Chapter 8: Don’t think about it! (6)

Recap

Song Yang shook his head, not sure whether he felt more surprised or weird. He kicked open the door of the broadcasting room, scanned around, and said to Liu Yi and Jia Qing, who had finished treating Jin Nan’s wound, “There’s still some time, let’s search this place together and see if there are any other clues.”

The broadcasting room wasn’t big, and it took the four of them only ten minutes to check everything.

There were no very clear gains, only Liu Yi found a school rules booklet and stared at it.

Author’s note:

Microphone monster: I’m very well-behaved .jpg

“Tell me, tell me, did you find anything?” Jia Qing asked hurriedly.

Several people gathered around and looked at the page Liu Yi had opened.

The school rules were listed one by one, and at first glance, there was no obvious focus.

Liu Yi hesitantly pointed to rule number forty-eight, Appearance and Grooming, and said, “I feel like… this one looks a bit familiar.”

The Appearance and Grooming rule clearly stipulated that the hair length of boys in the school could not exceed one centimeter, and the hair length of girls could not exceed their shoulders. This was naturally a very strict rule, but it was definitely not the first time they had seen it.

Jia Qing frowned and said, “This seems like, there are schools like this in reality, right?”

“Indeed.” Liu Yi said hesitantly, then closed the school rules booklet and looked at the cover.

The entire booklet was obviously printed by the school itself at a printing house. The cover design was very simple, with the words “School Rules of Smiley City No. 1 Affiliated Middle School” printed on a beige cardboard.

Xia Jing pointed out Liu Yi’s suspicion, “You’ve heard of similar school rules from Huang Mo before?”

Liu Yi thought for a moment, didn’t deny Xia Jing’s statement, and pursed his lips, “I met him in elementary school, and we haven’t studied in the same school since junior high. Huang Mo only occasionally talked to me about things at school, and that was many years ago, so I’m not sure about many things… It’s also possible that I remembered it wrong. Like Jia Qing said, there are schools like this in reality, I may have seen this kind of news online.”

“Any doubts can be kept in mind, no need to rush to deny yourself,” Song Yang said, “You can try to recall first, what kind of connection was there between Huang Mo and the words ‘don’t think about it’.”

Surrounded by three people, Liu Yi frowned slightly.

But until the lunch break was almost over, he couldn’t think of anything, feeling a little frustrated.

Song Yang calmly comforted him, “It’s okay, don’t worry, there are still too few clues now, let’s leave here first.”

Jin Nan had already recovered at this point.

The medical supplies that players kept in their spatial bags were bought from the official supermarket and were very effective. As long as a person still had a breath left, they could be saved, let alone Jin Nan just having a useless arm.

At this moment, the bones of his broken arm had been reconnected, and the flesh was slowly growing back, both itchy and painful.

Jin Nan’s face was ashen. Seeing Xia Jing, he no longer had the previous contempt, only hatred and fear.

However, neither Xia Jing nor the other three paid any attention to him.

After all, he was the one who planned to plot against his companions first.

They had already done their best by not abandoning him.

When they walked out of the administration building, Jia Qing was still struggling and asked, “Yang-ge, will the instance specifically construct a world based on a person’s past experiences?”

Song Yang stepped down the stairs and shook his head, “Theoretically, this situation is impossible.”

“All instances are constructed in advance. The cover and theme will be displayed in front of the players in the login room. It’s impossible to wait until the players enter the instance and then temporarily construct a world based on one of them.”

“If the instance really did this, the theme might still barely fit, but the cover would definitely be completely different. And the current situation is obviously not that the instance completely borrowed Huang Mo’s past.”

“Yes, it’s actually completely different, just a few details feel familiar to me,” Liu Yi sighed, “It’s also possible that it’s all just a coincidence. After all, it’s all just our guess now, there’s no substantial evidence to prove that this instance is really related to Huang Mo.”

After meeting with Wang Yueran and the others in the classroom, they exchanged information.

The two girls and the old lady had visited the entire school and hadn’t been able to gather any clues. After hearing about what happened in the school broadcasting room, they looked at Xia Jing in shock, as if they were getting to know him again, and their vigilance towards Jin Nan became even stronger.

Song Yang took out the parent-school contact book and asked everyone to copy down the contact information of their “parents” and try to contact them during the afternoon break.

Fortunately, they didn’t have evening self-study in this instance, otherwise Jia Qing would be the first to vomit blood.

After dinner in the cafeteria, they went straight back to the dormitory. After confirming that Huang Mo’s mobile phone in dormitory 411 had indeed been taken away, they gathered in dormitory 414, closed the door, and discussed.

Eight people, sixteen parents, all had been contacted by phone.

Song Yang’s guess was correct.

Wang Yueran’s “mother” in this instance turned out to be an administrative staff member in the school office, able to get inside information.

However, regarding Huang Mo’s death, Wang Yueran’s expression was very strange.

“‘My mother’ said that he did die in the middle of the night, around midnight, but it was sudden death.”

Several people were stunned.

Sudden death?

Only Song Yang and Xia Jing weren’t too surprised.

This morning, the two of them and Liu Yi had observed Huang Mo’s state when he died.

The instance didn’t show any rigor mortis or livor mortis on the dead person. There were no injuries on Huang Mo’s body either. His body’s state was even like that of a living person. The most likely possibility was that the instance wanted to convey the message that Huang Mo’s death wasn’t caused by external forces.

It didn’t seem strange that the cause of death was ultimately determined to be “sudden death”.

However, as Huang Mo’s brother, Liu Yi was very emotional, “How could someone killed by a monster die of sudden death?”

“I remember we discussed this morning that it’s also possible that he wasn’t directly killed by the monster, but triggered a death mechanism related to the monster,” Xu Jin said weakly.

Liu Yi remembered this and clenched his fists.

But what was the so-called death mechanism?

There were really too few clues at the moment.

It gradually got dark.

Wang Yueran was the first to say uneasily, “…Since Huang Mo died last night, it means that the instance had already started last night, and he must have encountered something… Could it be that we will also encounter danger tonight?”

Jia Qing swallowed and said nervously, “Didn’t they say that his phone rang twice last night? Could it be that the monster came out of the phone at midnight?”

As soon as these words came out, several people were so scared that they almost threw their phones away.

Song Yang: “Although I think it’s unlikely, this problem is also easy to solve. Turn off your phones before going to bed and find a place far away from us to put them together.”

This way, even if the monster really appeared from the phone, it wouldn’t catch them off guard.

This made sense.

But even after hearing this solution, everyone couldn’t relax at all.

It was different from one-star instances.

In one-star instances, the monsters were obvious, and most players were killed because they couldn’t fight against the monsters.

But now, they didn’t even know where the monster was or how it killed people.

This might not be strange for people like Song Yang who had been through many two-star and three-star instances. They might even be used to finding more clues through more sacrifices.

But for Wang Yueran and Xu Jin, who were entering a two-star instance for the first time, and even for a newbie like the old lady, waiting for an unknown danger to approach was enough to make them tremble with fear.

Xu Jin couldn’t help but sob, and the old lady hugged her in her arms to comfort her.

Seeing the whole dormitory fall into silence, Song Yang still played the role of the backbone and said, “Let’s reassign the dormitories tonight.”

Everyone looked up.

Jia Qing perked up, looked around at the eight people, and said, “Yes, we still need to reassign the dormitories.”

There were eight of them now, just enough to fill two dormitories.

With four people in a room, it was obviously inappropriate to put the three women in one dormitory.

Xu Jin’s emotions were a bit out of control. She turned to the side, wiping her tears.

Wang Yueran looked at her, then at the old lady, a little at a loss.

The old lady patted Xu Jin’s shoulder and said, “Can I make a suggestion?”

The old lady rarely spoke, and the children nodded quickly, only Jin Nan leaned in the corner, watching coldly.

The old lady’s voice was hoarse, “The two girls shouldn’t be separated. Being together with good friends will give them more security. But for someone like me… you don’t have to spend too much effort to worry about me. Among the boys, choose the two strongest to protect Xiao Ran and Xiao Jin.”

This arrangement was actually reasonable.

Not because the elderly really didn’t need to be considered, but because with three men and one woman, or two men and two women, they had to assign the relatively stronger people to the latter dormitory.

But the so-called “strongest” was a bit subtle.

In terms of physique, the strongest among the eight of them was obviously Jin Nan, but this guy had already been registered on the “blacklist” of their eight-person group. He couldn’t be counted as a fighting force at all, it would be good if he didn’t sell them out.

The boys looked at each other, and finally, their eyes settled on Xia Jing and Song Yang.

Xia Jing paused slightly and heard Song Yang ask, “What do you say?”

Xia Jing looked at him and chuckled, “No objections.”

However, this seemed to be the first time he had been given the responsibility of protecting others.

After assigning the dormitories, everyone chatted casually for a while, mainly to ease their nervousness.

In each dormitory, a clock hung high on the wall between the entrance and the main room.

The hour hand slowly moved towards half past nine.

And at ten o’clock, the lights in the dormitory would be turned off.

The old lady, Jia Qing, Liu Yi, and Jin Nan stayed in 414, while Song Yang, Xia Jing, Xu Jin, and Wang Yueran moved to 417.

Before leaving, Song Yang whispered to Jia Qing, “You take care of the spatial bag tonight and sleep on the same side as Jin Nan. Besides paying attention to any abnormalities that may arise, also pay attention to him. But his ability should only work on people who are close to him.”

Most superhumans’ abilities were actually very weak.

If Jin Nan’s ability was so strong that he could move things far away, he probably wouldn’t be so cautious and would have been following Song Yang to collect headcount points.

Jia Qing nodded heavily and said hoarsely, “I understand, don’t worry. Yang-ge, be careful tonight too!”

Song Yang nodded and rubbed his head.

Arriving at 417, the two girls who loved cleanliness were no longer in the mood to take a bath. The four of them simply washed up and went to bed early.

Not sleeping wasn’t realistic either. After a highly tense day, if they didn’t get any rest at night, their bodies probably wouldn’t be able to hold up tomorrow.

They originally thought of moving the bedding down and squeezing together on the floor tonight.

But they had already tried it in dormitory 414. The bedding and pillows seemed to be glued to the bed boards and couldn’t be moved at all. This was obviously a restriction deliberately set by the instance.

In the end, everyone decided to go back to bed to sleep. They might not be able to rest well on the floor. If nothing happened at night, it wouldn’t be worth it. And if something really did happen—

In dormitory 417, Xia Jing and Song Yang guarded each side, which was theoretically enough.

Thus, Xu Jin and Xia Jing slept on the same side, Xia Jing slept on the bed by the door, and Xu Jin was by the balcony.

On the other side, Wang Yueran slept on the bed by the door, and Song Yang was by the balcony.

This way, if the monster came in through the door or the balcony, at least Xia Jing or Song Yang would be there to deal with it.

Of course, there were many other possible scenarios, but there was a limit to what they could do to prevent them.

The four of them showed the props in their hands, which were basically daggers, machetes, axes, and the like, and there was no point in exchanging them.

Song Yang had used up his monster props in the previous instance, which was very unfortunate, but there was nothing he could do about it.

“The four of us sleep head to head, so that if anything happens, it will be convenient to help each other. Xia Jing and I will take turns keeping watch, I’ll take the first half of the night,” Song Yang instructed.

Wang Yueran and Xu Jin nodded quickly, and Xia Jing also had no objections.

Seeing that the lights were about to be turned off, Xu Jin was the first to lie down on her side.

She was facing Xia Jing’s direction, and Xia Jing could hear her still sobbing slightly.

As Xia Jing pulled back the quilt and lay down, he heard the girl whisper, “I’m so scared.”

Xia Jing paused.

Then he asked gently, “What are you afraid of?”

This was a pointless question.

What made the players afraid was nothing more than death.

However, expressing it could at least alleviate the fear in their hearts.

Xu Jin’s voice was a bit nasal, and she said haltingly, “I’m so afraid of death, I’m only twenty-four years old, why… A month ago, Ranran and I were just visiting the zoo, and we were inexplicably sucked into Smiley City… Why us? Why us?”

No one could answer this question for her.

Xu Jin cried for a while longer, then said hoarsely, “I can’t even tell my parents… In the real world, no one can tell others about the existence of Smiley City. The words spoken, the words written, the posts sent, will all be erased. If a player dies in the instance, after exiting the instance, everyone even has to accept death again in reality, as if, as if it’s just to make our death in the real world seem more reasonable…”

“What about my parents? They only have me as their child, if I die, then they…”

Xia Jing didn’t speak.

When he woke up in this world, the Safe House was there, and he was in the Safe House.

He didn’t know if he was human or a monster.

Of course, based on his self-analysis, the most likely possibility was—he was neither human nor monster.

He was “born” as nothing, and “born” with nothing.

Let alone parents.

The golden retriever, goldfish, flowers, plants, furniture… in the Safe House were all created by him with his power after he quickly became aware of the limited power within his body.

Xia Jing slowly lay down on the bed, his head resting on the not-so-soft pillow.

…This sounded like a god-like power.

But the truth was, divine power didn’t exist.

Power would be exhausted.

After it was exhausted, he needed to find a way to obtain more power from the outside world.

Monster body parts were excellent nourishment.

However, even after expanding the channels for obtaining power, the shackles that bound Xia Jing’s hands and feet still existed.

His world was just a small Safe House, and the rules in the Safe House only applied to the Safe House itself.

He could only extract power by bringing monster body parts into the Safe House.

The things he created in the Safe House couldn’t be brought into instances.

This was why he had to enter instances from the game hall like other players—only in this way could he obtain points, exchange for items in the official supermarket, and move more freely in instances.

For Xia Jing, the game was for playing.

But he also needed to gain power in instances, and needed to find the truth about himself and this world in instances.

But what was amazing was that when he heard Xu Jin mention “parents”, Xia Jing’s heart wasn’t completely untouched.

Although it was a very subtle, very vague feeling.

His heart only beat faster for a moment.

But this could also be considered a gain from exploring the instance, right?

Xia Jing closed his eyes, searching for comforting words used by humans in his memory, and said in a seemingly gentle tone, “Everyone will be fine, don’t be afraid.”

Xu Jin was silent for a moment, then whispered, “If the monster comes after me, as long as you can ensure your own safety… please, help me, okay? I don’t want to die.”

“I will,” Xia Jing assured her gently.

The monster itself was his target.

Xu Jin finally seemed to calm down a bit. Before the lights went out, she murmured, “At noon today, didn’t Jin Nan mention in the cafeteria that Huang Mo sat up and stared at his roommate last night?”

“It’s quite strange. It reminded me of the summer vacation when I was in third grade. I don’t know if I was dreaming or if I really saw a ghost…”

“…I just remember waking up one midnight and seeing a green-eyed figure standing by my bed staring at me.”

Xia Jing opened his eyes.

Xu Jin stopped there, as if she didn’t want to continue, perhaps feeling that the more she said, the more afraid she would become.

Xia Jing gently reminded her, “Don’t think about it anymore, go to sleep.”

Xu Jin softly replied “Hmm” and turned over.

The dormitory lights suddenly went out.

If observed from the outside, one would see every building in the dormitory area, every dormitory, plunge into darkness at the same time.

Only the long corridor remained dimly lit.

After a few seconds of silence, Song Yang’s cold voice sounded in the dormitory, “Close your eyes and go to sleep, don’t overthink.”

However, under the tension, it was obviously impossible to fall asleep smoothly.

Xia Jing himself didn’t need sleep.

He lay on his side, his eyes turning in the darkness, noticing that the clock hanging high on the wall was luminous.

Even without light, he could still see the second hand, minute hand, and hour hand slowly moving on the luminous green dial.

Time passed minute by minute, and the dormitory was silent, nothing happened.

With his heightened hearing, four breaths intertwined in the dormitory, seemingly steady and peaceful.

Perhaps someone had already fallen asleep.

Perhaps someone was pretending to be calm.

In the silence, even the ticking of the second hand seemed to become clearly audible.

Xia Jing calmly looked at the luminous clock.

…

After a long, long time, the second hand, minute hand, and hour hand on the dial, which had gone round and round, all converged—

All pointing to the number 12.

Suddenly, a wave of dizziness hit, and the whole world seemed to have double vision.

Xia Jing instinctively closed his eyes, and then realized that he couldn’t move.

Except for breathing, he couldn’t make any other movements, not even open his eyes.

He could only quietly listen to the movements in the dormitory.

Inhale.

Exhale.

Four breaths, intertwined as steadily as before, peaceful and beautiful.

He didn’t know if anyone else was still awake.

Or if everyone except Xia Jing had fallen asleep.

Inhale.

Exhale.

In the silence.

A fifth breath suddenly appeared in the dormitory.

Appearing above Xia Jing’s head.

___

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