Chapter 56 Old Campus Xue Chao understood immediately: "The store is safe..."
Pu Fengchun's high braid swung wildly, slapping her face until it hurt. So she held up her braid with one hand and ran forward. The sunlight, which was always a degree darker than the world, shone on the girl's somewhat cheerful back, revealing a trace of another "her," as if a videotape was unfolding before Xue Chao's eyes, old stories coming in a hazy way, passing by him, and leaving without being able to hold on to them.
She ran back to the central corridor and carefully let down her braid: "Every time I walk through the corridor, I can't help but wonder, are there really any other people in the whole building besides us?"
"It seemed empty, but there was a surprise as soon as I opened the door." Xue Chao slumped onto the long bench. "What's the next class?"
"Musical instruments, right? I see 'I' have signed up for so many classes." Pu Fengchun's eyes sparkled, as if she was looking forward to these classes. She squatted down next to Xue Chao, observing his blue eyes, and asked curiously, "Are you mixed race? Your features are also very defined."
"I'm a bastard." Xue Chao replied, having already read the random reply.
Pu Fengchun didn't ask any more questions, but approached mysteriously, like a child whispering: "The store is open, let's look for this first."
Upon hearing that they were finally getting to the main point of this instance, Xue Chao lay down on his side and said, "I thought we would find an empty classroom or somewhere else first?"
Pu Fengchun shook his head: "It's not surprising that anything can appear in a dungeon, so without knowing the details, there is no absolutely hidden place, except for the shop."
Xue Chao understood immediately: "The store is a safe house?"
“That’s right, ghosts and monsters are not allowed to enter, and players cannot make a move; all harm is prohibited.” Pu Fengchun added, “The restriction is that you must make a purchase to enter the shop, and the shop will change its location… changing its location is considered good; remember the starting mission? That shop deliberately hid from the players later on, only appearing in front of them once. And most importantly, the longer you stay in the shop, the more unlucky you will be when you leave, similar to the ‘Luck E’ debuff effect.”
She gave an example: "For instance, if you are being chased by a ghost and run into a shop, and after making a transaction, you stay in the shop for too long, when you come out again, the ghost may be gone, but you will run into a stronger ghost that you wouldn't normally run into, or in the worst case, you will run into the boss and trigger a boss battle."
Xue Chao: "Equivalent exchange sounds like the store is receiving payment for the 'safe house' service in another way, and the 'safe house' itself is also a kind of 'commodity' of the store."
Pu Fengchun nodded: "That makes sense. If you use the 'safe house' service once, you have to exchange it for a sudden incident or a 'major failure'."
"Then we need to act quickly. You should think about your demands in advance."
Pu Fengchun, hearing his overly casual tone, couldn't help but look at him and ask, "Aren't you afraid it will be a lot of trouble?"
"I'm scared." Xue Chao moved to the timetable, studying where the next class was, and then, drawing out his words, asked, "So, are you going to let me go?"
Pu Fengchun's eyes, which were like an ancient pool, rippled slightly, like a small pebble being thrown in. She turned her head and saw Xue Chao resting his chin on his hand, looking at her with a lazy smile, clearly teasing her. Her hesitation vanished like the pebble into the water, leaving no trace: "Too late, I've already caught up with you. If you break your promise, I'll make you regret it... At the very least, as the vice president, I always have some methods."
"So I had no choice but to do as I was told." Xue Chao got up and went to the concert hall. "Don't feel pressured. The thing I asked you to do in the last instance was also quite troublesome."
Rather, is there any bigger trouble than a life-or-death crisis?
Pu Fengchun, who was following him, asked with an inscrutable expression: "What if it's even more troublesome than this?"
Xue Chao was optimistic: "How much more trouble can it be? We're all going to die anyway, why make it more tragic? What's the difference between being stabbed to death and being flattened by a cannonball? The difference is in the eyes of the living."
"The former will only kill you, the latter will kill many more people."
“Oh,” Xue Chao said indifferently, “what do I have to do with the others?”
Pu Fengchun paused subtly, but Xue Chao seemed oblivious and deftly changed the subject: "You play the piano?"
“‘I’ probably have quite a few more. I’ve already signed up for dance, piano, calligraphy, and painting classes.” Pu Fengchun said as usual, but the familiarity between them was gradually turning into estrangement. Not wanting Xue Chao to notice, she used her role to make conversation, saying, “Aren’t all parents like this? They’re afraid their children will lose at the starting line. At an age when they can’t even define their ‘self,’ they’re all about ‘interests’.”
I meant you.
Pu Fengchun then realized that he wasn't asking about the role, and subconsciously became wary, wanting to avoid the question, but she managed to hold back, showing no sign of it on her face, and even said with a hint of self-deprecation, "The piano is the only thing I can be proud of."
This is the truth. When she played the piano, her resonance level exceeded the minimum of 80% for the first time, reaching 85%.
Xue Chao pushed open the front door of the concert hall, his expression strange: "Then we've come to the right place."
The concert hall was grand and elegant. At this moment, all the lights were dimmed, except for the floor lamps on all four sides, which made it even more solemn. The audience area was where pianos were neatly arranged in rows and columns, and the second-floor stands were the same.
As they entered, the heavy curtains slowly opened, revealing a stage filled with audience seats. Mannequins dressed in various but carefully crafted outfits sat together, watching the audience. They chuckled and whispered to each other in small groups, exchanging polite conversations about the children; these were presumably the children's parents.
But in front of their blank plastic heads were framed photos of their children practicing or winning awards. The photos were carefully selected, showing the children at their most radiant. A dazzling spotlight fell from above, making the mannequins appear eerily white inside and out.
Behind them, a huge pipe organ was embedded in the entire wall, its towering metal pipes gleaming coldly, as if supporting them and capable of making any judgments and decisions.
This isn't a lesson; it's a piano competition.
Suddenly, the first piano on the left, closest to the stage, began to play. White and black keys appeared out of thin air, and it started playing a tune on its own. Xue Chao crouched down and led Pu Fengchun into the pile of pianos to find her own.
He spotted the same piano as the one in the dance studio and pointed it out to Pu Fengchun. Pu Fengchun shook his head and pointed to a piano in the distance, indicating that there was another one like it there.
The competition came unexpectedly, with no clues. Xue Chao could only estimate the approximate ranking of the first letter of "Pu" based on the position of the name in the timetable and among all the names he remembered. Pu Fengchun, on the other hand, relied entirely on the resonance device and the familiarity with the "role" as his intuition.
After the first piano finished playing, the audience on stage applauded. Then, the second and third pianos started playing at the same time, different pieces colliding together, one after another, strange yet harmonious.
Xue Chao immediately looked at Pu Fengchun. The pianos weren't being played one after another; it was likely that several pianos would be played at once. At this speed, they would soon be in the back row!
Given the game's tendency to sabotage at crucial moments, blindly searching will definitely be too late.
The girl was listening intently to the music, her brows furrowed. After they met, she exclaimed in surprise, "The third piano is off. The tone doesn't sound like a piano... a harp?"
Xue Chao listened intently. The third piano also sounded light and distinct, but the overall feel was subtly different, like a plucked string instrument: "So these aren't all pianos; there are other instruments disguised as pianos..."
As the piece ended, four pianos indeed began to play simultaneously, all based on the piano's timbre but deviating from it with other textures. One even produced a crisp, clanging sound. Even though Xue Chao wasn't musically sensitive, he could tell that none of the four were real pianos.
“Two violins, one harp, and the last one is a triangle,” Pu Fengchun said. “Even though the first two are pianos, their timbres are different, quite different from the piano in the dance studio…”
She didn't know how to describe it for a moment, so Xue Chao skipped the explanation and said, "You can recognize the timbre of these things? That's easy. Just concentrate and you'll only need to recognize the sounds."
Pu Fengchun thought he had some clever scheme. After the four miscellaneous pieces were finished, Xue Chao suddenly stood up, as if he had emerged from a cluster of pianos, and then ran around like a madman. He carelessly plucked at each piano, and the instruments were smashed by his unreserved and unskillful fingers, making them scream as if they had been molested, instantly attracting the attention of everyone in the audience.
Even the pianist who wasn't actually playing at the piano seemed to be enraged, and some pianos in the back row that hadn't yet been played started playing impassioned music, expressing their silent protest against this scoundrel.
Parents in the audience fell to the ground one after another. The limbs of the mannequins moved strangely, twisting into all sorts of odd angles, turning into reptiles. The plastic heads with photos of their children on them spun around and their limbs moved erratically. They rushed down the steps and chased after Xue Chao.
Being chased only fueled his motivation to escape, so Xue Chao moved even faster. He harassed the pianos below the stage, but that wasn't enough. He then played randomly in the last row, which angered the piano on the second-floor stands above him, causing it to "curse" and make a lot of noise.
Pu Fengchun was initially shocked, but quickly got into the zone, following the sound to find the piano with the closest timbre to the dance studio. Various timbres rushed into her brain, and cold sweat dripped from her forehead. She suddenly opened her eyes, ran to a piano in the middle or back row, and sat down.
She immediately went to look at Xue Chao, and saw the man awkwardly dodge the "spider's" pursuit and blockade, bursting out the back door in one fell swoop, and winking at her before leaving.
Seeing how cheeky he was, Pu Fengchun felt relieved and looked at "her" piano, where the sheet music "Für Elise" was laid out, with a simple butterfly drawn in the upper right corner. She was stunned for a moment.
Xue Chao ran downstairs, and the pursuers did not follow.
In this music competition, the performing child was invisible, while the parents were the main characters. They couldn't chase after him too far. After he ran out of the concert hall, the parents angrily crawled around at the door, then walked upright again and returned to the stage to "enjoy the performance."
The camera was focused on Pu Fengchun, and dozens of songs started playing simultaneously, creating a chaotic scene where it was impossible to tell who was who. Pu Fengchun, however, remained calm and composed, even displaying a sense of enjoyment and ease in his own domain.
Leave the professional matters to the professionals. Xue Chao felt at ease entrusting the task to her and sat down on the steps at the top of the stairs, leaning against the handrail like he had no bones. He moved his limbs around like the mannequins, doing whatever made him comfortable.
After all the "piano" performances were over, the concert hall erupted in applause, so loud it hurt Xue Chao's ears. He shifted his position, waved to Pu Fengchun who was leaving, and then stood up: "Let's go. The rest of the classes are in the afternoon. We can use the lunch break to find a shop. Let's check out the convenience store at the back door on the first floor."
Aren't you going to ask me how I played?
"It is basic 'moral character' to not check the answers or ask about performance after the exam."
However, the convenience store disappointed them; it wasn't a shop. But since they were already there, it would be a shame not to plunder something.
Pu Fengchun did have some pocket money in his schoolbag, but it was pitifully little, and in case of emergency, it was inconvenient to use it.
Just then, the convenience store held an event where ring toss could be exchanged for prizes. Xue Chao immediately took on the task. Entrusted by the children, he rolled up his sleeves, hung a string of colorful rings on his forearm, squatted among the children with different heads, and hit the rings with joyful exclamations. The convenience store owner's lollipop spinning top was almost green with anger.
He set his own rules, so it was hard to argue with him. He could only vent his anger on the employees who skipped work: "Where did the cashier go? He's not taking a single penny of today's money!"
Xue Chao was very popular for winning the prizes for the children. He was stuffed with snacks as a thank you, which he put into the backpack handed to him by Pu Fengchun. He slung it over one shoulder and cut the only popsicle in half. The two of them, one big and one small, enjoyed their spoils, only to be kicked out of the store by the furious shopkeeper.
"Lunch break is short, so we can rule out the convenience store. That leaves the rooftop memorial hall and the first-floor rest corridor. Shall we split up?"
Xue Chao nodded: "Your 'mother' might go to the rest area. I'll go there, and you can go to the memorial hall."
“You can see the camera position. If it’s the memorial hall, I’ll wait for you there. If not, I’ll come down.” Pu Fengchun ran into the building. “See you in a bit.”
During lunch break, a few people were scattered in the rest area. Xue Chao patrolled around, avoiding people, but didn't see any shops. So he went out the side door alone, crossed half the courtyard to the sports building where the memorial hall was located. He reached into his bag to rummage for a drink, when suddenly he was pricked by something. He pulled it out and found it was a white rose earring from Pu Fengchun.
A sudden surge of instinct triggered Xue Chao, who dodged instantly. A beam of red laser shot past, and he rolled sideways back to the corridor. Half of the stone table and chairs in the courtyard were sheared off, serving as scapegoats for his head.
He stopped in his tracks, temporarily abandoning the idea of finding Pu Fengchun—the other party had come specifically for Pu Fengchun.
The reason they killed him was because... Xue Chao took out the white rose earring in his hand, and there were traces of his blood on the thin scissors at the end.
This was a target she had locked onto; she had deliberately left it for him.
So at first I pretended I couldn't find him... I had already decided then and there that I would set him up.
Is this the trouble she was talking about?
Inside the camera's view, in a shop marked "Memorial Hall," Pu Fengchun, who had narrowly escaped the calamity, was perched on the windowsill, with a long scroll introducing the history of art and beauty behind him, filled with images of the All-Seeing Eye.
She looked down at the rest area, all the childishness of her role vanished, and she became as still as a stagnant pool, like a ghost child in a horror movie.
She knew Xue Chao could hear her, and seemed to sense his doubts as well, so she answered softly, "...This is just the beginning."
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