CH 19

Lin Yi didn’t think about it. In the end, he either brings forth some primeval strength and closes the window fast or the vase girl proves faster and bites his head off. 

Weighing the possibilities was simply a waste of time. Almost subconsciously, the moment Lin Yi came face to face with the vase girl, his body instinctively rushed back into the room.

There was nothing that could be used as a weapon inside the room. Lin Yi was left with no choice but to retreat farther and farther until his back was up against the door. The door handle jabbed against the small of his waist, cutting through his thin shirt. .

Lin Yi couldn’t help but let out a ‘tsk’. That hurt.

But he didn’t turn to inspect the wound on his back. He simply didn’t have time. 

Within his field of vision, a pair of swollen hands appeared above the window. The vase girl stuck to the window like a spider. Her hair like withered grass swayed gently with her drooping head, maintaining this strange twisted posture.

Lin Yi knew that the vase girl was watching him. Lin Yi has thwarted her efforts for several nights in a row. Now, even though she found that she was able to come in, she was still cautious as if she was worried that Lin Yi was playing another trick.

Her blood-red eyes stared at Lin Yi for a long time. She moved, shifting her body little by little into Room 304.

Slowly, the vase girl’s head was already guardedly inside the room, but most of her body was still hanging upside down from the window. Her neck was very long, the shape of her neck having formed to suit the winding mouth of the vase. She was like a turtle head without its shell.

Lin Yi took a breath.

Although a scrape wasn’t much of an injury, the pain caused by the break in his skin was difficult to ignore.

This pain made Lin Yi’s mind instantly clear. He couldn’t allow the vase girl to come in anymore that she already has. If the vase girl finds out that he has no way to stop her, she would no longer be so hesitant.

“Miss Wang, I know where Wang Qingqiang is!” 

Quick as a flash of flint, Lin Yi said this name.

He paid close attention to the vase girl’s reaction. When he threw out this name, the vase girl’s movements slowed for a moment.

The excited ‘gugu’ sound stopped and the vase girl stared at Lin Yi.

“Miss Wang, I sympathize with your bitter experience.” Lin Yi said, “I’m not actually an employee of the Mystery House. I came undercover to rescue you.” 

After hearing ‘Mystery House’, the vase girl opened her mouth, a ‘hissing’ sound issuing from her throat. Her blood-red eyes stared at him angrily.

Lin Yi took out the birth certificate and purchase slips from his pocket and held them up to the vase girl. “Miss Wang, I’m not lying to you. These are clues I found by sneaking into his room. If I were an employee, I would just use you to attract customers and earn dirty money. There would be no need for me to do such a thing. Wang Qingqiang is very cruel to you. If he knew that I’d stolen his things, my end would definitely be worse than yours. ”

The vase girl has lived in her vase since she was a child. The only thing she’s seen were various spectators. She didn’t know how to read and she had no idea what these things were that Lin Yi was holding.

She saw Lin Yi’s serious expression; she has never seen anyone show such an expression. Most of the spectators showed expressions of surprise, fear or curiosity upon seeing her. 

“Miss Wang, my name is Lin Yi.”

Lin Yi walked forward towards the vase girl. His heart was pounding in his chest; cold sweat was breaking out on his back. But he tried his best to keep his face calm. Then, less than a meter away from the vase girl, he stopped.

At close range, a pungent odor penetrated into his nostrils. It smelled like a combination of verdigris and phosphorus.

Lin Yi leaned out again and pointed to the window downstairs. “That’s Wang Qingqiang’s room.” 

What he was pointing to was actually Room 204 on the second floor. The duty room and their dormitory were not facing the same direction and were no windows facing outside in the duty room.

However, when Lin Yi just looked down, he saw that the window of Room 204 was welded with steel bars so he used this to make the vase girl to believe his words.

“It will definitely be difficult for you to get in.” Lin Yi looked up at the vase girl, his heart was beating wildly, but his face was very steady.

Some part of his brain was even thinking that Qin Zhou was right in thinking that he was dishonest. 

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“Xlnf wf olnf vjsr, jcv P klii vfolclafis yglcu Qjcu Hlcudljcu ab sbe.” Olc Tl rjlv. Lf obecv atja atf njrf ulgi kjr lcmtlcu lcab atf gbbw jujlc.

Lf delmxis mtjcufv tlr kbgvr. “Ktgff vjsr, atgff vjsr ja wbra. Po P vbc’a yglcu tlw ab sbe joafg atgff vjsr jcv sbe kjca ab xlii wf, P qgbwlrf cba ab gfrlra.”

The vase girl stopped and stared at Lin Yi for a long time. 

Lin Yi still maintained his extremely serious expression and he also staring straight into the vase girl’s eyes. Time passed, minute by minute. After who knows how long, the vase girl let out a couple of hisses and finally backed out from the window.

They had reached an agreement.

Click’-ing sounds came from the wall, slowly getting farther and farther away from Room 304.

Lin Yi sat down on the bed and threw the purchase slips and birth certificate on top of it. The purchase slips were signed Wang Qingqiang. 

Then he let out a shaky breath.

Ugh, he’d been scared half to death.

He had bet right. Wang Qingqiang was the name of the old dorm manager and the vase girl’s father.

Lin Yi’s eyes were too dry. He closed his eyes, letting them rest for a while. 

Now that he didn’t have to contend with the vase girl, this night gave him enough time to think.

They’ve figured out the main line of the 7-7 Rule World. A cruel father made his daughter into a vase girl, using this to attract spectators and earn dirty money. It seemed that business wasn’t bad and the father opened the Mystery House. He also hired helpers, providing full room and board.

The only thing that remained unclear was the second floor of the apartment building. What was on the second floor that needed both sides of the corridor to be locked and even the windows sealed.

Even if the old dorm manager was afraid that the vase girl would come looking for him, why did he seal the windows in Room 204? He didn’t stay there. 

Lin Yi sat up again and walked to the window. Knowing that vase girl wouldn’t come looking for him again for three days and that the two death rules that currently existed were, ‘Unable to stop the vase girl from coming in’ and ‘leaving your room at night’, he boldly leaned out and boldly took a big whiff.

Except for the patina-phosphorus smell left by the vase girl, Lin Yi couldn’t smell anything. He couldn’t smell that rancid odor of a corpse.

But Qin Zhou saw with his own eyes, the dorm manager dragging Wang Duo’s body to the second floor. Qu Jialiang’s body was probably also on the second floor. The blood stains led from the toilet on the third floor to the second floor.

Even tonight, as soon as they left the first floor toilet, they heard the old dorm manager dragging Lin Yi’s body away. 

Although the rule world was fantastical and terrifying, it still adhered to normal order.

The dorm room numbers were arranged in order. When it gets dark, it’s nighttime when NPCs can kill people. This was real world norms.

Therefore, even though the windows of Room 204 were sealed with steel bars, they weren’t airtight. Corpses piled up on the second floor couldn’t possibly have no smell.

There were generally four ways to keep a corpse from going rotten. 

One is freezing. The second is chemical treatment, such as soaking with formalin. The third is plasticization, which is similar to mummification. ①

Lin Yi quickly ruled out these three methods. It was difficult for ordinary refrigerators to fit so many corpses. Formalin would also have a distinct smell, but Lin Yi couldn’t smell it. Mummification was even more impossible. With only the old dorm manager doing it, by the time he finished, the bodies would have rotted as well.

So, only a fourth method remained —

They were eaten. 

Lin Yi didn’t know if these corpses had been eaten by the 7-7 Monster but he was leaning more towards something else having eaten them.

After all, the 7-7 Monster was hidden among them and would have had no time to sit down to have a ‘good meal’. Furthermore, putting himself in the Monster’s shoes, he would choose to wait until everyone in the Rule World was dead because slowly enjoying his sumptuous banquet.

But these were all just Lin Yi’s guesses. Whether the corpses had been eaten by the 7-7 Monster or something else, he still needed to ask Qin Zhou.

Lin Yi tried knocking on the wall between his and Room 305. He whispered, “Senior.” 

There was no response from the other room. Thinking that Room 304 might be in a separate space, Qin Zhou in Room 305 wouldn’t be able to hear him even if he shouted.

Lin Yi could only wait for the dawn to arrive.

Waiting was always the most difficult, every minute and every second seemed to stretch. Lin Yi felt like the night stretched for ages before dawn. This time, before Qin Zhou could came to check in on him in Room 304, he was already standing outside Room 305.

Just as he was about to knock on the door, Qin Zhou opened the door. 

“Senior, I’m still alive.” Lin Yi quickly reported that he was safe and then told Qin Zhou his problems.

Qin Zhou looked at him and said, “Monsters don’t eat corpses.”

This answer surprised Lin Yi. Qin Zhou said, “The night you stayed at the inn outside the school, you saw that someone had died, right?”

Lin Yi nodded; he still remembered. 

Qin Zhou tapped Lin Yi’s shoulder. “Though you’ve been sucked into the Rule World, your actual body is still in the real world. In a fantasy-sense, you can look at it as your consciousness being drawn in. After you die here, how you died will be reflected to your body. That’s what you saw that day. What Monsters eat is human consciousness.”

Lin Yi was lost in thought.

Qin Zhou added, “Time here doesn’t pass the same as it does in the real world. It depends on the strength of the Monster. The stronger the Monster, the shorter the corresponding real world time. Do you understand, little genius?”

Lin Yi nodded. This was easy to understand. 

If a day in the 7-7 Rule World corresponds to an hour in the real world, then every round in the 7-7 Rule World would mean only a few hours in the real world. The 7-7 Monster can then start picking its new prey and roll them up to enter the 7-7 Rule World.

That way it could eat more people.

“Now it’s my turn to ask you.” Qin Zhou asked, “What happened last night?”

Lin Yi told Qin Zhou what happened last night, “Senior, I think there’s something that eats the corpses on the second floor. I want to go and see.” 

Qin Zhou: “Have you figured out a way to do it?”

They couldn’t get in to the second floor so Lin Yi must have thought of a way.

Lin Yi said, “Senior, hold me up and I’ll go out the window.”

Qin Zhou frowned and said, “Have you forgotten something?” 

Lin Yi: “What?”

Qin Zhou reminded: “If no one died last night…”

If no one died last night, a new death rule would activate. The reason why they dared to try and smash the door on the second floor and go to the duty room to check for clues was because Qu Jialiang had died the night before and the rules of death were fixed at “Failing to stop the vase girl from coming in’ and ‘leaving your room at night’.

If ‘leaving your room at night’ hadn’t become a rule of death, the existing rules of death should be ‘failing to stop the vase girl from coming in’ and ‘being seen by the vase girl’. Like this, Lin Yi should have died the night before. 

Right now, they weren’t certain whether Xu Xiazhi was still alive or not; meaning they weren’t sure whether a new rule of death could activate or not. Lin Yi going out the window could be very dangerous.

Qin Zhou said, “Let’s go to 308 and have a look.”

Room 304 wasn’t the only room with the window open. Xu Xiazhi’s Room 308 did too.

The two went to 308 and struck with a bout of social phobia, Lin Yi left the heavy responsibility of knocking on the door to Qin Zhou. 

Qin Zhou knocked on the door.

Despite repeatedly knocking on the door, there was no sound of movement in Room 308.

Although Lin Yi didn’t want a new death rule to appear, in comparison, he wanted Xu Xiazhi to die even less.

The same went for Qin Zhou. Although he seemed indifferent to the death of his teammates, there was an indescribably agitation in his voice. “Xu Xiazhi! Say something if you’re alive!” 

Lin Yi also reached out and knocked on the door. He now knew Qin Zhou’s mood every time he came to knock on Room 304’s door. He impatiently shouted, “Senior Xu, are you alright?”

“Get out of the way.” Qin Zhou pulled Lin Yi away, meaning to kick down the door.

Lin Yi dodged to the side and just as he stopped behind Qin Zhou…

The door of Room 308 was pulled open a crack and Xu Xiazhi looked at them wearily. 

Qin Zhou looked through the crack of the door then kicked the door in and punched Xu Xiazhi in the face without saying a word.

When the door of Room 308 was fully opened, Lin Yi’s expression slowly froze.

His wardrobe was in Room 308!

News of Li Ying’s death made Lin Yi forget to close his door. While they went with Zhou Lingling to the first floor toilets, Xu Xiazhi probably took advantage of this time and moved the wardrobe from Room 304. 

Thanks to Lin Yi’s wardrobe, the vase girl remembered this wardrobe from Room 304 and her agreement with Lin Yi and so she stopped last night and didn’t force her way into Room 308.

Xu Xiazhi did not dare fight back and he let Qin Zhou deliver punch after punch to his face.

He didn’t explain. He knew that someone like Qin Zhou could see through his mind at a glance.

He didn’t want to die but he also didn’t want any new rules of death to be added. 

Lin Yi said that the new rule of death was likely to be ‘being seen by the NPC’. If that were the case, that would be too difficult. He couldn’t let the NPC come in and he couldn’t let himself be seen. The rules of death had already set its eyes on him and his chance of surviving was very, very low.

Only by Lin Yi dying could the rules of death rules stay fixed on the two current rules of ‘failing to prevent the NPC from coming in” and “leaving your room at night” and stop “being seen by the NPC” from being added.

Of course, Lin Yi also guessed what Xu Xiazhi was thinking. He didn’t say anything but simply walked into Room 308 and moved out his wardrobe.

Xu Xiazhi didn’t know that it was thanks to Lin Yi’s wardrobe that he managed to survive last night, so he didn’t stop Lin Yi from moving it away. Of course, he couldn’t get up even if he wanted to stop him. Qin Zhou had beaten him ruthlessly. 

Lin Yi moved the wardrobe back to Room 304 and Qin Zhou followed him.

“Little genius.”

Qin Zhou called him.

Lin Yi put the wardrobe in its original position, no longer against the window. 

“Little genius,” Qin Zhou called him again.

Lin Yi looked back at him.

Qin Zhou asked him, “Feeling wronged?”

Lin thought for a while and nodded. 

Qin Zhou said, “Do you want a hug from Senior?”