Chapter 57

Chapter 57

“Why turn off the lights?” Luo Yunmeng asked. After she spoke, she cautiously and quietly took two steps back, terrified that the Mirror Ghost would figure out where she was.

At that moment, No. 54, who had been standing silently beside No. 18 all this time, finally spoke. “The Mirror Ghost needs time to imitate you. Her rule for killing is that she can only carry out the replacement once she has imitated you to a certain degree of similarity. Now that she can’t see you, naturally, she has no way to imitate you.”

“Exactly. Don’t worry. Even if she knows where you are, she can’t do anything to you, because she can’t get out at all. If she could, she would’ve run out ages ago. Why would she wait until now?”

After Qiao Yu finished speaking, he suddenly sighed with feeling. “You can guard against everything, but not against your own merch, huh, Mirror Ghost?”

Mirror Ghost: “……”

-Damn it, he got to show off again!

-The Mirror Ghost may not be human, but the streamer is a real dog!

-Pfft. Every time the streamer cuts off a ghost’s escape route, he still has to throw in a taunt afterward. I’m dying.

-Taking notes, taking notes. You can guard against everything, but not against your own merch, hahahahaha.

Qiao Yu looked at the comments in the Live Stream Room and imitated Sister Sadako’s cutesy falsetto. “You’re so mean, you bad, bad thing. Don’t copy me.”

-……You sound so girly.

Qiao Yu smiled. “Hello, son.”

-Sorry for disturbing you.

[System Message: Viewer *** tipped the streamer I’m Your Dad 5 gold coins]

“You’re forgiven.” After receiving his “bribe,” Qiao Yu finally returned to normal.

Beside him, Shang Yan muttered with a complicated expression, “And you lied to me and said you didn’t. Aren’t you still calling everyone son?”

Qiao Yu: “……Say that again if you’ve got the guts.”

“I don’t.”

With an extremely strong survival instinct, Shang Yan changed the subject. “Since there was an observation record for No. 03 inside the third Detention Room, then the other Class F students should have observation records too, right?”

Luo Yunmeng nodded. “That seems to be the case, yes. But we can’t exactly ask other streamers to come here and get locked up just so we can investigate clues, can we? Would anyone agree to that?”

One hundred percent, they would not. No one thought their life was too long and would insist on jumping out to court death.

In a multiplayer survival Instance like this, especially when the mission allowed everyone to escape together as long as one person cleared it, most people basically held on to the idea of relying on someone else. Unless it was a truly desperate, critical moment, no one would risk their own life.

Right now, the two key figures known in the Instance were No. 56 and No. 59.

The autopsy report for No. 56, Tang Ling, had already been found. She had been murdered, yet in order to conceal the truth, the school had pinned the blame on No. 56 by claiming she had eloped with a male classmate.

So if they wanted to learn the real secret of the Yucai Academy Instance, they had to start with these two students first.

“But how are we supposed to get the observation records for No. 56 and No. 59?”

Qiao “Your Noble Patron” Yu said, “With our hands.”

Luo Yunmeng: “……”

Then she heard the door to the Detention Room being… opened.

Right! She had been so pleasantly surprised to see the two of them just now that she had forgotten to ask how they had gotten in.

“You stole the key to the Detention Room?” Luo Yunmeng guessed.

Qiao Yu raised the hand holding the iron wire and chuckled. “Mm. A master key.”

Luo Yunmeng: “……”

What, did he think this was stealing Wi-Fi? A master key, seriously…

“Oh, right. Let me make one thing clear first. I never steal things. Don’t slander me.”

After he said that, Qiao Yu subconsciously glanced at Shang Yan and declared again, “I would never do something so uncultured.”

-Pfft! (Streamer: She’s slandering me! She’s slandering me! Is no one going to do anything about this?)

-You don’t even have a thing called culture, and you’re trying to talk to us about being cultured? (confused Black guy meme.jpg)

-Li Xiaoqin: The person upstairs, stop flattering yourself. Was he talking to you?

-I’m dying. Sister Li despises the streamer more than anyone, but the moment someone else says one thing about him, she instantly bristles. Is this what they call saying no with your mouth while your body is honest?

-Li Xiaoqin: Stay out of our hopeless romantic tribe’s business, got it?

Qiao Yu: “……”

Sister Li, thank you so much!

But can I leave this tribe now??

Qiao Yu looked guilty as a thief. It was not that Shang Yan failed to notice, but he said nothing and left No. 03’s Detention Room first.
Qiao Yu still wasn’t used to this sort of hands-off treatment.

He stood there staring down at the tips of his shoes for a while before finally following Luo Yunmeng at her urging.

Fortunately, there was no one in the corridor at the moment. After the three of them found Detention Room No. 56, Luo Yunmeng seemed to be suffering from some kind of lingering aftereffect, glancing up at the mirror every so often.

Not that it mattered whether she looked or not. The Mirror Ghost’s killing rule only targeted people with the same student number.

Neither Qiao Yu nor Shang Yan was in the mood to explain things to Luo Yunmeng, who had gotten herself caught in a logical loop. They picked up the observation record hanging on the wall and began reading.

[Observation Record for Detention Room No. 56.

Name: No. 56.

Gender: Female.

Reason for Enrollment: Drinking and clubbing.

Reason for Detention: Bullying classmates.

Detention Duration: 24 hours.

Initial Stage: Frantically pounded on the door and screamed-After 3 hours: Emotional state stabilized-After 6 hours: Complained of thirst and hunger-After 9 hours: Smashed the mirror in the Detention Room.

Follow-up Observation: Sent to the Psychological Clinic.]

Psychological Clinic?

After being trapped here, Qiao Yu and the others didn’t immediately follow the clue. Instead, they first went to Detention Room No. 59.

What they saw was-[Observation Record for Detention Room No. 59: None.]

Could it be that No. 59 had never been put in detention?

Qiao Yu stood in place, thinking. Shang Yan’s gaze, meanwhile, drifted over the words Psychological Clinic on No. 56’s observation record.

But he didn’t interrupt Qiao Yu. He was quiet, as if detached from the Instance itself, unruly and cold…

Qiao Yu soon thought of No. 59’s reason for enrollment. Since he had been enrolled for being homosexual, that had nothing to do with lifestyle or study habits. Locking him in detention obviously wouldn’t help change his sexual orientation back to something “normal.”

Which meant… the place he was most likely sent to was also the Psychological Clinic.

So all roads led to the same destination. The problem was, how were they supposed to leave this place now?

Suddenly, Qiao Yu’s phone rang. The caller ID showed: 7474741.

He tapped to answer. The next second, a very pleasant, mature female voice sounded by his ear. “Baby Qiao Yu, are you busy?”

So it was the Painted-Skin Ghost.

Qiao Yu had just opened his mouth when the phone was snatched away. “Who are you?”

The Painted-Skin Ghost froze for a moment. “Who are you?”

Qiao Yu’s instincts screamed that this was bad. He reached out to grab the phone back, but no matter how quick his hands were, they weren’t quicker than someone’s mouth.

“I’m his boyfriend.”

Qiao Yu: “…”

The next second, a video call suddenly came through from the other side.

Shang Yan accepted it in one second. When he saw that the other party was a rather pretty woman, his crimson lips instantly pressed into a thin line.

Qiao Xiaoyu was a sucker for pretty faces. He had always known that.

If Shang Yan hadn’t relied on his own face to seduce him every which way back then, that guy might still be charging bravely down the path of being a straight man of steel.

The more he thought about it, the more annoyed he became. He even forgot that, inside an Instance, the outside world couldn’t contact a broadcaster in the Live Stream Room at all. The only ones who could contact Qiao Yu were either teammates in the same Instance, or…

Ghosts.

The Painted-Skin Ghost frowned, her eyes full of scrutiny. “You’re his boyfriend? You?”

“That’s right. Do you need something?”

Seeing that the atmosphere had already gone rigid, Qiao Yu immediately stepped forward and successfully snatched the phone back.

The moment the Painted-Skin Ghost saw the person on the screen change, her expression flipped like a mask, and she smiled until her eyes curved. “Baby Qiao Yu, you’re still young. How can you be dating? This is puppy love.”

Before Qiao Yu could speak, Shang Yan cut in, “Puppy love? For someone in his twenties? That’s practically late-life romance! Besides, what’s it got to do with you?”

The Painted-Skin Ghost ignored Shang Yan. But she really couldn’t find any fault with his appearance either. After holding it in for a long while, she finally squeezed out, “Baby Qiao Yu, don’t let him fool you. One look and you can tell he’s a scumbag.”

Shang Yan clicked his tongue. “Can you have a little sense of boundaries? Who are you calling baby?”

-Pfft, looks like I’m not the only one who can’t stand my bestie’s man~

-A new type of mother-in-law and daughter-in-law problem. Boyfriend: Are you cutting her off or not? Bestie: Are you breaking up or not? (doge.jpg)

-Hahahaha, I’m laughing so hard I’m taking off.

Qiao Yu: “…”

What should he do?

He just… suddenly wanted to die all over again.