Lin Zhen was also taken aback, his hand gripping the female ghost’s hair paused for a moment as he said, “When did you get a clue? Where? How come I didn’t see it? If you have a clue, why didn’t you say anything?”
Yan Wei stretched lazily, then directly lay down on the lower bunk, casually replying, “Because I don’t have one yet, but I will tonight.”
Gao Ming: “Huh?”
“I get it,” Yu Feizhou smiled faintly, “We don’t know anything right now, but you already know where to find clues.”
Lin Zhen was completely confused: “Hey, are you guys speaking in riddles? Can’t you just say it directly?”
The others had already gotten into bed one after another, and Yan Mingguang climbed up to the upper bunk next to Yan Wei.
“You’ll know after tonight. Around midnight, Yan Mingguang and I will go out to get that clue, you all stay safe in the dormitory,” Yan Wei said with a smile, tugging at the blanket.
He had specifically used an invitation to exchange for the function to clean the dormitory’s bedding, and at this moment, the bed still exuded a faint soapy scent from the wash, making one feel drowsy. But Yan Wei was thinking about how Yan Mingguang had just come out of the shower, the faint scent of body wash reminding him of a fragment from that dream.
Yan Wei was very clear about what kind of person he was.
He seemed to be born with a bit more rationality than others, having seen and understood more about human nature than most, gradually becoming indifferent to emotions. He could interact with friends and confide in those worthy of trust, but deep down, he was rationally cold, always keeping a final layer of defense against everyone, and could leave anyone without issue.
So he had always believed he would never fall in love.
But in the dream, Yan Mingguang had slowly leaned down in the bathroom and kissed him; he didn’t push him away or dodge.
What else could happen between two men in a bathroom?
If he didn’t already know he had entered the building three years ago, he might have really thought of this dream as an inexplicable impulse that arose from spending too much time with Yan Mingguang—after all, Yan Mingguang was indeed a man who met his standards.
But he had lost about three years of time.
Since he came into contact with Severed Space, these fragmented dreams and feelings of familiarity had become increasingly severe. Since Yan Mingguang entered this instance, he had also begun to unconsciously show some subtle differences.
And this person didn’t want him to know.
Just now, when he asked Lin Zhen about formatting players in front of Yan Mingguang, it was to test Yan Mingguang’s reaction; he didn’t actually expect to learn anything. He wouldn’t directly ask Yan Mingguang, as questioning someone who knew something but hadn’t told him directly would not only yield no answers but also alert the snake in the grass.
Now he was already certain that this person knew more than he did, and that was enough.
A few minutes before midnight, Yan Wei and Yan Mingguang got up and left the dormitory together.
The campus was eerily quiet in the dead of night, and most of the living players dared not move; the entire dormitory building echoed only with the footsteps of Yan Wei and Yan Mingguang.
Their destination was the second floor.
Yan Wei walked behind Yan Mingguang, one hand in his pocket, casually using the skill Perception Burst: “You haven’t asked me anything since I mentioned there was a clue tonight. How come you know my plans so well? You really understand me, Teacher Yan.”
Ahead, Yan Mingguang’s footsteps paused slightly, his tone revealing no emotion: “You want to find that man-eating thing on the second floor.”
The matter of He Luo and Qian Xuanxuan had already revealed a corner, but these two transfer students, who were definitely closely related to the current situation at Morning Light High School, had not been found. It seemed that their clues had suddenly come to a halt. But in reality, they hadn’t. From the first day of entering the instance, that man-eating thing on the second floor had brought some subtle hints that were barely noticeable. Other investigating players hadn’t discovered them, nor had Yu Feizhou and Lin Zhen, but Yan Wei had noticed that crucial information.
Yan Wei said: “So you know how I plan to find it?”
“I don’t know.”
Yan Wei nodded: “Then it seems you’ve guessed it, which saves me from having to remind you from start to finish. Remember to cooperate with me later.”
Yan Mingguang: “…”
As they descended the stairs, Yan Wei seemed to find the sound of their footsteps insufficiently noticeable; he bounced down the steps, humming a nursery rhyme that everyone sang during their school days. He looked less like a player searching for ghosts/monsters on a chilly night and more like a ghost/monster starting to look for players.
In a moment, they reached the second floor.
A cool breeze swept through the corridor, brushing against Yan Wei’s cheek, the cold touch sending chills through his skin and bones.
On the second floor, there was a hidden space situated between two dormitories. From the outside, those two dormitories looked no different, but if viewed from the inside, one would find that the internal width was slightly narrower than it appeared from the outside. The extra width of the walls of the two adjacent dormitories added up to just the size of a small storage room that could only accommodate one person.
This space was hidden during the day on the second floor, and that man-eating thing left no trace. It would only come out around midnight, and that hidden little compartment would also appear.
This was information they had known since morning.
At this moment, with midnight approaching, Yan Wei’s Undying State still had eighteen minutes left.
The cold wind howled, and the branches blown onto the corridor moved slightly forward, the rustling sound gradually entering their ears, seemingly mixed with faint ghostly wails.
Among the dormitories, a narrow wooden door suddenly appeared there. It was clearly embedded in the wall like other dormitory doors, but the wooden door seemed to be stuck to the wall, appearing vague and unreal. The door was covered in years of accumulated bloodstains, dark and ominous, exuding a strange aura.
The decaying wooden door made a creaking sound, as if something inside was stirring, about to come out at any moment.
At the moment they saw it, Yan Wei and Yan Mingguang’s footsteps simultaneously halted, turning to look at each other.
Yan Wei raised an eyebrow: “Should I go?”
Yan Mingguang frowned slightly.
“I just exchanged for an item that attracts ghost/monster hatred; wherever I stick it, the ghost/monster will primarily attack that spot.” Yan Wei took out a dark red paper and stuck it to his chest, “Not only does it not harm others, but it also doesn’t benefit me, and its effect lasts only three seconds. This item was in the shop, but because it was too useless, it only required an invitation for a one-layer instance, and no points were needed.”
But for him, who was in an Undying State, it was a useful piece of junk.
In case something unexpected happened when the door opened, attracting a momentary burst of damage was better than consuming Yan Mingguang’s remaining two uses of Live Towards Death in this instance.
Yan Mingguang glanced at the wooden door that was clearly about to open, then at the item Yan Wei had stuck to his chest, finally nodding.
Yan Wei chuckled lightly; he had just lowered his voice, but for some reason, at this moment, his volume suddenly increased a bit, as if he were speaking for someone to hear: “Then let’s open the door and see what exactly is inside, and whether it has anything to do with the situation at Morning Light High School. It would be even better if we could kill it! If not, we should run quickly, after all, we came down to find clues about He Luo and Qian Xuanxuan.”
With that, he turned and walked towards the wooden door. Yan Mingguang followed behind, holding a short blade suitable for close combat.
“Creak—”
“Creak—”
The sound of the wooden door shaking.
Yan Wei took a deep breath, raised his hand, and slowly turned the rusted doorknob, suddenly yanking open the wooden door!
In the next moment, something standing at the door suddenly burst into his line of sight.
In that instant, the thing reached out a hand full of sharp claws, its gaping maw lunging straight for Yan Wei’s chest.
The Undying State was still active, and the ghost/monster’s movements suddenly froze. It was in that moment of stillness that Yan Wei clearly saw the appearance of this ghostly thing.
It had also been a male student in life. It wore a school uniform, its face and body emaciated, covered in sticky, filthy blood, obscuring most of its face, but its bulging eyeballs and sharp, blood-stained teeth were particularly conspicuous.
Yan Wei saw its slightly swollen belly, and its right arm had some bite wounds—judging by the bite marks, it seemed to have bitten itself. The school uniform was worn haphazardly on its body, and there was no sign of a School Card; the collar of the uniform had marks from a water-based pen, hidden among the bloodstains, vaguely showing some cute little figures, not unlike those students who liked to doodle on their uniforms.
It was neither a man-eating beast nor a man-eating ghost, but a—starved ghost transformed from a student of Morning Light High School after death.
In just a few seconds, Yan Wei glanced and understood all this; the item stuck to his chest dissipated at that moment, and the ghostly thing that had been attacking his chest opened its mouth wide, aiming to bite Yan Wei’s shoulder.
Yan Wei turned and ran, shouting, “Damn, a starved ghost! Teacher Yan, help!!!”
Yan Mingguang swung the Long Whip, wrapping it around Yan Wei and pulling him back behind him, while raising the short blade with his other hand.
But in the time it took to turn around, the starved ghost actually leaped right in front of Yan Mingguang, its sharp teeth biting down on the short blade, and in the blink of an eye, it actually bit the short blade in half.
This starved ghost was much stronger than the other ghosts/monsters in the campus!
Yan Mingguang turned back, swinging the Long Whip, the whip cutting through the air and striking the starved ghost. But the starved ghost was only slightly pushed back; its belly, filled with who knows how much flesh and bone, shook violently, and it suffered no damage, instead quickly grabbing the whip that Yan Mingguang had thrown and pulling hard—
Yan Mingguang was yanked off his feet, crashing against the wall with the force of the whip.
The clean school uniform he had just changed into was instantly covered in dust, and with the tremendous impact, it seemed that one of Yan Mingguang’s ribs had been broken. The faint sound of tiny bones cracking mixed in, clearly heard by the highly perceptive Yan Wei.
Yan Mingguang spat out a mouthful of blood.
“Yan Mingguang!!”
The starved ghost and Yan Wei both rushed towards the fallen Yan Mingguang, with Yan Wei even lagging a step behind.
In a moment of crisis, someone suddenly yanked Yan Mingguang, pulling him to the railing on the opposite wall.
It was Luo He.
The ghost/monster missed its target and crashed into the wall; Yan Wei halted, only hearing Luo He shout as he held onto Yan Mingguang: “Jump down!”
Yan Wei immediately understood. At the moment the ghost/monster lunged at them again, all three of them grasped the railing and leaped over, landing directly on the lawn below the dormitory.
The ghost/monster chased to the railing but surprisingly paused for a moment, then turned and walked away, its bloodied mouth heading towards other parts of the dormitory, seemingly to hunt new targets.
Yan Wei gasped for breath, taking a few steps to reach Yan Mingguang and Luo He.
This distance from the first floor was nothing for players with enhanced bodies, but since Yan Mingguang had been injured before jumping down, he was now leaning against a chair by the lawn, his glasses slightly askew, his face obscured in the darkness, making it hard to see his expression. Luo He had also rolled on the ground a few times, the zipper of his school uniform slightly pulled apart from the vigorous movement, now covered in mud and bits of grass.
Luo He slowly stood up, still shaken, saying, “That was close. I heard the commotion and came out, just in time to see you guys facing that ghost thing; luckily, I jumped in time.”
Yan Wei glanced at him, stepped forward to help Yan Mingguang up, and took out a Flower Ball, which still had one healing use left, handing it to Yan Mingguang from behind.
He said, “How come you can make sounds too?”
Luo He smiled gently: “Oh, because I also changed my student status. I have some information and clues myself, you know.”
Yan Wei raised an eyebrow, nodding: “So you know more than we do. I didn’t expect jumping down from the dormitory would temporarily shake off that starved ghost.”
“I guessed too; I didn’t expect it to work out by chance. Maybe it was because it knew there were many other targets to choose from in the dormitory,” Luo He said, brushing off the weeds on himself, straightening his school uniform jacket, and zipping it up again, restoring the neat appearance he had when he first appeared. He then asked, “Didn’t you say it was very dangerous this morning? Why did you come at night without preparing anything—”
Before he could finish, Yan Mingguang, who had been leaning against Yan Wei, suddenly moved. In a flash, the man’s bony hand had already clamped down on Luo He’s neck, forcefully pinning him against the bench.
—His injury had completely healed.
Luo He instinctively raised his hands to grab Yan Mingguang’s wrist, trying to pull it away, his expression one of disbelief as he choked out, “What… are you doing…?”
Yan Wei chuckled softly.
He took out a dagger imbued with the ability to harm ghosts/monsters, waving the blade in the moonlight as he quickly walked up to Luo He.
First, he patted Yan Mingguang, who was pressing down on Luo He, saying, “Really hard work, Teacher Yan, pretending to be injured to accompany me in this act. How does it feel to play weak?”
Yan Mingguang: “…”
Yan Wei’s lips curled into a standard fake smile, his amber eyes flashing with cunning.
“This isn’t an ordinary dagger; it’s harmful to ghostly bodies.” He pointed the tip of the knife at Luo He’s forehead, meaningfully saying, “Oh right, you just asked me why we went to find that starved ghost without preparing anything? I just said it loudly in the corridor for you to hear; didn’t you catch that? I didn’t come down to find that indiscriminate ghost thing; I came to find clues about He Luo and Qian Xuanxuan…”
As he spoke, he raised his hand and lightly flicked the School Card hanging on Luo He’s school uniform, which read “Luo He.”
“If you could hold back and not come out, I might still suspect I was overthinking it, but you were too eager. We had just fallen into a disadvantage, and you couldn’t help yourself.”
“It was all an act to test you, He Luo.”
