Ch50 - Sha, Sha, Sha

Sun Guojing opened his eyes after a deep dream. He stared at the snow-white ceiling, his heart blank. The numbness caused by alcohol, mixed with the memory of finding a way to escape last night, made him float in contentment and peace. The thing that really awakened his mind was a long, alcoholic hiccup.

Sun Guojing abruptly turned over and sat up, his cheeks puffed up as he looked around for a trash can. However, the deserted scene around him made everything rushing up to his throat become congested below his throat and above his stomach. 

Gastric juices fiercely burned his esophagus but Sun Guojing’s body felt like he had fallen into an ice cave. Where did everyone go? He endured the discomfort caused by the hangover and stumbled toward the only exit.

The door was an old-fashioned lock. There wasn’t a lock button that could unlock the door with a simple twist. They could only use the key to lock it from the inside or from the outside. Sun Guojing pressed his hand to the door handle. He paused for a moment before daring to push down hard.

Click.

The door lock made a suffocating noise. The bolt held the lock pin firmly and didn’t move. 

…The door was locked. It was just that Sun Guojing didn’t seem able to see it. He gritted his teeth and twisted the doorknob frantically. The crazy twisting turned into shaking. The shaking turned into a desperate impact.

He hit the door with his shoulder again and again. The white powder at the junction of the door and the wall shook and fell on his shoulders, hair and the ground. However, the door in front of him was very strong. The bull-like Sun Guojing finally stopped when his shoulder became numb from all the bumping.

He lost his soul as he spun around the classroom like a beast. As he looked up, he even had the illusion that his shadow was still hitting the door. Was the escape method that they came up with yesterday just a dream? Did he come to 403 of his own initiative or was he permanently imprisoned here by that force?

The disappeared Hu Li and Zuo Jiaming—were they trapped somewhere like this?

Sun Guojing’s mind was no longer clear. His turbulent and collapsed thinking was accompanied by a sharp drop in san value.

4.

3.5.

1.9. 

0.8…

He was going to run away…

Yes, get out of here. As long as he escaped this place, he didn’t care about anything else…

He had to flee—immediately! A row of windows appeared in Sun Guojing’s bloodshot eyes. Escape! 

Sun Guojing’s body was in a state of extreme panic and before judging the danger, he acted without thinking. He rushed toward the window, slamming against the window like a mad bull, just like he had against the door.

He forgot one thing. Glass was more fragile than a door. There was the sound of glass cracking and Sun Guojing’s world turned upside down in an instant.

He was shrouded in sunshine. He saw a crowd walking in the distance, talking and laughing. He saw an ownerless bird’s nest in the tree by the window. Then he was pulled by gravity. His upper body was half leaning out the window and he fell straight down.

The moment he was weightless and saw the ground approaching, Sun Guojing sobered up. What was he doing? He— 

The moment the thought of ‘I’m going to die’ rose up, his momentum of falling unexpectedly stopped. His jacket happened to be hanging from the window lock. In this way, Sun Guojing maintained a falling position and looked directly at the hard, gray concrete ground.

No no, no no no no! He would really die if he fell like this!

Sun Guojing could visualize the appearance of his brain blending with the gray-white ground. His survival instinct made him confused and he wanted to retreat. It was just that shifting his center of gravity wasn’t that simple.

In the blink of an eye, most of Sun Guojing’s body was hanging outside the window sill. The only thing saving his life was the smooth, semi-circular lock button that simply wasn’t enough to provide an effective rescue. In addition, Sun Guojing wasn’t hanging onto it very firmly. He just needed to twist his body to easily break free from it. 

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.

Vec Xebplcu’r kjlra kjr bearlvf atf klcvbk jcv tlr ifur kfgf eqrlvf vbkc, tjculcu lc Ebbw 403. Lf kjnfv tlr tjcvr, agslcu ab ujlc reqqbga ogbw atf beafg kjii. Lf tjv pera ifjcfv rilutais ktfc tf tfjgv atf geyylcu bo tlr mbja rilvlcu rtjgqis bc atf tbbx, rjnlcu tlr ilof.

Sun Guojing didn’t dare move any longer. He yelled tragically, “Help! Help me!”

In his ears, his screams stirred up the slightly empty campus in the early morning. However, the morning jogger in the distance couldn’t hear him. The cleaning staff cleaning up the fallen leaves a hundred meters away couldn’t hear him either.

Sun Guojing still existed but he seemed to have lost his connection with the world ahead of time. Sun Guojing’s face was flushed from being upside down, his trachea seemed to have narrowed and he could only exhale a shrill flow of air. 

He had a hallucination again. There was the nagging sound when he got in trouble as a child and his mother took him to the door to apologize.  The taste of the popsicle in his mouth. The noise when Luo Ge and Qi Tianyun squatted in a corner of the big stall and played the finger-guessing game. In addition—

It was too late to look back. It was because the feeling of complete weightlessness was coming again. His body was completely unhooked from the window bolt. He closed his eyes and waited for his head to smash apart.

However, one second passed and then two seconds. The pain didn’t arrive and he belatedly felt the sensation of his feet touching the ground. The sense of weightlessness just now came from the rear. He was grabbed by the back of his clothes and pulled back from the line of life or death.

*** 

Nan Zhou looked at Sun Guojing, who had been pulled up by himself but still had hollow eyes.

“Wake up.” Nan Zhou shook him. “Wake up.”

He saw that Sun Guojing wasn’t responding and raised his hand, politely glancing at Qi Tianyun to ask for his opinion.

The brothers were going crazy. If it hadn’t been for Nan Zhou waking up completely from his sleep, counting the people and recalling the specific number of people who entered 403 yesterday, they really would’ve forgotten Sun Guojing in 403. 

They didn’t know what Nan Zhou meant by this look. They just begged Nan Zhou to save him quickly. Nan Zhou let out a hum and after controlling his strength, he slapped Sun Guojing’s face.

Luo Ge and Qi Tianyun who were stunned by the movement of this slap, “……”

Sun Guojing’s head and neck were twisted 90 degrees and his neck bone made a clear cracking sound. Nan Zhou was quietly startled. He had the mentality of better late than never as he immediately held Sun Guojing’s head upright and checked under his nose for breathing.

It was okay, at least he was alive. 

Sun Guojing had no idea what was going on. The moment he was slapped, he felt the illusion that was still revolving around like a kaleidoscope turn off in an instant. It was commonly known as the ‘darkness in front of his eyes.’

Sun Guojing fell to one side and his brain buzzed like a hornet’s nest had exploded in his head. A long time passed before the empty world in front of him slowly became colorful.

The slap played a role in turning the tide of the situation. Sun Guojing’s san value had dropped to 0.1 and could reach zero at any time. Now it was back to 0.5. By the time Sun Guojing was 80% sober, Nan Zhou had already moved his hands behind his back. One of Sun Guojing’s eyes was extremely swollen. He struggled to open it for a long time but failed. He looked at Nan Zhou, who was closest to him, in a daze.

Nan Zhou coughed. “You are awake.” 

Sun Guojing wanted to speak but his cheeks were swollen and numb. He sounded like a squirrel forcing out words around a big chestnut. “I…”

Nan Zhou took over his words. “You are alive.”

Jiang Fang couldn’t help laughing when he saw Nan Zhou’s slightly guilty appearance. Nan Zhou stared at him. Jiang Fang’s lips curled up and he immediately made a motion of zipping shut his mouth.

Sun Guojing had just survived the danger and had no time to focus on his face. He asked lightly, “How did you come to find me?” 

Nan Zhou turned around. “I found there was someone missing and came back.”

Sun Guojing cried out, “I’m not dead?”

“Yes.”

Sun Guojing hadn’t completely disappeared. It was just like Hu Li. According to Hu Li, he saw himself standing beside Sun Guojing’s bed after hearing the sixth rustle. He let out a heart-piercing scream but the scream was swallowed up by the air. He seemed to have entered a vacuum. 

Later, Hu Li used violent body movements to forcibly awaken the other people. He was still able to have conversations with them. In other words, hearing the sixth rustling didn’t mean death. It was just that their sense of existence was further diluted. Most of the mediums of external communication would also be blocked.

Sun Guojing’s lips trembled. “Then can you see me now?”

Nan Zhou answered, “I can still see you.”

Sun Guojing had red eyes and froze in place and he looked suspiciously at Nan Zhou. Nan Zhou stretched out a finger and poked him lightly in the shoulder. This finger made the psychological sandcastle of the 1.8 meter strong man, Sun Guojing, collapse. 

Sun Guojing hugged him and wept like a child. Nan Zhou was caught off guard. He instinctively wanted to throw this person over his shoulders. Then he felt that Sun Guojing had no maliciousness and calmed down.

He put his hands behind his back and lowered his head quietly, the hair on one side falling slightly on Sun Guojing’s shoulder. He was thinking about why. What had gone wrong?

Sun Guojing walked into the sunlight with his brothers and his limbs were still numb while his heart was cold. Sun Guojing’s spirit was dealt a blow. The others weren’t much better. Sun Guojing’s experience had given them a dangerous signal: Their inference had gone wrong again.

However, Nan Zhou’s spirit was still stable. He was firmly convinced of one thing: it was impossible that they had encountered an unsolvable instance. Moreover, he didn’t feel that their thinking direction last night was wrong. The ghost was unsolvable in terms of lethality, mobility and form. Thus, there must be a solution in other aspects. 

Nan Zhou felt that the instance solution proposed by Qi Tianyun last night was reasonable. They might’ve just taken one step wrong. They just had to find out where this step was…

On the other side, Qi Tianyun and Luo Ge had already tied their wrists to Sun Guojing’s wrists. Sun Guojing tried to struggle as he was tied up by the rope. “Don’t do this. It is too dangerous.”

Luo Ge comforted him. “Old Sun, just think about it. It is just that we can’t see you. Even if you disappear completely, we just need to follow the rope and we’ll know you’re still there.”

Most people had a better mind than usual when encountering life or death problems. Sun Guojing was no exception. He smiled bitterly. “Once the time comes and you forget me completely, you will find this rope cumbersome.” 

He added, “Besides, if I am dragged away then it isn’t worth it for the ghost to get two extra people. It is too cheap for the ghost.”

Luo Ge dully made an ‘ah’ sound. “…No, this might not be the case. Maybe this instance is purely to scare people and the ghost doesn’t have the ability to kill at all. It will only make people invisible. We just can’t see you but you can stay until the end of the instance…”

“Is that possible?” Sun Guojing was very sober. “If so, why are the requirements of clearing the instance to survive and not go crazy? To put it bluntly… the player can die. I’ve heard the sixth sound and I feel like I’m almost there. Every three rustling sounds, the ghost will make a big move… I think my progress is more than half. Perhaps it is really the end for me when I hear it three more times. As long as I don’t meet the instance clearance requirements, I can’t be separated from this instance… I would rather die than stay here all my life, living like the dead…”

Sun Guojing opened his slightly red eyes and stared steadily at the two brothers he had passed his life with. He whispered, “Once I hear the sound twice more, kill me.” 

Qi Tianyun was silent for a long time. Then he tightened the rope on his hand and tied a dead knot. He said, “At the time when it is too late to untie it, let’s die together.”

Luo Ge wiped his nose and heckled, “Fuck you. Who ran the fastest when confronting Nan Zhou? Old Qi, you are really like a ghost…”

Qi Tianyun lowered his head in embarrassment. Nevertheless, his words were firm. “We won’t separate. Not at all.”

*** 

It was 8 in the morning on Saturday and the campus hadn’t fully woken up. The door of a dormitory room in the sports department was lightly knocked on from the outside. It was polite and regular.

A boy with hair like a chicken coop shuffled over in his flip-flops and opened the door. He opened the door and saw a pretty boy. The pretty boy wore black-rimmed glasses and had the words ‘good student’ written on his face. He gently held the frame. “Is this Chang Shanhe’s dormitory?”

The boy who opened the door yelled into the dark dormitory behind him in a hoarse voice, “Shanhe! Someone is looking for you!”

*** 

Chang Shanhe yawned as he opened the door of the sports warehouse with a key. He asked the person behind him who claimed to be a new member of the sports department’s student council, “We are really missing basketballs?”

Xie Xiangyu pointed to the warehouse door that had ‘Chang Shanhe’ written on the whiteboard. “There are less basketballs. You cleaned up the warehouse yesterday so Coach Duo asked me to find you.”

Chang Shanhe muttered, “It shouldn’t be” while opening the door of the sports warehouse.

The faint smell of rubber entered his nose. 

Chang Shanhe entered. “If they are really lost, why didn’t Coach Duo call me?”

Xie Xiangyu followed him in. “I don’t know. In any case, if you can’t find them then you have to take responsibility.”

Chang Shanhe cursed in his heart while thinking that the students in the student council were really good at showing off. A little boy who could be pinched dead with one hand dared to talk nonsense in front of him.

Chang Shanhe kept cursing as he walked around a layer of thick cushions around the height of a person before stopping. He turned around and said, “Aren’t there three baskets of basketballs? How can there be some missing—” 

He could no longer speak. Xie Xiangyu was holding a pen-like object roughly the same thickness of the circle his index finger and thumb joined together would make. Now the pen lid had been taken off. It was fitted with a type of iron bullet.

The moment he pressed on the end, an iron ball would suddenly pop out at the speed of a bullet. The cartilage in Chang Shanhe’s throat was smashed to pieces by the iron ball that suddenly struck his throat.

Xie Xiangyu praised himself. “It is easy to use.”

The homemade gadget took some time to make. Fortunately, the effect was outstanding. 

Xie Xiangyu grabbed Chang Shanhe’s hair, patted the back that was constantly convulsing and dragged him behind the cushions. The tower-like body staggered a few steps before falling face down, covered by a pile of cushions. The effect of the weapon tested on the NPC was satisfactory to him.

Xie Xiangyu prepared to leave. Just then, he saw a shadow standing in front of the sports warehouse, blocking the only way out. Simultaneously, the soft sound of ‘sha sha’ rang in his ears again. For Xie Xiangyu, this was the sixth time.

He saw the shadow in front of him twist onto all fours. He also saw the shadow’s four limbs move as it rushed toward him. However, he just put his hands in his trouser pockets and smiled. As the twisted monster rushed in front of him, Xie Xiangyu raised his foot and stepped on it accurately. He stepped on a mass of air.

“Hello.” Xie Xiangyu stood in the empty warehouse, smiling. “I’ve been waiting for you for a long time.” 

Now that it arrived, he could finally do what he wanted to do. He walked out of the sports warehouse, properly locked it and smoothed out the wrinkles in his clothes. No one knew he had been to the sports warehouse. To be precise, even those who witnessed him leaving the sports warehouse would turn a blind eye to his existence.

Xie Xiangyu took brisk steps toward his true destination. He lightly followed the American girl who swiped her card to enter the dormitory and entered the international students dormitory unhindered. He played with his carefully designed item in one hand while stepping into the management office of the international students dormitory.

The administrator was a foreign woman with a big perm. She was reading a magazine and drinking coffee. Xie Xiangyu passed by her side, silently placing a hand against her temple and giving her a playful pat. This could be regarded as a greeting to her.

Behind the woman, Xie Xiangyu freely searched every drawer and every corner. He hummed a cheerful song. “We wish you a Merry Christmas…” 

He wasn’t at all worried about being found. It was impossible.

The music ended when he found what he wanted. He took out a room card from a drawer. A name was written on the room card.

Original name: Lodoka Montoloka

Chinese name: Jiang Fang. 

He took out the gift he wanted and hid it in his palm. As he walked out of the administrator’s office, the administrator in the swivel chair happened to look back. The situation in front of her puzzled her for a moment. Just now… did she open the drawer?