Rooftop.
Su Er had always been ruthless when dealing with ghosts.
The stun gun devoured the yin energy inside the old ghost man. Su Er smiled and said, “Crying without tears won’t do. You've been wailing so long without shedding a single drop.”
Without yin energy to sustain it, a ghost could vanish in an instant. The old man roared in anger, “Why did you start with me?”
Hadn’t he heard of respecting the elderly and the weak?!
But a long time living in the game had only taught Su Er one thing: pick the softest persimmon to squeeze.
“Ten seconds. Cry, or I’ll kill you.”
A single tear fell.
The old man had been crying out of rage.
Su Er switched targets, smoothly obtaining the tears from the middle-aged woman and the girl without troubling them too much. However, something was clearly wrong not just with their memories, but also their minds.
One had most of her leg chewed off, and the other had nearly all her facial skin torn away. But once they recovered a little, they actually started torturing each other again, as if beginning a new cycle.
The woman’s husband silently handed over his tear. Even when Su Er was about to leave the rooftop, the man still hadn’t said a word.
Cradling the Book of Answers, Su Er returned to the classroom. The moment he stepped inside, he felt like a walking target—no matter where he went, he could feel the weight of gazes following him.
“Impressive!” As soon as he sat down, someone scooted over next to him. “How did you escape from that ghost’s grasp?”
To avoid exposing the stun gun, Su Er half-lied: “The family of ghosts didn’t get along.”
“But we heard crying.”
Su Er answered seriously, “They reconciled. Tears of joy.”
That’s not how you're supposed to make up a lie.
Su Er didn’t mean to offend anyone. He offered a fair assessment: “For now, it seems the Book of Answers doesn’t ask for anything beyond what one can handle.”
The player who came to gather information looked thoughtful, thanked him, and returned to their seat.
Su Er returning alive relieved many players. In terms of physical power, he wasn’t considered top-tier, yet he had survived an encounter surrounded by three ghosts—which meant surviving might actually be possible.
Soon, a second player flipped the book open. Their luck wasn’t great; the page read: ‘Riddle.’
The classroom lights immediately went out.
No one screamed. After the initial shock passed, those with tools silently pulled them out, and those without crept toward the corners, trying to stay hidden.
No one dared make a sound.
“It’s red—no, it’s green!”
A terrified voice shattered the silence.
Three seconds later, the lights flicked back on. The stench of blood filled the room.
The player who had flipped the book tilted their head back slightly—tongue cleanly severed at the root. The player was still alive, but their body was frozen stiff like a statue. Others nearby tried to help, but found they couldn’t move the rigid body no matter how hard they tried. In the end, they could only watch helplessly as the player choked to death on their own blood.
Below the word “Riddle,” a line of blood-red writing appeared: [Wrong Answer.]
The slight relief everyone had just begun to feel evaporated. Tension gripped the classroom once again.
The female player who had earlier asked about Su Er’s whereabouts—named Gao Rui—clasped her fingers together nervously. “I didn’t hear anything.”
The page said “riddle,” but aside from that final terrified outburst, they had heard nothing. No voice from a ghost. Nothing.
No one knew when the ghost had appeared—or when it had left. It was a mystery.
“Analyzing this is useless,” a player named Shan Meng said coolly. “Better to focus on finding another way to locate the graduation certificate.”
Pooling ideas might still lead somewhere.
Gao Rui instinctively glanced at the host standing on the podium. Seeing that he still had his eyes closed, she gained a bit of courage. “How about… we look around?”
Someone objected immediately: “Wandering aimlessly might run us into a ghost.”
“There’s risk in everything once you’re inside the game,” Gao Rui replied, then suddenly looked at Su Er. “When you were outside earlier, do you remember how many classrooms were on the first floor?”
“Three,” Su Er said. “There are five floors total. From the rooftop, I saw a field to the east, and next to it, another building.”
“Decades ago, this was a school built by a factory for its employees’ children.”
The one who spoke was Mister East West. All eyes instantly turned to him.
“It was only an elementary school, not very big. Before it was abandoned, this building was for grades three and up.” Mister East West opened his eyes. “Grades one and two were placed in a smaller three-story building next to it. The principal’s office was also in that building.”
His description was surprisingly detailed.
The players latched onto a key phrase: “not very big.”
Which meant it was indeed possible to find the graduation certificate.
Shan Meng said, “I still wouldn’t get my hopes up. What if it’s hidden underground or something…”
“I placed the certificate myself,” Mister East Wind said slowly. “Paper documents don’t preserve well underground. They’re hidden in the two school buildings.”
There it was.
The moment the host opened his mouth, a string in Su Er’s mind vibrated… The trap had arrived.
Whenever the host gently “guided” the players, it meant the blade was already raised—just waiting for someone to stick their neck under it.
Su Er had concerns, and so did everyone else.
But the timing of Mister East West’s statement was simply too perfect. A player had just mysteriously died, without even the chance to use a single tool to save themselves. The Book of Answers’ danger had become undeniable.
Even if there were ghosts in the school buildings, they likely wouldn’t be more dangerous than what had just happened.
“Let's form groups,” said the man in the front row. “If we run into danger, it's better to have someone watching your back.”
This sounded nice, but everyone knew the truth: if a fight broke out and you couldn’t win, whoever ran the slowest would be left behind as a scapegoat.
Still, most people agreed—it was the safer option.
“There happen to be four groups total,” the man continued. “So we won’t have to go through the trouble of splitting up.”
“Heh.” Dan Meng sneered coldly.
His intentions were obvious: being in a group with strong players would reduce the risk.
In his group, Ji Heng was powerful, Su Er was quick-witted, and the last person had high spiritual stats.
“That’s not appropriate,” Dan Meng didn’t bother being polite. “Some groups only have two people.”
There were only about ten players total.
Just as the front-row man was about to argue back, Ji Heng—who hadn’t said much until now—suddenly stood up with a book in hand, smiling slightly. “Su Er and I will form a group on our own.”
Before Su Er could react, Ji Heng took the lead. “Let’s go.”
The two wandered aimlessly in the empty corridor. Su Er asked, “Where are we going?”
“Where do you want to go?” Ji Heng replied.
“Downstairs.”
Ji Heng nodded. “Then let’s check out the top floor first.”
Turned out Su Er’s method of ruling out incorrect paths was effective—they climbed two floors without running into anything unusual.
The top floor contained the broadcasting room and the activity room.
“Which one do you want to enter?” Ji Heng asked.
Su Er hesitated for a moment.
Seeing this, Ji Heng waved it off—saying any answer after hesitation might not be reliable. He casually pushed open the door to the broadcasting room.
Dust thickly blanketed the equipment. Su Er covered his mouth and nose with a sleeve and brushed off the microphone.
The teaching building still had power. When he pressed the button, the red light beside the mic blinked. Su Er looked at Ji Heng. “Looks like it still works.”
Then he began flipping through a broadcast log book nearby.
“I want to ask the heavens, ask the earth—”
Suddenly, music blared out of nowhere—then stopped just as abruptly.
Su Er turned his head and saw Ji Heng fiddling with the equipment.
“The music’s pretty fitting,” Ji Heng commented casually.
Su Er turned his attention back to the log book. Judging from the dates, the broadcast announcers rotated weekly, but there was no discernible pattern.
Ji Heng dug out a lottery box from a cabinet—inside was a single stick carved with: “Today’s Junior Broadcaster.”
“So it’s chosen by luck.”
Su Er commented, “That’s pretty novel.”
Past dungeons had featured all sorts of wild core themes—rules, fate, romance… and now they’d collected yet another.
As they searched for clues, Su Er suddenly brought up the rooftop incident. “A memory just surfaced out of nowhere. I was being scolded for being left-handed.”
He described the whole thing clearly—even mimicking the woman’s tone of voice.
Ji Heng was momentarily stunned by his blunt honesty.
Su Er didn’t think much of it—he believed unknown details were better shared than buried.
“Unless it’s an extremely strict household, most people wouldn’t scold a child for being left-handed,” Ji Heng analyzed briefly. “The person in your memory…”
“It was blurry, but I felt like she was my real mom.”
Ji Heng frowned slightly. When pieced together, these small details hinted that Su Er’s past might not be as peaceful as his memories suggested.
Su Er, however, remained calm. “I just hope it has nothing to do with the game.”
Ji Heng was about to say a few comforting words he’d finally thought up, but Su Er cut him off before he could speak. “You’re not upset?” Ji Heng asked tentatively.
“Not really.”
What had always bothered Su Er was his inability to feel any grief over his parents’ deaths. If that lack of emotion wasn’t his own fault, then he had no reason to take on guilt for someone else’s mistake.
Besides, that memory had mysteriously been erased.
Everyone wins.
Just then, a faint noise came from the hallway.
Ji Heng walked to the door and flung it open—scaring the ghost outside so badly it jumped.
“Not here.” The headless child came in, circled the room, then hugged a small ball and mumbled to himself as he left.
Standing at an angle, Su Er had no visual blind spots. “Someone must’ve drawn the hide-and-seek page again.”
The weight in his hands was a constant reminder: over 300 pages still had to be sorted.
“There are some patterns we can find, though.”
Ji Heng placed the book on the table. He closed his eyes for ten seconds, then flipped to a page that said: ‘The weather is nice.’
Clearly a useless, safe-period answer.
Then he flipped again. This time, the page had just one word in the middle: ‘Yes.’
He did this five times in a row, all avoiding danger.
Su Er let out a low whistle. This kind of success rate couldn’t be chalked up to luck—there had to be a method.
“When you flip the book, don’t just think about asking where the graduation certificate is.”
Su Er caught on.
“Ask something like 'What will the weather be in five minutes?'—those are the safe bets,” Ji Heng explained.
The simpler the question, the more likely the Book of Answers would give a matching response.
Su Er raised a brow. “So for high-difficulty questions, the answer rate might be 1%, but for low-difficulty ones, it’s almost 100%?”
Ji Heng glanced at the book. “We can test the boundaries gradually—ask questions that brush up against the topic of the graduation certificate.”
Su Er thought for a bit, then nodded. “Three hundred sixty-seven is an interesting number.”
If the game was fair enough, the number of useless pages and ghost-trigger pages should be roughly equal, with the final leftover page being where the graduation certificate was hidden.
Thinking of this, Su Er closed his eyes, preparing to test it himself.
But just before turning the page, he opened his eyes again. “Do the answers inside change over time?”
Ji Heng nodded—he’d already confirmed it with earlier questions.
The book, custom-designed for this game, clearly wasn’t ordinary.
Su Er originally wanted to ask a simple question to test it—but changed his mind at the last moment.
Ever since that last dungeon and the phrase “an unintentional act that bears fruit”, coupled with that sudden jolt of panic while being tended to, he’d been feeling a little uneasy.
He placed his palm on the hard cover of the book. Directly asking whether he and Ji Heng would develop feelings might count as probing the future—and the book might not give a clear answer. So he tried to broaden and blur the question instead—
What will my love life be like?
He silently chanted it and turned the page. In bold black text on white paper, the answer was crystal clear:
Publish a book.
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