn’t find you last night, huh? What a pity. Don’t you want to take a look at me?”
He babbled incessantly around them, trying to lure them into making eye contact with him. This behavior was particularly strange, suggesting that someone in the game was targeting them.
Originally, Shen Qingqiu had no intention of doing anything but waiting for Luo Zihao to leave.
However, Luo Zihao was too noisy and persistent, and Shen Qingqiu couldn’t bear it anymore.
Without turning around, she released her right hand, grabbed a dagger, and swiftly slashed along the edge of the bed. The blade scraped past Luo Zihao’s body and plunged sharply into the wooden bed frame with a metallic clink, deadly and precise.
“You…” Luo Zihao’s voice stopped abruptly. He quickly thumped away, jumping straight out the window. Xiao Muyu looked at Shen Qingqiu, both surprised and amused.
How could this ghost be so cowardly?
Luo Zihao was genuinely afraid of Shen Qingqiu; the dagger had nearly sliced off his flesh.
The window remained wide open, and Xiao Muyu could see outside. The red-clothed female ghost and the mummy were still standing there. Luo Zihao jumped in front of the female ghost. She didn’t say anything, just glanced down at him.
Luo Zihao collapsed completely, trembling. It was clear he was terrified of the female ghost.
Soon, Luo Zihao jumped towards the boys’ dormitory, and the female ghost floated after him. But before leaving, she gave one more indifferent glance in their direction.
“What are they doing?” Shen Qingqiu felt uneasy. If not for the fear of triggering a death condition, she wouldn’t have just intimidated Luo Zihao; she would have gone up and taken off half his head.
Xiao Muyu didn’t speak immediately. She quietly watched outside the window. After a while, she said in a deep voice, “She has her eyes on us.”
Shen Qingqiu’s expression turned grim, her eyes cold. “Since she’s in Class Seven, she can observe us. It’s only a matter of time before she targets us. But if this is true, then from the A-level side mission onwards, NPCs have had self-awareness. I even suspect they know we are players.”
Xiao Muyu exhaled long and hard. “Suddenly waking us up was not just to have Luo Zihao come and test us again. If I’m not mistaken…”
“Zhang Zhu won’t survive tonight.” Looking in the direction they left, Shen Qingqiu made a judgment. Tonight could be considered a peaceful night for the players.
“But it seems she really hates Class Seven students. She wants to kill them with an audience.”
Waking them up one by one was meant to let them personally experience the bone-chilling fear and despair.
Because Su Jin and Zuo Tiantian were not far away, Shen Qingqiu contacted them using their family connection and found that they too had witnessed the terrifying scene.
The night passed very slowly, but it eventually ended.
The next morning, Li Yuehang was the first to wake up in their dormitory.
Last night, they were terrified but nothing happened, and he quickly fell asleep.
He woke up briefly in the early morning, disturbed by the sound of tree branches scraping against the window, but it was just a bit annoying.
Li Yuehang slept in the upper bunk, his bed right next to the window.
He didn’t like throwing clothes on the bed, so he usually hung them on the curtain rod at the head of his bed.
Groggily waking up, he sat up and instinctively reached back to grab his clothes.
He felt something, but it didn’t feel right. The clothes weren’t soft and light, but rather heavy, cold, and stiff. He instinctively squeezed it.
In that moment, a thought flashed through his mind, instantly waking him up. He turned his head and realized he wasn’t touching clothes but a person!
This person had a belt around their neck, hanging there, their cold, stiff body swaying from his touch. The face turned towards him.
“Ah! Ah!”
Li Yuehang screamed, backing away so suddenly that he fell from the upper bunk with a loud crash!
His scream echoed through the boys’ dormitory building, even clearly heard in the adjacent girls’ dormitory.
Li Yuehang’s two roommates, startled awake by the noise, jumped up. One immediately jumped down barefoot. But before they could calm down, they looked up and also screamed.
When Chen Kaijie arrived at the school, it was only 6:40. In the boys’ dormitory room 310, Zhang Zhu, who had been chosen, was now a corpse hanging in the air.
The other three roommates had been relocated to another dormitory, shivering in fear.
As someone who wasn’t a professional police officer, Chen Kaijie felt an indescribable fear when he saw Zhang Zhu’s body.
First, there were neat bloodstains extending from the window to Zhang Zhu, stopping abruptly.
Zhang Zhu didn’t look like an ordinary hanged person.
Normally, a hanging person, whether by their own doing or by someone else, would have their body hanging naturally. But Zhang Zhu wasn’t like that.
His legs were suspended in a kneeling position, as if he was kneeling when he hanged himself.
Due to asphyxiation, his face was deathly pale, and his nose and mouth had dried blood, emitting a foul smell.
But Chen Kaijie noticed a strange smile on Zhang Zhu’s face. This smile made the scene even more terrifying.
In the windless room, Zhang Zhu’s body still swayed, his stiff legs occasionally brushing against the glass, making a faint sound.
Chen Kaijie suppressed his fear, finished the examination, took photos, and asked the assistant to help take down the body for the forensic examination.
As the body was being lowered, it turned sideways. When the forensic examiner, wearing gloves, opened the toolbox, the body suddenly flipped into a kneeling, prostrate position.
The forensic examiner was so frightened that the investigation was momentarily halted.
The planned outing was canceled. Zhang Zhu’s death once again pushed the fear to the extreme. Not just the students of Class Seven, but even the teachers and principal lost the will to teach.
Yuan Ning High School had to suspend classes to cooperate with the police investigation into Zhang Zhu’s death.
The suspension didn’t mean the students went home; they stayed at the school.
This gave Xiao Muyu and the others a chance to discuss matters together.
After the scene was handled, Chen Kaijie stayed behind under the pretense of investigating the case, detailing what he had seen to Xiao Muyu and the others.
After listening, Xiao Muyu was silent for a moment before saying softly, “Last night, the female ghost woke us all up. She and Luo Zihao went to the boys’ dormitory. Zhang Zhu’s death was inevitable.”
“Wake you up to kill someone? Why?” Chen Kaijie was astonished.
“She was warning us and terrifying the students of Class Seven.” Xiao Muyu’s expression was grave. This side mission was much more terrifying than she had expected.
Chen Kaijie felt a chill. “Warning us? Do those ghosts know we’re here to investigate the truth?”
This was a terrifying thought. If the NPCs knew their intentions, they might not cooperate and could even attack them.
The situation was dire. Zhang Zhu was dead, and the last person to see him was Li Yuehang. This meant a new game might begin tonight.
If the game didn’t target Li Yuehang but still focused on them, it meant the NPCs were aiming at them.
“Now things are not looking good. Let me summarize the information I have. We shouldn’t dwell too much on the plot; the key is evidence. Without triggering the system, even the most confident guesses are useless.
First, Liu Ya has issues, no need to elaborate. Last night, I saw her drawing Sisyphus pushing a rock, which should have some significance.
Second, Zhang Zhu’s method of death—hanging is a common way to die, but kneeling while doing so is highly insulting. This confirms that Zhang Zhu was being avenged, his bullying was undeniable.”
Xiao Muyu furrowed her brow, recalling the terrifying scene from last night, and added, “There’s another issue we haven’t discussed. How did the victim of bullying die? The school should have information that can serve as evidence.”
Everyone understood what Xiao Muyu meant. They needed evidence to back up their theories.
“Last night, Tiantian and I saw that female ghost too. Her ghostly face felt like it had been burned. I don’t know if she was deliberately trying to scare us or if it was really burned.” Su Jin said seriously.
Shen Qingqiu glanced at Xiao Muyu, quickly saying, “You mentioned before, Luo Zihao said something before he died: ‘The wind that day was very strong and hot.'”
Xiao Muyu nodded but remained silent, deep in thought. Shen Qingqiu and the others waited, holding their breath.
“Is there something related to this that you might have overlooked?” Shen Qingqiu gently reminded after a long silence.
Xiao Muyu murmured, “Yes, hot… fire. I remember!”
She suddenly looked up. “Last night, when I picked up Lin Xue’s notebook, I saw scars on Liu Ya’s hand, like burns. Now that I think about it, they could be burn scars!”
Chen Kaijie was stunned. “So it’s Liu Ya? But isn’t that contradictory?”
Su Jin and Zuo Tiantian exchanged glances and then said, “No, this confirms it. The deceased is Lin Xue. Zhang Zhu, Luo Zihao, and the previously dead students all validate one conclusion: grades plummet for those involved in bullying.
Liu Ya’s grades dropped too, but they rose again in March, unaffected by the curse. This means she wasn’t afraid.
Currently, no one in the class likes Liu Ya. If it were someone else, why wouldn’t she be scared?”
Xiao Muyu and Shen Qingqiu nodded. Lin Xue as a target was obvious, but they needed evidence and logical reasoning to prove it.
Xiao Muyu decided to put aside further speculation for now and asked Chen Kaijie, “Can you obtain fire alarm records from the fire department?”
Chen Kaijie, surprised, became excited. He clapped his hands. “Yes, I can. Unless they were destroyed. I’ll go check immediately!”
“Let me know when you get back.” He said as he left.
Su Jin and Zuo Tiantian nodded, watching him leave. His police status indeed made evidence gathering convenient.
Author’s Note:
Many of you guessed correctly. I can’t remember everyone right now, but here’s a small reward for those who got it right. You all picked up on the details I set. You’re not clueless at all!
