Ch43 - Sha, Sha, Sha

Nan Zhou and Jiang Fang arrived at the door of 403 and met the Sun Guojing ‘Longtan team’ trio. Enemies met on a narrow road. The trio’s expressions were very ugly. They glanced at each other and decided to ignore Nan Zhou and Jiang Fang and kept picking at the lock.

Nan Zhou greeted them. “Hello.” 

The trio, “……” Hello you fucking ghost.

Nan Zhou wondered, “What are you doing?”

The trio worked hard to treat Nan Zhou as air, trying to escape yesterday’s humiliation.

Nan Zhou stood behind them and whispered like a demon, “My thieving skill is 1.” 

“What about you?”

Jiang Fang almost laughed.

The trio, “…..”

Sun Guojing cursed and looked back. “What the hell do you want to do?”’

Nan Zhou answered, “Open the lock.”

Sun Guojing took his brothers away with a curse. “Then you come! You come!”

As Nan Zhou crouched down and looked at the keyhole of Room 403, Jiang Fang walked to the side of Room 403. A transparent class schedule shelf was embedded on the wall next to the door. Inside was the prepared classroom schedule. It clearly marked the day of the week, the department, the class that would use this room and the person in charge of the room.

The incident happened on the night of the 21st. That was last Friday. In this Room 403, the only academic class was a course from the physical education department. It was ‘Principles of Motion’ and the class time happened to be every Friday afternoon. 

Jiang Fang glanced at Nan Zhou who was crouching down and preparing to open the lock. Nan Zhou was also looking at this piece of paper. Nan Zhou exchanged looks with Jiang Fang before getting up.

Sun Guojing saw Nan Zhou leaving the door lock and couldn’t help mocking him. “If you can’t open it then say it early on. Why act pretentiously?”

Nan Zhou walked to him and held out a hand. “The key.”

The trio exclaimed in unison, “Huh?” 

Jiang Fang leaned against the wall and explained for Nan Zhou. “The last class seven days ago was for the physical education department. If we held a party to play board games in Room 403 in the evening then it is most likely you who initiated it. Look through the keys on your body. Do you have the one for 403?”

Sun Guojing, “……”

Sun Guojing was convinced a bit but he also couldn’t lose face.

Last night, Xie Xiangyu had fallen asleep on the remaining empty bed comfortably. The three of them had gathered together in fear and horror and started to study the chat records in their phones over and over again. 

They did discuss the party last Friday in the dormitory group chat. This party was planned by the three of them to celebrate the end of the mid-term exams but the key wasn’t mentioned. The trio took it for granted that the door of 403 was unlocked all year round so they could freely enter and leave. Then when they came to investigate today, they saw that Room 403 was locked and finally decided to pick the lock. They didn’t match the schedule on the wall to their predicament.

Meanwhile, Nan Zhou and Jiang Fang just took one look and…

Sun Guojing once again thought about joining forces with Nan Zhou. Then he remembered what Xie Xiangyu told him yesterday and couldn’t help backing off. Yesterday, the terrible Sun Guojing had made such a suggestion to Xie Xiangyu. If the seven people worked together and exchanged information with each other, wasn’t there a higher chance of survival?

“Join forces?” Xie Xiangyu raised an eyebrow at the words. “If there is a really important clue in 403 and they got it first and hid it, are you sure you can beat them?” 

At this point, Xie Xiangyu stopped and smiled subtly. “Of course, people won’t be so bad. At the critical moment of life and death, we still have to talk about cooperation, right?”

Xie Xiangyu’s warm words made Sun Guojing not dare to gamble. However, Xie Xiangyu came and only saw Nan Zhou robbing them. What he saw was one-sided information. In fact, they were the ones to act against Nan Zhou first.

Should they work with Nan Zhou now? Could they believe in Nan Zhou? Would this group really believe them? If he was Nan Zhou and he encountered someone who tried to act against him while performing the task, would he be generous enough to disregard previous suspicions and share information without reservation?

Sun Guojing exchanged looks with the other two, took out a bunch of keys from his bag and showed it symbolically to Nan Zhou. He gave an error message. 

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.

“Qf mtfmxfv la j ibcu alwf jub. Qf vbc’a tjnf atf xfs ab bqfc atf vbbg bc er.” Coafg atf tegglfv vlrqijs, Vec Xebplcu kjr jybea ab raeoo atf xfsr lcab tlr qbmxfa. Lf qijccfv ab wjxf j mjreji fzmerf ab rfcv atf akb qfbqif jkjs. “Tbe mjc ub olcv atf uejgv ab jrx.”

Nan Zhou held his wrist. “Wait a minute.”

Sun Guojing was just beaten up by Nan Zhou yesterday. HIs muscle memories still remained. His body shrank back and he snarled, “What?”

Nan Zhou told him, “Among your keys, there is one with a shape similar to this keyhole.” 

Sun Guojing, “……”

Fuck. What were these eyes? Was he a cat?!

Meanwhile, Jiang Fang read some other information from the different expressions of the three people. He said, “You didn’t sleep very well last night.”

The three people exchanged looks. They could all read the exhaustion of at least four or five hours of insomnia on each other’s faces. 

“Why?” Jiang Fang wondered. “What happened last night?”

The three men uniformly shut up. They hadn’t reached a consensus to cooperate with Cube Boat and they were naturally unwilling to tell what they knew and what happened to them. However, Jiang Fang didn’t seem to need a particularly clear answer. He asked, “Did you hear the rustling sound?”

The trio, “…..”

Jiang Fang continued. “Who was the first to hear it?” 

His eyes fell on Luo Ge’s bewildered face. “Was it you?”

Then his gaze shifted to Qi Tianyun who pursed his lips and remained silent. “Was it you?”

After that, Jiang Fang saw Sun Guojing’s tense facial muscles and nodded confidently. “Ah, it’s you.”

Sun Guojing’s expression changed slightly. “……” 

This man…

Jiang Fang wondered, “Where did you hear it the first time?”

The breathing of the three people was a bit uneven.

“The classroom?” 

“The athletics field?”

“The sports warehouse?”

“The dormitory?”

Jiang Fang noticed Sun Guojing’s Adam’s apple obviously moving and confirmed it. “Yes, the dormitory.” 

“Did you hear the sha sha once? Three times?”

Sun Guojing’s pupils slightly enlarged.

Jiang Fang nodded gracefully and confirmed it again. “Yes, you heard it three times. Then you should’ve seen the ghost.”

Sun Guojing, “……” 

Jiang Fang continued. “It was last night, right?” This was why they looked like they didn’t get enough sleep.

“However, there wasn’t any big noise from the boy’s dormitory last night. You didn’t rush to investigate overnight out of fear. This doesn’t fit your personality. Is it because one of you dissuaded the others? Or did an outsider stop you?”

The trio were overwhelmed by the rapid and dense questioning. The slightly smarter Qi Tianyun tried to control his facial expressions but it was useless.

Jiang Fang casually said, “Xie Xiangyu…” 

Once this name was mentioned, their expressions weren’t confused. Rather, there was a hint of panic like their secret had been pierced.

Jiang Fang determined it. “Oh, it was Xie Xiangyu who looked for you.”

“He is working with you.”

“Then why didn’t he come?” 

“Is he in class?”

“He told you that he will give it a try. If he follows the normal life trajectory, follows the basic requirements of the role playing and doesn’t collapse his character setting, will he still hear the rustling? Thus, he went to class and had the three of you come here first to take a look at the situation of 403?”

The three people’s faces were blue and red. It was so wonderful that not a single word could be said.

Jiang Fang humbly stopped. “Thank you for your cooperation.” 

The trio involuntarily got the chills. All the secrets in their hearts were easily hooked out and their gaze toward Jiang Fang changed. Cooperation would be too barren. Where did this person come from?

Nan Zhou cocked his head and secretly gave Jiang Fang a thumbs up. He didn’t think this was enough so he followed up with another one.

The smile on Jiang Fang’s face was very genuine. “Thank you for the compliment.”

“Ah, that’s right.” 

Jiang Fang turned to look at the trio, smiling in a gentlemanly manner. “Excuse me, can you let Teacher Nan borrow the keys to take a look?”

Sun Guojing was in a muddled state as he handed over the keys. Everything they encountered before they came and everything they intended to do was guessed by Jiang Fang. It was meaningless for them to keep acting as rogues.

The moment the keys were handed over to Nan Zhou, they all heard a fierce running sound coming from the stairs. Sun Guojing’s hairs stood up and he pulled his two brothers back a few steps.

Nan Zhou wasn’t very nervous. Jiang Fang even made a joke. “Everyone can hear it, indicating that the danger isn’t great.” 

Then the two people saw Li Yinhang running up the stairs in a sweaty manner and their expressions sank. Li Yinhang noticed the group of familiar faces in front of Room 403 and showed an expression of ‘excuse me.’ However, Jiang Fang and Nan Zhou saw her face and blurted out, “Your safe words.”

Li Yinhang ran near, stopped and gasped for breath. “Guangming Bank, operator 21012 is at your service.”

The Longtan trio, “……” What the fuck was this secret code for social animals?

Thanks to the confirmation of the safe words and her description of what happened to her, Nan Zhou and Jiang Fang could be sure that Li Yinhang’s mental state wasn’t too bad. Li Yinhang herself was a bit annoyed as she explained what happened to her. If Nan Zhou had encountered such a thing, he would probably use his phone to immediately chat with that ghost. She was still too impulsive. 

However, Nan Zhou didn’t blame her in the slightest. He patted her on the shoulder and calmly said, “You worked hard.”

Li Yinhang was touched by her teammate and finally had a real sense of escaping from death. She sniffed and felt a bit aggrieved. “I… I’m fine. I…”

Nan Zhou interrupted. “There is one more thing here that I want to trouble you with.”

Li Yinhang, “……” Brother, can you let me finish inciting my feelings first? 

Nan Zhou whispered a few words to Li Yinhang. Li Yinhang got a task and barely raised her spirits. “I’ll go right away.”

Nan Zhou went to Jiang Fang again. “Brother, you go with her. Let her do something.”

This way, she wouldn’t think about the horrible thing she went through and would be better off. Jiang Fang naturally understood Nan Zhou’s intentions.

“You alone…” His voice trailed off as he looked at these three stunned people. It seemed that Nan Zhou being alone wasn’t a problem. Jiang Fang went down the stairs with Li Yinhang whose sweat hadn’t completely disappeared. Nan Zhou took the keys from Sun Guojing and selected the one he had his eye on. 

“The gathering was initiated by your group.” Nan Zhou inquired, “So who invited Yinhang?”

Sun Guojing still wanted to stubbornly resist. Then the next words from Nan Zhou completely dispelled this mentality. “Do you want Brother Fang to ask you or do you want me to ask you?”

Qi Tianyun was aware of the situation and immediately said, “We don’t have the contact information for any Yinhang.”

Nan Zhou looked back. “It is our Li Yinhang.” 

Nan Zhou couldn’t help being stunned when he used the word ‘our’. Why was he infected with Brother Fang’s wording? Nan Zhou was trying to figure out this small problem while Sun Guojing, Qi Tianyun and Luo Ge exchanged looks.

…Forget it, cooperate.

Sun Guojing answered, “We don’t have the name Li Yinhang in our phones.”

He took the initiative to take out his phone to prove his words were true. “If you don’t believe me then search. We went through the contacts yesterday and none of us know a Li Yinhang.” 

Nan Zhou frowned. The Longtan trio belonged to the same dormitory so they would naturally use internal communication for this party. According to Sun Guojing, Xie Xiangyu was the errand boy they brought. Xie Xiangyu could be regarded as part of their relationship chain.

Meanwhile, on his side, ‘Li Yinhang’ contacted ‘Nan Zhou’ who was a high school classmate. ‘Nan Zhou’ brought his boyfriend ‘Jiang Fang’. The relationship chain between the three of them was also smooth.

Then who contacted Li Yinhang? Was it the dead Hu Li or the man who left the recording? Did this have anything to do with the order in which the three of them heard the ‘sha’ sound? What would happen if the ‘sha’ sound continued?

Nan Zhou had all sorts of thoughts as he turned the key in his hand. 

Click.

The door of Room 403 opened. The fourth and fifth floors of this building were remote. It was a relatively deserted teaching building and the utilization rate wasn’t high. This was why it was easy to set aside the fourth floor to conduct the mid-term test for the architecture students and why they dared to use a classroom for a private party.

Room 403 was an ordinary lecture theater with blue as the main color and 15 rows of seats. The windows didn’t open and there was a dusty smell. The projection screen in front hadn’t been put away and there were several words on the blackboard that hadn’t been cleaned.

Nan Zhou just stepped into 403 when he felt a subtle feeling of disharmony. Something was missing. He opened the silver trash can in a corner of the classroom. There were two or three snack bags inside and leftover energy drink bottles. Nan Zhou opened the cap of the drink and smelled a spoiled smell. In late autumn like this, the rate of a drink spoiling would be greatly slowed. He counted the number of snack bags and his expression changed even more. 

Sun Guojing’s group were trying to understand why Nan Zhou was looking through the trash can when Jiang Fang and Li Yinhang came back. Jiang Fang gave the answer Nan Zhou wanted. “I asked the floor attendant. The sanitation here is outsourced and it is cleaned every Thursday night.”

Nan Zhou wondered, “Is the garbage shipped out at that time?”

“Yes.”

In other words, it hadn’t been cleaned since Thursday night last week. Nan Zhou glanced at the trash can and fell into deep thought. Li Yinhang looked around and her words revealed the source of violation. “Why are there no traces of a gathering here?” 

At the three people’s joint reminder, the Longtan trio suddenly realized the problem. Last Friday, they got together with seven people! What chaos would occur when seven people got together? In addition, ‘Qi Tianyun’ forced ‘Xie Xiangyu’ to order skewers and beer and bring them here.

Now in this closed space, there was no filthy residue on the tables or floors and no extra odors. There were only some snack bags and beverage bottles in the trash can. It was very likely that after the trash was cleaned on Thursdays, some physical education students who came to class on Friday threw them in.

The only way this was possible was if the people at the party were very ethical, cleaned the place so it was spotless and took away the rubbish…

This was certainly reasonable. However, if this was changed to Sun Guojing then he wouldn’t be able to clean it! He would think, ‘Well, the cleaning stuff will come on Thursday and there are no classes on Monday and Friday. I also pay the cleaning fees. What does it matter if there is a bit of mess?’ 

Now the Room 403 in front of them was clean, dry and had no extra rubbish. There were no traces of a party.

Nan Zhou looked around before turning back to the crowd and asking a creepy question. “Last Friday, was it really Room 403 where we had the party?”