Chapter 72

Chapter 72

“Aah!”

Xiao Xu’s piercing scream sent Cheng Miao’s unease soaring. She had heard Su Shuang’s remark but had yet to step outside. She had never expected someone to die on the very first night.

Cheng Miao opened the door and saw the horrifying state of Li Fei’s body.

In that same instant, a familiar, overwhelming sensation surged through her.

There was a ghost in this instance, and it was powerful.

Cheng Miao recognized the feeling. Her Friend of Ghosts buff had activated.

When she sensed nothing during the previous instance, she had assumed the buff was unstable and would not work every time.

Only later had she learned that there was no true ghost in Tan Tao’s School Life. The entire story had been built around the Dean’s curse.

From what she could tell now, this buff actually activated quite readily. She was certain a ghost existed in this instance, and that Li Fei’s death was connected to it.

Confronted without warning by such a bloody scene, Xiao Xu was both terrified and nauseated. She crouched in a corner and vomited.

Qin Musong and Qin Wen went over to examine the body but found nothing.

“A ghost did it.” Hearing the certainty in Cheng Miao’s voice, Yezi, who had remained silent until now, glanced at her.

“What’s all this commotion so early in the morning? What…” The Village Head had rushed over, but the bloody sight shocked him back several steps. His face turned ashen, and the hand he pointed at the corpse shook violently.

“She was perfectly fine. How could she die? What a tragedy!” The Village Head sighed over and over. Cheng Miao noticed that his fear was genuine, yet he did not ask how the woman had died. It was as though the subject itself was something he desperately wanted to avoid.

The Village Head called over two strong villagers to help take down the body. “What a tragedy. We’ll put her in the side courtyard for now. It isn’t proper to hold a burial during the ancestral ceremony, so we’ll deal with her after these next few days.”

As the Village Head departed, Cheng Miao noticed a fear so dense it was almost tangible in the eyes of every villager who had come out to watch. Beneath it, however, lurked a subtle sense of relief.

They were relieved. But why?

Something felt wrong, but what was it? Cheng Miao frowned in the direction the Village Head had gone. The group had moved quickly and was already out of sight.

“Why are they carrying lanterns in broad daylight?” Qi Jiajia muttered. Her words struck like a bolt of lightning, tearing through the fog in Cheng Miao’s mind.

That was right. Everything they had done looked so natural that Cheng Miao had not noticed at first.

When the Village Head arrived, he had been carrying a blazing red lantern with a flame burning inside it.

Cheng Miao jerked her head up. Sure enough, at some point, every lantern hanging outside the villagers’ homes had been lit.

The flickering firelight shone through paper as thin as a cicada’s wing. Somehow, the lanterns looked even more unsettling beneath the bright light of day.

“They really did light every lantern.” Lin Zhu ran back from another alley. Quick on the uptake, he had seen Cheng Miao look up and hurried off to confirm it.

Cheng Miao nodded. Today marked the beginning of Zhangjia Village’s ancestral ceremony. Since this instance contained a ghost, its death conditions had to be connected to clues about the ceremony.

“Feeling any better?” Cheng Miao crouched and handed a tissue to Xiao Xu, who had begun vomiting bile. Lin Zhu offered her a bowl of warm water as well.

Xiao Xu sniffed, her face a mess. She accepted the water gratefully, rinsed her mouth, and staggered to her feet.

“Thank you. I’m sorry, I just…”

“It’s okay.” Cheng Miao softened her voice. Although her expression remained cool, Xiao Xu could sense her concern, and a little of the courage that had deserted her returned.

“What happened last night?” Xiao Xu was a newcomer and the most emotional of the group. That made her the easiest person to question.

With Lin Zhu supporting her, Xiao Xu sat on the doorstep. Li Fei’s body had already been carried away. She clutched the bowl of water, her eyes still shining with fear.

“It was very late, but Li Fei still hadn’t gotten onto the bed. Yezi told her to turn off the light and go to sleep… It was too dark once the light went out. Maybe she was scared, or maybe she couldn’t see where she was going. She even called my name.”
Xiao Xu swallowed. She glanced back at the empty room and felt a chill creep across her back, so she rose and moved into the sunlight.

“Before I could answer, I heard Li Fei open the door and leave. I thought she was going to the restroom… I fell asleep later, but I heard the door close. I assumed she’d come back from the restroom, so I didn’t think much of it.”

Xiao Xu sobbed and wiped her nose with a tissue. “But this morning, we found out Li Fei never came back last night… Maybe she… Maybe she’d already died outside, and none of us knew.”

At that point, Xiao Xu could no longer hold back and burst into anguished sobs.

She was only an ordinary office worker. She did not even like horror movies, and any time a gory image appeared online, she would superstitiously comment, “Keep bad luck away.”

How could she have known she would inexplicably end up here, or that someone beside her would die without a sound on the very first night, and in such a gruesome way?

Cheng Miao consoled Xiao Xu for a moment. “Think carefully. Why did she open the door? What did she say before she opened it?”

Xiao Xu tried to remember, then shook her head and continued crying.

She could not recall. There had been so many people sleeping together that she had not been particularly frightened, and she had paid little attention.

“She said, ‘Is that you, Su Shuang? I told you I don’t have any hand cream. You’re still awake?'” Yezi had appeared behind Cheng Miao at some point. Qi Jiajia was staring at her darkly, while Qin Musong beside her radiated the dangerous presence of a wolf. Yezi cautiously stopped three paces away from Cheng Miao.

“What? It wasn’t me! I went back to my room yesterday and never left!” Su Shuang’s large, dewy eyes widened at Yezi’s words. He pointed at Song Yu, whose face had lost all its color. “He slept next to me last night. He can vouch for me.”

Song Yu nodded, his face pale. He even turned toward Yan Qi, apparently finding this veteran player more reliable than Su Shuang. “It’s true. He slept beside me the whole time.”

“How could that be? Then who did Li Fei open the door for last night, and who did she leave with?” Zhang Lele, the plump young woman, had spent all of yesterday on edge. She had worried the NPCs would hold a grudge against her, but after surviving the day, she looked weary rather than quite so tense.

No one answered. The group fell silent.

That was the question. If Su Shuang had been in his room, who had Li Fei opened the door for? And why had she died?

“Li Fei must have heard something to say that,” Lin Zhu said, thinking actively as he joined the discussion. “Maybe she heard a voice that sounded like Su Shuang’s.”

Su Shuang rubbed his arms and frowned in aggrieved confusion. “Why would it pretend to be me? Li Fei and I weren’t even close.”

Cheng Miao looked toward the room where Li Fei had stayed. In response to Lin Zhu’s theory, she said, “A voice imitating Su Shuang would be far too specific. Someone who wasn’t close to him might have ignored it. I think she probably heard a knock instead.”