Chapter 33
Chapter 33
In the dormitory, Wei Sen checked once more for any clues she might have missed. In the end, her gaze settled on the cassette player on the desk.
Ever since the cassette player’s switch had inexplicably turned on last night, no one had manually shut it off. But now, there was no sound coming from it at all.
Wei Sen opened the cassette player and only then discovered that the tape inside had already run to the end.
If she remembered correctly, this kind of tape should have an A side and a B side.
With that in mind, Wei Sen tried flipping the cassette over, inserting it back into the player, and pressing the switch again.
The crackling hiss of static came from the cassette player once more.
Seeing that it was still early, Wei Sen simply sat down in the chair and stared at the spinning reels of tape. At the same time, she sent a message in the Group B chat.
[Wei Sen: Do any of your rooms have a cassette player?]
Before long, everyone except Xia Susu replied that they did not.
[Lin Xiaoxue: But there’s an old-fashioned TV in my dorm. I don’t dare turn it on. I’m scared something will crawl out of it…
Chen Lin: That sounds terrifying just hearing about it…
Wei Sen: Unplug it. Dormitory Rules, Article 4: The dormitory is old and in poor repair, and the wiring has aged. Some strange noises or voltage instability are normal. Please ignore them. If it turns on by itself while you’re sleeping in the middle of the night, that would be pretty scary.
Lin Xiaoxue: w(ﾟДﾟ)w Good thing you reminded me, Sister Sen! I’m unplugging it right now!]
Suddenly, the cassette player that had been hissing nonstop produced a clear human voice, entirely different from the airy voices of those Eerie Entities.
“Then let’s record it. We’ll be best friends for life, and we’ll never, ever forget our dreams!”
It was the voice of a very young girl.
Wei Sen listened closely. There was actually hidden information on side B of the cassette!
The childish voice continued, “My dream is to become an outstanding teacher! What about you, Ningning?”
“I… I want to be an engineer.” This was the voice of the girl called Ningning.
“What’s an engineer?”
“I don’t really understand it either, but it’s probably someone like Brother Mark!”
“Yay! When I become a teacher and you become an engineer, we’ll both be able to make our dreams come true!”
After that came another stretch of crackling static.
Wei Sen listened to the entire tape, but that short segment was the only information on it.
It was a pair of good friends using a cassette tape to record their dreams.
The innocent, childish voices sounded pure and naive, creating a strange disconnect with the terrifying atmosphere of this Instance.
They had mentioned someone named Mark just now. Another name that had not appeared before.
Wei Sen silently noted it down.
Could Wang Mei’s husband be named Mark?
But the name seemed somewhat out of place for the naming style of Chinese people from the era this Instance was set in…
It was like how their own era had plenty of Zixuans and Zihans, but very few people were still given names ending in Juan or Cui.
The name “Mark” sounded more like…
A foreigner!
Wei Sen thought of the first photograph in the school history. Could it be the white man shaking hands with Principal Zhang in the photo?
If that white man was Mark, then what was his relationship with Ether Group?
“Ether Group…” Wei Sen murmured to herself.
She kept feeling as if she had heard that name somewhere before. But a year ago, she had been in a serious car accident and lost her memory, so she could not recall anything from the past.
Perhaps she really had known about this group before, or at least heard of it. Otherwise, why would it feel so inexplicably familiar…?
As Wei Sen thought to herself, she sent another message in the Group B chat.
[Wei Sen: Have any of you heard of Ether Group before?
Lin Xiaoxue: Nope.
Chen Lin: I haven’t heard of it either.
Xu You: No.
Huang Xinze: +1.
Wei Sen: Do you know anyone named Mark?
Lin Xiaoxue: There’s a classmate of mine named Ma Kechao ^_^
Chen Lin: I don’t.
Xu You: I don’t know anyone.
Huang Xinze: A foreigner?]
Wei Sen fell back into thought.
If Ether Group was famous, then at least one of them should have heard of it.
Perhaps Ether Group was not actually that well-known. Or perhaps it was a foreign company, so it was not especially famous domestically?
Wei Sen shook her head.
There were still far too few clues. She could only wait until the afternoon to continue exploring.
When the afternoon class bell rang, the jingling sound echoed for a long time through the empty campus, strange beyond words.
By now, the sky had grown even more overcast, and the mist was gradually gathering again from all directions.
Wei Sen sat at the desk and drew out the known relationship chart on a piece of paper, trying to uncover even the slightest trace of a clue from it.
Before long, her watch received a new message.
[Group B Group Chat (6)
Lin Xiaoxue: Sister Sen, I asked everyone in class for their names. There isn’t a single student named Yu Ming!
Wei Sen frowned at the relationship chart on the paper.
Wang Hua and Sun Qiang had bullied Yu Ming. The two perpetrators had been punished with school probation, but the victim had disappeared?
Wei Sen: @Huang Xinze, if the Eerie Entity outside the school gate appears again during the afternoon break, ask her whether her grandson’s name is Yu Ming.
Huang Xinze: No problem!
Something seemed to be coming into focus…
Wei Sen stood up.
She had nearly overlooked one more person!
The homeroom teacher of Class 2, Grade 3, Zhou Junjie.
Since he was the homeroom teacher, he had to have information they didn’t know.
But Bai Xue must have used the same method to win Zhou Junjie over. On top of that, he was originally part of Group A, so whatever he knew hadn’t been shared with anyone in Group B.
She had to go find him herself and see if she could get anything useful out of him.
Wei Sen went to the fourth floor of the dormitory and found Zhou Junjie’s room by following the names posted outside each door.
She knocked, but there was no response from inside for a long time.
“Teacher Zhou, it’s Wei Sen.” She stated her identity from outside the door, but there was still no movement within.
Either he wasn’t in his room, or he was refusing to communicate.
In this Instance, where only ten living people remained, Zhou Junjie wouldn’t completely refuse to speak with others as long as he had even half a brain. So the former was more likely.
Wei Sen was about to turn and leave, but the moment she turned around, she happened to see Zhou Junjie coming up from the stairwell.
“Teacher Wei?” Zhou Junjie was clearly a little surprised to see Wei Sen standing outside his door.
“You just got back?”
“Ah… yeah. It’s relatively safer during the day, so I went out to see if I could find any useful clues.” Zhou Junjie scratched his head, then asked in confusion, “Were you looking for me?”
“Mm. You’re the homeroom teacher of Class 2, Grade 3. I have a few questions about the students in your class.” As Wei Sen spoke, she carefully watched Zhou Junjie’s reaction.
Zhou Junjie was visibly startled, but he quickly put on a smile. “What do you want to know? If I know, I’ll definitely tell you.”
“There is a student named Yu Ming in the class, correct? But I didn’t see him in class.”
Zhou Junjie’s expression turned somewhat ugly. He walked to the door of his room and said, “That’s right. Class 2, Grade 3 should have forty-four students in total, but whether it’s what we’ve seen with our own eyes or what’s written in the rules, there are only forty-three. The one missing student is Yu Ming.”
A missing student…
If the old woman outside the school gate was waiting for Yu Ming, that meant Yu Ming was still inside the school.
But he had disappeared.
Or had he hidden himself away?
After thinking it over, Wei Sen looked into Zhou Junjie’s eyes. Her expression was exceptionally calm, but there was a chill in her voice. “With information this important, why didn’t Teacher Zhou share it with everyone?”
“No, that’s not… I only found out someone was missing when I took attendance in class,” Zhou Junjie hurriedly explained.
Wei Sen looked at the man in front of her. Even at a time like this, he was still trying his hardest to preserve that mask of fake benevolence.
“Wait…” The gaze behind Zhou Junjie’s glasses suddenly sharpened. “My rules say only the homeroom teacher has the attendance roster. Where did you learn about Yu Ming?”
“The Principal’s Office.”
“You went to the Principal’s Office?!” Zhou Junjie took a step forward, surprise and delight flashing in his eyes. “Did you find any clues?”
Wei Sen smiled faintly. “Whatever I know, you, as the homeroom teacher, should already know as well.”
Suspicion showed plainly in Zhou Junjie’s eyes. Then he scratched his head and smiled. “Teacher Wei, I do know some things, but it’s really not that I’m unwilling to share. The prerequisite is that everyone else has to publicly share what they know too.”
“I want to look at the attendance roster. In exchange, I can give you a very important piece of information,” Wei Sen said bluntly.
Zhou Junjie thought for a few seconds, then turned and opened the dorm room door. “All right. Wait here.”
Zhou Junjie walked into the room. Wei Sen saw an old-fashioned fan, a worn desk lamp, and a flashlight on his desk, but like everyone else, he didn’t have a cassette player.
Zhou Junjie took the attendance roster out of a drawer and came back out. Wei Sen quietly withdrew her gaze.
When Zhou Junjie reached the doorway, he was in no hurry to hand over the roster. Instead, he asked, “What’s the information?”
Wei Sen narrowed her eyes slightly. Her gaze brushed past him and landed on the flashlight on his desk. “Don’t easily trust the person who gave you that flashlight.”