Chapter 61
Chapter 61
“How is that possible? Their deaths were so bizarre! The people who died at night saw ghosts with their own eyes. How can there be no ghosts in this instance?”
Old Yu had always been meek and honest, but the abnormal deaths of so many companions in such a short time drove the question from him.
Afterward, he ducked his head, looking embarrassed.
Cheng Miao did not mind. She waved a hand. “The first hint, ‘the moon in the mirror, the flower in the water,’ describes something unreal. The haunting we believed in is false. What actually happened at this school is a man-made curse.”
Qiao Jin and Qian Ming showed no surprise. Cheng Miao knew they had already reached the same conclusion. The only missing piece had been the Dean’s motive.
Ma Yuan’s account had now explained the entire story.
Tan Tao held himself to strict standards and studied tirelessly to earn his mother’s attention, but his poor health ultimately killed him.
After her son’s death, grief overwhelmed the Dean. She believed she had neglected such an exceptional son while pouring too much effort into troublemakers who could not even fulfill a student’s basic responsibilities.
Her grief twisted into madness, and she cursed the entire campus. Anyone who failed to study as diligently as her son would suffer a bizarre death.
Then, under pressure from the school, the Dean invited the players to investigate. They became her curse’s primary targets.
“Cheng Miao, do you think this campus is real?” The more Freckles looked at the students, the more they resembled dead people. A chill crawled over her skin.
“Of course it’s real. But the Dean clearly has no intention of leaving survivors. By her standards, it’s only a matter of time before every student dies.” Qian Ming pushed his lollipop to the other side of his mouth with his tongue, filling it with the intense taste of lemon.
“Then… if we stop the Dean tomorrow, can we leave the instance?” Chen Yu asked excitedly. Qiao Jin had told her that an array was the foundation of any ritual. With so many of them, they could destroy it if nothing else worked and end the curse.
Cheng Miao thought the same. The Dean was absent today, and tomorrow was their final deadline. If they survived one more night, they could go home.
Before they separated, Cheng Miao reminded everyone one last time that the nighttime rule required them to act in reverse. The subconscious was powerful, but they had to force themselves to make a conscious choice against instinct if they wanted to live.
Freckles found that the clue in the phone booth where the auntie died concerned fighting and brawling. The clue sounded so ordinary that many players relaxed.
This was the most mentally exhausting instance Cheng Miao had faced. Countless rules hid inside still more rules.
They could not lose focus for even a moment. Worse, they had to defy their own instincts. How many of them would survive tonight?
When Cheng Miao woke the next morning, she could hardly believe she had not been chosen again. Then the chosen players must have been…
A terrible possibility occurred to her. She jumped out of bed in two strides and knocked on the door across the hall.
Qi Jiajia opened it, still half asleep. The moment she saw the worry in Cheng Miao’s eyes, her exhaustion vanished. She leaped at Cheng Miao and wrapped herself around her. “You were worried about me, weren’t you? You were worried!”
Cheng Miao peeled the clingy girl off herself and rubbed her forehead helplessly. “We’re teammates. Of course I worry about you. You weren’t chosen last night?”
Qi Jiajia yawned, picked up her washbasin, and brought it into Cheng Miao’s room. “I was. Qiao Jin and Old Yu were chosen too.”
Before Cheng Miao could ask, Qi Jiajia splashed water over her face and mumbled, “Old Yu is dead.”
Cheng Miao fell silent. After both girls finished washing, Qi Jiajia skipped beside her, tugging on the hem of her shirt. “It’s not surprising. With his personality, if a pack of monsters with backward hands and feet surrounded him, his first reaction would be to cry, drop to his knees, and beg for mercy. How could he remember to do the opposite?”
Cheng Miao sighed and said nothing more.
By the time they reached the cafeteria, Lin Zhu had already bought breakfast for them. Everyone else had clearly heard about Old Yu’s death, but no one mentioned it.
“Winter break is almost here. The class monitor just told us that this morning’s lessons have been replaced by cleaning.” Qin Musong never wasted words. Beside him, Qian Ming nodded like a bobblehead. “Same for us. Looks like today’s rule is to clean properly.”
Cheng Miao swallowed her porridge. “Take it seriously. At noon, we’ll find the Dean and end this instance.”
Everyone nodded. Their numbers had dwindled, but at least the end was near. All they had to do was find the Dean.
Only three players remained in the liberal-arts class: Qiao Jin, Qian Ming, and the old man. They were assigned to mop the floors.
Mindful of the old man’s age, Qiao Jin asked him only to rinse the mops and intended to spare him the rest of the work.
The old man carried two mops to the restroom. He washed them carefully, leaning the first against the wall after rinsing it before starting on the second.
When he was ready to leave, he suddenly felt someone force his head into the mop sink.
The drain was blocked, and the water rose higher and higher.
Unable to make a sound, the old man struggled desperately, but it did no good.
He had chosen a distant restroom because he feared people in a busier one might step on his clean mops.
Now there was no one in the neglected restroom but him. He slowly drowned in the sink.
Qiao Jin and Qian Ming sensed something was wrong. They searched three restrooms before finding his body. When Qian Ming lifted him out, his face was bloated from the water.
“The old gentleman was so careful. Why did he…?” Qiao Jin had liked him. He carried himself like an immortal sage and had even advised her to eat a balanced diet instead of living on vegetables.
Qian Ming examined the two mops and pointed to a patch of oil on the floor. “There was oil here. He didn’t notice it, so the mop he’d already washed got dirty again. But he tried to leave anyway.”
Qiao Jin said nothing. She looked one last time at the old gentleman lying dead with his eyes open, then turned away.
Qiao Jin was in a foul mood for the rest of the cleaning and did little more than go through the motions. Qian Ming handled the work alone.
“Xiao Ming, how many people do you think will make it to the end?” Qiao Jin leaned blankly on her mop and stared at a bird’s nest in the tree outside.
Qian Ming wiped the sweat from his brow, his gaze following her every movement. “That depends on what counts as the end. As for me, as long as I can stay with Qiaoqiao, it doesn’t matter how far I make it.”
Qiao Jin came back to herself and glared at him with reddening cheeks. Some of the heaviness and despair in her heart eased.
“We didn’t get a clue today…” Qiao Jin murmured, her thoughts returning to the old man’s body.
Qian Ming patted her head and resumed mopping with great care.
The final eight players gathered and found the Dean burning joss paper in her office.
“We know you’re responsible for the curse at this school. We’re all sorry about Tan Tao’s death, but the students are innocent.” Cheng Miao stopped Qin Musong from forcing his way through and tested the Dean with words instead.
The Dean’s face remained wooden. She showed no reaction to their discovery of the truth and continued feeding paper into the fire with mechanical motions.
“You already failed Tan Tao once. The students are innocent. If you continue, do you want Tan Tao to find no peace even in the afterlife?”
The Dean stopped. She raised her head toward Cheng Miao as two straight trails of tears ran down her cheeks.
Cheng Miao was about to say more when the Dean abruptly stood, opened the window, and jumped.