Chapter 86 Old Campus "She won't help you... but I can help you..."
"Why is it that I'm exempt from the problem?" Fang Tailai asked suspiciously.
"Because you are her 'daughter'." Xue Chao was punched a few times by Lao Deng, and his wounds kept reopening. He could only go to the drying room to grab some clothes from his male classmates to stop the bleeding. He leaned against the rickety desk, half-dead. "In my current state, if I go with you to the sixth floor, you will see two ghosts."
Fang Tailai couldn't refute it. Xue Chao's injuries were already frightening, and the fact that he had fled with her and, with the help of someone else, killed the mini-boss only made his injuries worse. It was only because Xue Chao's emotions were so stable that he seemed to have a heart of stone that she was afraid he would die in front of her if she blinked.
Logically and emotionally, it would be best for him to wait here.
Fang Tailai agreed and told him to lie down on the small bed and rest for a while while he went to get it.
The lights weren't on. Xue Chao said that turning them on would make them easy targets, but she keenly guessed something: that red laser might not be Xue Chao's teammate, but the enemy... He was using the enemy.
After Old Deng died, the sound of reincarnation's footsteps ceased in the building. She cautiously walked through the first and second floors without anything unusual happening. But when she reached the third floor, she suddenly heard something rolling down the corridor. From the far end of the corridor, a burst of menacing cheers erupted. A can of soda was opened with a hiss, followed by punches, kicks, and foul language. She immediately slowed her pace and ran to the fourth floor as if she hadn't heard anything. The strange sounds from the third floor vanished instantly, as if a pause button had been pressed.
The desks on the third and fourth floor platforms hadn't been refreshed, so she skipped the fourth floor and glanced at the fifth floor. The corridor was pitch black, with no eerie red lights or clumps of hair. The black cat corpse on the sixth floor had also disappeared.
She mentally prepared herself and knocked on the door of room 624. The door opened a crack.
The dormitory room was still the same as when they left. The red pen lay quietly on the paper. She looked up at the light tube, but there was nothing there. The window shadows no longer swayed, but she had a feeling that the female ghost was still here.
When in doubt, be polite first. Fang Tailai bowed, picked up the red pen, and tried to run away.
She ran out the door only to realize that she had only grabbed the pen cap; she hadn't actually dropped the pen... She turned back stiffly; the pen was still on the table, but the door behind her had closed.
This means they won't let us through.
Fang Tailai fell silent, gripping the pen cap, and returned to the table. Her black hair, like a long curtain, cascaded down from the light fixture to the tabletop, obscuring her view.
As she tensed up, trying to figure out how to escape, the female ghost with black hair hugged her.
She had just experienced a similar scene, the same "cage" of hair, the same cold body, but Minmin's hug was a sigh of farewell, while the female ghost in front of her was like a mother, patting her back again and again, as if patting a small baby, coaxing her to sleep.
She gradually relaxed and became a little sleepy, her eyelids drooping as if she could fall asleep at any moment.
To avoid falling, she carefully hugged her "mother's" waist, hoping that "maybe the same method can be used twice."
The female ghost moved even more gently, cuddling with her "daughter" in this small space that separated them from the world, while the ends of her hair kept growing longer and longer. She pushed open the window and slowly climbed down the wall.
On the first floor, Xue Chao was observing the self-starting washing machine. Among the various colored fabrics, a few strands of black hair rolled around intermittently, and sure enough, he unexpectedly encountered an eye.
He had seen the same eyes through the crack in the table before.
He moved the desk in, and the sound of heads bobbing up and down in the washing machine disappeared. When he looked at the desk again, the heads that had disappeared since he entered the laundry room reappeared, face down, with only the backs of their heads visible.
So the heads in the table and the washing machine are the same, and the noise is made to attract their attention.
He took out a record book and looked through it. He found it in the cabinet at the bottom of the dormitory room. The girl who was two years older than Fang Tailai and whose bed in dormitory 624 was named Wu Anyao. Her attendance record suddenly stopped one day in the second semester of her senior year. There was no reason written down, nor was there any record of her requesting leave.
But seven days later, the sign-in started again, this time written in blood, which had dried to a brownish-red color.
On the seventh day after her death, Xue Chao returned to his dorm room. This was the senior student who had hanged herself. There was no photo of her, but Xue Chao roughly knew who she was.
Just then, the phone rang. Xue Chao answered it and held it to his ear. He could only hear intermittent gasps, not just coming from the phone, but also falling on his neck, cold and slow.
Xue Chao seemed to sense something and turned his head. The female ghost's pieced-together head brushed past his shoulder, showing his name. But after a moment, he lost interest and looked up straight out the window.
Outside the window was a pitch-black playground, but there were strange noises, like snakes quietly crawling across the grass.
Xue Chao couldn't see the female ghost's mouth, but her voice came through the phone: "...Do you need help?"
He did not answer.
He texted the female ghost, asking her to help stop Old Deng, because he had given her advice and acted as a human scaffold to help her get revenge on the murderer. They had settled their debts, so asking her for help again now would require him to pay her a new reward.
As for who is lurking outside the window, in the camera angle, Fang Tailai and "Mother" are still embracing, while outside of them, the female ghost's hair is hanging down by the window.
The last question asked by the spirit of the Ouija board is: after the task is completed, will she kill them?
The answer is somewhere between "yes" and "no".
He shared the same thought as Fang Tailai: the ghost was unpredictable and depended on its mood. The best course of action was to forgo the reward, kill Lao Deng, leave the dormitory building, and return to the teaching building.
Although the female ghost is no longer bound by Old Deng, the two buildings are still two separate units, so the chances of the other side chasing them to another location are smaller.
But "Fang Tailai" is her daughter.
Moreover, throughout the entire story, the daughter is not the perpetrator, but a victim like her, even more vulnerable and helpless.
Therefore, the answer between "yes" and "no" is not ambiguous, but definite.
Will you kill Xue Chao after it's done? Yes.
Will Fang Tailai be killed after completion? No.
If it were a matter of mood, Xue Chao would have left without a reward, but since he was specifically asked to be killed... he absolutely had to accept the reward.
Fang Tailai is the breakthrough point.
He waited patiently, and the female ghost was in no hurry either, coiling around his back, waiting together for something.
Xue Chao was met with Fang Tailai shutting down the shared computer space.
He frowned instantly. The female ghost, sensing his unease as she looked down into his eyes, giggled and wrapped her arms intimately around his neck. Her two cold arms felt like ropes that could tighten at any moment. The voice from the phone spoke again: "She won't help you... but I can help you..."
Xue Chao put down the record sheet and tapped the desk twice with his fingertips.
Du, du.
Fang Tailai suddenly heard a knocking sound, like someone tapping her on the head, waking her from her dazed state of mind, and her drowsy eyelids twitched slightly.
She pretended to have just been pulled back to reality, realizing that she was holding a cold corpse, and her body froze.
The knocking started again, and this time she heard it clearly—the sound of wood being struck.
desk?
"Everyone else has anomalies, but I have such a 'normal' head, and you don't seem to think there's anything wrong with it."
"—Or have you seen the female ghost on the first floor, or the one under your table?"
She suddenly remembered Xue Chao's words. At the time, she didn't understand them, but now that she thought about it, the female classmate, the female ghost who issued the mission, and Lao Deng were all strange beings.
Minmin is a human head, but with stitches. She was mentioned by Xue Chao along with the female ghost summoned by the phone. They should both be human heads pieced together.
But Xue Chao is the real human head.
The dungeon's mode is too strange. Players enter in batches, and as the last player, her position is definitely the hardest to activate. She's not even in the top ten on the leaderboard. It would be more appropriate for the top player to fill the gaps for this kind of unethical behavior. This design is unreasonable.
Xue Chao directly gave her the camera position, which confirmed her idea. In the 1v1 mode, the protagonist of this episode gets the camera position... So, should the protagonist of this episode be the same as the host, a person?
The head in the desk is...her head?
She felt a chill run through her from the blood to her bones. Xue Chao was both waking her up and reminding her that her head was in his hands.
She needs to help him get the red pen back.
Soon, she also understood the meaning between "yes" and "no"—no, she had to save his life.
"Mom." She imagined the female ghost as her mother, hugged her gently, and whispered sweetly, "...I love you, you've worked so hard all this time."
She was stunned after saying it. It was easier than she had imagined. It was as if she had silently recited it a million times in countless moments when she inadvertently met her mother's gaze and then looked away in confusion.
Her shoulder was a little wet; the female ghost's tears were cold and smelled bloody—probably tears of blood. Fang Tailai's original intention was to pretend and take the opportunity to make demands, but somehow, the other party actually shed tears, and she felt a pang of unease.
She knew this wasn't her mother, but a ghost who could turn on her at any moment and take her life. In the game, players and ghosts are naturally opposed; they are invisible enemies.
But at this moment, it was as if her soul had been detached, and she was looking at another version of herself and another mother from a third-party perspective. In that instant, the hatred that she had been trying so hard to suppress suddenly ignited and scorched her heart—they had not done anything wrong or bad. They were already so pitiful that they didn't even dare to look at each other or say a word. They were two people who depended on each other for survival and could only love each other in silence. Why could he do such a thing?
One is clearly his lover, and the other is his daughter, so why is it happening?!
“Mom, do you know what I was thinking when he died?” Fang Tailai patted her back gently, like a mother patting her. “I felt no relief, no sadness, not even a moment of confusion… I breathed a sigh of relief.”
She babbled like a baby in its mother's arms, repeating, "I feel relieved."
He took a breath he hadn't dared to exhale for nineteen years. In that instant, it wasn't the blissful relief of a heavy burden, but the ease of a soul being lightened after death.
“So I’m very grateful to that man.” Fang Tailai said sincerely without beating around the bush, “So please don’t kill him.”
Time seemed to stand still, only they, one yin and one yang, one life and one death, breathing freely. After a long time, their hair loosened, and Fang Tailai saw the table. She picked up the red pen and put the cap back on.
【Item Name: Summoning Brush】
[Item Description: Ouija board, Ouija board, you are my present life, I am your past life. If you wish to continue our bond, please draw a circle on the paper.]
[Grade: A]
[Instructions: Write the full name anywhere you can write, and circle the name to learn about the name owner's past life. Can be used 3 times.]
Fang Tailai gently pulled away from the female ghost's embrace. The female ghost loosened her grip slightly, and Fang Tailai carefully parted the female ghost's hair to reveal her sandbag-like head covered with half of her wedding photo. Blood tears flowed from where her eyes had been, pooling in the dented crater.
She raised her sleeve, wiped away the ghost's tears, and followed the photo to the left, finding the text "Certificate Holder: Lu Yinmei" on the back of her head.
She wrote "Lu Yinmei" on the paper behind the female ghost, drew a circle, and a long film reel flashed before her eyes, displaying the woman's life like a revolving lantern.
When she came to her senses after her mind was stuffed full, the feeling of fullness disappeared, and the female ghost in front of her had changed. Her long hair had receded to her collarbone, she was wearing a business suit, and her head was a golden news award trophy with a photo of her standing on the podium attached to it. There were no wrinkles, and it was as clean and bright as her smile. It was a photo of her before she got married, in her prime when she was full of brilliance.
The sound of sliding outside the window receded and finally disappeared. Xue Chao seemed to sense something and said into the phone, "The one who took over the nest has left; you can go back to your nest now."
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