Chapter 19 Welcome Party (End)

Mu Yu picked up a small knife, stood up without hesitation and rushed towards the dark monster standing beside the water tank.

——Why is there no X mark on the water tank as a prop?

Because the water tank is destined to be connected to the monster after it appears, and the shadow monster itself is the last prop component of the entire copy!

As a prop combination, if the last X-shaped mark is not on the water tank, then it must be on the monster!

——Why burning playing cards may lead to a dead end?

That's probably because, in order to make this monster reveal its true form, the player must know its name -

The suit and the card surface are both indispensable.

The face of the card can be guessed by observing the shape of the monster, but the suit can only be known by the process of elimination.

Mu Yu thrust his hand forcefully into the black shadow, stirring up a black mist. In the center of the mist was a faintly glowing blue X.

The cold breath blew in like a strong wind, and the black shadow bent down slightly, as if silently looking down at the tiny human who dared to touch it.

Mu Yu panted, the light reflected from his lenses, blocking his eyes.

Those lips uttered his last idea.

“Imagine: No matter what form the King of Spades tries to take, it can’t escape the essence of being just a card.”

The black fog began to condense.

It condenses into water droplets and then gathers into ink, like a painting drawn in the air, a giant portrait of the King of Spades.

"A torn up card is useless."

With a swish, the sharp blade slashed from the upper left corner of the giant card to the lower right corner in one breath, and the entire portrait was instantly split in two -

…

When Lu Zhongnian wrote down that question, he actually felt that he was about to reach his limit.

While quietly pondering the answer to the question, he was trying to decide which option would give him a better chance of survival: staying where he was for a little longer, or swimming up to take a breath of air with an unknown amount of oxygen left.

At this moment, his mind suddenly became very quiet.

I couldn't hear any sound and my mind started to wander.

He temporarily gave up the question that was difficult to answer in his current state, and turned to look at the boy who had never stopped walking outside the water tank.

The boy was panting and his forehead was covered with sweat.

Although he was exhausted, his eyes, which were filled with sharp light, showed that he was still maintaining a high level of concentration.

We've been in the same class for three years, but I rarely see him like this.

He wouldn't be so tired during exams, and he wouldn't have to use his brain so much during physical education classes.

The two states rarely overlap.

Ah, yes.

Lu Zhongnian tilted his head and thought.

He seemed to have seen him in this posture before, that night when they didn't know who was drunker.

To be honest, it was definitely an accident.

But thinking back on it, Lu Chongnian felt that it might have been a premeditated conspiracy that had started at some unknown time.

Was it his deliberate plan, or was it his deliberate plan?

have no idea.

They wanted to get an answer, but unfortunately they met again under such circumstances, and they didn't even have a chance to have a good conversation.

As a result, he could only recall the incident vaguely in the few moments of leisure when he should have been nervous but didn't want to think about it.

...If the monitor, who was already exhausted at the moment, knew about this, he would definitely be incredulous and ask him: What time is it? !

Maybe she will blush and add: Can't you ask me after we get out?

But Lu Chongnian found it difficult to stop himself.

He felt that if he was really going to die, the only thing he would want to recall before he died was that night, which was the most wonderful and unforgettable memory in his eighteen years of life.

His eyes swept across Mu Yu's pale lips.

What comes to mind is the look of those lips slightly opened with a glistening glow, or suddenly bitten by teeth.

Those ears would turn crimson when their owner struggled.

When the beautiful chin is raised hard, it forms an arc that is difficult to resist.

There is also a slender neck and a slightly rolled Adam's apple.

The seemingly thin body will show a thin layer of muscle curve when tensed, with ten fingers spread out, as if trying to support the body, and as if trying to tightly grasp any object that can be used for dependence.

His eyes were beautiful to begin with, and they became even clearer without his glasses.

Lu Chongnian liked those eyes very much, always had.

The memories of just one night can form so many pictures, and so many pictures converge into countless questions.

It’s a pity that for those questions, if the monitor really said to him: Can’t you ask me after you get out?

Lu Zhongnian also had a question in his mind at this time.

A question that had formed in his mind since he stepped into the theater and felt many anomalies.

——After getting out, can they really meet again?

There was a loud bang.

The world before my eyes began to show spider web cracks.

The next second, the glass shattered into countless tiny fragments that reflected light, air rushed in, and Lu Chongnian fell down with the turbulent waves.

He fell into an embrace and they both hit the ground.

In my memory, the panting in the dark night turned into the disordered breathing that sounded clearly in my ears at this moment.

Lu Zhongnian was gently hugged by a pair of hands. The person under him paused and asked a question in a hoarse voice, but the question was not the one he imagined.

"What...were you thinking about?"

Lu Zhongnian curled his lips.

He turned his face to the side, lifted the boy's wet hair that was sticking to his cheek with his fingers, and said softly:

"I was thinking... squad leader, your physical strength is really poor."

*

7:03

Jiang Shuyue, Jing Qiao, Su Mingyun and Chang Sen who had lost both legs met in front of the audience seats in Area B.

At that time, Chang Sen was hanging on Su Mingyun's back, his lower body was covered in blood, and his face was as pale as death, which scared Jiang Shuyue and Jing Qiao badly.

Jiang Shuyue quickly took Chang Sen over, and a magic show began on the stage. The two groups simply stopped and exchanged clues.

After defeating the monster, Jiang Shuyue and Jing Qiao successfully reached the mysterious room by rushing thirty meters in one breath.

They found Wang Lei's body at the corner behind the room. He was lying in the corner with a bloody hole on his neck. The two men couldn't bear to look at him any longer.

The clue hidden in the room turned out to be a fragment of a speech.

As soon as they picked up the fragments, they were pushed out of the wall and the black wall disappeared!

Su Mingyun and Chang Sen inserted the USB drive into the computer and found a word document titled "Principal Dou's Words" in the folder.

The clues of the two groups put together are:

"Everyone will face many important and critical choices in life, but no one choice is enough to determine a person's life. You can grow up to be an excellent researcher, engineer, architect, writer, historian, journalist in Xinlian University of Science and Technology... You can also become a singer with heavenly voice, a versatile magician, a dancer full of vitality, a humorous talk show host on this stage..."

Chang Sen raised his hand with his dying breath: "Later, later I remember..."

Jiang Shuyue: "..." He knew it! As expected of you science people!

He humbly asked, "What's the next part?"

"Xinlian Theater gives you unlimited possibilities," Chang Sen tried to speak forcefully, "...When you are in the center of the stage, you are the stars - cough cough cough - stars!"

Su Mingyun immediately extracted the key words: "Center of the stage?"

Jing Qiao frowned: "But there is no monster generator on the stage. Didn't Mu Yu go on stage to look for it?"

Chang Sen thought hard and said, "This sentence is engraved under the bronze relief in the corridor outside. Maybe the monster generator is there..."

The magic show ended and the time came to 7:06.

Mu Yu and Lu Chongnian had not come out yet, so they couldn't just sit there and wait. The four of them immediately rushed to the corridor and came to the bronze relief.

There was indeed a short inscription of the speech below the four characters "Xinlian Theater" written in a flamboyant style, but they searched the relief from top to bottom and did not find anything that looked like a monster generator.

Su Mingyun thought of something again and rushed to the growth wall covered with sticky notes. After searching for a while, he tore off three sticky notes.

Jiang Shuyue and Jing Qiao hurried over: "What's wrong? What did you find?"

Su Mingyun said quickly, "I was wondering if there would be seniors who would use Principal Dou's words to motivate themselves, and it turns out there really is one!"

The three sticky notes she found all had a passage from the speech written on them, and most of the words attached were encouraging, such as "I want to be a star, too," "Work hard! Work hard!", and "Coach, I want to tell crosstalk." However, they searched the entire growth wall and still couldn't find anything that looked like a monster generator.

"Where else can I find this?" Jiang Shuyue's strength was almost exhausted. He asked, panting, "Where else can I find this line of words?"

Chang Sen suddenly thought of something and sat up in shock from his dying illness: "Under the stage! I seem to have seen this line of words on the wall under the stage when I came here to set up the venue before, but I can't remember where it was..."

Jiang Shuyue was mad: "...Are you science people crazy fans of Principal Dou?!"

The four people could only turn around and rush back into the venue, and quickly circled the venue while the host was still speaking, and finally found the line of words in a very tricky place.

That is the side of the stage near the junction of the A and D area auditoriums, and is one of the only two staircases used to access the stage.

The line of words was actually at the bottom of the vertical surface on the left side of the fifth step, two or three very small lines.

Looking at the crooked font, it is obvious that someone wrote it by hand with a black fountain pen. The font blends in with the dark brown color and cannot be seen unless you look very carefully.

Su Mingyun scratched her hair wildly: "So, where is the monster generator?!"

There is nothing strange up and down these stairs!

Jiang Shuyue had to put Chang Sen down first.

He touched the wall, then knocked on it as if he were knocking a watermelon, and suddenly realized... the inside of the stage was empty.

If it's empty, then...

Suddenly, from inside the stage separated from him by a wall, four clear sounds of applause were heard.

Jiang Shuyue was shocked: "Who's in there?!"

A very faint voice came from inside: "I think..."

Jiang Shuyue was filled with doubt and uncertainty, and subconsciously turned his head to the side and put his ear close to it.

He heard a boy on the other side of the wall slowly say: "I want to go up..."

A huge suction force suddenly sucked Jiang Shuyue towards the wall——

Amid the exclamations of Su Mingyun, Jing Qiao and Chang Sen, at the moment when his head was about to be embedded in the wall, Jiang Shuyue thought, this time it's a pill.

However, the next second, a foot flew over and brushed against his cheek, and with a loud bang, it kicked into the wall cleanly and fiercely!

Sawdust flew everywhere, and everyone was stunned.

A hole was violently kicked open on the side of the stairs, and a shadow flashed inside the hole.

Jiang Shuyue's head was saved, but he fell in. He turned his head blankly and saw Lu Chongnian who had arrived at some point, and Mu Yu who was maintaining the same leg-lifting posture as Bruce Lee.

Both of them were soaking wet. Lu Chongnian lifted him up by the back of his collar, seeming puzzled as to how he could make such a low-level mistake at such a critical moment.

"If it was the 'audience', he would applaud five times," he said calmly.

If you only clapped four times, then you are certainly not a human being.

Mu Yu was holding a sticky note in his hand. It was something he and Lu Chongnian had just found on the wall behind the water tank. On it was written the last sentence of Principal Dou's speech.

He lit his lighter, took the lead and stepped into the hole, entering the stage: "Hurry, hurry up!"

The group of people quickly bent down and followed.

7:08

It was pitch black inside the stage. After running a few steps, they saw with the faint light of the fire a "boy" hiding in the distance and looking at them quietly.

Su Mingyun was startled and whispered, "Is this the monster from before? Why didn't it attack us?"

Mu Yu didn't even look at the monster: "Because its main task is to deal with mobile phones and players who turn on the flashlight. It probably also has to prevent players from entering the stage. We are already inside now, and we are using lighters, so it's okay."

Chang Sen lay on Jiang Shuyue's back and murmured, "Fortunately this monster is thin. It doesn't look like it can do anything big."

Jiang Shuyue: “…”

However, but, but, if the two men hadn’t arrived in time and kicked the wall open, he might have been used by this skinny monster as a tool to intimidate other players and embedded in the wall...

Jing Qiao: "Mu Yu, is this the underground monster you mentioned before??"

"right."

Like Lu Chongnian, Mu Yu initially suspected that the black shadow monster in the prop area might be the underground monster.

But later they rejected this conjecture, as the flat-headed man’s mobile phone was probably not smashed by the shadow monster.

But if this is the case, it means that in this huge Xinlian Theater, in addition to the monsters in the three graded copies, there is likely to be an unknown monster.

Where will it be?

Is its job just to prevent the player from turning on the flashlight?

Why does it do this?

When Mu Yu got the clue and had a guess in his mind about the location of the monster generator, he figured it out.

"The four monsters correspond to the singer, dancer, magician, and talk show host. The person who created all this maliciously expanded Principal Dou's words into a copy game. However, Principal Dou's words were not just for the performers of these four identities. His words were for all students."

Article 5 of the "Xinlian Theater Usage Rules": During non-performance periods, all students may perform on stage.

Similar regulations actually exist in polytechnic universities in the real world.

Anyone can go on stage if they want.

The doors of Xinlian Theater are always open to them, and the lights on the stage are always shining for them.

...This was originally a beautiful blessing and an encouragement for youth full of hope, but the copy maker distorted these beautiful things beyond recognition.

Singers, dancers, magicians, and talk show hosts become dark shadows trying to kill players.

Countless other students who wanted to and were preparing to go on stage became monsters occupying the bottom of the stage.

——Yes, the most ridiculous thing is that the copy actually sets "going on stage" as going on stage in the sense of physical space.

Before going on stage, the student monster's place is naturally "under the stage".

It stared at the intruder darkly, as if it was staring resentfully at a competitor who wanted to seize its chance to take the stage.

Why is it afraid of bright light?

Because it is used to the darkness.

Moreover, as long as there is no light, everything will remain in darkness, the source of this twisted game will not be discovered, and the copy game will not stop.

7:10

Above the stage, the host's introduction is about to end.

Jing Qiao noticed something with his sharp eyes: "Look ahead, there's something!"

There's something glowing, attached to the ceiling!

The group quickened their pace and arrived under the thing just as the singing started.

The rapid breaths intertwined with each other.

The flame of the lighter maintained a faint light.

Above their heads, attached to the back of the center of the stage, was a... small moon?

The bowstring-shaped crescent moon emits a bright white light and is about the size of a palm.

It is like the bright moon in the real world that casts silver light on the world in the dark night, peaceful and holy, but everyone present at this moment knows that this strange thing is not as beautiful as it looks.

This might even be the most evil thing they have ever seen in their lives.

Mu Yu raised his hand and everyone held their breath.

His fingertips touched the moon...it felt wet and sticky, like slime.

The whole thing is a circle, and the part outside the moon pattern is completely transparent.

Mu Yu decisively tore the thing off the ceiling and put it under the firelight. Everyone felt incredible when they saw it.

Su Mingyun: "This, this is the monster generator? We must have found the right one, right?"

Jing Qiao: "Probably not. This thing doesn't look normal, but it's smaller than I thought..."

Chang Sen: "So disgusting... I'm about to faint..."

Jiang Shuyue asked in a low voice: "How to destroy it?"

Mu Yu and Lu Zhongnian looked at each other.

Mu Yu threw the thing at his feet without a second thought. It made a wet plop and everyone frowned in disgust.

He lifted his foot.

"Of course, crush it!"

*

"Lu Zhongnian, I want to see you."

Mu Yu suddenly woke up.

He returned to the audience and the time on his cell phone was 6:13.

The second, third and eldest brothers were laughing beside them. In the WeChat chat box, the two messages that Lu Chongnian had sent before disappeared.

The second brother suddenly came over and said in a low voice, "Hey, my friend said that the new school hunk from Lian University is here too. Is that him over there? He's so tall."

The moment the last syllable of this sentence fell, the time on the mobile phone screen reached 6:14.

Mu Yu suddenly came back to his senses, and his first reaction was to check the program list on his lap.

The front of the program normally lists the programs to be performed tonight, but when you turn it over to the back, it is blank.

It's a normal program.

The rules are gone!

Mu Yu leaned back in his chair, closed his eyes, and let out a breath.

He almost thought he was going to step into some deceptive cycle.

Then he followed the second brother's gaze and looked behind them to the right.

At the highest point of Area C, a tall shadow stood there.

Although the light was dim, I could barely make out that it was Jiang Shuyue.

Jiang Shuyue was also looking around the venue. After meeting Mu Yuyao's gaze, he immediately walked over here.

Mu Yu gestured, signaling him to continue forward. They met up in front, then stood up and said to the second, third and eldest brother: "I have something to do suddenly, you guys watch first!"

"Ah? What's the matter? You just sat down for a short while."

"Ah, I want to run away too."

While Mu Yu was squeezing towards the staircase, he sent a message to Lu Chongnian asking him where he was.

I vaguely remember Lu Chongnian saying that he was in Area D at first, but Mu Yu's eyesight was too poor. Area D was so dark that he couldn't see anything clearly.

Soon, he, Jiang Shuyue and Chang Sen successfully met in the middle of the corridor of Area C.

Chang Sen’s legs are back, he walks briskly, his face full of joy!

After he and Mu Yu arrived here, the first thing they did was to look for the student who was eaten to death by NPCs because he broke the rules.

The tall and strong boy was sitting at the edge of the stairs, playing with his mobile phone safely. Sitting on both sides of him should be his roommates, who were chatting about a football game.

Chang Sen let out a long breath, somewhat happily: "Resurrected, all resurrected! Then Wang Lei, Hong Huanyu and the two roommates should also be back, right?!"

Jiang Shuyue nodded and relaxed: "It should be."

To be honest, when they cleared the dungeon, Chang Sen was relieved but also pessimistic about the future.

First of all, he had lost both of his legs, and secondly, so many students had died. He couldn't imagine how the school would investigate and deal with this matter after the copy was over.

In the end, I don’t know whether to say that the copy maker was considerate or what...he actually turned the timeline back to the beginning of everything for them.

Chang Sen now has a feeling of how great he is. They have gone through so many thrilling levels, and in the end they not only saved themselves but also saved others. This is simply a plot in the movies!

Mu Yu felt relieved, but his brows were furrowed.

Lu Chongnian hasn't replied yet.

This shouldn’t be the case…

He thought Lu Chongnian would contact him as soon as possible.

He simply dialed the number and put the phone to his ear.

At this time, Chang Sen saw Jing Qiao and Su Mingyun running over from Area A and Area D below the audience seats, and waved to the two girls in a good mood.

Jiang Shuyue looked around and his eyes fell on Mu Yu's phone: "Are you calling Lu Zhongnian?"

Only that one person is missing.

Mu Yu nodded.

I don’t know if the signal in the venue was bad, but there was no sound from the other end of the phone, not even a busy tone.

Chang Sen called out, "Let's go down and meet up with them first."

Jiang Shuyue followed him.

Mu Yu felt the silence on the other end of the phone. For some reason, he felt uneasy and his heart was pounding.

As soon as he took a step forward, he heard the two boys who were chatting about the football game in the seats next to him say:

"Ah, why do I feel backache after just sitting for a while?"

"That's right, there's a bloody taste in my mouth. Pah, maybe my gums are bleeding from inflammation."

He, Jiang Shuyue, and Chang Sen all stopped in their tracks.

"Fuck, you too? Me too, it smells like blood, as if I had eaten a mouthful of raw meat, so disgusting!"

"Is it because of the hot pot we had tonight? What about you, Lao Peng?"

The tall and strong boy sitting between the two of them didn't react at first. Only after being nudged by the elbow did he raise his head.

His face was calm, his eyes were calm, and his tone was calm: "What's the matter?"

"We both have bleeding gums. Do you have any, Lao Peng?"

The boy didn't answer for a moment, as if he was thinking about this question seriously, but there was nothing in his black eyes.

After a moment, he said without much intonation: "Ah, then I don't have it."

"… Damn, why are you suddenly talking like this? Are you trying to show off? It's creepy."

Mu Yu was stunned.

He looked at the expressionless boy, and his mind recalled the boy's reckless roar an hour ago, and a chill suddenly ran down his back.

Seeing that he and Chang Sen looked unhappy, Jiang Shuyue lowered his voice and asked, "What's wrong?"

…There was still no sound from the other end of the phone.

Mu Yu hung up the phone and walked away with them, his heart beating faster.

Chang Sen's voice began to tremble: "Something is wrong, that man is different from before."

Jiang Shuyue: "Why is it different?"

"He was yelling and screaming when he got into trouble, which is very different from now. It seems his personality has changed."

Jiang Shuyue was stunned. He did not ask such an idiotic question as "You are not familiar with him, so how do you know what he is like normally?" Instead, he recalled the conversation between the three people just now, and cold sweat began to break out on his back.

They met up with the two girls below the audience seats, and the two girls' faces didn't look too good either.

They had clearly escaped death and returned to a time when nothing had happened, but they all felt as if they had just experienced something even more terrifying.

Su Mingyun whispered, "We ran into Senior Hong Huanyu. There was something wrong with him. Not only did he not recognize us, but he seemed like a completely different person. I can't describe it!"

Mu Yu, Chang Sen and Jiang Shuyue felt even gloomier.

Chang Sen swallowed hard and asked, "Is it like a robot without a soul?"

Su Mingyun: "Yes, yes, that's the feeling!"

She opened her eyes wide and asked worriedly, "Are they resurrected... or not?"

For a moment, no one could answer this question.

The dead person was resurrected, but his personality seemed to have changed, as if a strange mechanical soul had been replaced in that skin.

Are they still them?

The NPCs didn't seem to be spared either. Everything that happened in that hour seemed to cast a shadow on them in the real world, but they knew nothing.

At this moment, the five people below the stage suddenly realized that the copy was over, but it seemed not to be over.

Time went back, but what happened did not go back to its original state.

Those bloody marks did not seem to disappear, but dried up into a color close to black, quietly retreating from the sunlight, and at the moment when time was turned back to the starting point, they moved and hid in the shadows.

Jing Qiao moved his lips, not knowing what to say, his throat was a little dry.

She swallowed and asked palely: "... Lu, where is Lu Chongnian? Why is he not here?"

Everyone looked at Mu Yu.

Mu Yu froze for a moment, then said calmly, "I'll call again and ask."

This time, he called Yan Shaowen.

When the busy phone sounded, Mu Yu had a very bad feeling.

He always felt as if there was something waiting for him ahead, but he didn't know what it was. This elusive feeling made him particularly irritated.

He was lost in thought.

It couldn't be that Lu Chongnian didn't want to talk to him about what happened that night at the class reunion and ran away, right?

It's impossible. If Lu Chongnian didn't want to touch on that topic, he would never have come to the University of Science and Technology to find him in the first place.

Could it be that his temper scared Lu Chongnian away?

...But after Lu Chongnian came out of the water tank, he was still in the mood to tease him about his poor physical strength!

So what happened?

Why can’t I get through on the phone and why doesn’t he reply to his WeChat messages?

Mu Yu suddenly recalled the look Lu Chongnian gave her the last time she looked at him in the darkness beneath the stage.

It seemed as if she wanted to say something but stopped. After she stopped, she felt like she was calmly waiting for something, taking this moment to take one last serious look at him.

Why?

Lu Zhongnian, what were you thinking at that time?

Mu Yu's Adam's apple rolled.

After a few beeps, the call was connected.

Yan Shaowen's voice sounded on the other end, and he seemed a little surprised: "Squad leader? Why are you calling me suddenly? Is there something wrong?"

During the three years of high school, Mu Yu and Yan Shaowen were indeed not very familiar with each other.

But at this moment, Mu Yu didn't care about being abrupt or not, and asked directly: "Where are you?"

Yan Shaowen was even more surprised when he heard this question: "I'm in the dormitory, who do you mean by 'you'?"

Mu Yu only felt that the sound of his heartbeat in his ears was about to overwhelm all other sounds.

He tried to stay calm and said, "Lu Chongnian."

"Didn't you come to the Polytechnic Institute with Lu Zhongnian?"

This time, Yan Shaowen was silent for a long time.

Then, the boy asked with interest: "Who is Lu Zhongnian?"