29 Sound
◎Not a foot, not a leg◎
Before Lin Yan could answer Liu Ziman's question, the teacher walked into the classroom the next second.
"What are you doing gathered here?" the teacher glanced in their direction, urging them to return to their seats. "Take out last night's homework and put it on the corner of your desk. I'm going to start checking it."
After saying this, Liu Ziman finally let go of her hand.
Lin Yan was frightened by her and trembled, not daring to look up. It was not until Liu Ziman turned and left that Lin Yan finally took action, and fumbled around on the back of her hands, cuffs, and arms repeatedly, searching for something in a very paranoid manner.
"Yan Yan, what are you looking for?" The classmate who witnessed everything asked with concern.
Lin Yan seemed a little crazy. Tears welled up in her eyes, and she looked at her deskmate in front of her for help: "Bug... I'm looking for a bug. Did you see where that bug went?!"
"Bugs?" Her deskmate was startled and quickly asked, "What bugs are there?"
"A black, elongated bug!" Lin Yan's face was filled with fear, and even her voice was tinged with tears. "It crawled out of Liu Ziman's sleeve and onto my hand. Didn't you see it? How did it disappear in the blink of an eye? Where did it go?"
"No." My deskmate shook his head in confusion. "Yan Yan, you must be seeing things. There's nothing here."
Lin Yan refused to believe it and continued to look around, "Yes, yes, didn't you see it? How could you not see it?"
She began to talk to herself again.
Seeing this, her deskmate was a little scared and didn't dare to communicate with her anymore. He sat up straight and continued with the class.
Until the end of get out of class, Lin Yan's condition still did not improve, while Liu Ziman seemed to be fine, tidying up the textbooks on the table with a smile on her lips.
Even humming softly.
“…”
The day ended quickly.
After one day of class, Qi Qiuxue observed the two of them for a whole day. Lin Yan was obviously frightened by Liu Ziman and was suspicious all day long, but Liu Ziman had already recovered as before, as if nothing had happened, and even had the leisure to laugh and joke with others.
As for the NPCs in other dormitories, their states were similar to those of the players: confused, frightened, and anxious.
This copy is so weird, there's something weird about it everywhere.
Until now, Qi Qiuxue still couldn't figure out whether the Pen Fairy mentioned by several people was real or fake, what the mechanism of this copy was, what the taboos were, what to do correctly, and whether there were deeper secrets hidden in these NPCs.
Everything is obscure and difficult to see through.
There was very little information that could be exchanged among players. During the break, Qi Qiuxue drew the insects she had seen last night from memory. Zhao Xiangning from Dormitory 403 had interned in the hospital for a period of time and quickly recognized the type of insects. They were wireworms. This type of insect could indeed infect the human body and often had the habit of tying itself into knots outside the body.
"Could this kind of insect be related to the poison?" Yang Yi from Dormitory 405 asked.
"No." Zhao Xiangning quickly denied it. "This thing has nothing to do with poisonous insects. At most, it means that Liu Ziman is either pretending to be a ghost, or she ate or drank something unclean and contracted a parasitic disease."
"But I'm more inclined to believe she's playing dirty," Zhao Xiangning said. "Being infected by this parasite causes severe abdominal pain, along with indigestion, vomiting, diarrhea, and other symptoms. It's not a pleasant feeling. If that's true, why didn't she ask for leave to go home? Don't tell me she loves studying so much that she'd rather endure the torment than rest."
"Besides, she looks like nothing happened to her now."
"But she did vomit yesterday." Zhou Le from Dormitory 405 spoke up.
"Pinch your throat, or maybe you've eaten too much and are bloated." Su Wen said simply and rudely, "You'll vomit even if you pinch it."
Zhou Le was speechless: "...I am really impressed."
"Then what is her or their purpose in pretending to be a ghost?" she continued.
Su Wen was silent for a few seconds. "Maybe they did it just to show us. Maybe they really hate us. Don't forget the photo Zhang Xue found."
"Indeed," Qi Qiuxue continued, "There must be many things hidden in the background of this dungeon that we don't know about. What kind of conflicts exist between NPCs and players? This may be the first direction we need to investigate."
Zhou Le nodded: "You mean, maybe there are some details hidden in the dormitory that we have missed?"
"Perhaps," Qi Qiuxue said, "but focusing all our attention on the dormitory won't be very helpful. After all, that day, in order to find the props for the Pen Fairy game, we searched through our respective dormitories, including the NPCs' belongings, but we didn't find any other clues besides the props and photos."
"So I think we should expand the search scope, not just to those three dormitories, but also to the empty dormitory where they played the Pen Fairy game, as well as the classrooms, the cafeteria, and even the teacher's office."
"Oh my god." Zhou Le shook his head and groaned, "When will I find this?"
"There's nothing I can do." Qi Qiuxue sighed, "In order to survive, I shouldn't let go of any clues."
"Fortunately, we still have plenty of time and not too few people. Everyone should go back and have a good rest tonight. We will start the operation tomorrow."
"As long as we find out why they are playing tricks, will we be able to pass this copy smoothly?" Li Yiqing asked softly with anticipation in his eyes.
"This is the best possible outcome," Qi Qiuxue replied, "but I don't think this instance will be that simple. After all, everything has just begun, and we don't know what will happen next."
"Oh." Perhaps recalling some sad experience, Li Yiqing lowered his eyelids and remained silent.
Qi Qiuxue subconsciously touched her head. After all, they were partners who had experienced the same dungeon together. Qi Qiuxue was always more patient with her than with others.
"It's okay." She gently comforted the person in front of her, "There will always be a way."
"We will all live peacefully and smoothly."
"Okay." Perhaps inspired by her words, Li Yiqing raised his lips and revealed a lovely smile, "I'll listen to Ah Xue~"
-
At night.
After what happened in the morning, Lin Yan didn't dare to face Liu Ziman's face again, and even didn't want to go back to the dormitory where she was. But no matter what, staying in the dormitory was always safer than staying outside. Lin Yan returned home late with her two roommates. After quickly washing up, she climbed onto her own bed and pulled up the curtains to lock herself inside.
The other roommates didn't dare to contact Liu Ziman, and their eyes always avoided her unconsciously, as if this person didn't exist. Such behavior was really excessive, but fortunately it did not cause Liu Ziman's disgust.
Because she really has no time to care about others.
Qi Qiuxue saw her take out a bottle of nail polish from somewhere, and slowly apply it on her nails while humming a little tune. The nail polish was bright red, like blood. She dipped a lot of it each time and applied it without any method. Too much nail polish piled up on her nails, and some even overflowed with her movements and dripped onto the snow-white sheets.
But she seemed not to care and continued to hum happily.
Gradually, it was lights-out time, the headlights above our heads went out, and the footsteps of the dormitory manager were heard outside again, and the heavy low-heeled shoes made a clattering sound on the floor.
Liu Ziman pulled the bed curtains, and with the dim moonlight, Qi Qiuxue could no longer see her movements, but she could still hear her happy singing. The singing finally stopped when the dormitory manager finally came to their dormitory with a flashlight.
"Go to bed quickly!" The dormitory manager failed to catch them in the act, so he could only give them a casual reminder and turned away. The dormitory finally became quiet, and even the breathing of the other roommates was barely audible.
Before she knew it, Qi Qiuxue finally felt sleepy. It seemed like a very long time had passed, so long that everything was silent. It seemed as if everything, even the moon and the night sky, had quietly fallen asleep.
On such a quiet night, any sound would be extremely clear.
Half asleep and half awake, Qi Qiuxue heard a sound coming from the corridor, clattering sounds, coming from far away and getting closer, similar to the sound of human footsteps.
Qi Qiuxue initially thought that the person who came was the dormitory manager. She thought that maybe she was bored and wanted to do a surprise dormitory check, but as the sound got closer and she became more awake, she noticed something strange.
No, the sound outside the door was completely different from the sound of the dormitory manager walking. It was faster and heavier, rustling, as if something was crawling very fast.
The noise was very loud and grew louder and louder, waking up not only Qi Qiuxue but everyone else as well. No one in the dormitory dared to speak, but everyone stared at the door nervously and fearfully, as if some ferocious beast was standing outside.
Until later, the sound stopped, the things outside finally stopped moving, and the world returned to silence, as if nothing had happened.
But no one dared to relax, and they were even more nervous and terrified than before, because the thing stopped at the dormitory door. The escape sign in the corridor emitted a dim light, mixed with the moonlight and the faint light from the street lamps in the distance, barely allowing people to see what kind of scene appeared under the narrow gap in the door.
Not shoes, not feet or legs, but two pale hands and equally pale arms.
——It crawled, upside down, and crawled quickly from a distance.
After realizing this, even Qi Qiuxue, who was usually very calm, took a breath. She tried her best to control her emotions, held her breath, slowly stood up and walked to the door, carefully locking the dormitory door.
But she knew that locking the door was just a delaying tactic. If the thing outside really wanted to come in, the dormitory door might not be able to stop it. She deliberately looked back to seek help from other roommates, but it was during this look that she suddenly discovered that Liu Ziman, who was originally lying on the bed, had quietly appeared on the balcony at some point.
At this moment, she was standing with her back to the window. The night wind blew her black hair, and the messy hair outlined her cheeks. The moonlight outside the window covered her face, making it impossible to see her expression clearly. People could only barely see that she was smiling, and her smile was twisted and terrifying. Her white teeth and blood-red nails formed an extremely terrifying picture, making her look not even half human.
Like a ghost, a fierce ghost.
Qi Qiuxue felt something was wrong, but there was no time for her to react. At this moment, Liu Ziman leaned back, laughed wildly, and jumped down from the fourth floor.
【Author’s words】
Here we come!
Special thanks to Yin Za's Shen Shui, woo woo woo, it's too expensive, hug me tightly QAQ, and thank you to all the treasures who accompany me, it's really happy to have you read the articles and interact with me every day~
Thanks to the little angel who cast the deep-water torpedo: 1 from Muyin;
Thanks to the little angel who threw the grenade: Shi Yi 1;
Thanks to the little angels who cast mines: Langley's dog, Qiu Lang is a beautiful fairy, Internet addict, don't want to go to work, and 1 creeping grass;
Thanks to the little angels who irrigated the nutrient solution: 68 bottles of "Ah" for urging updates; 30 bottles of "Yeah"; 11 bottles of "Jingran Qin Jiaren Yi"; 10 bottles of "Yu Shi Wu Zheng"; 5 bottles of "Xiao Huazi"; 4 bottles of "Grape Juice"; 3 bottles of "Old Friends in the Old Lane, Don't Look Back"; 2 bottles of "Don't Want to Go to Work"; 1 bottle of "Throwing a Skull at You";
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