The roommate who sleeps on the oval-face bunk is Wu Qianchuan, and he has been lying in bed for half an hour.
This was the second day of playing the game. He usually slept like a log. He could basically sleep till dawn once he closed his eyes. Even thunder couldn't wake him up, but he couldn't stand the noise from his roommates.
The iron bed on the lower bunk made a slight creaking sound when it shook, and the bed board beneath people tilted left and right when they turned over.
Wu Qianchuan was sleeping in a daze. He tried to hold back, but couldn't help it and threw the pillow down: "Be quiet!"
He fell back into sleep, and vaguely seemed to hear the rustling of fabric, followed by a slight tremor from shoes stepping on the ground.
“Crash——”
The window frame rubbed against each other along the seams, the night wind blew in, and the shadows of the trees danced in the moonlight.
There was no one in front of the window.
※
The next morning, Huajun Middle School erupted in the biggest debate in recent years.
A dozen meters outside the dormitory building gate, a person was lying on the ground, his head was cracked, his limbs were twisted, his pupils were open, and blood was sliding down the corners of his eyes like tears.
Die with eyes open.
It was just after the wake-up bell rang, and the dormitory building was busiest. When the early-rising students walked out of the gate, they could see the obstacle across the road. When they walked in and took a look, they were almost scared to death by the bloody scene in front of them.
There was no need to spread the news that someone had fallen to his death in the school. The news was already spreading like wildfire among the students. By the time the dormitory supervisor discovered the abnormality and rushed out to check, the news had already spread to most of the campus. As for the remaining few, they had also heard various versions of the story in the discussion.
The police arrived quickly and the scene was surrounded, with bright yellow cordon stretching from the downstairs to the upstairs.
The students were in a panic and the teachers had no intention of teaching properly, but they could not release the students before the truth was revealed. They could only temporarily change all the courses to self-study.
After Shi Yu heard the news, the version of the news had changed several times, but fortunately the main core was not lost: "The one who died was a player from the opposite dormitory, named Liu Yipei."
Shang Xia didn't know what he said to persuade the classmate who had borrowed homework from Shi Yu. Before another self-study class started, he moved to Shi Yu's side and wrote on the draft paper: "It is said that Cen Biexi was among the first group of people to be discovered."
Cen Biexi was usually a representative of the small group of people in the school who got up earlier than the chickens. This could be seen from the fact that one of their teachers, Lin Chenghuan, woke up the day before and found that Cen Biexi was no longer in bed.
As usual, I got up early and went downstairs. A lot of people had gathered a few meters away from the dormitory building gate. They were all surrounding the body of the player who fell to his death. Some were terrified, some collapsed, and some were trembling.
They are all high school students and their mental qualities are not strong.
Cen Biexi was the calmest one, his expression didn't change much. He went back into the building to inform the teacher, reminding him to call an ambulance and dial the police. At this moment, he was still being called by the police to take a statement and had not been released yet.
Shang Xia briefly explained the previous situation, and then wrote in a new line: "There is also a dead person in the dormitory opposite. He is the one who broke the rules and went to find Lin Zhi yesterday."
The pen tip paused for a moment before Shang Xia continued writing: "I went to their dormitory this morning and saw that person's death was the same as the body I saw yesterday."
There were bruises around their necks, and it seemed that they were strangled to death.
There was nothing difficult to understand: after Oval Face stopped Lin Zhi outside the cafeteria yesterday, it was equivalent to breaking a big taboo that getting close to Lin Zhi would cause trouble. Oval Face was destined to be attacked by ghosts at night, and his death would only serve as evidence of this rule of death.
However, the key issue is that after they figured out the constraints on ghosts' killings yesterday, they told the rules to the Oval-Faced Man.
It was Lin Chenghuan who advocated this.
Since he already knew in advance that he was being targeted by ghosts, and knew that the key to avoiding danger was to control the light source of the shadow, regardless of whether the Oval Face would fully trust them as competitors, he should at least remain vigilant and be prepared: there were desk lamps in the small store next to the school cafeteria, which cost more than ten yuan each. With the money for a meal, he could buy an amulet that could save his life at a critical moment.
And there was indeed such a desk lamp next to his body this morning, which meant that he had prepared it in advance.
But the oval face still died.
The cause of death was exactly the same as that of the roommate who slept in the bed opposite him the day before.
Was it because the ghost acted too quickly and he didn't have time to turn on the light?
Was it because he simply didn't trust them as his competitors and therefore didn't use them until his death?
Or is there some other reason?
Shang Xia only felt greed and arrogance towards the oval-faced man. He had no interest in analyzing his mental journey. He wrote down the key points of his observations: "Shishi, do you think their deaths are related?"
There was no teacher on duty in the classroom. The sounds of turning pages and pens swishing continued, with occasional low conversations. The academic atmosphere of this key middle school was vigorous.
In front of Shi Yu was a thick hardcover book that he had found from somewhere, and a piece of draft paper covered with words was pushed in front of him.
He finished reading the contents of the paper, and before he could move, a pen was stuffed into his hand.
Shi Yu glanced at Shang Xia and lowered his head to write: "It's possible."
Shang Xia leaned over to take a look, took back the pen he had just handed over, and wrote: "Could the person who fell to death be related to Su Lingque?"
Shi Yu looked at him again and nodded directly: "Maybe."
Shang Xia was about to ask something else when the bell for the end of get out of class rang.
I don't know who was the first to breathe a sigh of relief, but then everyone collapsed as if they had recovered from the tension, and then started talking frantically.
During this time, the conversation changed several times, and they could not help talking about Cen Biexi who had gone to see the police and had not returned yet. Suddenly, a girl raised her voice: "Lin Zhi, do you know what's going on?"
As soon as the words fell, the whole classroom seemed to have been muted. Everyone stopped talking at the same time and turned their attention to Lin Zhi.
If you call me by name, you can't pretend you didn't hear it.
Lin Zhi still looked at the textbook: "I don't know."
The girl looked like she didn't believe it: "You and Cen Biexi have such a good relationship. What did he see this morning that the police said so? Didn't he tell you?"
Lin Zhi paused holding the pen, still without looking up: "No, I'm not familiar with him either."
The girl insisted, "You fell down while running a few days ago. Wasn't it him who carried you to the infirmary? And you still say you are not familiar with each other?"
"If I tell you you're not familiar with it, then you're not familiar with it. Is there something wrong with your ears? Do you want me to tell you again?!" In a sudden and fierce outburst, Lin Zhi suddenly picked up the dictionary on the corner of the table and smashed it hard. The thick corner of the book hit the person's head, making a heavy muffled sound.
The girl was knocked to the ground by the powerful force, her back hit the desk, and a large number of textbooks fell over.
There was a moment of silence, and then there was chaos, with people exclaiming, offering condolences, and those affected hurriedly trying to pick up the papers, pens, tables and chairs that had been innocently scattered all over the floor.
But more people just sat in their seats and watched coldly.
Shang Xia tilted his head and laughed: "The woman who was hit is also a player, right?"
Yi Shengsheng at the front table turned around in astonishment and asked, "How did you figure that out?"
As soon as she said this, she realized how stupid she was: old players all wore divine bracelets, and they all looked like adults, different from the immature middle school students. Of course, one could tell at a glance whether they were players or not, otherwise she would not have tried to form a team with Shi Yu before.
Shang Xia didn't notice her embarrassment: "If you're not a player, there's no need to deliberately provoke Lin Zhi at this time."
Lin Zhi had been silent for too long, and it was rare for him to explode, which frightened some people. After Yi Shengsheng, the roommate of the girl who was hit, took her to the infirmary, no one dared to look at her openly anymore.
After such a mistake, Shang Xia had forgotten what he wanted to say before. Instead, Lin Chenghuan took the initiative to come over and continued the topic that was interrupted before: "I found out about Su Lingque."
"A student from Huajun Middle School fell to his death. The investigation results show that a criminal case has been ruled out for the time being."
Lin Chenghuan poked at his phone a few times, pulled up a news screenshot, and turned the screen towards the two people: "The student in the accident is named Su Lingque."
Shang Xia stared at his phone, not knowing whether he was more surprised or shocked: "Why do you have a phone?"
Obviously, he should have been isolated from the outside the moment he entered the divine realm.
Lin Chenghuan's tone was even more surprised than his: "Isn't it common enough for high school students to secretly bring cell phones these days?"
“…”
To be honest, Shang Xia had thought about this method. He did try to look for Schrödinger's prohibited items in the dormitory last night, but unfortunately he found nothing in the end.
They had never exchanged real information, so they naturally didn't know that Lin Chenghuan, a teacher, had found more hidden mobile phones than he had participated in gaming sessions. Moreover, the other party obviously had no intention of explaining: "The report was from three years ago. Is there anything else?"
"Su Lingque was a local who entered Huajun Middle School in his first year of high school. His grades were average, but he seemed to have good relationships with people and came from a decent family. He had many friends among his classmates. One year after he entered school, he jumped off a building and died during the final period of his first year of high school. He was only fifteen years old when he died." Lin Chenghuan took back his phone and scrolled through it. "The rest of the messages are similar and have little reference value."
When he swiped to one of the screenshots, he stopped and let go of his hand: "This is her photo, a pretty girl."
Shang Xia looked down and his expression paused slightly.
Su Lingque's face is surprisingly similar to Lin Zhi's.
"She looks a lot like Lin Zhi, right?" Lin Chenghuan turned off his phone, put the surveillance camera into his sleeve, and lowered his voice as he bent over. "I was also shocked when I first saw her. I thought she was dead and resurrected. But I haven't found out what her relationship with Cen Biexi is yet."
Shang Xia: “I roughly know this.”
Lin Chenghuan was stunned.
He could have kept the news to himself, even to the point where no one knew he had kept it to himself. Since the other party kept his promise and shared it, Shang Xia simply took out a piece of white paper from his pocket.
It was the file form that I took from the head teacher's desk when I was asking questions in the office.
"Cen Biexi took a leave of absence from school three years ago for some reason and has just returned to school." Shang Xia said, "Going back three years, Cen Biexi is exactly fifteen years old, the same age as Su Lingque."
"They are not friends you met outside of school, nor are they childhood sweethearts. They are just former classmates."
"In this school, in this building, in this classroom."
"But one fell from a building and died, and the other dropped out of school for three years."
Lin Chenghuan pondered for a while and asked the same question as Shang Xia: "Then could the player who fell to his death this morning be related to Su Lingque?"
Shang Xia didn't answer, but just looked at Shi Yu beside him.
Amid the noise all around, Shi Yu flipped through the book in front of him and found the corresponding page in the table of contents: "Maybe."
Shang Xia listened to this and said, "What are the other possibilities?"
Shi Yu: "This game has two tasks."
Lin Chenghuan opened his eyes slightly and quickly called up the system message he received when the game started:
[Please find the ghost hidden among you/hide your ghost identity]
"I was wondering before, if it was really the same ghost who killed the person, why would the method of killing suddenly change, and why did it fall from a building, which at first glance looks like an accidental death."
Shi Yu turned a page of the book: "It is difficult to strangle a person, especially a well-developed adult male, because they will resist, but since it is certain that it was a ghost, their death is easy to understand. But falling from a building is different. For a ghost, pushing a person down the stairs and strangling a person to death should not be much different. The situation where the difficulty of these two methods is greatly different should occur in humans."
"I'm more inclined to think that the person who did this is the one hiding among the players."
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