CH 8

Lin Yi was stunned by what he himself had said. But his active thinking still resulted in a proper conjecture. 

Yes, something had crawled in through the window, enough to stimulate the nerves; but the thing left again, so it weakened the sense of urgency.

This also explained why Wang Duo was both afraid but not that afraid.

He slowly turned his head to look at the curtains in Room 304.

Why were there curtains hanging over the windows? The curtains weren’t there to help block the windows. They were there to prevent people in the room discovering that the windows were open! 

The rule of death wasn’t going near the window, nor was it to look at the window. But it must have something to do with whatever had climb in through it.

With only a delay of 0.00001 second, Lin Yi turned around. From the other side of the wall, the sound of someone moving towards the window could also be heard.

Lin Yi didn’t pull open the curtain. Rather, he reached out and pushed against it.

“Little genius.” Qin Zhou from behind the wall, sounded relieved. He then asked, “Is your window open?”

Lin Yi asked, “What about senior’s?”

Qin Zhou: “It’s closed.”

Lin Yi: “Mine is…”

It was unobstructed. 

“Open.”

A suffocating silence quietly descended.

“You……”

Just as Qin Zhou made to speak, a heavy sound similar to wood scaping against the floor, came from Room 304. Qin Zhou then asked, “What are you doing?” 

But there was no answer. Qin Zhou frowned and knocked on the wall twice, “Little genius?”

“Senior…”

Lin Yi’s voice came from outside the door of Room 305. It was accompanied by a gentle and regular knocking on the door.

Qin Zhou was momentarily stunned and turned to look towards his door. 

Lin Yi’s voice from outside the door was very strange; small and and shrill, “Senior, it’s me.”

He lowered his eyes and thought for a while. Finally, he walked to the door of the room.

Qin Zhou opened the door by a crack, looking through it at Lin Yi.

“I’m suddenly a little scared.” Lin Yi scratched his head, an embarrassed expression on his face. “Senior, can I come in and hug you for warmth?” 

Qin Zhou stared at him. After a long while, he said, “Are you a human or a ghost?”

Lin Yi said, perplexed, “Human.”

Qin Zhou was still staring at him, making Lin Yi lose confidence.

He rubbed his chest; there was movement within there. He said, “I have a heartbeat.” Then he looked up at Qin Zhou, “Senior, if you don’t believe me, you can feel it for yourself.” 

… Qin Zhou stretched out his hand.

Instead of touching Lin Yi’s chest, he flicked the tip of Lin Yi’s nose. Once the warm breath brushed against his finger, Qin Zhou withdrew his hand.

“Oh, that’s another way to do it.” Lin Yi smiled and gave Qin Zhou a thumbs up. “Senior is a true gentleman.”

Hlc Itbe: “…” 

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“Po sbe’gf tewjc atfc kts’r sbeg nblmf ilxf atja?” Hlc Itbe fzqijlcfv atf gfjrbc yftlcv tlw jrxlcu ktfatfg Olc Tl kjr tewjc bg j utbra. “Pa’r kflgv.”

Lin Yi suddenly realized. He pointed to his own throat and said, “I had to muster up my courage to find Senior.”

So there was a ball of courage ledged in his throat and that was what was making his voice sound strange. 

“Muster up your courage?” Qin Zhou looked him up and down but could see not the slightest fear in Lin Yi’s expression. “Little genius, you’re gutsy from head to toe. What do you need courage for?”

“Ah, but this little genius is a social phobic.” Lin Yi said, his ears turning red, “Senior, how would you like an apartment?”

Qin Zhou: “What?”

Lin Yi pointed to his feet and said innocently, “If Senior closes the door on me, I would be so embarrassed I’d be able to dig out an apartment with my toes. Senior, how many rooms do you want?” 

Qin Zhou: “…”

Lin Yi: “Or how about a house?”

Qin Zhou: “A house? Better make it a castle.”

“I’m digging, I’m digging.” Lin Yi said, “My embarrassment is giving me enough fuel not only to dig out a castle for Senior but also another one for myself. I’ll place it next to Senior’s and we can be neighbors.” 

… Qin Zhou silently opened the door and let Lin Yi in.

Lin Yi felt extremely moved. “Thank you, Senior.”

Once inside Room 305, Lin Yi’s embarrassment turned into restraint and he took up only a very small space. He then took out a piece of paper and handed it to Qin Zhou. “Senior, please take a look.”

“These are the possible rules of death that I’ve surmised.” Lin Yi said. 

Qin Zhou took it.

On the paper was:

Trigger: Failure to prevent

Trigger: Seeing 

Questionable point: Does it need to be the entirety?

Trigger: Failure to prevent

Lin Yi said, “The trigger actiions for both items 1 and 3 is an ‘failure to prevent’. So, I’m leaning more towards the rules of death being a failure to prevent something. Whether it’s item 1 or 3, so long as you’re able to stop it, you should be able to get away.”

Qin Zhou was momentarily stunned. He looked Lin Yi even more intently. “That sound just now was you moving the wardrobe to block the window?” 

Lin Yi nodded: “It’s self-preservation.”

Qin Zhou said, “6.”

Lin Yi’s reaction speed was too fast. Not only has he thought up a solution immediately but he was also able to write down these three suspected rules of death. His handwriting was very neat. It could be seen that Lin Yi was very calm.

“You could have just told me directly. After all, you’re here with me now.” Qin Zhou raised the piece of paper. “So why write this?” 

“Senior said that monsters would target geniuses like me first.” Lin Yi said, “If I pass this note to everyone, the Monster will definitely set its eyes on me.”

He continued to explain, “So, I’m hoping to get Senior’s inputs. The more accurate the content of the note, the easier it will be to attract the attention of the Monster.”

Qin Zhou kept staring at Lin Yi for a long time, “You just said you were afraid.”

Lin Yi nodded. “That’s right.” 

The look in Qin Zhou’s eyes turned complicated. He couldn’t understand Lin Yi. And so, he asked directly, “You’re not even afraid of the 7-7 Monster itself; but you’re afraid of the NPCs?”

“En, I’m afraid.” Lin Yi saw that Qin Zhou was serious so he made no attempt to dupe him, saying the truth, “I’m afraid of being killed by an NPC before I see the 7-7 Monster.”

Qin Zhou pondered this truth for a long time. Lin Yi was terrified of Qin Zhou pursuing this line of thought. He displayed a pitiful expression, “Senior said that an ‘open window’ is a signal that the rules of death have come to one’s door. That is to say, if I guessed the rules of death wrong or if I was completely far off with my guesses then I will be the next person to die. I’m really scared. This macho man is about to burst into tears.”

Qin Zhou was amused by Lin Yi’s last statement. He looked at him. “You, a macho man?” 

The little genius who had just finished his college entrance examinations was still young and green. He was tall but quite thin. Looking at him, you would not see much excess flesh. Qin Zhou had no doubt that if he just touched Lin Yi’s chest, the sensation would not have been very good. However, the little genius truly did have attractive facial features; a perfect fit for his secret ideal type — a pure and well-behaved-looking little school junior.

“Don’t let my thinness deceive you.” Seeing Qin Zhou’s scrutiny, Lin Yi said, “I’m big down there.”

Qin Zhou: “…”

It’s a pity about his mouth. 

He was really good-looking but also really shameless.

“The rules of death aren’t rigid rules. They can come knocking on your door, making it difficult for the victim to guard against them. But… Qin Zhou looked down at the note in his hand: “But I can give you some comfort.”

Lin Yi was silent for a while. “Senior, don’t do this. Being comforted makes a social phobic fidgety.”

“Well, I’m sorry but I like comforting others.” Qin Zhou went on to say regardless, “There won’t only be one rule of death in each Rule World. But all the rules of death won’t come into play at once. It will appear one after another. You avoid one rule of death and the second rule of death comes online. So, you just have to figure out how to deal with the first one.” 

Saying so, Qin Zhou pointed to the first line on the note: Failing to stop the thing outside the window from crawling in.

This was also Qin Zhou’s guess as to the rule of death.

“I’m confiscating this note. After you survive tonight, we’ll consider about attracting the Monster.” Qin Zhou said.

Lin Yi looked at Qin Zhou in astonishment, not speaking for a long while after. 

He hadn’t expected Qin Zhou’s comfort to be like this. He thought he was going to hear something like ‘it’s okay’, ‘you’re lucky’, ‘don’t be sad’.

Qin Zhou stretched out his hand and his index finger pressed between Lin Yi’s brows, which Lin Yi hadn’t even realized had furrowed. “What’s with your expression?”

Lin Yi quickly stepped back, leaving Qin Zhou’s fingers in mid-air.

His thoughts raced to the past without his control. 

– “They don’t have a heartbeat.”

“But they can still move…”

– “So they’re the walking dead! Uh, sorry, I didn’t mean anything by that. It might be a rare disease, but I can’t help you. Kid, you better take your parents to a bigger hospital to be examined.”

– “Don’t be sad. Medicine is advancing at such a rapid pace, there must be a way to treat your parents.” 

After his parents became like that, Lin Yi often the receiving end of other’s comfort.

But this was the first time he felt comforted. Lin Yi asked tentatively, “Senior, does losing one’s heartbeat mean death?”

Qin Zhou retracted his hand and rubbed the finger that touched Lin Yi’s forehead on his clothes, “The medical standard for death is brain death.”

Lin Yi said sincerely, “Senior has such a sweet mouth.” 

Qin Zhou took a deep look at him and said nothing. He just folded the note and put it in his pocket and turned to walk out.

… Lin Yi: “Damn it, my compliment made Senior so uncomfortable.”

Qin Zhou turned his head: “Little genius, if you’ve got time to spout nonsense, I suggest you use it instead to check out Room 310.”

No matter how much content there was on the note, it was all just conjecture. Those who are approached by the Rules of Death don’t have the luxury of doing trial and error. 

Whether the wardrobe could actually block the thing outside the window from coming in, they would need to find the answer in Room 310.

The two went to Room 310, trying to determine the scope of the rule of death. Lin Yi and Qin Zhou went in and started to search for clue.

The layout of the bedrooms was the same, with the window facing the door. As Qin Zhou had said to Lin Yi, the room was a mess, with food packaging and leftovers scattered on the ground. The whole room smelled of rancid food.

Ten minutes later, Lin Yi hadn’t seen a single cockroach or mouse. Qin Zhou too had been looking for traces of cockroaches or mice. After turning up with no results, Lin Yi said to Qin Zhou, “I suspect they must have been eaten by Senior Wang Duo.” 

He pointed to the mess on the bed and said, “Senior Wang Duo was forced to put those things in his mouth. There are signs of struggle.”

The short scream he heard last night originated from Wang Duo. A scream, just as his mouth opened wide, the thing stuffed food, mice and cockroaches into his mouth.

Lin Yi: “It wasn’t the old dorm manager who killed last night. It was that thing that killed Senior Wang Duo.”

Qin Zhou nodded and glanced at where the window was. “En, there’s more than one NPC in this Rule World.” 

With more NPCs, the entire story line of the Rule World would become more complicated and consequently, the difficulty of the Monster’s replay would also increase. If they get anything wrong or if the replay was incomplete, they would immediately die.

The curtains were still blocking the window. Lin Yi walked over and tried to reach out to push the curtain. Beside him, Qin Zhou frowned as he looked at him.

Lin Yi felt no obstruction. He turned his head to look at Qin Zhou. “It’s open.”

Finding Qin Zhou frowning at him, he asked, “Did Senior discover something?” 

Qin Zhou: “How much courage have you grown?”

Lin Yi said, “Three.”

… Qin Zhou: “So accurate.”

“Ah, yes.” Lin Yi didn’t continue this topic. He carefully rolled up the curtains, stopped just at the right point. He was looking at the wall where the window had been embedded, trying to find traces of something having climbed in. 

The dorm building was very old and the paint was falling off in pieces. They’d been constantly knocking on the wall separating Room 304 and 305 and they’d knocked down a lot of the paint from their wall.

If something had climbed in through the window, it would definitely have left traces.

Lin Yi had rolled the curtains very carefully and his process for looking for clues was done very slowly.

For some reason, Qin Zhou found that there was an instant when Lin Yi seemed frustrated but he quickly covered it up. 

Bold but cautious.

Qin Zhou was evaluating Lin Yi in his heart.

Lin Yi hurriedly said, “Senior, Senior, Senior.”

He called him three times in a row. It seemed like he had found something. 

Lin Yi pointed to a mottled cement surface on the wall and then to the very inconspicuous flakes of paint by his foot on the ground. The two looked at each other. Sure enough, something had climbed in through the window.

Then Lin Yi pointed to another thing — dense and deep, small holes on the wall and the floor, mixed in with the stains, making them difficult to spot.

“Senior, what do you think…?” Lin Yi pursed his lips. “Do these look like holes poked with fingernails as that thing was crawling in?”

Qin Zhou said nothing. 

“If that’s the case……”

Would a wardrobe barring the window be of any use?