Chapter 109: Memories of Old Campus - People Like Us
Jiang Ming took advantage of the situation and left, but they temporarily formed a united front on the matter of killing the boss.
The moment they break free of the cocoon, they must kill the boss. All battles are locked inside the cocoon, and apart from Jiang Ming who came in with them, there's no one else to rely on. This is better.
He threw back the covers and left, the door slamming shut behind him this time.
After realizing the cycle, he would fold the blanket once and unfold it once when leaving the ward as a mark. This time it happened to be "unfolded". The first time he entered the ward, the blanket was unfolded.
The ward is now closed, the cycle has come full circle, and this is the last time.
Xue Chao walked down the corridor, past the class where the loudest laughter and playfulness had been, all the way to the end of the corridor. The teacher who assigned homework hadn't come, and no one had put their arm around his shoulder or pulled him to play ball.
The fixed "plot" has disappeared.
He turned back, and the classroom was still filled with noisy sounds, while a trail of blood flowed out from the back door.
He walked quickly to the door. Among the faces in the class, he recognized half of them from previous cycles, while the other half were unfamiliar.
The last cycle was full of unfamiliar faces, so why are they bringing back some "old faces" for the last time?
They all recognized him, and some greeted him. Xue Chao took in the entire class: some were studying, some were resting on their desks, some were gossiping, some were playing around, some were playing on their phones... everyone was busy in their own way.
In the first row, at the second desk from the door, a male student was lying face down on the desk, his neck half severed, his student ID card and head hanging like scrap paper on his left arm, and the knife still stuck diagonally next to the cut.
His hands hung limply from the table, blood dripping from his fingertips, pooling in a small puddle, flowing past Xue Chao's feet.
Is this also a case of a bullied student dying openly in class, and everyone else just turning a blind eye?
Just as his fingertips touched the deceased's wound, a water glass was smashed in the back row. He looked over, and the whole class looked over too. A female classmate in the second-to-last row was lying on the ground, foaming at the mouth, with purple lips. There was purple sediment in the spilled water.
The students glanced at it, then turned back as if it were nothing. Xue Chao walked over and looked down; the purple color was actually crushed flower petals.
He avoided the water, pried open the girl's mouth, flicked open a purple bellflower, and parted its roots; her mouth was full of bellflowers.
He walked out of the classroom and saw a classmate's body lying across the molten iron pool used for collecting water. All the taps were running, and flowers were flowing down, covering the body like a circle of flowers around an ice coffin.
Just then, a shadow flashed past the window, followed by a muffled "thump".
Xue Chao looked down and saw a male classmate fall at the gate, then hit another one. The two intertwined corpses were covered in blood, forcing back the people coming in and out.
But after leaving and taking one look, those who needed to go out went out, and those who needed to go in went in.
The student who was crushed to death had a basketball-shaped head that was punctured by a small stone, slowly deflated, and oozing more flesh-colored, blood-red fluid.
Further away, the football field was still in progress, but three corpses lay scattered across it, the green grass turned red, and five or six people were hanging from the trees on both sides. Students watching the swans being fed by the lake had been grabbed by the collar by the swans and dragged into the water, where they drowned.
The teacher was driving and didn't slow down when he saw the students. He sped through them, and several students rolled on the roadside like crops that had fallen in a field.
Nobody cared. The last survivor of the group, acting as if nothing had happened, ran to the stage on the playground with a bunch of red roses. Xue Chao saw a familiar figure but couldn't recognize her for a moment—Sheng Hong?
A bright young girl in a formal dress was rehearsing with another male classmate in a suit; they were probably the male and female hosts for some event.
Her many suitors flocked there, but before they could even present flowers to their beloved, several of them started fighting.
Sheng Hong is already dead, so is that her corpse transformed into something else within the cocoon? Or is it the "Sheng Hong" from "Xue Chao's" memories?
He wanted to go downstairs to take a look, and when he turned around, he saw Pu Fengchun carrying an exercise book into the classroom in front of him. He immediately caught up with him, but Pu Fengchun was already sitting in his seat and had lent the exercise book to his deskmate to check the answers.
Xue Chao sat down in the chair in front of her. Pu Fengchun was startled, but when she saw it was him, she breathed a sigh of relief: "Senior."
That form of address… He looked down; she was working on biology competition problems, with his notes beside her. He asked abruptly, “Do I owe you money?”
Pu Fengchun was stunned: "Really?"
"I asked you to pay for the things I bought at the supermarket. How much was it?"
Seeing her genuine confusion, Xue Chao recalled when they had met at the supermarket and realized that this was not the player Pu Fengchun, but the character "Pu Fengchun".
A sunflower stalk crawled through the window, suddenly looped around a classmate's neck, and strangled him to death, right next to Pu Fengchun.
Everyone glanced at it and then looked away, including Xue Chao.
"I misremembered." Xue Chao stood up. "Wait for me here."
He rushed to the video store. The free photos were hung at the back of the display wall. He took down the photos, reached for the key, unlocked the cabinet, and took down the familiar camera.
He turned on the video recording, pointed it at the stabbed corpse on the chair, and a roll of film spit out from the newly added outlet at the bottom of the machine. It was the newly filmed death scene. The stagnant progress of breaking out of the cocoon finally advanced by 0.2%.
The Morpho butterfly is born from death, but the original concentration of death is insufficient, so it makes up for it in its dreams.
Xue Chao could no longer distinguish whether the deaths of the people one after another were a distortion of his dream after his wavering, or whether the cocoon was sucking blood from his dream. He held up his camera and took pictures along the way. The black-and-white film with its bluish tint grew longer and longer, hanging behind him like a tail.
He went to the rooftop, and as soon as he opened the door, a girl fell off the iron fence. He moved closer to the edge of the rooftop, pointed the camera downstairs, and the death of the character "Fang Tailai" was once again captured on film.
In his dream, the player's character dies in the same way.
If all the deaths were absurd, that would be one thing—the strange appearance of the dream-like creatures, no different from the sunflower-headed children growing in the ground. But the inclusion of a few real deaths makes the previous "absurdity" impure, arousing suspicion and making one wonder how much "reality" is hidden.
Being chopped in the neck or jumping off a building doesn't have a fantastical feel; it's like a real-life event. But who says that being poisoned and having flowers grow from your mouth or being drowned in a pool isn't some kind of metaphor?
Jiang Ming's sunflower head was soaked in alcohol, so "Jiang Ming" may have drowned in alcohol. Has anyone else drowned in that bar?
As if on cue, a body drowned in flowers was found in the sink of the men's restroom on the third floor. It was the body of the student in bed number 3 who had bullied Deng Dayun.
The pool on the other side features Xia Caizhe, not the wrinkled old man, but his younger self, radiant with a final burst of energy even with his eyes closed, further proving that it is a character, not a player.
Xia Caizhe was soaking in a pool full of alcohol, with a sunflower stem wrapped around his and his classmate in bed number 3's neck, binding them tightly together.
Xue Chao narrowed his eyes. Right, the one who completed the protagonist's death line was Xia Caizhe, not Jiang Ming.
The story of this character has come to an end. The one who brings it to a close must be the one who started it, who is also the protagonist. Xia Caizhe is the one who died. What does that ghost thing count for?
Are they still considered players? Is it legal to stay in the instance?
This is the opening chapter, so there can't be any anchor point for Him. He stole someone else's identity and then used Him to validate that identity, thus fooling everyone.
Xue Chao smiled coldly.
He wrapped the excessively long roll of film around his shoulder, then photographed "Deng Dayun" with his neck broken in the stairwell. He walked out the door, like a traveling photographer, not missing any of the "scenery" along the way.
The stage on the playground was surrounded by red roses and filled with people who were enthusiastically watching the performance.
There was only one glass display case on the stage, in which stood a perfect girl covered with angel wings. Her brown eyes, under the moonlight, were like light amber that had gradually melted away over a thousand years.
Xue Chao raised the camera.
[Transformation progress: 95%]
The more they film, the slower the progress becomes; it seems even death loses its value.
Bundles of film were slung across his back, trailing a long shadow on the ground, like his thick, curly hair, connecting with his shadow on the ground like boiling black lava.
Sheng Hong died after Pu Fengchun, but he didn't collect Pu Fengchun's death information in the first round. The cocoon was missing the details of this protagonist's death, so he was the last character to be included.
On the way back, there were far fewer survivors, and corpses were everywhere, like cheap vegetation planted to increase the greenery of the campus, an eyesore of decoration.
The classroom was half empty. "Pu Fengchun" was dead, a knife stuck in his heart, lying on the table. Xue Chao hesitated to raise his camera.
He sat down by the window, propping his head up to watch the endless death outside. The smell of blood filled his nostrils. His indifferent expression showed no appreciation; at most, it seemed like he was just bored and looking at the scenery to relieve his boredom.
When two-thirds of the bodies had died, they truly dissolved. Those hanging from trees dissolved into the trunks, those who died on the playground dissolved into roses, those in the pool turned into blood that flowed away through the drainpipe, and those without anything to cling to dissolved into the soil and grass.
Then everything began to turn red—red soil, red water, a lake of blood… In the end, all the corpses melted away, leaving only a clean, white butterfly skeleton.
Amidst the endless crimson, specks of ivory-white dangle, like a chaotic mass of flesh and blood opening many mouths, while only the moon in the sky casts a somber blue glow.
Xue Chao felt that the moonlight was making things worse. The contrast between the cold and warm light did not neutralize each other, but instead made each other even more dazzling. He was so annoyed that he turned his face back to look at the classroom.
Everyone in the classroom was dead, lying haphazardly in the dimly lit, dark red classroom. The blood on the floor was like puddles formed on a rainy day; there was so much that he didn't need to look down to see the heads flickering with eerie light in the puddles.
Occasionally, someone would walk through the blood-soaked corridor, passing by the blood-soaked classroom without a care in the world... Once all these people were dead, his dream would collapse.
He remained seated, calm and indifferent, clearly not the only one who was anxious.
He even went on to speculate on the theme of Xue Chao's dream.
At the beginning of the dream, everyone was peaceful and serene. At the end of the dream, everyone was either dead or injured. As the first morpho butterfly, "he" was always in the dream, watching one person after another, whether he knew them or not, walk towards death.
Whether "he" is experiencing turmoil or remains numb, "he" can only stand on the very edge closest to the core of the story and watch.
A person stopped at the classroom door.
The white Polaroid camera has a head as wide as its shoulders and is twice the height of a human head. Its shape resembles a chubby pear, which is cute, but makes one worry that it might break her slender neck.
Now her head is shrouded in darkness, and even that cuteness has been swallowed up. The outline resembles a deformed head, supporting the lens's huge single eye with a single red reflection.
Xue Chao hesitated to press the button, so she came to see what the problem was. When she saw him, she knew he had deliberately lured her out.
"Don't press it." Bai Bai said first, but not to force him to record the video. Instead, she advised him, "She is the last missing piece. Once it is pieced together, your head will be needed to guide me to break free from my cocoon. You will die."
Xue Chao was submerged in a seaweed-like mountain of film reels.
The film rolls were piled up on three seats, draped over him, black, white, and blue, like moonlight piercing through glass and scattering fragments of the night.
He stared at her without replying, but she had other reasons.
Bai Bai could see his cold distrust and said helplessly, "Isn't your life or death enough to move you? You don't even care about yourself... Fine, I know someone outside wants to kill me."
She knew Jiang Ming wanted to kill her. No, she might not have known it was Jiang Ming; Jiang Ming had already entered the cocoon and was no longer "outside".
Bai Bai said softly, "I don't want to hurt you. We're friends."
This statement is either a lie, or she completely sees him as the character "Xue Chao"—bosses are all natives, so they have no concept of the game aspect.
"You're not afraid of being killed because you've transformed yourself. Since they dared to kill you, they dared to come in. What are you afraid of?"
This was also Xue Chao's question. The camera was in the video studio. As the president of the studio, couldn't she take it and film it herself? Why did she have to ask him to come?
Is it necessary for him to take the photo, or does she genuinely care about her fellow inmates and want to give him the choice?
The scene was somewhat comical. The boss advised him not to help her break free from her cocoon, but he analyzed the benefits of breaking free for the boss, completely reversing the roles.
Bai Bai whispered, "...It won't look good once it emerges from its cocoon."
Xue Chao: "?"
“I am also nourishment,” Bai Bai said. “Like the corpse you brought in, I am also the nutrition that this butterfly needs. To say that I am me is actually to say that I am a dead monster that broke out from many corpses. I just happen to be its ‘body’. You have seen the wings that she turned into, right?”
As Sheng Hong was absorbed into the butterfly's wings, she inevitably lost her human form completely. Her beautiful eyes became a pair of eye spots under the butterfly's wings, belonging to her yet forever unrelated to her.
Moreover, the head of the red rose was thrown outside, and the headless corpse, when stuffed into the cocoon, was able to grow eyes... The cocoon absorbed nutrients, not only swallowing the corpse, but also imprisoning the soul.
"I just want to see my friends one more time, to relive those times." Her fingertips lingered on the desk, then she looked at the green grass and lake behind him. "My obsession doesn't mean I want to become an ugly monster and hurt my friends." The camera focused on Xue Chao.
She speaks slowly and deliberately, with her own rhythm. If she talks for a long time, people without patience will feel suffocated, as if she could keep talking until next year. Just like her, she is slow, gentle, and soft. That's just how Yun is.
So even the slightest trace of time falling upon her evokes a tearful urge, as if she has been drifting aimlessly in the sky for a long time, disappearing and then coalescing again, while year after year passes on earth. Looking up at her is like recalling the past.
Trapped in a dream of the past... a person like a memoir.
He didn't understand the point. Xue Chao: "And then what?"
Bai Bai smiled and said, "My wish has been fulfilled, so naturally I will go where I belong." She handed Xue Chao an extremely sharp scalpel, like a wronged soul about to have its wish fulfilled and go to its next life.
She was inviting him to kill her.
Xue Chao lowered his eyes and said coldly, "I am not your 'friend'. I am an imposter who needs his identity. Your friend died of illness a long time ago."
He doesn't need to maintain resonance, and he has no psychological burden when he exposes the fundamental settings of the dungeon. Besides, at this point, who still cares about role-playing?
However, Bai Bai couldn't accept it. She was a character in the story and couldn't understand the world outside the story. The camera, with a reddish glow, focused on him and made him truly re-examine the situation.
Click, click, photos fell out of her head, her school days, her youth where celebrations and troubles always involved calling on friends, even though she was the quiet, mild-mannered one among her friends.
She walked towards Xue Chao, and two photos were taken every second, flitting to either side of her. Xue Chao looked at her calmly.
When she reached him, she suddenly lost her strength and fell to the ground, gently covering her face as if she dared not exert any force. She seemed to be certain that he was not "Xue Chao".
Her hands were too small to block the lens, and tears seeped out from around the lens, dripping onto the film that had piled up on the ground.
Her crying was silent, only the incessant clicking of the Polaroid camera shutter, so fast it seemed to smoke.
Xue Chao pretended to hand over the camera and continued to test her: "I feel unworthy to accept it, you decide."
"...Where did he go? Where did they all go? Why am I the only one left here?" Bai Bai seemed not to hear. She never complained. Even when she felt resentment, it was like a few drops of drizzle that had been accumulating for days, dissipating back into the air before even touching the ground.
However, her tears turned from a light drizzle into a torrential downpour, almost bursting through the lens, pouring down like a water pipe, soaking the photos and film.
No wonder Xue Chao's dream could merge with the boss's cocoon.
Because the "theme" is the same—helplessly watching death and separation.
She was so heartbroken that she didn't care about the camera or the monster. Xue Chao pulled the film back, and just then, the film suddenly got tangled in his hand—the film was soaked with her tears.
The instant camera shutter stopped clicking, and she lowered her head.
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