NFM Chapter 37

“Why do you have to come up here and affect my performance?” Lin Huai said bluntly.

Xu Chi, pale-faced, replied, “I feel it’s more dangerous to stay alone downstairs.”

Lin Huai said, “I think it’s more dangerous for you to follow me. By the way…”

He suddenly stopped in his tracks.

“Xu Chi,” the young man behind him heard the voice of the person in front, “Does Yan Xi like botany?”

“……!”

In the cold, gloomy building, Lin Huai stopped walking. He turned to Xu Chi and said word by word, “You know him well.”

It was a statement, not a question. Xu Chi knew that Lin Huai had already witnessed his reaction upon seeing the red Yan Xi, so he whispered, “Yes…”

“Does he like it?”

Xu Chi shook his head.

“Oh…” Lin Huai thought for a moment, then asked again, “Do you like botany?”

“Huh?”

Xu Chi was utterly confused in his panic. Seeing his reaction, Lin Huai added, “You don’t like botany either?”

“Mr. Lin, are you planning to switch to teaching biology…”

“Nothing,” Lin Huai said lightly, “It’s just too scary here, thought I’d lighten the mood with a joke…”

Xu Chi: …

The two of them walked one after the other in the corridor. The second floor of the small red building was in disrepair, and the wooden boards creaked with every step. The yellowed walls were covered with large water stains due to the dampness, winding around the cracked seams like ugly birthmarks on skin. The narrowness of the interior made the walls on both sides seem to press towards the people in the middle, creating an almost oppressive sensation.

It was indeed hard not to feel oppressed walking through here. The sound of “Für Elise” echoed in the hallway, and in the piano room where it came from, besides the eerie, flowing music that the environment made seem sinister, there was also a “tap, tap, tap, tap, tap” sound, as if keeping a beat.

Lin Huai had Xu Chi stand behind him and knocked on the piano room door.

There was obviously no response from inside.

He tentatively extended his right hand and twisted the door open. As the door opened, the scene inside came into view.

A corpse that could once have been called a living person was hanging high in the air, its dangling feet hitting the piano lid beside it, one after another.

“Ah, ahhh—”

Xu Chi behind him let out a short scream, his face pale as he fell to the ground, clearly frightened out of his usual cold demeanor. Lin Huai decisively righted the overturned stool and stepped on it with his socks on. He took a tissue from his pocket, used it to pad his fingers, and checked the person’s pulse.

The result was obvious; there was no sign of life.

Lin Huai restored the crime scene to its original state, leaving behind no fingerprints or footprints. Only then did he have time to examine the person hanging in the air. He was wearing a blue and white school uniform, his face contorted, his body incontinent, and his tongue hanging out, clearly having suffered great pain before death.

…There was no fresh, recently deceased aura of a living soul.

At his feet was a note, on which a word was written in red marker: invidia.

The sound of “Für Elise” still echoed in the room, but the black and white piano keys remained motionless, emitting a cold light under the full moon.

Lin Huai thought for a moment, then closed his eyes. Following the flow of the music, he came to the back of the piano lid and, using the tissue to pad his hand, took out a recorder playing the music.

As he pressed the stop button, the music ceased.

He was about to open the recorder to check the length of the tape when he caught a glimpse of a white figure flashing past in the corridor.

It was a white figure.

Not a red one.

Lin Huai was about to chase after it when he was drawn to Xu Chi, who had collapsed by the door. He was staring in the direction of the corridor, his eyes unfocused, his face pale, and his body trembling steadily.

“It’s him…” he said in a voice that was both crying and laughing, “He’s back… He hates us, he wants to take revenge on us…”

“He hates me, he wants to torment me, it’s me… it’s all me…” He grabbed his face, “He should hate me… he…”

He seemed to have suffered a great shock and was out of control, repeating these lines over and over. Lin Huai, seeing him embody the essence of humanity—becoming a repeater—thought it was already too late to catch up with the white figure, so he shook his shoulder and said, “It’s gone, snap out of it.”

Under his vigorous shaking, the boy finally stopped repeating. Lin Huai then said, “Now is not the time to cry, our top priority is—”

“To leave here, yes, to leave here!” the boy murmured, “He will come for me…! He wants me to die too…”

“No,” Lin Huai grabbed his hand, “It’s to call the police and report this to the higher authorities.”

Xu Chi: …

Lin Huai: “Although it didn’t react when I kidnapped the principal, that might just be because my actions were outside its plan… Perhaps reporting a murder would get a response.”

After saying this, Lin Huai took out his phone and tried to dial, but the signal inside was too poor to make a call, so they had to go down to the first floor. Xu Chi followed him, the night sky cool as water, watching the stars.

After dialing “1, 1, 0,” Lin Huai held the phone to his ear and waited patiently.

“The number you have dialed is not in service.”

He dialed five times, each time getting the same response.

‘Of course, in an infinite flow Game, there’s no option to call the police for help…’ Lin Huai thought, squinting.

The boy beside him sat down on the steps as if all his strength had left him, hugging his thin self, trembling all over. Lin Huai, seeing him like this, sat down beside him to comfort him: “People die when they are killed, there’s nothing to be surprised about.”

Xu Chi: …

“The phone call didn’t go through,” Lin Huai said, “Before the school staff arrives, I’ll take you back to the dorm to sleep. Presumably, in a world where even the police don’t exist, there’s no need for a first-hand witness to stay and give a statement… By the way, do you know the person who died?”

“He…” Xu Chi said tremulously, “That person is Tang Feng from Class C, Grade Three…”

Class C, Grade Three, after Yan Xi and Shen You, another new victim had appeared. Xu Chi continued: “I saw…”

“The person by the window… it’s Yan Xi…”

Three hours later.

At 3 a.m., a time that should have been for pleasant sleep, the teachers’ office at Minghua High School was brightly lit. The teachers and the principal, roused from their beds in the teachers’ apartments and their own homes, after a tense and heated discussion, chose to call the police.

Unlike Lin Huai’s continuously unsuccessful calls, the police arrived swiftly after the school’s call and, two days later, concluded that Tang Feng had committed suicide.

“…Tang Feng had shown signs of depression in the past month. He often talked to himself in his seat, was mentally unfocused, afraid of light, afraid of darkness, and his roommates often heard him screaming awake from nightmares in the middle of the night, saying ‘don’t come to kill me’…”

“He often experienced auditory hallucinations before his death, frequently saying he heard the piano piece ‘Für Elise.’ By the way, the first deceased at Minghua High School, Yan Xi, could play the piano, and his favorite piece was ‘Für Elise.’ Also by the way, Yan Xi and Tang Feng were desk mates in Class C, Grade Three, and they were ‘best friends’ before their deaths.”

“Best friends…”

On the sixth night of the first week, after the math exam, the trio of Li Fen, Qiu Ran, and Li Fen discussed their current investigation in the lecture hall.

After a full week of investigation, they had initially determined the key point of this Game—the death of Yan Xi. The next two deaths almost all stemmed from the death of Yan Xi, a problematic student in Class C, Grade Three.

In the extremely oppressive Minghua High School, the first death occurred two months ago with the death of Yan Xi. During the three-day Mid-Autumn Festival holiday when the school was closed, he somehow came to the fourth floor of the third teaching building and jumped off the rooftop—a day later, the school staff found his shattered body on the ground during their morning inspection.

The second death was a month ago with the death of Shen You. Shen You had already died in the small pond in the woods before the players entered the school. She hit her head on a stone at the bottom of the pond, suffered a cerebral hemorrhage, and inhaled a large amount of mud and water plants before her death. The school’s explanation was that Shen You had slipped on a smooth stone and fell into the water. However, the reason why she went to the pond alone and slipped remains unknown.

The third death was this week with the death of Tang Feng. Tang Feng died in the piano room on the second floor of the small red building, showing suicidal tendencies before his death. The school’s investigation also concluded that he committed suicide.

“The common feature of the three deceased is that they are from Class C, Grade Three, a class famous for its unity throughout the grade. I once tried to enter Class C to inquire about these three people, but they were as tight-lipped as a steel barrel about the known facts. The only thing I could find out was that Shen You was the publicity committee member of Class C, very cheerful and talkative, and had a good rapport with people. Tang Feng, on the other hand, was relatively silent and studied very hard. As for Yan Xi, the Class C students said he was a jinx, and many things would be messed up as long as he was around.”

The three exchanged the information they already had. Qiu Ran, while thinking, said, “It seems that the latter two deceased have some relationship with the first deceased…”

Li Fen said, “It’s more like the bad luck of the first deceased has spread to the entire class after his death, making the entire Class C unlucky… By the way, what about our teammate? What has he been doing recently?”

He couldn’t help but mention the former teammate who had already adopted the attitude of “I’m dead, burn paper if you have business,” like an ex-boyfriend who can’t let go after a breakup. Qiu Ran said, “This morning I saw him at the Chinese exam site, cheering on each student in Class F…”

“This guy is really addicted to being a teacher!!”

“Never mind him, let’s focus on our own tasks,” Qiu Ran said listlessly, “Last night when I was taking a shower in the dorm, I met a Female ghost who wanted to borrow my shower gel…”

“And then?”

“And then? She kept washing, and mud and sand kept flowing out from her entire body, from her nostrils to her earholes to her mouth to her eyes…”

Li Fen imagined the scene of a human-shaped sandbag, feeling a chill in his heart.

“Oh, a human sandbag…”

Upstairs in the corridor, Lin Huai sipped on coconut juice while listening to the commotion from the three downstairs.

The biggest characteristic of Minghua High School is that students study from Monday to Friday and take exams and study on weekends. This morning, the third grade completed their weekly Chinese exam. During the evening self-study time when students could hold “View the World” or “South Wind Window” to take a short break (or prepare for the next day’s English and comprehensive tests), Lin Huai, the fake teacher, could also finish his day’s work and let his small boat push through the waves…

Perhaps it was a physical issue, but ever since entering this school, Lin Huai rarely encountered ghosts. Generally, in the territory of a powerful ghost, there would be a large number of homeless small ghosts living there.

They live within the territory of the powerful ghost, relying on the ghostly aura unintentionally emitted by the other party to get a little sweetness. They themselves, by scaring intruding humans, provide more fear nourishment for the powerful ghost, creating a symbiotic relationship. Powerful ghosts who are good-natured or don’t care about it allow their existence. Some overbearing powerful ghosts would eliminate them together.

Like the Female ghost Lin Huai met in the woods, she was also one of the small ghosts living there. And the sandbag Female ghost Qiu Ran encountered should also be one of the small ghosts.

Perhaps because his actions were too terrifying, after the Female ghost in the woods, no more ghosts were willing to approach him. The only ones that frequently appeared were the white or red figures, which also disappeared after the “Für Elise” hanging suicide incident. Considering this, he decided to pay more attention to his three teammates, using their encounters with ghosts to enhance his reasoning ability.

“Yan Xi, rooftop suicide; Shen You, falling into the pond in the woods; Tang Feng, hanging in the piano room… One more, just one more, to prove my reasoning,” he thought, “But I feel that Xu Chi… doesn’t seem to like botany either?”

He put the straw in his mouth, put his hands in his pockets, and walked towards the stairs. When he reached the third floor, he saw a familiar person sorting garbage at the staircase where the trash can was placed.

It was Li Xinyi.

She was holding a large bag of garbage, squatting on the ground, her head lowered, sorting the dry and wet garbage piece by piece. She looked very haggard, with split ends in her hair and a sallow complexion.

As she moved, her fingers seemed to touch something, and she hissed in pain, pulling her hand out. Perhaps there was a piece of glass in the garbage bag, her finger was cut, and blood was slowly oozing out.

Lin Huai walked over, looked at her, and said, “Why are you sorting garbage here? Don’t your classmates sort their own trash?”

Hearing the voice, Li Xinyi was startled. She jumped up, and when she saw Lin Huai, she seemed to breathe a sigh of relief, her complexion improving.

“No… this is… Teacher Yu’s class rule. He said students should learn to respect labor…” Li Xinyi stammered.

‘Rather than learning to labor, it’s more like a way to torment students…’ Lin Huai thought.

He asked Li Xinyi again: “Is this job done by the students on duty?”

“No…” Li Xinyi said, “It’s assigned to specific people, before me, it was Yan Xi…”

After saying this name, she seemed to realize her mistake and closed her mouth. After a while, Li Xinyi said again: “Actually, it’s because I did something wrong, so I should…”

“This is just his way of establishing personal authority out of selfishness,” Lin Huai said, “It’s quite interesting.”

He didn’t mind her dirty hands, pushed Li Xinyi’s hand aside, picked up the garbage, and casually threw it into the trash can.

Li Xinyi lowered her head, rubbing her hands and saying nothing. Lin Huai said: “Go, wash your hands.”

After Li Xinyi washed her hands, Lin Huai took out a Pocky from his pocket and gave it to her: “I heard from the grade that your Class C is very united, now it seems so, even such unreasonable behavior is willingly done by someone, really…”

He thought for a moment, then said: “Really united as one.”

Li Xinyi held the Pocky, lowering her head and not eating it. After a while, she said again: “Actually, it’s very easy to unite a team.”

“?”

“Just have everyone in the team jointly dislike the same person, all mistakes must be that person’s fault. Then, while collectively criticizing that person, everyone will stand on the opposite side of the ‘wrong’ side, and then they will become united,” she said slowly, “A team always needs someone to play this role. Without the previous person, there will be the next one. This might be the retribution for my past… indifference.”

After saying this, she stayed in place for a while. After the time that should have been spent sorting garbage had passed, she slowly walked back to her class.

Her back…

Lin Huai squinted, watching her step into the darkness.

At that moment, his inspiration seemed to stir.

Lin Huai looked up.

In the depths of the opposite corridor, stood the white figure.

White Yan Xi.

He looked at Li Xinyi, his eyes seemingly filled with a bit of pity.

“Save…” he opened his mouth.

Before he could utter a complete sentence, he seemed to sense something.

White Yan Xi only had time to hurriedly make a “2” gesture, then quickly disappeared into the corridor.

Lin Huai turned around, only to see another red figure, from behind him, step by step, descending the stairs.

After not seeing him for a few days, his cuffs seemed to have become much redder. He didn’t look at Lin Huai, just step by step, reached the corridor.

Red Yan Xi.

He looked at Li Xinyi’s figure, as if very pleased, revealing a twisted and venomous smile.

“Hahaha…”