The Dormitory Building had been quiet, but now the sounds of doors opening echoed throughout it, followed by footsteps in the corridors.
The Players exchanged glances, opened their doors as well, and blended into the crowd.
They arrived at the Athletic Field. A rostrum stood not far away.
The lights were bright, allowing everyone to clearly see an Instructor holding someone down on the rostrum.
The man was lean, with three whip marks across his body. It was Tan Tai, who had disappeared.
What had happened?
Why was he being held on the platform?
Questions rose in the Players’ minds.
Before long, the Instructor answered them.
“This student is impossible to discipline. He actually tried to escape from the school in the middle of the night. He’s the very definition of a bad student.”
“With bad students like him, all we can do is intensify our discipline and do our best to teach him to become a good student.”
“Beep, beep, beep—”
The Instructor pressed the switch on the electric baton in his hand. In an instant, sparks visibly danced around it.
The electric baton came down on Tan Tai again, making him scream like a slaughtered pig.
Excitement gradually crept into the Instructor’s eyes as he watched Tan Tai twitch and struggle with evident pleasure.
“Do you know?”
“Half a year ago, a student named Zhao Ling also tried to escape from the school.”
His expression suddenly turned severe!
“But I’m telling you! This school is as secure as a fortress. You have no privacy whatsoever, so don’t even think about escaping. All of you will accept your discipline!”
“You can leave the school only on the day your parents come to pick you up.”
“Do you understand!”
The students on the Athletic Field answered in unison, “We understand!”
The Players echoed them, though their expressions were grim.
The Instructor on the rostrum was making an example of Tan Tai to intimidate the others.
They watched helplessly as Tan Tai suffered and struggled, then finally collapsed on the platform, eyes wide open, dying with regret.
The spectacle ended there, and the Instructor and students dispersed.
Xiang Lu stared at the platform and said, “Tan Tai seems to be clutching something in his hand.”
Tan Tai was dead now.
It was late at night. After the crowd dispersed, the place grew extremely quiet.
An eerie feeling began to take root in their hearts. It seemed as though something lurked in the darkness, baring its claws and teeth, making them want to hurry somewhere bright.
Sun Sui hesitated, afraid to approach. “It’s too late. Let’s go back to the Dormitory first and check tomorrow, okay?”
Xiang Lu rolled her eyes at him. “If you’re scared, go back. Do you think the body will still be here by daybreak?”
“You’re a grown man, but you’re so timid. If you can’t do it, I’ll go myself.”
With that, she headed alone toward the rostrum.
Sun Sui wondered if he really was worse than a woman.
He strode past Xiang Lu and reached the rostrum first.
Up close, he saw that Tan Tai really was holding something.
Since he had only just died, his hand was still limp and easy to pry open.
What they saw was a torn scrap of paper.
Actually, it was an advertisement flyer, with half an excavator picture and a phone number on it.
Sun Sui looked it over and still couldn’t make sense of it. “Why was he holding this?”
“It doesn’t seem useful. Maybe he was so nervous when he got caught that he grabbed it without thinking and never let go.”
As he spoke, he prepared to throw the advertisement flyer away.
Xiang Lu quickly snatched it from his hand. “Who says it’s useless? It’s very useful.”
Zhang Mingxuan covered his wound and sneered, “What use could a torn advertisement flyer possibly have?”
Xiang Lu didn’t even bother to look at him. “This advertisement flyer could be our chance to leave the Instance early.”
“Did any of you notice the marks carved into the walls of the meditation room?”
The Players all shook their heads. Hua Huai stood in the distance, watching silently.
“There were no sharp objects in the meditation room. Those marks were actually gouged out with human fingernails.”
“Every character had dried blood on it.”
When human eyes go from a bright place into darkness, they can’t see anything.
But when they return from darkness to the light, the brightness feels glaring.
When Xiang Lu left the meditation room, her eyes had adjusted to the dark. In the faint light, she was able to make out the writing on the wall.
Connecting the last sentence of that writing to the advertisement flyer gave them an unmistakable Clue.
So the Instance had given them a hint on the very first day.
Xiang Lu repeated the writing on the meditation room wall, placing particular emphasis on the last sentence. “...If only someone could tear down this school. Then I could stay alive.”
Sun Sui suddenly understood. “The Hidden Mission is to tear down this school.”
Zhang Mingxuan looked displeased and insisted on being contrary. “How are we supposed to tear it down? With this half an advertisement flyer?”
Xiang Lu stopped holding back. “If you’re stupid, stop talking. You’re making pigs seem smarter than you.”
“Nothing in the Instance appears without a reason. This advertisement flyer showed up out of nowhere.”
“We have to try calling the phone number on it.”
As soon as she finished speaking, Sun Sui took a phone out of his pocket.
Xiang Lu asked, “What are you doing?”
Sun Sui said, “The advertisement flyer is missing three digits. Let’s guess them.”
Xiang Lu pressed a hand to her forehead. “Guessing is one way, sure. But you do know you can’t make calls with your own phone inside the Instance, right?”
“And if the call does go through, whoever answers won’t be human.”
Suddenly, a gust of cold wind swept past them, raising goosebumps on everyone’s skin.
One Player said miserably, “Could we please not talk about this in the middle of the night?”
Especially with a corpse lying right beside them. Who exactly were they trying to scare to death?
Sun Sui hurriedly put his phone away. “Then what do we do? We can’t use our own phones. Are we supposed to steal the Instructor’s?”
If they got caught, they would most likely be done for.
These people couldn’t think things through on their own at all. Xiang Lu said with a headache, “People usually carry their phones with them, so stealing the Instructor’s won’t work.”
“Tomorrow, after we finish our Mission, we’ll each search the school’s teaching buildings and see if we can find a landline telephone.”
In a place like a school, the teachers’ offices might well have landline telephones.
“Let’s not stay outside too long. We should head back.”
Xiang Lu put the advertisement flyer in her pocket. Hua Huai never got a clear look at it.
Everyone returned to the Dormitory. When they woke again, it was already morning.
The first thing everyone did after getting up was wash up. The second was to gather on the Athletic Field on time.
Since many had failed to meet the standard during yesterday’s morning run, the difficulty was not increased today.
Sun Sui and Xiang Lu still completed the Mission on time, while Hua Huai crossed the finish line 28 seconds early.
The other Players had been injured the day before. Today’s strenuous exercise caused some of their partially healed wounds to split open again.
Two Players gritted their teeth and crossed the finish line just in time. One Player was 15 seconds late, and Zhang Mingxuan was 1 minute and 56 seconds late.
He had bandaged himself up, but he couldn’t handle this much exercise.
Blood soaked his School Uniform, but it did nothing to soften the Instructor.
After two lashes, he truly understood Tan Tai’s pain.
He thought that he had to find a landline telephone today, or he would die here too.