Chapter 58
Chapter 58
Something flashed through Cheng Miao’s mind, but before she could grasp it, the auntie’s shout interrupted her.
“Young man, did you figure something out? Why didn’t you tell me last night?”
Beside Qiao Jin, Qian Ming was entirely different from the man he had been the night before. He gave the auntie a cheeky grin. “You made it back too, didn’t you?”
“But the other man didn’t!”
“I only figured it out later. I wasn’t certain, so how could I tell either of you? If I guessed wrong, I’d be the one who got you killed.”
The auntie was left speechless. Still unwilling to concede, she looked around, hoping someone else would defend her.
No one did.
They all knew this was a Game of life and death. No one owed anyone courtesy or special treatment. Merely refraining from deliberate murder was already decent.
With no one supporting her, the auntie wilted and stopped talking.
Cheng Miao had roughly pieced together the answer. Seeing the others from Senior Class 1 still watching her expectantly, she patted Qi Jiajia on the head. “Go to class first. We’ll talk when the lesson is over.”
After the previous two days, no one dared let their attention wander in class, much less break a rule. The day passed without serious incident.
The players gathered at noon. When Cheng Miao saw that Qiao Jin and Qian Ming clearly had no intention of explaining, she had no choice but to step forward herself.
“I think I understand the nighttime rule. It comes from the instance’s second hint: ‘When false becomes true, truth becomes false.’ Truth and falsehood are opposites, which means we have to do everything in reverse.”
“The monster you described in the laboratory, with its reversed joints and backward head, and the figure Qian Ming encountered last night that kept moving backward were all clues that the nighttime rules operate in reverse.”
Cheng Miao looked around at the other players. Lin Zhu and Qi Jiajia were quick. They understood before she had even finished explaining the hint.
Freckles and Chen Yu were a little slower but followed her reasoning. Old Yu, the auntie, and the old man merely looked at one another, forcing Cheng Miao to explain in greater detail.
“The creature in the laboratory had backward joints and a reversed head. A normal person would be terrified and try to run away. But running triggers the rule and gets you killed. The only path to survival is refusing to dodge it and acting against your natural instincts.”
Understanding dawned on Old Yu’s face. “That’s all?”
Qi Jiajia rolled her eyes and looked him up and down. “It sounds easy. Could you actually do it?”
Old Yu fell silent. The rule sounded simple, but obeying it was harder than following the daytime rules.
Human instinct demanded self-preservation and avoidance of danger. Defying that instinct and deliberately doing the opposite was anything but easy.
The auntie stood nearby, patting her chest to calm herself. Who would have thought that being too terrified to move had saved her life?
“But didn’t you say there aren’t any ghosts in this instance?” Old Yu seemed to have aged a dozen years, his back bowed.
Cheng Miao looked at Qin Musong. He nodded. “If my weapon hits a ghost, it can force the creature to reveal itself. The night before last, I simply forced my way through. I never hit anything.”
Cheng Miao considered this. “Don’t you think… everything that happens at night resembles a dream?”
Qi Jiajia tilted her head and bit one finger, looking like a beautiful doll. Qiao Jin smiled at her and received an eye roll in return.
“That’s true. Don’t grown-ups always say things work backward in dreams?”
Lin Zhu nodded and picked up the thought. “And none of our experiences had a cause or an aftermath. They simply appeared out of nowhere, just like a dream.”
Cheng Miao delivered her conclusion. “Every clue we find during the day points to a dream Tan Tao once had. At night, that dream becomes reality.”
Qin Musong’s keen gaze swept over the team. They resembled a sapling that had only just sprouted, yet already possessed tenacious vitality and cohesion. One day, it would grow into a towering tree.
Qiao Jin was equally impressed. Cheng Miao had reached the rule a step later than she and Qian Ming, but she had deduced it without personally experiencing the nighttime dream.
And according to Lin Zhu, Cheng Miao had survived only three instances. This little team’s prospects were extraordinary.
Qiao Jin put aside her thoughts and casually dropped another bombshell. “We found traces of a ritual in the Dean’s office.”
Only Cheng Miao, Chen Yu, and Freckles had heard the news the previous night. Everyone else looked stunned.
“A r-ritual?” Lin Zhu gaped. He had thought this was a supernatural tale about the restless ghost of a model student. How had occult rites suddenly become part of it?
“I encountered something similar on an earlier mission, so I recognized the signs,” Qiao Jin said lightly. “I sent Xiao Ming to investigate today, but the Dean hasn’t been seen since this morning.”
Cheng Miao estimated the available time. The afternoon break lasted twenty minutes. She could use it to search the Dean’s office for clues.
The Dean had asked them to help, so even if Cheng Miao was caught, she could offer a plausible explanation.
“No one has died today so far. Make sure you remember every rule we’ve discovered over the last few days,” Cheng Miao reminded them again as the group dispersed.
By now, everyone understood that although the young woman often wore a cold expression, she might be the only veteran who genuinely cared whether the others survived.