33 One step late

◎It is the deceased Liu Ziman◎

The school doctor did what he said and stayed in the infirmary for the rest of the time.

Qi Qiuxue didn't get the chance to continue exploring outside, so she simply gave up and lay down on the bed to take a nap with her eyes closed. The school doctor looked at her several times, as if trying to observe whether she was asleep or not, but only Qi Qiuxue herself knew whether she was asleep or not.

After the morning classes ended, Li Yiqing ran over to find Qi Qiuxue as promised: "Axue, let's go back to the dormitory!"

"Okay." Qi Qiuxue slowly got up from the bed and stretched energetically, "Let's go."

Before leaving, she turned to look at the school doctor behind her and smiled sweetly, "Thank you. The medicine is very effective. I feel much better now."

It was clearly a thank you, but somehow the school doctor heard a hint of provocation.

Qi Qiuxue turned around and left the infirmary with Li Yiqing.

"Have you shown the medicine to Zhao Xiangning?" Qi Qiuxue didn't speak softly until the two of them walked side by side to the corner ahead.

Li Yiqing nodded and said, "I've seen it."

Qi Qiuxue: "What is it?"

Li Yiqing: "Zhao Xiangning said that those medicines are probably just vitamin pills. They can't cure the disease, but they won't cause any adverse damage to the body."

Vitamin tablets?

This was beyond Qi Qiuxue's imagination. Even someone who had never worked in the medical field should know the term "prescribe the right medicine for the right disease." What to eat for a cold, what to eat for a stomachache, what to use to disinfect and stop bleeding from an injury, what to eat to relieve heart palpitations...

And the school doctor only prescribed her some vitamin tablets.

Qi Qiuxue paused, then immediately noted this suspicious point. She still had the pills she had secretly hidden in her pocket, and planned to show them to Zhao Xiangning during the afternoon class. "Then she is truly an incompetent school doctor."

“…”

Su Wen went to the cafeteria to buy food in advance. When Qi Qiuxue and Li Yiqing arrived, they saw that the table was already piled with food.

Li Yiqing looked at her in shock: "Why buy so much? Axue and I can just have one bowl of noodles each."

"Yes." Su Wen pushed the two bowls of noodles on the table in front of the two of them, "These two bowls are yours, and the rest are mine."

Li Yiqing: "..." I forgot, she is an extraordinary eater.

"Sit down." Su Wen didn't care about Li Yiqing's shocked look, and even smiled. "Anyway, there's so much money in the meal card, it would be a waste if we don't eat."

"If I really die accidentally in a dungeon one day, it's better to die with a full stomach than with a hungry stomach."

It sounds like it makes some sense.

People who can go to private schools will not be too tight on money. Not only does Su Wen have enough money in his meal card, but Qi Qiuxue and Li Yiqing also have quite a bit in their cards. Not only can they use it to buy food, but they can also use it to buy some daily necessities.

The NPCs in the dormitory are all very rich. Their clothes, shoes and backpacks are all from famous brands. Among them, Lin Yan's family is the richest, which can be seen from the attitude of other roommates towards her.

"Did you try to go to the school gate this morning? Is there any possibility of going out?" Qi Qiuxue ate the noodles in the bowl slowly without much appetite.

"I tried." Su Wen took the last bite of bread and then turned around to pick up another one. "I went there with Li Mengyu and Zhao Xiangning. Whether it was lying about being in an emergency, trying to get close to the guard, or bribery, it didn't work."

Su Wen: "They were determined not to let us out, so we gave up and circled the school, but still couldn't find any way out. Everywhere was sealed off tightly. The walls were very high and covered with sharp iron thorns. Even if we were lucky enough to climb up, we wouldn't find a place to land."

"By the way, we also tried to pass on the message by throwing paper balls, but to be on the safe side, we didn't write anything on the paper balls we threw the first time."

"But guess what?" Su Wen looked over.

Qi Qiuxue: "Is the paper ball blocked by some invisible barrier?"

"Almost." Su Wen said, "The moment the note was about to fly over the wall, it disappeared."

It seems that forcing a breakthrough is not a good option.

"What about you?" In the blink of an eye, Su Wen finished the bread in front of him. "I've been in the infirmary for the whole morning. Have you found anything new?"

Qi Qiuxue did not hide anything and told him everything about the attendance sheet, duty roster, keys, etc.

Li Yiqing had been listening quietly, but when Qi Qiuxue mentioned that all the players were absent on October 12, she suddenly shuddered.

Qi Qiuxue noticed: "Aqing, what's wrong with you?"

"It's okay." Li Yiqing shook his head, fear hidden in his eyes, "I just... accidentally remembered what happened in the first copy."

Qi Qiuxue knew that the first copy she was talking about was not the previous Lake Heart Island, but the copy where only Li Yiqing survived.

Su Wen was shocked when he heard this: "The first dungeon? So you're not a newbie either?"

Li Yiqing nodded: "Well, this is already my third copy."

"..." Su Wen was stunned. After a long while, he said, "Then you are quite secretive."

"Aqing, what were you about to say?" Qi Qiuxue waited until Su Wen calmed down before speaking again, guiding Li Yiqing to share the information he had with the two of them.

"I want to say, I've experienced this before. Whether it's the dungeon or the system, they're really cunning. The background story the system explains when you first enter the dungeon is indeed correct, but it's not the whole story. It conceals many things that may have happened before the player entered the dungeon that we are not aware of."

"But we don't know. The other NPCs do. Perhaps from the very beginning, they've harbored strange feelings towards the players: hatred, resentment, and resentment... If we don't quickly see and investigate these hidden secrets, it's very possible, very likely, that we'll lose our lives without even realizing it."

"Ahxue, remember that photo under Lin Yan's pillow? The one with crosses across every player's face." Li Yiqing clutched the corner of her clothes tightly. "The date underneath is October 10th, which means it was taken not long ago. This means those crosses must have been put in recently. Excluding the possibility that she or they already harbored resentment towards the other roommates, perhaps something special happened between October 10th and when we found the photo, and whether it was jealousy or hatred, it all grew from that."

Li Yiqing's words reminded Qi Qiuxue to a great extent. She nodded and said sincerely, "I'll remember that."

"I'll try to find out."

-

The afternoon classes were equally dull and tedious, but fortunately, the players had gotten used to it after the torture of the past few days.

As agreed upon during the break, all the NPCs from 403, 404, and 405, along with the players, gathered in Qi Qiuxue's dormitory. Jiang Rou and Yang Yi didn't want to come, but were coaxed and persuaded by the NPCs to come.

There were still about forty minutes before lights out, so there was plenty of time. Some people sat on the beds, some stood, and the small room was filled with people.

Lin Yan was still the same, frightened by Liu Ziman's suicide and in a trance. She sat on the bed in silence, staring blankly in the direction of everyone, her eyes empty.

The NPCs honestly explained the details of the Ouija board game that night, which were almost the same as what Lin Yan had said before. After that, they seemed to have lost their backbone and desperately asked the players for help, asking them how to save their lives and how to break the deadlock.

"Why don't you ask for leave and go home?" Qi Qiuxue listened for a while and suddenly said, "Rather than staying in a school with the Pen Fairy, going home is actually a better choice, isn't it?"

This question stunned the NPCs, and the players also realized it later. Yes, if you are afraid, why don’t you go home? In the past few days after the incident, they only saw the NPCs panic and heard them shouting about being scared, but they never saw anyone think of going home.

It's like... he deliberately doesn't want to leave.

"You think I haven't tried to call home?" Jiang Xiaoxia was the first to react, choking up, "But I can't get through, whether it's my homeroom teacher's cell phone or the school landline. It must be the Pen Fairy at work, it must be."

"It won't let us go, it won't let us go. Those of you who didn't participate in the Pen Fairy game must be safer than us. Please, please, all of you, if something really happens, please save us, okay?"

Perhaps because she expressed what these NPCs were thinking deep down, the other NPCs also started crying along with Jiang Xiaoxia. For a while, the noisy crying was endless. Qi Qiuxue frowned in annoyance and wanted to stop it.

But before he could speak, the light above his head suddenly went out.

What’s going on? It’s not lights out yet, right?

As soon as the lights went out, the already panicked NPC started shouting even more. There was light coming in from the corridor, and there was also the sound of something approaching rapidly. Even though the house was noisy, Qi Qiuxue could still tell that it was definitely not the dormitory manager.

"Lock the door!" But she was too far away from the dormitory door, and it was absolutely nonsense to rush up in a short time. Zhou Le and Jiang Xiaoxia happened to be the closest to her, so she opened her mouth and quickly gave the order, no matter who it was, hurry up!

But they were still a step too late. Zhou Le and Jiang Xiaoxia failed to react in time. When they were about to touch the handle, the things outside had already broken in.

This time everyone finally saw its true appearance. It was a monster, not a human monster at all. It had no feet, no legs, only hands and arms, two pairs of arms, one pair for normal use, and one pair for standing. It had no normal facial features, only a mouth, its eyes were a mouth, its nose was a mouth, and its belly was also full of mouths.

It’s so densely packed and terrifying.

Jiang Xiaoxia, who was closest to the door, was terrified and opened her mouth wide to scream reflexively, but the monster did not give her a chance. It crawled in quickly, grabbed Jiang Xiaoxia's body with both hands, pulled her body at a speed that no ordinary person could achieve, and dragged her out.

"Save me! Zhou Le, save me!!!" Jiang Xiaoxia's wails were heard in the corridor, accompanied by the sound of swallowing. It was the monster gnawing on its prey, gradually moving away while eating.

Soon, everything became quiet, the monster disappeared, Jiang Xiaoxia disappeared, and everything that had just happened seemed like a dream.

Zhou Le's pupils dilated and she witnessed everything trembling all over, including Jiang Xiaoxia's shrill cry when she asked for help at the end. Everything happened so fast that she had no time to react. She was panicked, guilty, and helpless, but besides being nervous, she also felt a little lucky. It was almost, it was almost her who was pulled away.

"Are you alright?" Tears welled up in her eyes. She turned around with stiff legs and looked at the people behind her. "I..."

Maybe she wanted to say something, but Zhou Le forgot what she wanted to say.

She stopped walking and stopped talking, and at a certain moment, she suddenly felt two hands caressing her neck. The hands were cold and sticky, with a bloody and rotten smell.

A second before she lost her vision, she noticed that Su Wen, who was not far away, quickly pulled out a sword and threw it towards her head with force, but it was still too slow, too late. Zhou Le felt her body floating in the air, and her eyes began to roll back uncontrollably.

She saw the monster hanging upside down above her head. It was Liu Ziman, the Liu Ziman who had jumped to her death. Blood and brain matter slid down Liu Ziman's hair, dripping, dripping. Then the sounds in her ears became more frequent, the sounds of flesh separating and bones breaking.

Liu Ziman grinned grimly and ruthlessly took Zhou Le's head before the sword could hit her.

【Author’s words】

I'm so scared writing this to myself.

Thanks to the little angel who threw the grenade: Shi Yi 1;

Thanks to the little angels who cast mines: Langley's dogs 2; Qiu Lang is a beautiful fairy 1, a peaceful person, an internet addict, and a rabbit 1;

Thanks to the little angels who irrigated the nutrient solution: A Rice Noodle 96 bottles; Jin Xi 50 bottles; The Red Line Crosses the Secret of the Deeply Hidden Reincarnation 34 bottles; Don't Want to Go to Work 6 bottles; R, Jingran Qin Jiaren Yi, Tiandi Buren 1 bottle;