After saying those words, there was no response from the host for a long time.
But Su Er could clearly feel that gaze fixed on him, as if it was about to burn right through his skin.
“Interesting idea,” the Divine Seer said coldly.
“I didn’t expect calling the police would actually succeed either,” Su Er lowered his head, his smile unsteady.
When he lifted his head again and met those unfriendly eyes, a strange thought suddenly struck him: perhaps what he said earlier had actually been meant for Ji Heng beside him. Thinking it over further—when he called the police, Ji Heng hadn’t given him any reminder at all. With his judgment, there was no way he wouldn’t have considered the problem of identity.
With the earlier “going out to sea” incident as precedent, Su Er instantly understood: whenever they were in a relatively enclosed space, Ji Heng would find a way to probe the world beyond it.
Since the phone call had gone through and the operator had responded, that proved there was a relatively complete world system outside this school.
At this thought, Su Er’s lashes trembled slightly. In the last instance, the people of Wanbaolin had loathed players to the bone. That kind of hatred, radiating from deep inside, wasn’t something an NPC should be capable of.
Could it be… all these worlds were real, and the natives inside them were real as well?
The night wind gusted. The air, which had just warmed slightly after the rain, turned cold once again.
He took a breath, suppressing those scattered guesses for now.
The Divine Seer spoke with great politeness, prefacing every question with the word “please.” Su Er, wearing a smile, responded with equal humility: “Although I didn’t break any rules, how to handle it is entirely up to you.”
The first half of the sentence was weighted with emphasis, the second half light and airy, almost dismissive.
The Divine Seer narrowed his eyes. The calm in those amber irises was gone, replaced by killing intent. Unfortunately, since the other was still within the bounds of the rules, no matter how excessive his behavior, punishment could not be carried out.
“Leave the inside of the teaching building alone. Go clean up the corpses on the playground.”
He said calmly, issuing his instructions.
Su Er wasn’t so reckless as to continue provoking at this moment. From behind, he looked obedient enough as he went off to carry out the host’s order.
There was only one player’s corpse by the basketball hoop. Su Er and Ji Heng carried it into the teaching building together. Sitting down on the steps to catch his breath, Su Er asked, “If the police come, how will the Divine Seer deal with them?”
“That’s not something we need to worry about.”
Impressed by his realism, Su Er nodded in agreement. “Then… should we be collecting the reward now?”
Perhaps because the female teacher hadn’t yet been taken away by the police, the task completion chime had not sounded. Su Er wasn’t anxious; he got up and walked to the window, gazing toward the school gate in the distance.
The low-rise building.
In order to clear the instance quickly, Li Zizai was playing rock-paper-scissors with the Ghost King, his expression extremely sour.
Because he had once borrowed fortune from the Fox Spirit, he always won. But the Ghost King demanded the opposite—comparing who was unluckier. Li Zizai knew this was another pitfall planted by the instance; once you borrowed luck, it was impossible to gain benefit from the Ghost King.
The Ghost King sneered maliciously. “You have one last chance.”
Suddenly, urgent police sirens pierced the night’s silence. Li Zizai froze. His first thought was that the Ghost King was creating illusions to toy with him. But soon he noticed even the Ghost King’s face showed surprise.
Beside him, Liu Wen, who had been anxiously waiting, muttered blankly: “I think I just heard the sound of a law-abiding society.”
Saying so, he ran to the next floor and leaned out the window.
At the school gate—
The Divine Seer was speaking with uniformed officers. A strange woman lay on the ground. Not long after, the woman was carried into the vehicle. The Divine Seer also got in. The siren wailed again, and the police drove away, taking them all.
Still facing off with the Ghost King, Li Zizai didn’t dare to divide his attention much. He turned his face slightly and asked, “What happened?”
“The host…” Liu Wen rummaged through his meager vocabulary: “The host was taken away by a police car.”
“......”a
The two of them were bewildered. They didn’t know others were even more confused. At least they had discovered earlier, while fleeing from ghosts in the teaching building, that the host had changed.
Gao Rui, who was acting alone, was utterly at a loss. She quickly searched nearby for a familiar face. At last she spotted Su Er in the teaching building and strode over. “I saw a man and a woman taken away by the police. Were they new players?”
Though she had been quite far away, judging by their builds and clothing, they weren’t from the same batch of players who entered the instance together with them.
Su Er answered calmly, “One host, one native.”
Reflecting, Gao Rui wondered if the late hour had made her vision blur. But soon she sensed something was off. “Wasn’t the host in a wheelchair?”
“Changed.”
The speaker was as placid as a passing breeze. But in the listener’s heart, waves were surging violently. Gao Rui’s mouth gaped in astonishment, and only after a long time did she find her voice again. “Excuse me, what day of the game is it today?”
“The third day.”
Seeing that she still hadn’t recovered, Su Er frowned. “Don’t overthink it. The game just isn’t thorough enough—changing hosts without even a notification.”
Sensing Su Er’s colder attitude compared to before, Gao Rui more or less guessed the reason. He had interacted with Jin Liya earlier, while her own matter of worshipping the Fox Spirit had been exposed by Jin Liya.
“I didn’t borrow your luck,” she said, lacking some confidence. “Liu Changxiang was in charge of stealing hair, Li Zizai sold birth dates… I just wanted to survive.”
She cautiously glanced at Su Er’s expression. “After Liu Changxiang died, Li Zizai couldn’t get any more hair, so he could only keep leeching off Jiang Yi’s fortune.”
“Li Zizai originally wanted me to get close to you, but you saved my life…”
She didn’t finish, but Su Er’s face still looked indifferent. Talking about love and peace inside an instance was unrealistic, but at the very least, one should uphold the principle of don’t offend others unless they offend you first.
Gao Rui forced a smile, then turned and left.
Su Er noticed her Book of Answers had become much thinner. Borrowing luck was indeed a harmful, selfish method, but it worked.
Every minute of the night stretched endlessly, making it hard to judge time. They just sat there waiting. After a while, drowsiness inevitably set in. Su Er rubbed his eyes. “Lucky they didn’t come search the school.”
Ji Heng: “Only three officers were dispatched.”
Since the situation wasn’t clear, there was no real need to search this long-abandoned school.
Just as they were about to discuss it further, a damp, bone-chilling cold enveloped them. Su Er lifted his gaze. Chen Ziwen stood at the staircase, holding the fox in his arms, his eyes looking as if he wanted to flay them alive.
Overwhelming hostility swept over. Su Er stayed seated, unmoving. His hand quietly slid into his pocket, brushing against the edge of the taser, steadying his mind.
“Where is she?”
Su Er: “She was taken away to face justice under the law.”
“I told you to bring her in here. I want revenge myself.”
Su Er’s voice deepened: “The task is revenge, but it never specified what form it must take.”
Chen Ziwen’s patience snapped. His hand stroked the fox with increasing force, giving off an aura of “not stopping until one of us dies.”
Ji Heng nudged Su Er lightly with his elbow. Su Er caught sight of Zhang Xiaohua floating just above on the next floor. She hung in midair, making no move to help—instead, her face showed a terrifying smile far beyond her years.
She was just waiting for Chen Ziwen to make a move so she could reap the benefits of their fight.
Normally, Su Er would lay out pros and cons for Chen Ziwen, maintaining balance in a three-way standoff. But that wouldn’t work now.
Zhang Xiaohua hated Chen Ziwen, but for him, his obsession was avenging Chen Ziwu and their teacher. He would rather vent his rage and let Zhang Xiaohua gain an advantage.
Su Er coughed softly, then suddenly spoke in a gentle tone: “I’m doing this for your own good.”
Chen Ziwen remained unmoved, slowly walking toward him.
Su Er: “Once there’s a breakthrough in such a serious case, the police will investigate thoroughly. Back then, people were simple-minded and could believe in excuses like ‘grief made her cough up blood.’ But times have changed.”
Nowadays, many liked to assume the worst of others—what people called conspiracy theories.
“Starting from the poison source, the truth will quickly come out.” As the distance between them shrank to half a meter, Su Er calmly continued, “Once she confesses and reveals where the bodies are hidden, according to procedure, the suspect must personally lead the police to the scene.”
Chen Ziwen’s steps halted abruptly.
Su Er: “Your teacher will inevitably return to this school.”
At his side, Ji Heng raised an eyebrow. This brainwashing ability wasn’t just strong—it was flawless, without a logical hole to pick.
A sudden gust blew as Su Er shot to his feet, stirring the air. His eyes were red with indignation. “Just now I noticed her jewelry was quite valuable. That means she’s lived comfortably all these years. Luring her here, at most she’d feel a moment of terror before dying.”
Chen Ziwen hesitated. “That’s the real goal?”
“At the scene identification, you can strike at any time,” Su Er nodded, making his painstaking reasoning clear. “But I don’t recommend it. If she’s convicted, the media will make it big. Public opinion and her family’s disappointment will crush her. That torment is the real torment.”
Even Zhang Xiaohua upstairs was stunned.
She had thought herself clever—but it turned out adults’ schemes could be this deep!
Su Er’s tone grew lighter and lighter, laced with subconscious suggestion: “I believe you’ll choose the method that makes the killer suffer the most unbearable pain.”
Chen Ziwen stared at him, and at last, his killing intent gradually faded. With some awkwardness, he muttered, “I misunderstood you.”
Su Er smiled tolerantly. “It’s fine.”
Without any warning, the task completion chime rang out.
Su Er froze. Normally, a confession and conviction would take time—why so fast?
He couldn’t help but glance at Ji Heng.
“Most likely the Host did something at the police station.”
If left unchecked, the police would eventually find the school. Since the instance still had days left, the Divine Seer must patch the loophole. There was another point Ji Heng didn’t voice: Chen Ziwen had been completely persuaded by Su Er’s theory, accepting this form of ‘revenge.’
The next moment, both men simultaneously extended their Books of Answers toward Chen Ziwen, asking for a practical reward.
Chen Ziwen suddenly whistled, and foxes surged in from all directions. One of them was half the size of a man. It sprawled on top of the Books of Answers, yipping a few times.
Chen Ziwen seemed able to communicate with it, making a hissing sound.
When the unusually large fox finally left the Books of Answers, the books had thinned by half again. They were no longer like bricks—now, they felt almost light in the hand.
Chen Ziwen left with the Wish Fox, while Su Er stood there for a moment, waiting in vain for Zhang Xiaohua’s task completion chime.
Only after Chen Ziwen had completely gone far did Zhang Xiaohua finally appear before them, insisting that this already counted as a breach of promise.
Su Er: “The villain wasn’t brought to justice, and Chen Ziwen didn’t kill her either. Your conclusion doesn’t hold.”
The client’s wishes were important, but the final judgment belonged to the game. In the nearly rigid standoff, the result finally came— the instance judged the trade as complete, but marked the completion as insufficient, the little girl’s promise folded in half.
Another half of the pages were deducted by instinct, leaving only a quarter now. When Su Er handed the book back, he let out a quiet sigh.
Zhang Xiaohua’s face darkened… was he seriously feeling wronged now?
After wiping out pages from both of them one after another, her attitude when returning the book was far from pleasant. With a cold snort, carrying her little red shoes, Zhang Xiaohua vanished.
With the earlier damage and page reductions, Su Er’s Book of Answers now had barely more than twenty pages left, while Ji Heng, who had never violently damaged his book, still had about forty pages.
“Can we flip it straight away?” Su Er asked.
Ji Heng nodded, placing his hand on the Book of Answers, asking the right question according to his identity. Then he flipped it lightly— unexpectedly, a line of brilliant golden words flashed across the page.
[Behind the mirror in the fifth-floor restroom.]
Finding the answer in one go, even Ji Heng was a little surprised. After a brief daze, he said to Su Er: “No rush, let’s wait until you’re done flipping.”
Su Er’s expression turned odd: “What are you thinking?”
Accidents happened all the time—what if they went too late and the graduation certificate was discovered and destroyed by some mentally unbalanced player?
With that, he dashed upstairs at full speed. The restroom where someone had died earlier already reeked of corpse stench. Ignoring the smell, Su Er pried off the mirror but found nothing. Thinking it over, he ran his hand along the wall and discovered a bulging patch.
Turning to Ji Heng, who had just walked up, he said: “Not sure if there’s some rule about having to take it with your own hands. Better if you do it.”
He then went to stand watch outside the door, on guard against a sneak attack.
Ji Heng curved his lips at this over-cautiousness, then cleanly tore open the bulging wall surface and retrieved the graduation certificate.
Meanwhile, elsewhere, the Divine Seer who had coughed up several mouthfuls of blood on the way while fixing bugs entered the campus under the moonlight—only to receive the notification that a player had found the graduation certificate.
Exhausted, he tracked the location and appeared before the troublesome duo: “I’ll send you out now.”
Ji Heng frowned instead: “I used the team item.”
As long as team members were alive, they had to go in and out together.
“The item’s usage requirements are secondary to instance rules. Once the graduation certificate is obtained, you must leave.”
Naturally, Ji Heng wasn’t about to leave Su Er alone, so he swiftly pointed out a loophole: “Lingering in the transit station too long will automatically send you to a high-difficulty instance.”
The Divine Seer remained calm: “Don’t worry. For a special instance, the game will make special arrangements.”
Su Er couldn’t help but ask: “So the game is actually pretty smart, huh?”
Then why was it never flexible when it came to him?
The Divine Seer gave him a cold look, silently conveying three words: Wanna. Die. Huh?
Without giving them the chance to say goodbye, he flicked his sleeve, forcing Ji Heng out at once.
Once the teleport ended, the Divine Seer dragged his weary body to the broadcast station to announce the names of players who had successfully cleared, then returned to the classroom to rest on a small stool.
Su Er, meanwhile, seized the time to flip pages.
First flip: Safe zone.
Second flip: Encountered a ghost.
While fleeing from the ghost, he happened to run into Li Zizai, who, seeing his Book of Answers thinned down to just a few pages, showed jealousy and resentment in his eyes.
Su Er ignored him. Since he had time and already ran into a ghost, he naturally focused on collecting tears.
On the way, he even managed to provoke tension between the Fox Spirit and the Ghost King, nearly triggering another fight.
The Divine Seer rushed in to clean up again, demanding coldly: “How many pages left?”
“Twenty-two,” Su Er answered honestly.
An hour later, he suddenly thought of raising the Wish Fox, feeding it with yin energy, and egging it on to overthrow the Fox Spirit’s rule.
The Divine Seer came to deal with the mess again, too furious to even scold anymore: “How many pages left?”
“Twenty-one.”
By dawn—
“How many pages left?”
“Nineteen.”
By noon of the second day—
“How many pages left?”
“Seventeen.”
That noon, Gao Rui had an uncharacteristic stroke of luck and actually found the graduation certificate.
Seeing the thin Book of Answers in Su Er’s hand, he comforted him: “You’ll be able to leave very soon.”
In the afternoon, Liu Wen died. Despite being extra cautious, Liu Wen never realized that back when Liu Changxiang was still alive, Li Zizai had already gotten hold of his hair. Little by little, after draining Liu Wen’s luck, Li Zizai also successfully completed his task.
After sending off all the players of the same batch, Su Er was resting in the classroom, replenishing his strength.
The lips of the Divine Seer moved slightly.
Su Er was also exhausted. Weakly raising one hand, he showed two numbers with his fingers: thirteen.
At that moment, the Divine Seer suddenly understood why Su Er had insisted on manually activating the “lucky aura plug-in.” If the rules didn’t forbid it, he himself would have wanted to open one for him.
All the safe pages of the Book of Answers had been consumed. Now, every single flip inevitably revealed a ghost—and not just any ghost, but those filled with heavy resentment after death, extremely hard to deal with.
Su Er’s progress slowed down more and more. Sometimes, just to obtain a single tear, he would have to fight with a ghost for several days.
Gradually, he lost all sense of the passage of time.
More than seven days later, the pocket watch automatically reset.
From time to time, Su Er would deliberately stir up trouble within the limits of the rules. Eventually, even the Divine Seer also lost track of time.
“What day is it today?” The tortoise shell was tossed aside like garbage. Leaning wearily against the podium, the Divine Seer asked listlessly.
“The… the tenth-something day?” Su Er’s eyes were dull as he lay on the desk to rest. “Didn’t you say there would be a new host taking over?”
The Divine Seer didn’t even bother to conceal the truth: “Mister Rose is running the newbie rounds. Deception is about to open. The slightly more experienced hosts are all working overtime to preside and issue entry tickets.”
“Deception?”
If he said any more, it would involve classified matters. The Divine Seer waved his hand, signaling Su Er not to waste his energy trying to pry further.
The sun rose again.
Dragging his heavy steps, Su Er went to the playground to collect breakfast. The Ghost King pushed the food cart over, mechanically going through the routine, but couldn’t help asking wearily: “Why are you still here?”
Chewing on bread, Su Er turned around with the same weary expression. “See you tomorrow.”
“......”
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