Recap
Inhale.
Exhale.
In the silence.
A fifth breath suddenly appeared in the dormitory.
Appearing above Xia Jing’s head.
That suddenly appearing breath was slower and longer than everyone else’s.
A chilling aura silently spread towards Xia Jing.
It was as if someone who had just crawled out of the abyss was standing quietly by Xia Jing’s bed.
And when that breath suddenly appeared in the silent dormitory, Xia Jing clearly heard—
Xu Jin’s breathing quickened.
As if her throat was being choked, or as if she had run a marathon, she was gasping for air, making very weak whimpering sounds from her throat, but there was no movement on the bed, as if she couldn’t move at all.
Close at hand.
Xia Jing silently tried again, but he still couldn’t even move a finger, nor could he lift his eyelids.
The appearance of the monster froze everyone’s bodies.
Xia Jing’s mind went blank.
Xu Jin’s breathing quickened for a few seconds, then suddenly disappeared, leaving only a low trembling sound from her throat.
As if she was so scared that she held her breath, thinking that as long as she held her breath, she wouldn’t be found, wouldn’t be noticed.
But after a few more seconds, even the slight trembling in her throat completely disappeared…
…
It took about a minute.
In the dormitory, there were only three breaths left.
The freezing of their bodies was finally lifted—
Xia Jing and Song Yang sat up from the bed at the same time. In the darkness, they looked around the dormitory, but there was no sign of the monster.
The four people’s mobile phones were gathered by Song Yang and placed on the cabinet at the entrance, but the monster didn’t move from the entrance. It suddenly appeared between Xia Jing and Xu Jin’s beds, and then suddenly disappeared.
Song Yang quickly lifted the quilt, ready to get out of bed, and asked in a low voice, “How is Xu Jin?”
In the darkness, Xia Jing leaned over and lightly touched the girl who was sleeping quietly on the other side. After a moment of silence, he said, “Her body is already cold.”
Song Yang paused, “So fast?”
Xia Jing withdrew his hand, “This should be the result given by the instance.”
The instance had already defined her death, first aid was meaningless.
Song Yang also fell into silence.
This wasn’t the first time he had encountered this situation.
In some instances, when a player encountered danger and seemed to have stopped breathing, first aid and official medical supplies could still bring them back.
But in some instances, once a player stopped breathing, their body temperature would drop rapidly at an unrealistic speed. This was a clear signal given by the instance that the person was dead, and there was no way to bring them back.
Song Yang grabbed his hair.
In instances above two-star, it was basically impossible for players to get enough clues on the first day, and with insufficient clues, no matter how much they defended, they couldn’t escape death.
Even if they got enough clues, they still couldn’t stop death from coming.
—Just like this instance, when the monster descended, they couldn’t move at all.
However, even though he was used to this kind of death, Song Yang’s mood was still complicated.
He took a deep breath, got out of bed anyway, and took back his mobile phone.
After turning it on, he first sent a message to Jia Qing, then turned on the phone’s flashlight, and lightly climbed up the ladder on Xia Jing’s side, shining the flashlight on Xu Jin’s face, checking with Xia Jing.
Just like Huang Mo, Xu Jin looked like she was sleeping peacefully. Her eyes were tightly closed, her face was calm, her skin tone, lip color, and so on, everything looked normal, as if she was still alive, but she no longer had any breath, and had lost her body temperature.
Xia Jing checked Xu Jin’s neck, there were no strangulation marks, including her wrists and ankles, there were no signs of being restrained, and no injuries either.
The instance still didn’t give any clues about her death.
“Could it be ‘sudden death’ again?” Song Yang frowned.
As for the specific cause of Xu Jin’s death, they might have to wait until tomorrow for Wang Yueran’s “mother” to tell them before they could know.
At this moment, Wang Yueran was still sleeping peacefully.
And when she woke up tomorrow and learned that her good friend was no longer there, how would she feel?
There was a moment of silence between Xia Jing and Song Yang.
Xia Jing asked softly, “After the monster appeared, you couldn’t even lift your eyelids, right?”
“Yes, but there’s one strange thing,” Song Yang said slowly, “The rest of us would have our bodies frozen, but the person targeted by the monster shouldn’t be the same as us in theory. The instance can’t set up a monster that players can’t resist at all.”
So, assuming the monster didn’t restrain or strangle Xu Jin, why didn’t Xu Jin make any sound at all?
How exactly did she die?
Xia Jing thought for a moment and said, “Without witnessing the whole process with our own eyes, it’s difficult for us to judge what happened for now.”
Song Yang whispered, “Indeed.”
Silence fell between them again.
Song Yang’s phone vibrated with a “buzz”.
Jia Qing sent a message.
Song Yang glanced at it and quickly said, “Jia Qing said that they also experienced a stiff and immobile state just now, which was lifted in about a minute, but all four of them are safe, no casualties.”
It was also at this time that footsteps came from outside the corridor. It was the footsteps of the teacher patrolling the dormitory at night, quickly approaching here step by step.
After the footsteps stopped outside their dormitory door, there was suddenly no movement.
—The person outside the door was eavesdropping on the sounds in their dormitory.
Xia Jing whispered, “Let’s talk about it tomorrow.”
At night, even if they tried their best to be quiet, the NPC would still notice them.
If the NPC immediately took away Xu Jin’s body, it would be difficult for them to get more clues.
It was better to get up early tomorrow morning and investigate carefully before the teachers came.
Song Yang let out a long breath, nodded, pulled the quilt covering Xu Jin, and gently covered the girl’s face.
But they probably wouldn’t be able to sleep at all tonight.
*
The next morning, seven people gathered in 417, Wang Yueran’s eyes were swollen from crying.
There were two details that Xia Jing and Song Yang didn’t notice last night, and only noticed when it was daylight—
The color of the bed sheet on Xu Jin’s bed had changed.
The beds in all the dormitories in the student dormitory had the same white bed sheets. Xia Jing could also confirm that before going to bed last night, Xu Jin’s bed was no different from theirs.
But looking at it today, the bed sheet under Xu Jin had actually turned beige—the color was too light, which should be the reason why he and Song Yang didn’t notice the change with their phone flashlights last night.
In addition to this, at the foot of Xu Jin’s bed, in the corner, under the thick quilt, there was also an old teddy bear covered.
Xia Jing could confirm that this doll wasn’t on Xu Jin’s bed last night either.
“What the hell is going on?” Jia Qing felt a chill down his spine.
The bed sheet that inexplicably changed color, the suddenly appearing doll, the peacefully dead companion—
Except for the fact that she looked very peaceful when she died, just like Huang Mo, everything else was completely different!
Everyone’s faces were very ugly, and Wang Yueran was almost crying to the point of collapse.
She and Xu Jin, like Huang Mo and Liu Yi, had known each other for a long time.
They had been best friends since high school. Although death happened everywhere in this terrifying world, Wang Yueran had never imagined that death would come so suddenly to her best friend.
And when Xu Jin encountered danger last night, she didn’t even wake up!
Soon, the teacher came in again with security guards and medical staff, driving them away.
Just like yesterday, they could only watch helplessly as their companion’s body was carried away, and silently left the dormitory.
Sitting down in the cafeteria again, the atmosphere was no different from yesterday morning.
Wang Yueran was still crying, and the old lady patted her back to comfort her.
Xia Jing was the first to speak, “There’s one thing that I think might be related to Xu Jin’s death.”
As soon as these words came out, all eyes focused on Xia Jing, and Wang Yueran also looked up suddenly, her eyes red, staring at him.
“Last night before going to bed, Xu Jin suddenly mentioned to me that when she was a child, she woke up once in the middle of the night and saw a green-eyed figure standing in front of her bed.”
Xia Jing looked at Wang Yueran. Among the seven of them, only she knew Xu Jin best.
“When the monster appeared yesterday, I couldn’t open my eyes to see the specific scene, but the monster’s aura did suddenly appear between Xu Jin’s bed and mine.”
“What do you mean?” Jin Nan’s face changed, and he was the first to ask aggressively, “Are you saying that she had seen the monster in this instance before in reality?”
“How is that possible!” Jia Qing was stunned, “No, what’s going on with the green-eyed figure that Xu Jin saw when she was a child?”
Song Yang fell into deep thought.
Wang Yueran’s eyes widened, obviously having heard of this incident.
She said hoarsely, “She mentioned this to me! Xu Jin said that she might have seen a ghost when she was a child. During the summer vacation when she was in third grade, she suddenly woke up one night and saw a green-eyed person standing by her bed!”
“I asked her what the figure looked like, and she said it was just a dark mass, she could only see the green eyes, and the whole shadow was in the shape of a person!”
“It was thundering that night, and she was awakened by the thunder, but her grandmother, who was sleeping next to her, didn’t move. She was too scared to make a sound, even holding her breath. She pushed her grandmother under the covers, but her grandmother never woke up!”
Several people felt goosebumps all over their bodies.
Jia Qing was dumbfounded, “Is this real or fake? Did she really see a ghost when she was a child?”
Wang Yueran said with tears in her eyes, “She had no reason to lie to me!”
“Then what happened afterwards? How did the shadow disappear?” Liu Yi asked hurriedly.
Wang Yueran: “She was still young at that time. She couldn’t get a response from pushing her grandmother, so she didn’t dare to move at all. She pretended to be dead there, and almost had a heart attack. Then she fell asleep, and of course the shadow was gone when she woke up the next day.”
Heart attack?
Hearing these words, everyone’s hearts unconsciously stirred.
Could this be the cause of Xu Jin’s sudden death now?
“She told her family about this, and her parents and grandparents all thought she had a nightmare. But when she grew up and checked online, many netizens said they had seen ‘green-eyed people’ and ‘blue-eyed people’ when they were young. We both felt that she might have had a spiritual constitution when she was a child, and she really saw a ghost!”
Speaking of this, Wang Yueran seemed to remember more things, wiped her tears, and said quickly, “Right, that beige bed sheet and the doll! Xu Jin told me that the night she encountered the ghost, she was sleeping on that beige bed sheet at her grandmother’s house, and her favorite teddy bear was on the bed. But because the experience that night was too terrifying, she felt scared when she saw that bed sheet and the doll later, so her family put those two things away, but never threw them away.”
“A few years later, when they moved and found that bed sheet and that doll, her parents even laughed at her for being timid!”
This way, they could almost be sure that Xu Jin’s death last night was related to her childhood experience.
“But, how could the monster in the instance be a ghost from reality…?” Jia Qing felt like the answer was right in front of him, but he hadn’t turned the corner yet, his face full of confusion.
Song Yang said slowly, “Whether Xu Jin’s experience in elementary school was a dream or she really saw a ghost is something that can’t be determined.”
Xia Jing calmly stated, “What’s certain is that Xu Jin only recalled this incident after hearing about Huang Mo sitting up in the middle of the night and staring at his roommate—she was very scared at that time.”
Xia Jing set his sights on Jin Nan.
Following his gaze, everyone also looked at Jin Nan, and Jin Nan’s expression turned strange.
Fragments flashed through everyone’s minds.
The information they received in the classroom yesterday, the words Jin Nan said at lunch, the several times the school broadcast brainwashed them with its demonic voice—
An answer finally surfaced in everyone’s minds, and everyone’s expression changed.
Song Yang slowly said, “‘Don’t think about it’.”
—Don’t think about it, perhaps because in this instance world, everything imagined would really appear before them!
At this moment, the others all gasped.
They almost didn’t need to communicate with each other, just by looking at everyone’s expressions, they could tell that for a moment, their minds all froze.
It was as if the monster was in this space, floating above this dining table, grinning silently, and peeking into their brains invisibly.
They didn’t dare to think, not even a single thought.
They froze in place, blocking their brains, severely cutting off all thoughts, fearing that the various terrifying imaginations in their heads would materialize and descend upon them in the next second.
When Xia Jing heard Xu Jin’s story last night, he did feel that he seemed to have captured a fleeting glimpse of the truth for a moment.
However, it wasn’t until this moment that he truly confirmed the answer.
In this instance, their thoughts and imaginations might be the breeding ground for monsters.
The reason why Huang Mo and Xu Jin’s situations before and after death were so different might be precisely because everyone’s horror fantasies were completely different. The monsters they created, the death scenes they created, were worlds apart.
There was a full two minutes of silence at the long dining table.
The atmosphere was extremely eerie.
Everyone looked at each other, all stiff as statues.
Liu Yi was the first to break the silence.
He stiffly pulled the corners of his lips and asked with a dry laugh, “…What were you thinking just now?”
Jia Qing’s face was pale, and he shook his head quickly, as if he wanted to throw his brain out directly.
Jin Nan’s face was also very ugly.
He relayed those messages at the dining table yesterday to scare these people and see them as a joke, but he didn’t expect…
The student NPCs’ discussions and rumors were fueling their horror fantasies, and the brainwashing demonic voice from the broadcast was intensifying the fear in their hearts. Everything was paving the way for their deaths.
And at this moment, it was as if their hearing had suddenly become sensitive, and all the movements around them were infinitely amplified.
The rustling sounds of movement, the sounds of plates being picked up and put down, the laughter and conversations of the students, all echoed in their world.
“It seems like another one died this morning?”
“Is this school cursed?”
“Speaking of which, have you often heard footsteps in the corridor at midnight?”
“Besides footsteps, there are also crying sounds, I don’t know where the crying is coming from…”
“I heard that there are ghosts in the small woods behind the school, many people have seen them!”
“Ah, my roommate went to the bathroom once in the middle of the night and saw a dark shadow staring at their balcony from downstairs outside the balcony…”
“Is it the teacher on night duty?”
“Or maybe there really are ghosts, hahaha…”
“…”
Jin Nan’s face was livid, and he stood up with a “bang”, his hands on the table.
The others also stood up quickly, and Liu Yi said with an ugly expression, “Let’s talk outside.”
They couldn’t stay in an environment full of discussions now. Their brains were like out of control, and they couldn’t help but start associating when they received information.
Xia Jing and Song Yang followed at the end of the group. Seeing Xia Jing’s thoughtful look, Song Yang asked, “What about you, what are you thinking?”
Xia Jing glanced at the school broadcast tied to a tree not far away, “I’m wondering if that voice will appear today.”
Almost as soon as Xia Jing finished speaking, the school broadcast made a piercing tuning sound.
Jin Nan and the others directly covered their ears, and the hoarse male voice came from the broadcast, “Hello? Hello? Ah, students, students—”
“Focus on your studies, don’t listen, don’t look, don’t think!!”
“Focus on your studies, don’t listen, don’t look, don’t think!!”
“Focus on your studies, don’t listen, don’t look, don’t think!!”
Jin Nan cursed, “Fuck your grandfather—”
Liu Yi couldn’t even hold back his temper and picked up a stone from the ground and threw it directly at the broadcast on the tree!
“Focus on your studies, don’t listen, don’t look, don’t think! Hee hee hee hee—嗞嗞嗞—”
The broadcast on the tree was smashed and deformed, but the hoarse, eerie, brainwashing voice still echoed throughout the campus, wantonly mocking their inescapable situation.
“It seems that the microphone sub-monster will be infinitely replenished,” Song Yang was also a little annoyed by this piercing sound. He said slowly, “Do you think the main monster in this instance is the thing that materialized from the player’s imagination last night?”
Xia Jing shook his head.
Song Yang laughed.
It seemed that the two of them had the same idea.
—Not necessarily.
___
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Update: Monday, Wednesday, Friday
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