The players finished their breakfast in succession, washing their plates and utensils at the sink before putting them away.
Ignoring Zhang Yiyu, who was still sobbing, a player named Jiang Junjue strode into the center of the group. His eyes narrowed. "The main mission is to kill Ms. Medina," he announced. "So, why don't we all share what we have? Any items that give a major boost to our combat strength? If not major, even a minor one would help."
His meaning was unmistakable. Reluctant as they were, the players had to confront the reality of making a move against Ms. Medina.
Completing the main mission might cost some of them their lives, but failing to do so would almost certainly lead to everyone dying, one by one, until only a single person remained.
"Even the strongest weapon is probably useless," Chen Lidong scoffed. "If a key NPC could be killed that easily, the game's store would be sold out of weapons. And let's be realistic—who would dare to make the first move? A reckless fool like that wouldn't have survived long enough to get here."
Jiang Junjue lit another cigarette, took a drag, and clicked his tongue. "If worse comes to worst, we could just rush her all at once... Ah, just thinking out loud. Honestly, if we weren't completely starved for useful clues, I wouldn't think this was the kind of instance that requires bloodshed..."
His voice trailed off abruptly. His expression hardened, and he threw the cigarette to the ground, grinding it out under his heel.
Following his gaze, the players saw Ms. Medina standing silently in the doorway, draped in black. Her small, gray eyes were fixed on them with a chilling intensity.
"Eleven. Twenty-five. Forty-one," she recited.
The faces of three players in the crowd instantly drained of color. One stood frozen, while the other two kept glancing down, frantically re-reading the numbers on their chests as if hoping their eyes had deceived them.
Ms. Medina's icy gaze swept over them. After a moment, she uttered a cold command: "You three. Go to the confinement room."
Instantly, as if seized by an unseen force, the three players began to walk robotically toward the doorway, their limbs stiff and unbending, just like the player who had died on the first day.
One of them, a Caucasian woman, twisted her head to cast a pleading look at a tall, dark-skinned man nearby. Her lips trembled, but she couldn't utter a single sound.
A look of anguish crossed the man's face. Just as the woman was about to step over the threshold, he let out a furious roar, brandished a black mace, and charged at Ms. Medina.
The rush of adrenaline seemed to fuel his courage, and he managed a reassuring smile for the woman. "Lucy! I'm going to finish this old hag!"
But in the next instant, he froze in place as if turned to stone. The skin on the crown of his head split open like a great, grotesque eye. A dozen yellow butterflies fluttered out from his veins, their wings beating for a moment before they died and drifted to the floor.
They were followed by tender green vines, thick as a little finger, which burst into pale yellow blossoms the moment they broke through his skin. Flower upon flower bloomed across his body, quickly cascading from his scalp down his face, completely encasing his head.
More eyes opened all over his body, spewing forth countless yellow flowers that covered him in a dense blanket, leaving no gap untouched. He stood motionless as a mountain, his human form gradually disappearing beneath a mound of dead flowers and butterflies.
Through it all, he never made a sound, as silent as a lizard drowned in the depths of the sea.
The woman called Lucy watched it all unfold, her eyes vacant and hollow. In a trance, she and the other two players were maneuvered out the door and disappeared around the corner of the wall.
"Be in the classroom before ten o'clock," Medina stated, then turned and followed the three players without a backward glance, like a jailer escorting prisoners to their cells.
Qi Si watched the backs of the three players and the NPC recede, a single eyebrow arching in contemplation.
He found Ms. Medina's behavior deeply contradictory. She could dispatch a player with such casual brutality, yet she didn't seem to harbor any particular dislike for children.
Her attitude was more akin to someone tending to caged animals: punish or kill the disobedient, but leave the compliant ones to their own devices.
The players were stunned into silence by their comrade's gruesome death, their eyes fixed on the floor, hardly daring to breathe.
The plan they had just been discussing—working together to kill Ms. Medina—had evaporated into thin air. Attacking her first was a death sentence, and no one was willing to sacrifice their life just to test the NPC's power.
The main mission glared at them from the system interface, an impossible task without new clues. By comparison, the built-in death toll seemed like the only tangible path forward...
A full minute passed before the tense silence was broken by the audible sound of breathing.
Chen Lidong stared at the corpse, now completely overgrown with yellow flowers, and scoffed at Jiang Junjue. "See? That NPC is unkillable. I doubt we could take her even if we all attacked at once..."
Jiang Junjue spoke suddenly. "They didn't knock when they went into the office last night."
He moved his foot and retrieved the cigarette he'd barely smoked, seeming reluctant to waste it. "The rules say to always respect the teacher and to knock before entering the office. They probably figured they didn't need to if it was empty. But in this damn place, does an empty room really mean no one is there?"
A player with an earring asked suspiciously, "How do you know they didn't knock?" "I saw them," Jiang Junjue replied, finally tossing the cigarette back onto the ground. "I was at the office last night, too. I went in first and knocked out of habit. They followed right behind me and didn't bother. I didn't think much of it at the time, so I didn't say anything."
Before anyone else could object, he continued, "I think I've figured something out about that nursery rhyme from yesterday. When someone dies, yellow flowers and butterflies sprout from the corpse. After a while, they turn into soil, which then attracts the so-called 'good children' to come and eat."
He was clearly incorporating the misleading information from Zhang Yiyu into his theory. With so few clues to work with, it was easy to clutch at straws and force seemingly related, yet incorrect, puzzle pieces into the bigger picture.
Qi Si knew Jiang Junjue wasn't as benevolent as he seemed. Failing to remind the others to knock, egging them on to attack Ms. Medina—it was all likely a calculated move to get someone else to test the game's death triggers for him.
And now, presenting this flimsy theory? It was probably just another layer of misdirection. Who could say for sure?
Chen Lidong interjected, "You said you were at the office last night. You must have found something, right?"
"Of course I did," Jiang Junjue said, turning toward the door. "But it was a lot to take in. I copied it all down last night and stashed it somewhere safe. If you're interested, follow me to the third floor."
He reached the doorway, then paused as if remembering something. He looked back over his shoulder. "There seem to be classrooms on the second and fourth floors. Ms. Medina wants us to assemble before ten, so you'd all better scout around beforehand to make sure you don't go to the wrong room."
A few players discreetly fell in behind him, eager to learn what he had discovered in the office.
Remembering his role as an NPC, Qi Si offered a timely reminder. "Ms. Medina will assign classrooms based on your numbers. Be careful not to go to the wrong one, or she'll get very angry."
He then walked past Jiang Junjue and headed upstairs, showing not the slightest interest in the clues, playing the part of an oblivious NPC who couldn't understand their discussion perfectly.
Jiang Junjue watched the "boy's" retreating figure, his eyes narrowing in thought.
Had his suspicions been wrong? Was this NPC not a player in disguise after all?
It made sense, he mused. "Boy 47" clearly had indigenous features, seemed familiar with Ms. Medina, and had already provided several useful clues. It was unlikely there was anything suspicious about him.
Even if he *was* a player, it didn't matter. Giving up a chance at vital clues just to avoid suspicion was the mark of a short-sighted fool...
"Jiang... Mr. Jiang, could I go upstairs with you?" Zhang Yiyu had sidled up to him at some point, her expression pitiful. "I have a feeling this instance is related to language and texts. I'm a literature major, so... maybe I can help..."
"No problem at all. Thanks in advance for the help!" Jiang Junjue agreed readily.
Seeing her red, swollen eyes, he added with a note of self-reproach, "I promised I'd look out for you, and then... this happened. I'm truly sorry."
Zhang Yiyu sniffled and shook her head. "It's not your fault. Thank you so much for letting me come along!"
...
Qi Si reached the second floor and began searching the pitch-black classrooms one by one. He ran his hands over every desk until he finally found one with the number "47" carved into its corner.
He settled into the dilapidated chair beside it and summoned Zhang Yiyu's Soul Leaf from the void, closing his hand around it.
After transforming Qi Family Village into his own ghost domain, the profound malevolence had stimulated the growth of his contractual authority, strengthening his control over the Soul Leaves.
In the real world, this enhancement allowed him to perceive the movements of his contracted souls. Here, in the instance, it enabled a more fluid and detailed transmission of information.
A short time ago, he had used the Soul Leaf to issue a silent command to Zhang Yiyu: *Follow Jiang Junjue. Tell me what clues he found in the office.*
The moment his fingers closed around the leaf, a rectangular frame outlined in golden vines materialized within the dark palace of his mind, revealing a faded, sepia-toned image.
He saw the players troop upstairs and stop at the landing. He watched as Jiang Junjue knelt, pried up a floor tile, and pulled out a stack of yellowed papers...
They were letters.
A correspondence between Ms. Medina and a "Mr. Barron."
This Mr. Barron was at odds with Mr. Thorson and had bypassed him to give orders directly to Ms. Medina, their letters filled with friction and disagreement.
The most striking phrase in the letters was—
Indigenous witchcraft.