Chapter 101 Countdown
Because of the sudden attack, the three of them sat in the room all night.
The next day, Lin Qiushi emerged from his room only after the first rays of sunlight hit the corridor. As soon as he reached the corridor, he was struck by a strong, fishy odor. He was very familiar with it; it was the smell of blood.
"Something happened?" Gu Longming also smelled the bloody smell and became nervous. "Where did it come from?"
Lin Qiushi sniffed and determined the direction the smell came from. He said, "It seems to be downstairs. Let's go and take a look."
They turned and went down the stairs, and saw two people standing in front of the room on the far right. The door of the room was wide open, and the pungent fishy smell came from that room.
Gu Longming walked in front and asked, "What happened?"
"People died," Zuo Sisi said indifferently. She had clearly come to terms with death. "Two people died. I don't know how the death conditions were triggered."
Gu Longming leaned over to the window and took a look inside. He waved his hands with a rather grim expression, "Hmm...it was quite a tragic death."
Lin Qiushi also took a step forward and walked to the window: "Let me take a look too."
Through the gap in the curtains, he saw the scene inside the room. The entire room was covered in blood. The two dead people stood in the center of the room. Their heads had been replaced with something, becoming two plaster statues of human heads. The white plaster was also covered with coagulated blood, which looked very horrifying at first glance.
"Where are their heads?" Gu Longming asked, "Have you found their heads?"
"No." Zuo Sisi hugged her chest and said, "We just found out too."
"No one knows these two people?" Lin Qiushi asked.
Zuo Sisi shook her head: "I don't know whether there is any or not. If you want to know, you'll have to wait a little longer. Some people haven't woken up yet... You guys keep watching. I'm going to eat." After she finished speaking, she and her partner turned and left. From their backs, they looked as if they had no attachment to the two corpses.
Gu Longming asked Lin Qiushi in a low voice, "Should we go in and take a look?" This place really made people feel uncomfortable.
"Let's take a look." Lin Qiushi felt that there might be some clues on these two people, although if possible, he didn't want to go in.
While the two of them were talking, Ai Wenrui was standing behind them, shaking like he had received an electric shock. When he heard Gu Longming say he wanted to go in, he almost burst into tears and said, "I won't go in, I won't go in—"
"Okay, just wait outside. I didn't ask you to come in." Gu Longming didn't expect Ai Wenrui to have the courage to come in, so he was the first to enter the house.
It seemed that someone else had come in once. Gu Longming saw a few scattered footprints beside the house.
Lin Qiushi walked over to the bodies of the two men and discovered that a strange change had occurred in their bodies. Although they were dead, their bodies did not become soft. Instead, they were stiff, like hardened cement.
The two men's heads were forcibly twisted off, and one could even see the marks of torn muscles on their necks. Gu Longming searched the room but couldn't find their heads: "There are no heads."
Lin Qiushi nodded, indicating he understood. He half-bent down, carefully observing the two dead bodies before him, when he suddenly noticed something. Cautiously reaching out, he tentatively rummaged through the pockets of one of the corpses. After a moment, he pulled out a small wooden figurine...
Lin Qiushi had seen this wooden man yesterday. It was the same kind held by Ai Wenrui's two friends. However, the wood this time was different from the one Lin Qiushi saw yesterday - the head of this wooden man was missing.
The wooden man was also stained with some blood. Lin Qiushi took out a tissue and wrapped the wooden man in it. He then found an identical wooden man on another dead body.
Apart from the wooden man, there seemed to be no other clues in the house.
Lin Qiushi left the room and showed the wooden figure in his hand to Ai Wenrui, saying, "Do you recognize this thing? Is it your friend's?"
"Where did you find it?" Ai Wenrui's eyes widened when he saw the wooden man. "Let me see it?"
Lin Qiushi handed the wooden man to Ai Wenrui.
After Ai Wenrui checked, his expression became a little scared: "Isn't this Xiaosu's wooden man?"
Lin Qiushi frowned upon hearing this: "What do you mean? Does it mean that the wooden figures in each of your hands are different?"
"Yes." Ai Wenrui said, "It's different. This is Xiaosu's wooden figure. I remember it very clearly because her wooden figure has no head——"
Lin Qiushi: "Where's your wooden figure?"
"I threw it away." Ai Wenrui said, "We were all a little scared after the accident, so I just found a place to throw the wooden man... This, this..."
Gu Longming asked, "Could this wooden figure be related to the way they died?"
Lin Qiushi also thought of it, so they both turned their eyes to Ai Wenrui.
After hearing their conversation, Ai Wenrui obviously thought of something, and his expression was instantly filled with fear. "No, no way... But Xiaohe's wooden figure is fine, right? How could he be dead too?"
"Who said his wooden man is fine?" Lin Qiushi asked.
"I saw it, you saw it too - the one they were holding in their hands -" said Alvin Rui.
"That doesn't necessarily have to be Xiaohe's wooden figure," Lin Qiushi said. "Wasn't your other friend there at the time? He's still alive. Could this wooden figure be his?"
After Lin Qiushi's reminder, Ai Wenrui obviously figured something out. His face became increasingly pale, and finally lost all color. He stammered, as if he had lost his strength, and squeezed out a sentence from between his teeth: "I don't know. When I arrived, they had already taken out the wooden man." So he couldn't be sure whether the wooden man was Xiaohe's who was cut in half, or his good friend who had escaped in a hurry before.
"Let's look for information about Zhu Ruyuan," Lin Qiushi said. "And where did you lose your wooden figure?"
Ai Wenrui's face was ashen, he shook his head and said, "How would I know, I threw it into the trash can--" Who knows what it looks like now.
Gu Longming said: "Okay, don't think too much, just let it go."
Ai Wenrui didn't say anything for a long time, and he looked like his soul had left his body.
Lin Qiushi inexplicably felt a little pity for the child. He reached out and stroked his furry head. "Let's go. Let's get this over with soon, so we don't have to worry anymore."
Ai Wenrui did not respond.
The incident involving Zhu Ruyuan happened five years ago. The students in the school seemed to have no reaction to this name, but most of the teachers with long tenure knew this person, and even reacted strongly whenever her name was mentioned.
Lin Qiushi and his companions asked many people, and finally a teacher provided them with key information: "If you want to know, why not ask the homeroom teacher of that class at the time?"
"Oh, he's still in school?" Lin Qiushi asked.
"Yes," the teacher said, "but he doesn't teach anymore. He manages the books in the library."
Lin Qiushi immediately thought of the librarian. After thanking the teacher, the three of them prepared to go to the library.
"I need to go to the restroom first." Ever since Ai Wenrui learned about the wooden man, his face had been looking grim. Lin Qiushi was a little worried about him and said, "Go ahead, you'll be fine."
"Yeah." Ai Wenrui nodded.
After he entered, Lin Qiushi looked at Gu Longming and asked, "What do you think of him?"
"How is it? What do you mean?" Gu Longming was stunned for a moment, then quickly said, "I don't like boys—"
Lin Qiushi: "..." He tried hard to control himself and prevent his expression from distorting. "I didn't ask you that!"
"So what do you mean? Oh... are you asking whether Ai Wenrui can be trusted?" Gu Longming said, "I think he must be hiding something from us, but it shouldn't be anything particularly important."
"Hmm." Lin Qiushi pondered for a moment, thinking about certain issues.
Ai Wenrui left quickly and came back quickly. After a while, the sound of flushing water came from inside. He walked outside and said weakly to Gu Longming, "I think I have diarrhea. I feel really uncomfortable."
"Are you not feeling well? Do you want me to carry you on my back?" Ai Wenrui was skinny, and it was no problem for Gu Longming to carry him on his back, just like carrying a bag of rice.
Lin Qiushi originally thought that Ai Wenrui would refuse, but unexpectedly he nodded and agreed.
Gu Longming bent down, picked up Ai Wenrui and said, "Let's go, let's not waste time."
Lin Qiushi nodded. The three of them took a few steps forward and were about to enter the elevator when they heard a terrified scream from behind them. As soon as the scream came out, Lin Qiushi and Gu Longming's bodies froze instantly, because the owner of the voice was Ai Wenrui, who was supposed to be carried on Gu Longming's back.
"You - what are you carrying -" Lin Qiushi turned around and saw Ai Wenrui standing outside the toilet, looking at them with a terrified look.
Gu Longming also let out a scream and threw the things he was carrying directly to the ground.
Lin Qiushi heard the sound of a hard object breaking. He looked down and found that Gu Longming was carrying a plaster statue on his back. The statue fell to the ground and shattered into several pieces.
"Fuck, fuck, fuck—" Gu Longming cursed and slapped his back repeatedly, "What the hell is this thing?"
Lin Qiushi lowered his head and looked at the statue. He slowly bent down and dug out a few pieces of debris from the fragments of the statue. He frowned: "This..." He took out the debris and found that these wooden fragments happened to belong to the same puppet.
Ai Wenrui's expression was dazed. He slowly took a few steps forward, saw what Lin Qiushi was holding, and said in a trembling voice, "This, this is my wooden figure."
Lin Qiushi: “…”
Ai Wenrui said: "This is my wooden man--" His wooden man was smashed into pieces, and his limbs were broken into fragments that could not be put together. If their guess was correct, then he would die in this way and leave this world tragically.
Lin Qiushi thought Ai Wenrui would burst into tears after seeing the wooden man, but he didn't expect Ai Wenrui to force a tearful smile and said, "Am I going to die too?"
Honestly, after all this time inside, Lin Qiushi had rarely seen such vivid NPCs. It even gave him the illusion that he was actually an outsider. Most of the NPCs inside were terrifying and eerie. The only one who left a lasting impression on Lin Qiushi was Xu Jin, an NPC disguised as an outsider.
"Don't worry, you'll be fine." Gu Longming said soothingly, "Let's go to the library first and find Zhu Ruyuan as soon as possible. Maybe we can put an end to this matter."
Ai Wenrui didn't say anything, just nodded woodenly.
This time they didn't dare to waste any more time and the three of them went straight to the library.
The librarian I had met earlier was now sitting at the front desk reading a book. Hearing Lin Qiushi and the others' footsteps, he didn't even raise his head. He simply said coldly, "The files are upstairs. No one's checking them out right now."
"Hello," Lin Qiushi said, "You are Zhu Ruyuan's homeroom teacher, right?"
When the librarian heard the name Zhu Ruyuan, he paused turning pages and his eyes turned gloomy. "Where did you hear that name?"
Lin Qiushi said, "She's your student, right?"
The librarian said, “Yes.”
"Can you tell me about her?" Lin Qiushi pointed to the various statues in the lobby on the first floor, "and these statues."
"She's my student and I'm her teacher, that's all," he said. "What do you want to know?"
"How did she die?" Lin Qiushi asked, "Or rather, is her death related to these statues?"
The librarian put down the book in his hand and said calmly, "She committed suicide. As for the relationship between these statues and her, have you seen Zhu Ruyuan's sculptures?"
Lin Qiushi probably had never seen it before, but he remembered the statue of a woman hidden in the activity room and asked, "Is it a woman?"
Zhu Ruyuan's homeroom teacher said, "Yes, a woman modeled after herself." He added, "She's beautiful, but that's all she is. It's missing something important." He stood up and pointed to the statues on the first floor, each in a different pose but remarkably similar. "But these statues don't lack that one thing; they're all perfect works."
Lin Qiushi: “…”
Gu Longming clearly disliked this pretentiously mysterious teacher. He said, "Perfect? How can something that looks similar be perfect?"
After he finished speaking, the head teacher laughed contemptuously: "You don't understand anything."
"What kind of person is Zhu Ruyuan?" Lin Qiushi continued to ask.
"Her? A very demanding creator." The head teacher told them Zhu Ruyuan's information without emotion, as if fulfilling his duty. "She can't tolerate any flaws..."
"How does she treat defective products?" Lin Qiushi asked.
"Of course it's destruction," the homeroom teacher said. "Defective products really have no value in existence."
Lin Qiushi asked, "So when she discovered a flaw in the sculpture based on herself, she destroyed herself?" His gaze shifted to the class leader's shirt pocket. "What's in your pocket?"
The head teacher didn't answer, but just glanced at Lin Qiushi coldly.
Lin Qiushi asked, "Can you show me what's in your pocket?"
He still didn't move, but Gu Longming had lost his patience and reached out to grab his collar and pull him towards him. His movements were very rough, and it was obvious that he was very impatient with this rude NPC in front of him.
"What are you doing--" the head teacher shouted, but before he could react, Gu Longming grabbed his shirt pocket.
Gu Longming took out something from his shirt pocket, and it turned out to be a wooden doll, just like the one they had seen before.
"Wooden doll?!" Ai Wenrui's eyes widened. "Where did you get it? Did the senior give it to you?"
When the head teacher saw the wooden doll being held in Gu Longming's hand, he suddenly became nervous and said, "Give it back to me—" He reached out to pull it away.
However, Gu Longming was unwilling to let go. The two of them pulled the cart together, and the wooden man, which had no explanation in the first place, was torn to pieces.
“Ahhhhhhhhhhhhh!!” The man howled in terror when he saw the wooden man being torn into pieces. His expression was extremely horrible. “Give it back to me, give it back to me!”
Gu Longming was startled by the man's shout and reflexively let go, letting the wooden man fall to the ground.
The librarian picked up the wooden man in a panic, glanced at the statues on the first floor, then turned and ran away in a panic, as if a ghost was chasing him.
Gu Longming said: "Fuck, how could he have such a thing, could it be——"
His gaze met Lin Qiushi's, and they both simultaneously expressed their thoughts: "Could it be that he fulfilled his wish?"
It seems that there is no answer to this question for now, but it is obvious that the source of everything is Zhu Ruyuan.
Just as Lin Qiushi was talking to Gu Longming, he suddenly heard a subtle cracking sound, like something like a stone cracking. He immediately became alert and looked towards the source of the sound. He saw that the huge chandelier hanging on the ceiling on the first floor was about to fall.
"Get out of here!" Lin Qiushi immediately grabbed the two of them and left the place. They had just taken two steps forward when the chandelier fell directly to the ground. It was conceivable that if they were still underneath, they would probably be smashed to pieces like a watermelon.
When accidents happen too often, they are no longer accidents. This is not the first time such a thing has happened. The glass before and the chandelier now seem to be countdowns to death, telling Ai Wenrui that his life seems to have entered a countdown and may be taken away by ghosts at any time.
"I don't know what to do." Ai Wenrui squatted on the ground, as if he was frightened and exhausted. "Am I going to die? I don't want to die..."
Lin Qiushi asked, "Are you hiding something from us?"
Ai Wenrui glanced at Lin Qiushi.
Gu Longming said, "It's already this late, your life is about to end, and you still won't tell me?"
Ai Wenrui was silent for a moment, and whispered: "I don't know whether I should say it."
"Why shouldn't I say it?" Lin Qiushi didn't understand what he meant.
"Because they wouldn't let me tell you," Ivanrui said. "They told me to keep this a secret..." He leaned against the wall. "I thought I would keep it a secret for them."
"What's going on?" Gu Longming asked.
Ai Wenrui said: "Do you still remember the man who survived in the photo? The one named Zhou Hanshan."
Lin Qiushi nodded, indicating that he remembered.
"He's in a relationship with Zhu Ruyuan," Ai Wenrui said. "They've been dating for a long time...at least half a year."
"What?" Gu Longming couldn't believe it. "He's dating a dead person?"
"Yeah, I find it unbelievable too." Ai Wenrui said listlessly, "But they are indeed in love. I even saw them kissing. However, not many people know about this, and they have been keeping it a secret..."
Lin Qiushi waited quietly for him to continue.
"He was the one who suggested playing this game," Ai Wenrui said. "He said since we were free anyway, we might as well play a game called Campus Legend. Someone suggested playing Pen Fairy, but after playing it, there was no reaction. Zhu Ruyuan then said she knew a more interesting way to play."
Gu Longming: "Did she take out all these wooden figures?"
Ai Wenrui said, "Yes, she took them all out." He said, "But we're a sculpture club, so these appearances aren't unusual. No one paid much attention to it. Then Zhou Hanshan took the statue out of the utility room..." He lowered his eyes, as if carefully considering what had happened that day. "After that, I don't think I saw Zhu Ruyuan again."
"She disappeared." Ivanrui's speech slowed down, as if he was trying to suppress his fear. He said, "Then we went to the statue, cut our skin, smeared the blood on the wooden figure, made a wish... and then the wish came true."
However, the price of making their wish come true is the young life of each of them.
Every time a statue is placed in the library, a person dies. The statues' rigid forms seem to have imprinted the unwilling expressions of the deceased, a terrifying sight.
"Zhou Hanshan, it's all his fault." Ai Wenrui finally figured it all out. "He was the one who led us to do this. He was helping Zhu Ruyuan, so..." He looked up bewilderedly. "Did he know his girlfriend was dead?"
"You know what? Just find him." Gu Longming clenched his fists. "People who betray their friends for their girlfriends are such fucking bastards."
"Where could he be now?" Lin Qiushi asked.
"Maybe in the dormitory." Ai Wenrui said, "But... I can't be sure."
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