Ch39 - Sha, Sha, Sha

Nan Zhou’s group decided to go to the No. 18 teaching building even though Nan Zhou knew that the person would probably leave once they noticed their group moving. Sure enough, they arrived at the camping club and only saw the vice president who was quietly cleaning after sending out the information.

The vice president saw three strange faces appear at the door and straightened. “Students, who are you looking for?” 

Nan Zhou and the vice president looked at each other for a moment before Nan Zhou’s eyes fell on the telescope placed on the window sill. He observed for a moment before telling the two people behind him, “It’s not him.”

The vice president didn’t give off that feeling. Jiang Fang believed in Nan Zhou’s judgment. He walked past Nan Zhou, intending to explain to the bewildered vice president the reason why they had come. His voice was adjusted to stiff Chinese with a slight accent. “Hello, my name is лoдka·mohtoлoka (Lodoka Montoloka) and I’m an international student. My friend wanted to show me around the school. I heard this is the camping club?”

The injury that the vice president suffered from seeing people with Nan Zhou and Jiang Fang’s level of appearance wasn’t small and it took a while for him to recover. “Oh. It isn’t the time to recruit new students…”

Then he regretted it immediately and wished that he could bite his tongue. He quickly pulled out one of the brochures that had accumulated on one side of the file shelf until it was almost gray from dust. 

The camping club had always been unpopular and had insufficient funds. If he could bring these two gold-lettered sign boards into the club then combined with Xiao Xie, how could they have problems recruiting beautiful female students next year?

Jiang Fang smiled and glanced at the photos stuck on the wall out of the corner of his eyes. Jiang Fang said, “We almost went the wrong way just now and happened to meet a man coming from this direction. I asked him where the camping club is and he pointed us in another direction. We made a great detour before finding this place.”

The vice president was guided by his gaze and naturally gave Jiang Fang the desired answer. “Is it Xiao Xie? The good-looking person? He is a bit strange and likes to play some pranks. I’m sorry. Please don’t take it to heart.”

Thanks to the vice president’s direction, Jiang Fang easily found the handsome young man with the most outstanding appearance on the photo wall. He answered mildly, “Yes, that’s him.”

He turned back and met Nan Zhou’s gaze. The seventh teammate they hadn’t met yet was probably found. Nan Zhou nodded while folding his arms. However, his eyes didn’t linger on the photo for too long. Instead, they drifted to the open staircase around 20 meters away.

Li Yinhang noticed his gaze from behind him and followed it. “Is anything there?”

Nan Zhou was silent for a long time. Li Yinhang’s voice drifted through the air and traveled all the way to the stairs.

In the corner, Xie Xiangyu stood there in a relaxed posture while not forgetting to play with a krone coin with a fancy pattern on it. The back of his hand faced upwards while the coin spun smoothly between his fingers, reflecting a bit of silver light from the freshly painted handrail. All it took was to drop the coin and he would immediately reveal his position. 

Fortunately, that didn’t happen. In his hand, the krone coin flipped from his thumb to his pinky finger and back lightly. He spoke to himself, “I guess you know that I’m here. But… will you come over?”

Shortly after, he heard Nan Zhou answer, “No, there is nothing.”

The coin that was flipped between his fingers was held in the palm of Xie Xiangyu’s hand. Coincidentally, he felt the same way. Now wasn’t the best time for them to meet. The corners of Xie Xiangyu’s mouth curved upwards. He turned around and went downstairs slowly and silently, disappearing around the corner of the stairs.

Over there, Jiang Fang smoothly finished his communication with the vice president and walked back to Nan Zhou. 

Li Yinhang wondered, “Are we going to find this Xie Xiangyu next?”

Nan Zhou answered, “No.”

Jiang Fang also said, “We will go back to the dormitory.”

Li Yinhang, “……Eh?” 

She thought it was important to find their teammate…

Then she thought about it and immediately understood. Yes, the instance didn’t tell them to socialize or make friends. Their task was to survive. They were fighting against the entire instance. Against such a big backdrop, it didn’t make much sense to woo a single teammate.

They left Building 18 and walked all the way to Jiang Fang’s dormitory. Jiang Fang put forward another idea. “Is it possible that Xie Xiangyu was also attracted by the broadcast content and went to the broadcasting station?”

Then he witnessed the scene of the robbery… 

We’re sorry for MTLers or people who like using reading mode, but our translations keep getting stolen by aggregators so we’re going to bring back the copy protection. If you need to MTL please retype the gibberish parts.

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Nan Zhou stated, “There is no need to specifically look for him. If he needs anything then he will look for us…”

Jiang Fang saw they were standing in front of his dormitory door and took out the key marked with the room number. Then Nan Zhou, who was talking about Xie Xiangyu, suddenly stopped him. 

“—Wait.” Li Yinhang had been preparing to touch the doorknob. Now she heard these words and withdrew her hand at the speed of light. She cautiously watched the situation around her.

“I have 1 point for thieving.” Nan Zhou said solemnly. “I’ll open the lock.”

Li Yinhang, “……”

Then Nan Zhou took out a small piece of wire from his pocket, gently pressed it into the keyhole and attached his ear to it. He moved his fingers a few times before hearing a subtle click from the lock. The door opened. 

Jiang Fang stood to the side and applauded him with a smile.

Li Yinhang, “……” Was this fucking okay? Li Yinhang was inspired by this and borrowed the lock from Nan Zhou to practice a new skill.

Nan Zhou was greatly encouraged by this first victory in a great battle and he studied Jiang Fang’s door lock with great concentration. If the ghost of the instance came to the dormitory right now and saw their activities, it would be very puzzled.

However, their mechanical, repetitive movements were accompanied by a growing anxiety. They had no clues about anything. ‘Hu Li’ was the only effective clue but it had become a mess. Up to now, they hadn’t been able to make an effective analysis of the danger in this instance or come up with measures to deal with it. 

It was completely different from Xiao Ming’s Daily Life where they needed to find trivial clues within a limited space. This was a university covering an area of 3.5 square kilometers. It occupied a vast area and there were many people. Even if the seven people had one heart and one mind, it was impossible to search every corner of the school within five days. If they couldn’t find a breakthrough then they could only wait for the danger of death and madness to come and find them. Was it possible that this task could only be fulfilled by dead people?

These emotions bothered Li Yinhang and made her unable to fully concentrate. She soon put the lock down and sighed with unbearable frustration. Before she could finish, she heard Nan Zhou inquire, “What is Xie Xiangyu’s department?”

Jiang Fang looked away from his phone screen. “Finance.”

Then he glanced at Nan Zhou and wondered, “Do you need his phone number?” 

“That isn’t necessary.”

Nan Zhou got the information he wanted and was able to keep thinking.

He was from the architecture department.

Jiang Fang was from the management department. 

Li Yinhang was from the statistics department.

Xie Xiangyu was from the finance department.

For Sun Guojing, Luo Ge and Qi Tianyun, the three hapless people were probably in the same department. It was because they met too quickly in this completely unfamiliar environment. In addition, there were the people who died. There was the unidentified Hu Li and the completely unknown person who left them the death recording.

He turned to Li Yinhang and asked an even stranger question. “We should know each other, right?” 

“…Otherwise?”

Nan Zhou clarified. “I mean, what is the relationship between the ‘Li Yinhang’ you are acting as and the ‘Nan Zhou’ I am acting as?”

Li Yinhang was taken aback for a moment before she became enlightened. Nan Zhou discovered that Li Yinhang also became aware of this and said, “There was a blind spot in our thinking before.”

They were originally teammates. In this strange and dangerous instance, their relationship wasn’t changed. Rather, it was strengthened. They were teammates so everyone thought by default that they should know each other. The instance was also very cooperative and invisibly filled in the small details. For example, the robbery trio were in the same department. For example, Nan Zhou and Jiang Fang were a pair. 

This greatly reduced the gap between the instance and reality, reducing the player’s vigilance and inducing the players as outsiders to only pay attention to the other characters in the instance. How did Hu Li die? Who left the death recording? They forgot that they were also one of the clues.

Jiang Fang held his phone and followed Nan Zhou’s thoughts. “Teacher Nan is right. I’ve been looking for the intersection between the seven of us and I’ve finally found something.”

“Check the chat history from seven days ago.” Jiang Fang gave a clear time point. “Around October 21st.”

October 21st… 

Li Yinhang started searching the chat history by date. Nan Zhou was clearly on her friends list. However, she was caught up in the blind spot just now. She thought that her teammate should naturally be there and didn’t think much about it.

Li Yinhang sweated as she looked through the chat log. After a few glances, Li Yinhang’s expression became happy. They found a breakthrough! In the instance setting, she was high school classmates with Nan Zhou and their relationship wasn’t bad.

“The night before the 21st…” Li Yinhang opened her mouth. “The mid-term tests just finished and I asked you to go out on the night of the 21st to play board games.”

Nan Zhou nodded. “Then I asked you if I could bring a family member.” 

Jiang Fang shook his phone. “The family member is here.”

The clues between the three of them were successfully found. Jiang Fang was an international student and had few contacts on his phone. He might have made a Chinese boyfriend but he didn’t successfully enter Nan Zhou’s social circle. He had few friends. Nan Zhou was invited by Li Yinhang. Since he brought his boyfriend, he didn’t invite a third person. So who invited Li Yinhang?

Once this idea was clear, everything should’ve gone smoothly. However, Li Yinhang searched through the various social network softwares on her phone, searching with various keywords such as ‘board games’, ‘party’, ‘game’ etc. Even so, she failed to find any relevant records near the 21st.

She only mentioned it in general terms when she invited Nan Zhou. ‘A friend is setting up a party to play board games. Do you want to come?’ 

The clouds of doubt in Li Yinhang’s mind became thicker.

“Is there such a possibility?” Nan Zhou wondered, “Perhaps the one who invited you was Hu Li.”

Li Yinhang’s heart trembled and she subconsciously denied it. “I don’t have him in my contacts.”

“What about the person who left the death recording?” 

“We don’t know his name…” Li Yinhang held back a shiver as goose bumps rose on her arms. “I can’t find any evidence of anyone inviting me…”

However, this party obviously wasn’t planned by Li Yinhang’s group. So in the end…

Nan Zhou quietly thought about it while playing with the door lock, Li Yinhang was feeling complicated while holding her phone and Jiang Fang gently raised his phone. “In fact, I tried something else.”

*** 

Seven hours after entering the instance, night completely came. The hungry, muscular trio dejectedly returned to their dormitory. They also thought that Hu Li, the person mentioned in the recording, was the breakthrough point. As a result, they worked hard and spoke good words for a long time but the old man in charge of the archives wouldn’t let them in.

It was as the saying went: people should be educated when they were young or they would go astray. However, the three people had suffered a great loss due to Nan Zhou. They didn’t want to make too much noise and disturb the school, so they put away the thought of beating up the old man.

They went to buy a thermos. Then after the old man got off work, they used the cover of the night and the sound of breaking the thermos to cover up the sound of the broken glass in the archives room.

The three people stood in the leaky archives and cursed the cold while checking for a long time on the old, clunky computer. The results were useless. There was no one called Hu Li among the students. They were busy for half a day and got nothing. 

The tired trio returned to their dormitory, washed up and went to bed. The first night was very important. This instance had the risk of death but there were also ways to survive. Thus, they were going to take turns keeping watch. Moreover, they felt that even if a ghost rushed to kill someone tonight, the probability would be one in seven. The ghost should look for that solo player or that female. Of course, it was best if it worked hard to kill Nan Zhou. The chances of it finding the three of them with big yang energy wasn’t high.

From 10:30 to 1:00, it was Luo Ge’s turn to keep watch. Then it was Sun Guojing from 1:30 to 3:30 and Qi Tianyun from 3:30 to 6:30.

Luo Ge was a bit anxious so he talked more than usual. He sat on the upper bunk, shaking his legs while leaning toward Sun Guojing on the lower bunk. “Old Sun, don’t dig at your ears. Are you panning for gold?”

Sun Guojing flicked the object in his direction. “My ears are buzzing.” 

He gritted his teeth. “Don’t let me meet that Nan guy again!”

In the midst of his cursing, the light of the bedroom went out.

The school was afraid that the boys from the physical education department would jump up and down due to excessive energy so at 10:30 p.m., the physical education department had their dormitories locked on time.

Sun Guojing lay in the darkness and felt very cold. He grabbed the upper edge of his quilt with both hands, trying to reduce every gap and tightly wrapping himself up in it. Still, it didn’t do anything to keep him warm. He felt like he was lying in a coffin. The quilt was hard and tough. His limbs were stiff and his hands and feet were numb. Even the exhaled air brought frost and coldness. 

Sun Guojing was too cold to take it anymore. He trembled and stuck his head out of the bed, placing it right next to the heating pipe only to shiver from the ice. The school hadn’t started the heating yet. What the hell was going on here?!

Sun Guojing tried to wrap himself into an airtight cocoon but it failed. He turned over and over before being unable to bear it anymore. He shouted in a hoarse voice. “Luo Ge? Big fool? Isn’t it cold?”

No one responded to him. Were they asleep?! Sun Guojing forcibly resisted the coldness. He stood up, stepped on the edge of the lower bunk to look up and whispered, “Fuck.”

They were really asleep? Sun Guojing felt so cold that it was impossible to fall asleep. Why not keep watch for Luo Ge and wake him up at a certain point to take over the shift? This way, Sun Guojing could sleep for the rest of the night. 

Yet when he sat back down on the lower bunk…

The moonlight that shone through the window spilled onto the end of his quilt. Sun Guojing clearly saw a pair of sunken, slender footprints appear at the end of his quilt. Sun Guojing’s throat tightened and his heartbeat accelerated. He courageously pulled up his quilt and reached for it. However, the quilt was soft and bounced back quickly when pulled. The traces of footprints disappeared.

This didn’t stop Sun Guojing from feeling numb. He hurriedly covered himself with the quilt and secretly cursed in the darkness. The quilt gave the impression that it was a closed, dry and safe place. However…

“Sha—” 

In this closed, dry and safe space, the noise was particularly clear.

“Sha—”

It was as if someone was dragging their body and crawling slowly on his bed.

“Sha—” 

The blood in Sun Guojing’s body was frozen.

This wasn’t tinnitus. It wasn’t an illusion. This was real. It was because in addition to hearing the inorganic sound, he also smelled something strange. It was the musty smell of a room that had been closed off for a long time.

“Sha—”

The sound of rustling came from the depths of his quilt. It was from his feet. From… he just had to lower his head and he would be able to see it. 

TL Note: Not sure about Jiang Fang’s Ukranian name. I came up with one based on the Chinese characters provided but if anyone is Ukranian/Russian and has a better idea of the name, please let me know in the comments and I’ll change it.