26 Psychic Game

◎Look, what is that? !◎

The second class was about to begin. The English teacher walked into the classroom with the lesson plan and happened to notice Liu Ziman's unusual condition.

"What's wrong?" The teacher looked at her worriedly. "Is Liu Ziman feeling unwell? Quick, someone take her to the infirmary."

"Teacher, I'll go." The girl with a high ponytail in the same dormitory quickly raised her hand.

"Okay." The English teacher nodded. "Lin Yan, thank you for your help."

"No trouble." Lin Yan shook her head, picked up Liu Ziman, who was staggering, and walked out of the classroom with some difficulty.

When they were almost at the door, Qi Qiuxue suddenly raised her hand: "Teacher, I want to help too."

"Alright." Seeing that Lin Yan was indeed struggling alone, the English teacher agreed. "Then Zhang Xue should go too. You should go quickly and come back soon."

"Okay, teacher." Qi Qiuxue stood up, walked to Liu Ziman, and held up her other hand.

Lin Yan's expression became a little nervous for a moment, but soon, the nervousness disappeared: "Axue, actually you don't need to help, I can do it alone."

"One more person means more strength," Qi Qiuxue said. "Besides, I'm worried about Manman, so it's safer to go along and check on her."

"Okay, then let's go quickly." Liu Ziman was still retching, shaking violently all over, and even had symptoms of fever. Lin Yan didn't dare to delay, and worked with Qi Qiuxue to send Liu Ziman to the infirmary.

The doctor on duty happened to be there and was shocked by her condition. He quickly took Liu Ziman's temperature and performed many other tests, but could not find a specific cause of the disease. "Maybe she is just too tired. Excessive fatigue and some bad lifestyle habits have caused the fever and other pathological manifestations. I will prescribe some medicine for her. After taking it, you can let her lie down and rest for a while. We will observe and see."

"Okay." Lin Yan nodded, and while the school doctor was preparing the medicine, she and Qi Qiuxue worked together to help Liu Ziman to the bed. Liu Ziman's condition seemed to have improved a little at the moment, but she was still absent-minded.

She started crying, tears streaming down her face, until she couldn't help herself and broke down complaining, "We shouldn't have played!"

"We're being entangled, Lin Yan, are we finished? I'm so scared, I'm so scared..."

Her words immediately made Qi Qiuxue realize something was going on.

Play? Play what? What's got her hooked?

Qi Qiuxue had a hunch that they might have gathered together to play some forbidden game, and the number of people involved was not limited to the four NPCs in their dormitory, but should also include everyone in 403 and 405 except the players.

Lin Yan covered Liu Ziman's mouth the next second, not caring whether Qi Qiuxue noticed anything unusual, and scolded: "What nonsense!"

"Don't overthink it, nothing happened." She said firmly, as if to comfort Liu Ziman in front of her, and also as if to give herself a psychological hint, "The school doctor said that you are fine, just too tired. You will recover after a good rest."

"Hurry up, take the medicine first." Lin Yan took the medicine prepared by the school doctor and watched Liu Ziman take it with her own eyes. "Go get some sleep, you'll be fine after a while."

"Let's go back to the classroom first." She said, meeting Liu Ziman's reluctant and frightened gaze, and softly comforted her, "There's nothing to be afraid of, the school doctor is here."

"Let's go." Then she looked in the direction of Qi Qiuxue, "Axue, let's go back."

"Okay." Qi Qiuxue walked out of the infirmary with her. They were silent all the way. Even though Lin Yan appeared to be relatively calm, she was still a teenage high school student after all. It was difficult for her to hide her thoughts, and her nervousness and fear were hard to conceal.

Qi Qiuxue caught a glimpse of her clenched lips and casually asked, "What did you play yesterday?"

"Ah?" Lin Yan snapped back to her senses. After a few seconds of silence, she laughed out loud. "What kind of fun could there be? I just played cards with Jiang Xiaoxia and the others and chatted about gossip."

"Ah Xue, don't tell anyone about this," she warned Qi Qiuxue beside her worriedly, "The school has a clear rule against playing cards. If word gets to the dorm manager or the director, we'll all lose points again."

After they finished speaking, the two happened to walk to the classroom door. Lin Yan raised her hand and knocked on the door. After getting the teacher's consent, she and Qi Qiuxue walked into the classroom together.

"What's going on?" Su Wen and Qi Qiuxue briefly exchanged glances.

"Let's talk after class." Qi Qiuxue leaned over and sat back in her seat.

In a blink of an eye, it’s break time.

Lin Yan went out for something. As soon as she left, the NPCs from the other two dormitories also went out. It seemed that they wanted to deliberately avoid them to discuss something, but didn't want to appear too conspicuous.

Qi Qiuxue happened to use this time to gather other players and told them exactly what happened in the infirmary.

It's because she needs the strength of others.

"I suspect they're playing some kind of taboo game. To be more specific, it's probably a spirit summoning or psychic game," Qi Qiuxue said, expressing her thoughts. "As far as I know, these kinds of games require rituals and the use of appropriate instruments, like candles, pens or dishes, or paper with written words and letters."

"Performing this kind of ritual on campus is definitely not allowed. If discovered, there will inevitably be serious consequences. So I guess, even if something really happened last night, they wouldn't just throw the props away without permission. Rather than risking discovery by throwing them away somewhere on campus, it's better to bring them back and hide them in your dorm. It's safer. As long as they can get through these two weeks, they can find a chance to throw them away when they can go out and go home."

"So you mean we need to look through it in the dormitory?" Li Mengyu followed up.

"Yes." Qi Qiuxue nodded in response, "Only by figuring out what happened last night can we deal with other situations that may arise next."

"What if we can't flip it?" asked another player named Zhou Le.

"Then we have to expand the search scope, or try to get more information out of them and force them to reveal their true identity," said Qi Qiuxue.

"Got it." The players nodded slowly.

-

Lunch break is coming soon.

As usual, Qi Qiuxue and Li Yiqing went to the window with the least people, had a quick lunch, and returned to dormitory 404. The other roommates had not returned yet, so the two of them took advantage of this time to roughly search the dormitory, including several people's wardrobes, beds, and storage boxes.

No, nothing.

It seems that the things are not with them.

"Axue." Just when Qi Qiuxue thought she would get nothing, Li Yiqing suddenly waved his hand and called her over, "Take a look at this."

"?" Qi Qiuxue looked over and saw that Li Yiqing was holding a photo in his hand. It was a group photo, including all the girls in Class 5 of Grade 12. There were many people in the photo, both NPCs and players like them.

There was a date marked below the photo, indicating that it was taken recently. However, for some reason, all the players' faces were heavily crossed out with red pen.

Qi Qiuxue frowned: "Where did you find this?"

"It's inside Lin Yan's pillow," Li Yiqing said. "While searching, I accidentally felt something hidden inside her pillow. Afraid of missing a clue, I unzipped the pillow and took a look. Who knew I'd find this photo?"

"Why did she do this? Does she hate us? Why did she cross everyone's face so deeply?"

"I'm not sure." Qi Qiuxue pursed her lips. She wasn't sure if the photo was Lin Yan's. If it was, why did she do this? Where did her hatred come from? "Put it back where it belongs as soon as possible. Don't let anyone find out you've touched it."

"Okay." Li Yiqing did as he was told. Unlike university dormitories, high school dormitories also had curfews during lunch breaks. Just when time was running out, the other four finally came back.

Liu Ziman was still weak, so Lin Yan and another roommate supported her on both sides and carried her back to life.

"How are you?" Qi Qiuxue asked about Liu Ziman's condition. "Are you feeling better?"

Before Liu Ziman could respond, Lin Yan answered for her: "Manman took the medicine and slept again. She's feeling much better now. It's nothing serious. She's just been busy preparing for the exam lately and has been working too hard."

"Really?" Qi Qiuxue's eyes fell on Lin Yan's face, "I'm glad you're okay."

"Hurry up and get some rest." Lin Yan helped Liu Ziman onto the bed, then turned around and took out a few bags of milk from her schoolbag. "Axue, Aqing, this is for you. I just treated everyone to milk in the cafeteria, but you two were not there, so I just brought some back for you."

"Thank you." Qi Qiuxue was silent for a few seconds, then raised her hand to take it.

"Here, Aqing, this is yours." Lin Yan looked at Li Yiqing with a smile again.

"...Thank you." Li Yiqing was obviously prejudiced against Lin Yan because of the photo, but Qi Qiuxue had already accepted it, so she had no reason to refuse.

"You're welcome," Lin Yan said. "We're all roommates, so it's only natural that we take care of each other."

The tone sounds generous and open-minded.

Qi Qiuxue and Li Yiqing exchanged glances. While Lin Yan wasn't paying attention, Li Yiqing picked up the bag of milk and sniffed it. He whispered to Qi Qiuxue, "It smells fine."

"Really?" Qi Qiuxue responded. In the end, she didn't drink the bag of milk and put it next to her pillow.

She wanted to take back what she said about young people being unable to hide their thoughts. She assumed that Lin Yan really hated them from the bottom of her heart, but until now, they had not found any clues other than the photos.

I have to say, she hid it pretty well.

-

Before the afternoon reading, several people met secretly on the playground.

Li Mengyu brought news that there were the fewest NPCs in their dormitory, so it would not be that difficult to find them. The four of them didn't even have lunch and went back to conduct a carpet search. They actually found the props for the psychic game in the storage box of one of their roommates.

"It's the Pen Fairy." Li Mengyu's face was very ugly. "Just like what you said, Zhang Xue, we found the props needed to summon the Pen Fairy: a pencil and paper full of words. I think those NPCs were playing this game last night."

"They probably made some operational errors, or asked questions they shouldn't have," Li Mengyu continued. "We found a lot of deep scratches on the paper, and the pencil tip was broken."

"Their ritual was successful?" Li Yiqing tried to analyze, "but somehow, they angered the Pen Fairy again?"

"It seems like this." Li Mengyu said, "I wonder if they succeeded in sending the Pen Fairy away..."

Zhou Leqi murmured beside him: "Does this kind of thing really exist in the world?"

"Who knows?" Su Wen answered her question. "If it were in the real world, games like the Pen Fairy would have been revealed eight hundred times already. The reason the pen moves is simply because the player has given themselves a strong psychological suggestion, or because excessive muscle tension causes unconscious movement, giving people an illusion that the game is successful. Generally speaking, there is no such thing as a Pen Fairy."

"But in the dungeon world, that's not necessarily the case." She said slowly, facing Zhou Le's nervous gaze, "After all, in the dungeon world, anything can happen."

"Ah!" Zhou Le got goosebumps when she saw him. "Aren't you scared?!"

Su Wen shrugged: "What's the point of being afraid? It can't solve the problem."

Zhou Le was a little displeased when he heard this: "You..."

"Okay." Qi Qiuxue interrupted their conversation and opened her mouth to share with everyone the information she and Li Yiqing had - the photo with a cross.

"What's going on?" After he finished speaking, everyone's face turned grim. "Lin Yan hates us? Why?"

"It's still unclear, and we can't be sure that the photo is Lin Yan's," Qi Qiuxue said. "But I still want to remind everyone to be cautious and protect yourself. If it's true that NPCs hate players, we're not sure how many NPCs are hostile to players, and whether they will do anything harmful to them."

"And... we still don't know what their original intention was in asking the Pen Fairy for help." Qi Qiuxue lowered her voice, "Perhaps their original intention was to use the Pen Fairy to punish all those they disliked, but they made a mistake in their operation and brought disaster upon themselves."

These words are enough to make people's hair stand on end.

"Axue..." Li Yiqing began to hum again, sticking to her pitifully, "I'm scared."

"Alright, alright." Qi Qiuxue raised her hand and patted her to comfort her. The lunchtime reading time was almost up, and if she stayed any longer, she might not be able to return to the classroom in time. "Let's go back to class first and go our separate ways. We can exchange information later if we have any."

"By the way, we've just entered the dungeon, so we're not sure if there are any taboos within it that would result in death if disobeyed," she said. "To be on the safe side, everyone, please be careful not to violate the rules of class or the dormitory to avoid any unexpected situations."

"Got it." Everyone said in unison.

"Yang Yi, do you think...will something happen to me?" On the way back to class, a more introverted player in the crowd spoke timidly to another player next to him, "Last night, I was late to bed, and not only did the dorm warden scold me, but I also had credits deducted. Does this count as a violation of the taboo?"

"Hey, Jiang Rou, what are you thinking about? It should be fine." Yang Yi shook her head and gently comforted her roommate, "Aren't you still alive and well now? If something really happened, would you still be standing here talking to me?"

"But..." Jiang Rou obviously wanted to say something else.

Yang Yi didn't want to listen anymore. She was afraid that they were walking too slowly and wouldn't have enough time, so she simply urged her to run faster: "Let's go, let's go!"

Everyone arrived at the classroom smoothly before the bell for lunch reading rang.

The afternoon classes were still dull and tedious. Qi Qiuxue had checked the schedule in advance. Except for the weekends when the lights could be turned off early, the classes on weekdays ended at 9:30. After returning to the dormitory, the students had one hour to wash up and deal with chores, and the lights were turned off at 10:30.

After sitting on the small and hard chairs for almost the entire day, the players were all miserable. They finally made it to the end of the school day and were able to get a short break.

But the nights also have their difficulties, especially after realizing that the NPCs might not have been able to send the Pen Fairy away successfully, the players were all preoccupied with their own thoughts and did not dare to stay outside for too long. They returned to the dormitory early in the morning, washed up simply, and then went into bed.

The same went for Qi Qiuxue and Li Yiqing. The atmosphere in the dormitory today was much quieter than yesterday. Even though it was not yet lights-out time, everyone had already gone to bed early.

The curtains were drawn and the dormitory was dead silent.

Before I knew it, the lights in the room went out, and the dazzling light of the flashlight was projected again from far away outside the door. The dormitory manager carefully checked every room as he did yesterday.

After that, the footsteps of the dormitory manager became farther and farther away. Qi Qiuxue closed her eyes and listened. She intuitively felt that the heels of her shoes were a little high and the overall weight was too high. The soles of her shoes hit the ground, making a noticeable noise.

The elevator at the end of the corridor opened, and the dormitory manager stepped in slowly and headed to other floors.

Qi Qiuxue did not open her eyes again, silently integrating the information in her heart. Gradually, she began to feel sleepy. In a daze, she heard the sound of Lin Yan turning over, the sound of Li Yiqing's gradually becoming heavy breathing, and the faint sound of chanting coming from Liu Ziman's bed.

She seemed extremely frightened and could not fall asleep until this moment. Qi Qiuxue could not hear what she was saying, but she felt that her voice was trembling and her tone was very fast.

This copy is so strange. Unlike the previous copy, the first one to show abnormality is the NPC.

Is the mechanism different?

Qi Qiuxue was doubtful and decided to talk to Li Yiqing and Su Wen, who also had dungeon experience, tomorrow.

The sleepiness grew stronger.

Qi Qiuxue's thoughts were no longer able to form, and she was ready to fall into a deep sleep at any time, but at this moment, Liu Ziman, who lived in the upper bunk of Lin Yan, began to retch again.

She made a loud noise, waking up everyone present in a moment. Lin Yan sat up dazedly: "Manman, what's wrong with you?"

"Would you like some water?" she asked, lowering her eyes and rummaging through her schoolbag for a while before pulling out her own water cup. "I still have some water in my cup, you can drink it first..."

Before she could finish her words, Liu Ziman held the railing with both hands, leaned forward, and vomited out in big mouthfuls.

She vomited in bits and pieces all over the floor, and the smell was extremely unpleasant. Lin Yan, who had originally looked concerned, changed her expression. Adding to the fact that she was already unhappy about being suddenly woken up from her sleep, her voice gradually became filled with anger: "Liu Ziman, how long are you going to keep doing this?"

"You're just scaring yourself. What are you thinking all day? The school doctor said you're fine!" She sighed, got up and went to find a mop, wordlessly urging the other roommates to get out of bed and deal with it. "You all should just stop watching. Are you expecting me to clean up by myself?"

"Hurry up and get moving. You need to finish cleaning up as soon as possible so that you can go to bed earlier. Liu Ziman, you are such a troublemaker. You vomit in the morning, at noon, and at night. It never stops. If you really feel uncomfortable, I will accompany you to ask the teacher for leave tomorrow. You can just go home..."

She was furious and couldn't stop cursing, but when everyone stood up and walked over, she somehow stopped cursing.

"You, you guys come over here and take a look!" She was practically terrified, and in a panic, she turned back to her roommates for help. "Look at those moving things on the ground. Are they bugs? Did Liu Ziman vomit this?"

insect?

Qi Qiuxue squatted down and looked at the ground in the moonlight. Just as Lin Yan said, there were indeed several long things that were wriggling desperately in the pool of vomit.

Qi Qiuxue concluded: "...It's a bug."

After she finished speaking, Lin Yan's eyes widened, as if she couldn't believe what she saw and heard, and she immediately fell to the ground: "How, how could this be?"

"This is impossible, this is impossible..."

【Author’s words】

Come on, everyone~

By the way, there are many reversals in this copy qwq

Thanks to the little angels who threw the grenade: Shi Yi and Yu Shi Wu Zheng;

Thanks to the little angels who cast mines: 3 Mancao; 1 Internet Addict, 1 Qiulangshimei fairy, 1 Xishang, and 1 Tuhuhu;

Thanks for the nutrient solution (19 bottles); Shadow Cloth (12 bottles); Orange (5 bottles); Jingran Qin Jiaren Yi (3 bottles); Don't Want to Go to Work (2 bottles); Hee Hee (1 bottle);