What exactly is that thing in the dorm room?
Are they humans influenced by evil forces?
Ren Yifei walked in the midday sun, but his limbs felt stiff and cold, and a chill emanated from his body. He had never played such a dungeon before, and it had given him a rude awakening right from the start.
As he walked to the cafeteria, which was packed with people, the warmth of human life made him feel a little more at ease.
He went to the hot mixed vegetables window, which was quite crowded, with people all looking down at their phones while waiting in line. Some people in the line were talking about the student suicide that day, but it was all the same stuff from the school forum, with no new or more specific updates.
Soon it was his turn in the queue. Ren Yifei chose a dish with three meat dishes and five vegetable dishes. The four vegetable dishes were cucumber strips, shredded cabbage, bean sprouts, bamboo shoot slices, and shredded tofu skin. The meat dishes were white shrimp, fish tofu, and quail eggs.
He actually wanted to add some beef, duck gizzards, and blood sausage. However, the original owner had just witnessed the suicide scene, so it wasn't appropriate.
The vegetables were placed in a small bamboo basket, because each vegetable was in small quantities, and the eight vegetables together made up the basket.
The small bamboo basket was put into boiling water to heat. After paying, he received a wooden plaque and then stood aside to wait, just like the two students in front of him.
"Sizzle." Something was poured over the boiling oil inside, and a rich aroma wafted out from the small window. The food's fragrance lingered at the tip of his nose, bringing Ren Yifei, who was still lost in thought, back to reality.
There was a chef inside, stir-frying sauces over high heat. The sauces included oil, salt, onions, minced garlic, minced pork, soybean paste, oyster sauce, and about ten other kinds of sauces.
Once the blanched vegetables are placed in a stainless steel bowl, the chef ladles a spoonful of the stir-fried sauce over them and then stirs it evenly with chopsticks. In just a few moments, the bland ingredients are coated with a layer of even light brown broth, steaming hot and looking very appetizing.
"Add more spice if you want it spicy." The chef said as he poured the mixed hot vegetables onto a metal plate and then placed a bowl of white rice on the side.
Ren Yifei quickly received his hot mixed vegetables. He also went next door to get a free egg and seaweed soup.
It was the busiest time in the cafeteria, and Ren Yifei had to look around before finding an empty seat in a corner. He picked up a bean sprout with his chopsticks; the bean sprout, soaked in broth, was crisp and delicious, perfect with rice.
However, he still had to pretend to be numb, making himself look preoccupied and unable to eat.
"Crash!" A metal plate was suddenly swung under the table not far away, making a clattering sound. The cafeteria fell silent, and Ren Yifei looked over in the direction of the sound.
All you could see were three boys pinning down another boy, one with his arms around his arms, one with his waist around his waist, and one with his arm around his neck. The boy they were pinning down had a flushed face, was waving his arms around, and was staring outside with his eyes. He actually managed to pull the three boys forward a few steps.
"Let me go, let me go! I'll die if I stay here! I want to go home..." the boy being held down cried out in pain. "We'll die! We'll all die!"
The students in the central district had already dispersed with their rice bowls. The boy who was being held down looked like he was going crazy, while the other three held him down and called for someone to call for their teacher.
Ren Yifei took out his 'disguise glasses' from his pocket and put them on. After making sure no one was paying attention to him, the eyes behind the glasses turned red.
From his perspective, most of the students were a darker red, with only a few a bright red, and a very small number even starting to turn yellowish. He wondered how many of them were players from the Desolate Corner.
The student being pressed down in the middle didn't seem particularly different from the other students in terms of energy, but the energy in his brain was exceptionally active; you could see from afar that the energy inside was like erupting magma, surging and rolling.
"I don't know if it's an isolated case or a characteristic." Ren Yifei took off his glasses, revealing that his eyes had returned to their dark brown color.
The teacher of the four boys arrived. He spoke to the boy and quickly calmed him down, thus ending the farce.
The students sat down to continue eating, and Ren Yifei also sat down.
But after taking just one bite, he realized the rice was cold and the vegetables were oily and didn't taste right—he had missed the best time to eat hot mixed vegetables.
Ren Yifei: ...
He didn't need to act anymore; he was genuinely starting to drift off.
After lunch, he didn't go back to his dormitory but wandered around outside. Every place he went became part of his activity map. He even walked through each floor of the teaching buildings, just to memorize the most detailed map.
The students in the teaching building were all attending classes as usual, and they didn't care about the slightly blurry-eyed boy who happened to pass by outside.
The purpose of camouflage glasses is to reduce one's presence. In reality, this means that it is easy to overlook the person, and even if you see them, you will quickly forget them and have no impression of them.
For Ren Yifei, who needed to know the map, this was an invaluable tool.
However, this tool also has limitations, such as...
"Zhengyuan? What are you doing here? Didn't you take leave?"
Ren Yifei turned around, looking flustered and helpless: "I just came out for a walk." This was the limitation; those who knew the original owner didn't seem to be affected by the glasses.
He knew that the original owner's class had a Chinese class at this time, not in the art building, but in the general teaching building. He had deliberately avoided that classroom, but he never expected to run into a classmate here.
"What's this?" he asked the girl.
"Oh, I was feeling a bit irritable, so I came out for a walk. Hey, are you alright?"
Ren Yifei simply smiled, leaving the rest to others to fill in the blanks.
The girl looked around to make sure no one was watching, then sat down at the top of the A-frame staircase: "Would you like to sit for a while? It's quite comfortable here, right in the shade of the building, with a breeze and cool breeze."
Ren Yifei thought for a moment, then sat down, but was three steps away from her.
This girl didn't really want to cool off here; she seemed to have something to say.
Judging from the furrows in her brow, this was something that had been troubling her for a long time, and her emotions were at their peak, which is why she wanted to confide in someone.
"Have you ever seen the ocean?" the girl suddenly asked.
"I've seen you," Ren Yifei replied dryly. He sat on the steps, his hands on his knees, every cell in his body radiating discomfort.
"It's not just any ordinary sea, it's the kind of sea that's very, very deep, bottomless." The girl emphasized bottomless, and she shivered, reaching to pull her short-sleeved jacket tighter.
Ren Yifei thought for a while: "I've seen the ocean that submarines can photograph in documentaries, and there are many bioluminescent plants and animals living there."
"There are more than just bioluminescent plants and animals there," the girl said quietly, turning her head. "I saw you bought that book, 'Legendary Incredible Architecture,' and stared at the speculative ruins of Atlantis for a long time."
Ren Yifei's face turned pale, his expression somewhat blank, and he avoided the girl's gaze: "Just...just looking around."
"Really?" She looked at Ren Yifei for a while, about to say something, when suddenly she stood up, her mouth slightly open, the corners of her mouth pulled back, her upper eyelids lifted, her eyes widened, and at the same time her eyebrows were raised and straightened.
Fear, this is a face of fear.
Fear was written all over her face, and her body language reflected it even more. The girl's limbs were already instinctively making a move as if she were trying to run away, but her whole body remained frozen in place.
At the same time, her expression changed; her mouth opened wider, her eyebrows were raised more noticeably, and even forehead wrinkles appeared.
She was terrified, but she couldn't fight the fear and didn't even dare to run away.
Ren Yifei turned his head, but he saw nothing. Either this was a life that only this girl could see, or the girl was delusional.
While he was wiping his glasses, he 'observed' the girl's energy flow.
The energy flow in her brain was more active than ever before, like a swirling vortex, with orange energy points even beginning to shine at the edges.
"One of the options to choose from is 'high-frequency brain energy activity'?"
He raised his hand to wipe his glasses, then put it down; in less than two seconds, he had observed the girl's energy flow. And she finally made a move.
"It's here." After saying this, the girl panicked and her body began to convulse.
"Who's here?" Ren Yifei asked her, wanting to know some special clues.
Her eyes widened even more, almost splitting open at the corners.
What did she see? Ren Yifei was extremely curious. He had clearly looked back, but he saw nothing.
"Um..." Ren Yifei had just opened his mouth when the girl suddenly turned and ran away, with a herringbone-shaped stone staircase behind her.
"Wait!" Ren Yifei reached out to grab her.
But she acted as if she didn't see it, turned around and stepped on thin air.
The girl lost her balance and fell heavily onto the marble steps, the back of her head hitting the right angle of the step with a crisp sound...
"How could this be?" Ren Yifei's eyes widened as he tried to find any trace of 'outsider' involvement, but all he could see was this staircase.
The girl rolled down from the top, all the way to the bottom marble slab.
Ren Yifei clung to the railing and looked down. She was lying there with her eyes wide open, blood flowing from the back of her head, yet a strange smile played on her lips.
He fumbled for his phone, his face a mask of shock and terror, his legs trembling so badly he almost collapsed against the railing. He opened his mouth wide, but only a faint, almost inaudible tremor escaped his lips: "Teacher, help...help me—"
When the homeroom teacher rushed over, he saw Ren Yifei slumped on the steps above, his face pale and covered in cold sweat, and another student below who had been dead for several minutes.
Meanwhile, the sirens of ambulances and police cars could be heard in the distance.
"What happened?"
There were only two people at the scene: the deceased and Ren Yifei.
Teachers, police officers, and students outside the police cordon all looked at Ren Yifei, wondering what had happened to them.
"She rolled down and said, 'It's coming,' but I don't know, it wasn't me, I didn't touch her. God, why did this have to happen to me?"
Ren Yifei was terrified. His words were incoherent and disjointed. His features were contorted, his whole body trembled, and tears even welled up in his bloodshot eyes.
Seeing his tense state, the teachers and police officers wanted to believe him, but they also had doubts.
Fortunately, there was a security camera nearby that recorded everything that happened. It cleared Ren Yifei of suspicion, but it also raised more questions.
"There was nothing in that direction, so why was she so terrified that she lost her grip and tumbled down the stairs? And the stairs only had a drop of a little over three meters, and they were curved. No matter what, she shouldn't have died from the fall…"
Looking at the human figure drawn in white pen on the bloodstains below, and recalling the eerie smile on the deceased's face, the police officer in charge of the case couldn't help but rub his arm: "Why is it so cold in here?"
The teacher who was cooperating with the investigation happened to overhear this and said, "This staircase is between two teaching buildings. No matter which direction the sun rises, most of it is always in the shadow, so the temperature here is relatively low."
"That's not what I meant, never mind. Does this girl have any close friends or roommates? I want to ask her a few questions and find out more about the situation." After saying that, the policeman told Ren Yifei to go back first: if they needed him again later, they would come and notify him.
Ren Yifei was released, but he didn't smile, and his steps were uneven. He seemed dazed, and only when he reached the spot where the girl had been standing did his expression suddenly clear.
A sharp laugh reached his ears.