He Luo’s expression suddenly turned very grim.
He already had a terrifying ghostly face, and with that drooping demeanor, he appeared especially eerie in the dim night.
Yan Wei watched closely, his gaze showing no sign of fluctuation. He merely raised an eyebrow and said calmly, “What’s the matter? Is it hard to see through?”
Clouds drifted across the sky, obscuring the only moonlight, casting boundless darkness across the land. The small grove rustled with the sound of leaves brushing against each other, accompanied by a faint cool breeze, as if inviting people into an unfathomable depth.
Yan Wei stood in front of the small grove with one hand in his pocket, his throat gently rolling as he quietly awaited an answer.
After a moment of silence, He Luo quietly took a step back.
He was not human, and his movements made no sound, vanishing silently into the fleeting darkness.
But just as he turned to flee, the sharp sound of the Long Whip slicing through the air suddenly rang out, wrapping around He Luo in an instant and throwing him up into the air. His already weightless body flew forward, clumsily crashing to the ground at Yan Mingguang’s feet.
In the pitch blackness just moments ago, it wasn’t just He Luo who moved quietly; Yan Mingguang had also swiftly circled behind him.
Yan Wei chuckled lightly, “I knew you would try to run.”
He Luo slowly stood up, brushing off the grass and dust from his clothes, straightening his uniform. He said, “I’ve shown you my Resentment from when I was alive—”
“Hey!” Yan Wei raised his hand to silence him, his fingertips moving slightly as he pointed to the pale hand that slowly emerged from the ground behind He Luo, saying, “Are you sure you want to fight us? If things get ugly, for us, it would just mean dealing with you and Qian Xuanxuan together. We were already prepared to confront all the Ghosts/Monsters here. But for you… you should be able to see that this batch of new students is of a higher quality than before, right? Otherwise, you wouldn’t have come out to guide us yourself. If you break ties with us, you might not get another batch of students this capable again.”
As soon as Yan Wei finished speaking, the restless Ghostly figure behind He Luo paused, then dissipated into nothingness.
Yan Wei smirked. In truth, he was deceiving He Luo; not to mention that they didn’t have the confidence to deal with all the Ghosts/Monsters at Morning Light High School, the quality of the players… it was obvious that the next batch would only be stronger than theirs. They had already opened the gambling house, and this instance was well-known for being the location of the Legendary Item. As long as he didn’t break the situation before the next batch arrived, the next group coming in would undoubtedly be experts selected from the internal world of the gambling house.
The longer time dragged on, the more disadvantageous it was for them.
But He Luo didn’t know that.
He Luo struggled for a moment, finally saying, “…I didn’t even realize that my initial exposure in front of you counted as a mistake. I… I did lie. Not only was Qian Xuanxuan’s punishment notice thrown into this small grove, but mine was thrown in too. I was afraid that if you found me, mine would be destroyed along with it…”
Hearing the answer, Yan Wei scoffed, “Ghosts really can’t be trusted. Is that the only lie you’ve told? Fine, since you won’t say, I’ll help you out. You said Qian Xuanxuan went from ordinary revenge to killing, and in the end, you couldn’t stop her at all, and instead, you were dragged off the dormitory rooftop and killed by her—how innocent you are.”
“Now let me ask you, since Qian Xuanxuan is as ruthless as you showed us in the recollection, why could she let you watch her all the time? Was she that trusting of you? Just because you both share a common plight? A girl who no longer believes in humanity, why would she trust in humanity while committing evil acts? Do you think she’s foolish, or do you think I’m foolish? You—”
Yan Wei’s voice paused, a chilling sensation suddenly rising from his back.
At the same time, Yan Mingguang’s cold voice suddenly pierced the night.
“Be careful!”
The man who had been standing behind He Luo leaped forward, the Long Whip sweeping out, suddenly pulling Yan Wei aside. The moment Yan Wei was pulled in front of Yan Mingguang, a strange black shadow appeared where he had just stood—if Yan Wei had remained in place, he would have been pierced through the head by this Ghost/Monster.
In the blink of an eye, He Luo seized the moment when Yan Mingguang’s attention was diverted, abruptly retreating and vanishing from the sight of the two behind several black shadows.
He Luo ran.
—This ordinary Ghost/Monster that ambushed Yan Wei was merely to draw their attention, creating an opportunity for He Luo to escape.
Yan Mingguang steadied Yan Wei, frowning as he prepared to chase after the fading presence.
But Yan Wei grabbed his hand, calmly saying, “Let him go. He was already lying; he’s not like those ordinary Ghosts/Monsters. It’s normal for him to control other ghosts. If a conflict really arose, he could probably command even more Ghosts/Monsters. We can’t keep an eye on him forever; he will escape sooner or later.”
Yan Mingguang retracted his foot that was halfway out.
Yan Wei said, “Let’s head back first.”
The night deepened.
After Yan Wei and Yan Mingguang left, the small grove behind the dormitory returned to silence, the cool breeze sweeping through, wrapping the sound of rustling leaves within the wind.
“Whoosh…”
In the wind, several players approached from behind.
The leader, named Wu Hua, had a head of black curly hair, his school uniform neatly worn, and this refined appearance did nothing to diminish the hostility emanating from him. He was a seed player brought in by Broken Scythe this time, and the other two players were among the few remaining members of Broken Scythe still alive.
They quickly walked to the spot where Yan Wei and He Luo had confronted each other, showing no concern for making noise.
Once the three stopped, a Broken Scythe player squatted down by a tree, examining the ground for a moment before saying, “It looks like someone fell here; the grass is all flattened. From the footprints, it seems two people were standing here, and there’s a kind of footprint that looks like a Ghost/Monster… two people and a Ghost/Monster? Wu Hua, should we follow the direction where the sound disappeared? They seem to have returned to the dormitory.”
“Not going,” Wu Hua shook his head without a second thought, “We can move at night because the items we brought can immunize us against a certain Death trigger. Right now, we’re using them to immunize against the sound rule, but the items have already become ineffective. If it’s two people and a Ghost/Monster, if we follow them and encounter another Death trigger, we might not be able to handle it.”
Another person said, “Wu Hua makes a good point; let’s focus on the main task first.”
The three of them raised their eyes, looking toward the small grove ahead.
Wu Hua frowned, “Move quickly. Outside the instance, the people in the organization spent rare items to send in a message—Lin Qing has cleared out everyone in the gambling house area, and when the invitation letter was distributed, he was the only one who got it. The way this dead person is moving, it won’t be long before it opens; we need to find even a little useful information as soon as possible.”
“This grove is right behind the dormitory building. From here, we can see the entire dormitory building clearly. We can set up some recording devices for Ghosts/Monsters on the outermost trees, and tomorrow we can analyze what happened in all the dormitories at the same time. This way, we can track the movements of that man-eating thing and deduce some things.”
The other two nodded in agreement.
Wu Hua also took out the special item he had exchanged for, preparing to climb the tree when a sudden cold wind swept behind him.
His movement abruptly halted, and he turned around, drawing his weapon. The other two players immediately took defensive stances.
A student wearing a school uniform, with a cracked head and blood-soaked face, stepped out.
He made no sound as he approached, yet a chilling aura seemed to surround him. His face, covered in blood, was extremely pale, and his eyes were just whites, making him particularly eerie in the darkness.
As Wu Hua and the other three were about to act, a ghostly male voice echoed, “Do you also want to resolve everything in this school? I can tell you some things.”
“My name is He Luo, a student who died at Morning Light High School three years ago. Everything here was caused by my classmate—Qian Xuanxuan. Only by resolving her can everything end, and I can be freed as well.”
“The Resentment in this small grove belongs to all of us dead students, including mine. I can show you.”
When Yan Wei returned to the dormitory, everyone else was still awake, waiting for their return.
Lin Zhen was lying on the bed, holding a pen, doodling something. Upon seeing Yan Wei and Yan Mingguang return, he didn’t even lift his head, casually saying, “Oh, you’re finally back. The girl who was hanging upside down at the window just left, and the one who sat at the desk last night came back. Little pet, let me tell you, I drew it again this time, and my skills have improved a lot. I bet you’ll still find it unsatisfactory this time…”
Yan Wei walked straight past Lin Zhen.
He sat down by the bed, beckoning Yu Feizhou and the others to gather around, briefly recounting everything that had just happened and his previous arrangements.
Gao Ming sighed, “No wonder you had us write back then; I didn’t notice anything. Everyone seemed quite confused, yet you said you discovered something… turns out it was a trick to fool ghosts.”
He scratched his head, puzzled, “But you’ve already drawn out this good ghost, why say the recollection he showed you was fake?”
Yu Feizhou also frowned, “The recollection is about the deceased’s past, generated under a lot of Resentment. Players call it a recollection, while Ghosts/Monsters refer to it as ‘Resentment.’ Its biggest feature is that the past cannot be changed because it is produced from the Resentment at the time of death; it cannot be fabricated out of thin air. Since you saw it, the parts you should have seen cannot be false.”
Yan Wei nodded, “Right, the parts seen cannot be false, but that doesn’t mean the parts seen are the whole truth. The recollection cannot be modified, but what if what he showed me was just a fragment? Yes, I did see it from He Luo’s perspective, watching Qian Xuanxuan go from simple revenge to killing, saw Qian Xuanxuan drag He Luo off the rooftop, but I don’t know what exactly they argued about, and I also don’t know what role He Luo played when Qian Xuanxuan was killing others.”
Would a girl who had already harbored malicious thoughts allow a completely uninvolved boy to watch?
Moreover, He Luo kept insisting it was to deal with Qian Xuanxuan, yet he had no ability. So why, until now, could He Luo still swagger in front of them? Was he not afraid of Qian Xuanxuan coming after him?
“The most important point—if everything he said is true, then why did He Luo go to such lengths to disguise himself as Luo He to guide us, wanting us to deal with the starving ghost Tang Yizhuo, while also wanting us to go into the small grove to get Qian Xuanxuan’s punishment notice to deal with her? This instance does not impose restrictions on whether Ghosts/Monsters can appear or not. After He Luo’s identity was exposed, he could still communicate with us without any obstacles, indicating he was not suppressed by other Ghosts/Monsters at Morning Light High School. So, since there are no restrictions at all, and he is wholeheartedly on our side, why not just appear directly and use solid evidence to tell the players—who are, in their eyes, the new students—everything, letting us help him resolve it?”
By the window, Yan Mingguang, who was smoking, said calmly, “He hasn’t.”
“Right, he hasn’t. He chose to be indirect. If he really just wanted to end everything brought by Qian Xuanxuan, and the way to end it was to find the punishment notice, then guiding us to deal with the starving ghost would be completely unnecessary, because the starving ghost has nothing to do with the method of ending it. From start to finish, He Luo seems logically coherent and his stance solid, but what he says contradicts his true goal. Everything seen with one’s own eyes, everything heard with one’s own ears, could be false, but only the outcome truly reveals the executor’s intentions.”
“He wants us to deal with Tang Yizhuo, and he also wants us to deal with Qian Xuanxuan. He had always helped Tang Yizhuo take the blame, and Tang Yizhuo was starved to death by Qian Xuanxuan locked in the warehouse. If he doesn’t resent Tang Yizhuo, then why would he want to deal with a starving ghost that should have no animosity towards him? There’s only one possibility: he was also involved in the process of starving someone to death. The other possibility is that he resents Tang Yizhuo, and then it goes without saying—if he resents, why wait until after death to seek revenge? No matter how you look at it, He Luo was definitely involved in the matter of starving someone to death.”
The man standing by the window flicked the ash from his cigarette, his long fingers moving slightly, and the cigarette butt turned to nothing in his hand.
He turned around, slowly walking toward Yan Wei, but just as he was about to get close, he shifted to the side and sat in a spot where Yan Wei couldn’t smell the smoke.
Yan Wei blinked, his eyelashes fluttering as he glanced at the man.
Then, he gently rolled his throat and chuckled softly, “So there’s probably only one possibility: everything was done by He Luo and Qian Xuanxuan together, and the people were also starved to death by them. Sometimes He Luo helped prepare, and Qian Xuanxuan killed out of anger; other times, they prepared together, and He Luo killed out of anger. As long as He Luo shows the players the part where Qian Xuanxuan kills, he can fabricate his victim status and make the players believe that the recollection cannot be false, thus trusting everything he says. Even the final push that led to their fall from the rooftop could very well be one side wanting the other to die, so that the secret of the murders would never be revealed. We still don’t know the specifics of their situation, but I can be sure—we have to deal with not just Qian Xuanxuan, but also He Luo.”
Yan Wei went over the events from three years ago again.
He Luo and Qian Xuanxuan were two children adopted by Tang Yizhuo’s family, living and growing up with the same-aged Tang Yizhuo. However, in the eyes of others, the seemingly perfect Tang Yizhuo was actually a hypocritical scoundrel, appearing excellent and gentle on the surface while often insulting and mocking other classmates behind their backs, ultimately throwing those incidents onto He Luo and Qian Xuanxuan, causing the two to suffer the disdain and scorn of their peers.
He Luo and Qian Xuanxuan dared not voice their anger and had to endure it all, but the surrounding students’ hatred for them gradually deepened. Little by little, everything they did was wrong, and wherever they went, they faced various pranks and bullying.
In such an environment, the psychology of He Luo and Qian Xuanxuan finally twisted. They began to take revenge on everyone who had bullied them, starting with simple pranks and eventually growing to love the feeling of killing those students one by one using those bullying methods. Not only that, they also deceived Tang Yizhuo into the warehouse, locking him inside to starve to death.
Revenge and the repayment of life led them further down a dark path, gradually losing their true nature. In the end, perhaps it was He Luo, or perhaps it was Qian Xuanxuan, one of them wanted to kill the other to completely bury this secret. But in the struggle and pushing, the two fell off the rooftop together.
Afterward, the Resentment at Morning Light High School soared, the Resentment of the dead students, the Resentment of the starving ghost, and the Resentment of He Luo and Qian Xuanxuan intertwined, trapping Morning Light High School in the malevolence of three years ago. Death continued to cycle here, and all students studying here, once they triggered the Death trajectory of the deceased students, would repeat the exact same death process.
After Yan Wei finished his current speculation, Lin Zhen yawned, “Can’t we have a single time of brute force breaking? Just once? Can’t we directly say how to fight?”
“Sure. We need to go to the small grove first to get the punishment notice.”
Lin Zhen was taken aback, “Didn’t you just say He Luo was lying!?”
“He can only obscure things in the recollection; he can’t modify them. The punishment notice should exist in the recollection; that much is correct. The problem is—we need to get Qian Xuanxuan’s punishment notice, but we can’t give it to He Luo; the punishment notice might even relate to the ladder. But there’s not just one copy of the punishment notice; we also need to get He Luo’s. Besides that, I think we should be able to find more information because the current context is just the entire outline I’ve deduced based on the existing background, which is still quite vague in some places, making it impossible to determine.”
Before he finished speaking, a prompt sound from the building suddenly echoed in everyone’s minds.
[Congratulations, players, for advancing the instance’s clue progress past halfway; the following hints can only be heard by players with basic clues.]
[Congratulations, players, for obtaining important information: the expulsion punishment notice. The punishment notice is related to the ladder; this information is confirmed to be correct, but other information and clues outside of this still need players to find, identify, and excavate themselves. Since this information and its related background have been excavated more than once, it has been detected that there are currently multiple players in the instance with this progress, triggering the racing mode. Winning the racing mode and successfully ascending the building will grant additional rewards.]
[Racing mode explanation: Players from two or more parties who have obtained the punishment notice information will begin a competition for breaking the situation from this moment on, and neither party may share any clues or cooperate. The remaining players who have not discovered the “punishment notice” information lose the right to trigger the racing mode; from now on, if other players discover related clues, they can only choose to join one of the parties.]
[Subsequent players entering the moving instance can only choose to join one of the parties.]
[If the breaking fails, all players will die and fail.]
[If the breaking succeeds, the surviving players from the fastest breaking party will receive additional rewards.]
[Please players strive to survive and push through the challenges.]
The ethereal and eerie prompt sound faded, and a silence fell among the group for a few seconds.
Yan Wei raised his eyelids, his amber-like eyes still clear and bright, showing no panic.
He continued, his voice steady, “So, the first thing we need to do is obtain two punishment notices; the second thing is, I need one person to spend tomorrow in the archives, searching through all the documents from three years ago at Morning Light High School, pulling out all files related to the names Tang Yizhuo, He Luo, and Qian Xuanxuan.”
“Since the racing mode has been activated, let’s let them taste what it’s like to be hung—”
Lin Zhen whistled, “To be hung and beaten up!”
Yu Feizhou: “…It’s the feeling of being beaten while hanging.”
“Oh. Good night.”
