Qi Si’s eyes narrowed.
After the *Flesh Eating* instance had ended and he saw the “No Survivors” achievement, he had suspected Lin Chen might not be dead.
But he truly hadn’t expected the guy to survive this long, to make it through the third instance with its eighty percent mortality rate and become an official player.
How on earth did a guy who clung to such foolish kindness, a college student so naive it bordered on foolish, manage to survive in these treacherous instances?
Was it just good luck, or was his entire performance in Rose Manor a façade, a trick that had fooled everyone?
Qi Si stared intently at the girl's livestream, but ever since she'd received the answer, she hadn't moved her gaze. She just kept her head dutifully bowed, meticulously copying the words from the note onto her exam paper.
The girl wrote with exceptional care, her characters small and neat. A task that should have taken moments looked like it would stretch until the end of the exam.
After five minutes, Qi Si's patience wore thin. He decisively exited the girl's livestream and, without much hope, typed "Lin Chen" into the search bar.
Just a second before the results loaded, a line of text popped up on the system interface:
[You may remain in the game space for a maximum of 1 hour per session. Additional time can be purchased with points.]
[Spend 10 points to extend your stay by 1 hour?]
Qi Si said nothing.
After a two-second pause, he spent ten points to extend his time.
The text obscuring his view faded away, revealing the search results.
A list of accounts named "Lin Chen" appeared in neat rows on the bronze desktop, each with a close-up photo of their face as the profile picture.
Qi Si scanned the list, found the "Lin Chen" he knew, and clicked on it.
...
*No. 33 Middle School* was an old instance. It first appeared fourteen years ago, had been run over a hundred times, and had more than a dozen walkthroughs and guides written about it.
Normally, having a guide would make clearing such an instance a breeze. Unfortunately, the Weird Game always found a way to randomly throw in players who had never seen one.
A total of thirty-nine players had entered this instance with Lin Chen, making for a perfect class-sized group of forty.
And of those forty, not a single one had read the guide for *No. 33 Middle School*. Some had never even heard of it.
The instance's backstory was simple: a highly competitive high school with immense academic pressure and a set of absurdly strict rules. Every year, students died in "accidents," but the news was always suppressed...
It was the most classic of horror story tropes. Yet, it wasn't until the players entered the school that they discovered that besides their group of forty, everyone else was a ghost. Every single one.
Lin Chen was afraid of ghosts. Even after stumbling through his third instance and becoming an official player, he was still scared to death.
From the very first day, he had walked around with a deathly pale face, fraught with fear. Now, on the third day, the sight of the grotesque teacher-ghosts and student-ghosts coming and going had numbed him, upgrading his initial flinching to a state of torpor.
He finished his exam paper with a vacant stare, then turned his head to look out the window at the gloomy sky, his hand subconsciously reaching for the blade in his pocket.
[Name: Not Ordinary Blade]
[Type: Item]
[Effect: Kills humans and ghosts. Especially effective when slicing the back of the neck.]
[Note: A blade stained with the blood of an evil god. It may not have any enchantments, but it's not so ordinary, is it?]
This was the blade Qi Si had left him in the Rose Manor instance. To this day, it remained his personal weapon and had proven quite useful.
Lin Chen still remembered the day Qi Si had handed him the blade, telling him to kill Chang Xu at two in the afternoon. Then, for some inexplicable reason, the instance had been cleared.
Afterward, he had spent a long time wracking his brain, trying to piece things together. He felt as if he had lost a chunk of memory, but he couldn't find a single trace of what was missing.
He had left the instance in a daze, blade in hand, only to be bewildered by the new item description that appeared.
An item related to an evil god was a serious matter, incredibly valuable. He hadn't had a chance to return it. What would Qi Si do in future instances if he needed it?
Lin Chen returned to the real world consumed by worry. Still lying in his hospital bed, he frantically grabbed his phone and started searching for information about Qi Si.
He found several news reports, but none of them contained any specific details like a phone number or address. The news agencies all claimed they couldn't contact the man...
After becoming an official player, he went to the Sunset Ruins to ask around, but still came up empty. None of the names on the newcomer rankings were familiar.
The young man named Qi Si was like a vivid, purple fever dream—so intense that upon waking, it had quickly dried, faded, and vanished without a trace.
From the time he first entered the game until now, the period felt both long and short.
Unable to find Qi Si for the time being, Lin Chen could only keep the blade with him. If he was lucky enough to run into him in an instance again, he could return it in person.
Along the way, he had consciously tried to learn from Qi Si, helping other players when he could. When faced with danger and fear, he would often grip the blade, recalling the young man's calm demeanor and giving himself a silent pep talk.
—And just like that, he had stumbled his way through one instance after another.
"You're a good student. Your paper is done so quickly and so well..." A sinister voice whispered from behind Lin Chen. The long-haired female ghost proctoring the exam had floated to his desk at some point, and she now pinched his test paper between her sharp fingernails to inspect it.
The blood in Lin Chen's veins nearly froze. For a moment, even his breath caught in his throat.
He turned his head stiffly, his nose almost touching the ghost's face.
The ghost stretched her lips into a crimson grin, her voice chilling. "Come to my office after the exam."
She tossed the paper back onto the desk and turned away, paying no more mind to the ice-cold dread that had seized Lin Chen.
As the ghost's figure disappeared around the corner, all the other players breathed a collective sigh of relief, their gazes toward Lin Chen a mixture of pity and gratitude.
One of the rules in the student handbook was: [The office is dangerous. Many students who go in never come out.]
Since the instance began, one person had died each day. Today's victim had just been decided: Lin Chen. Which meant everyone else was safe.
Lin Chen, of course, understood this as well, and his pale face turned even whiter. He sat frozen in his chair as if his soul had been ripped out, staring blankly at the ceiling.
A piercing bell rang without warning, signaling the end of the exam. Two class representatives with bluish-purple faces rose stiffly and began collecting the test papers from each desk.
They left the classroom with the papers, but Lin Chen remained seated, showing no intention of moving. The other players could no longer hold back and crowded around him, urging him on:
"Lin Chen, you should get to the office. If you go now, you might still find a way to survive..."
"Yeah, hurry up. If you're late and piss off that ghost, you're definitely not making it out alive!"
"Stop dawdling! If she gets impatient and comes back for you, what happens to the rest of us?"
Lin Chen knew he couldn't delay any longer. The other players likely wouldn't hesitate to drag him to the office themselves.
He had made it this far mostly by luck. Now, it seemed his luck had finally run out.
With a bitter thought, Lin Chen shakily stood up and walked toward a girl named A-Ling, the one he had passed the answers to earlier.
A-Ling was hiding deep within the crowd. When she saw him approaching, she tried to shrink back.
Lin Chen acted as if he didn't notice, quickening his pace to hand her the blade. "A-Ling, this is the item the expert I told you about lent me. If you ever have the chance to meet him, could you please return it for me?"
A-Ling took the blade and nodded hastily.
Lin Chen gave her a strained, bitter smile, but he hesitated no longer. He turned and walked out of the classroom.
...
[Time has expired. Additional time can be purchased with points.]
[Spend 100 points to extend your stay by 1 hour?]
The prompt popped up again, freezing the livestream at a critical moment.
Qi Si finally understood what the forums meant by "consumer traps."
The prices in this Weird Game actually increased tenfold... Did it have to be so predatory?
As if reading his thoughts, a new line of text refreshed on the screen:
[Spend 10 points to extend your stay by 3 minutes?]
Qi Si stared in disbelief.
With a dark expression, he threw another ten points at it, and the livestream resumed.
Lin Chen, his face ashen, marched toward the office with the stiff, uncoordinated gait of a man heading to his own execution.
Student-ghosts with various gruesome death wounds drifted past him. As they did, they would turn their heads to stare, some with quivering lips, as if whispering about him.
Lin Chen kept his eyes fixed forward, marching on without any intention of putting up a last-minute struggle.
Suddenly, a female ghost in a short school skirt seemed to lose her balance and bumped into him. From Qi Si's perspective, he could see her slip a piece of paper into Lin Chen's pocket.
Lin Chen jumped in fright and quickly pushed the ghost away, staring intently at her face, which was streaked with bloody tears.
Just when Qi Si thought he had finally remembered to ask for a way out, Lin Chen spoke to the ghost with concern. "Are you okay? You should be more careful when you walk, so you don't fall again."
The ghost was speechless.
So was Qi Si.
On screen, Lin Chen continued his march to a noble death, completely oblivious to the note now resting in his pocket.
Off screen, Qi Si sat in his high-backed chair, mentally cursing the word "idiot" several times over.
The three minutes dwindled to fifteen seconds before he knew it. Lin Chen had just reached the office door and was now hesitantly reaching for the handle.
Qi Si had absolutely no desire to spend any more points on this blockhead's viewing time.
He glanced at the [80580] points in his account and expressionlessly opened the livestream's donation interface...
...
Inside the *No. 33 Middle School* instance, as Lin Chen stood before the office door, he suddenly heard a notification:
[Qi* has tipped you 74 points.]
A tip? Why would someone tip him?
Lin Chen froze for a moment, then it dawned on him. The number "74" in Chinese sounded like "Qi Si"...
His breathing quickened, and an irrepressible look of joy spread across his face.
Qi Si was alive!
He was watching his stream!
Not only did he remember him, he had even sent a tip to encourage him!
[Qi* has tipped you 6 points.]
A new notification popped up, leaving Lin Chen baffled.
What did this mean? Was the expert praising him? The number '6' was slang for 'awesome.' Or... was he trying to give him a hint?
Lin Chen couldn't figure it out, blinking several times in confusion.
"Student, come in..." The eerie female voice seeped through the office door, damp and cold.
Lin Chen shivered, forcing himself to pull back from his chaotic thoughts.
He clung to a precarious calm and, gritting his teeth, turned the doorknob. The desire to live was stronger now than it had ever been.
Even facing certain death, he wasn't ready to give up.
Qi Si was watching, he thought. He couldn't appear too weak. He had to try his best to survive...