CH 33

Knock Knock Knock—— 

Lin Yi knocked on the door. There came a rustling sound from inside but no one came to open the door for them.

Ou Ying’s guess was that they might have give Ye Qiong a fright so she shouted, “Ye Qiong! It’s us.”

Truth be told, the presence of the student union didn’t reassure Ye Qiong. After all, it was the student union, fulfilling the school’s regulations, that put him here.

Perhaps she was thinking too much about the 2-6 Monster, so she went with Lin Yi’s suggestion of looking for rules of death first. Ou Ying frowned and knocked hard on the door. “Ye Qiong, open the door if you want to get out of here alive. If not then just wait for death in that room!” 

Lin Yi waited quietly by the side. Sure enough, Ou Ying’s words had the desired effect and the rustling sound grew louder, approaching the door.

Lin Yi lowered his head and saw a shadow at the bottom of the door.

The next second, Ye Qiong opened the door.

Ou Ying: “Ye…”

Her words stopped abruptly.

Compared to Luo Yi’s room, this room was much more bloody and frightening. This was the first time Lin Yi won’t be seeing a corpse smile at him in the Rule World. After all, Gao Xu’s head was completely gone.

Ye Qiong looked up at the two people outside his door. He was covered entirely in blood; blood and brain matter, detritus from Gao Xu’s explosion, dripped off his body.

“Ah… Yi…” Ye Qiong opened his mouth. Too frightened to form even a single word, he could only make these hoarse utterances. 

Ou Ying had no choice but to swallow back her questions. She turned to Lin Yi and said,, “I’ll take him to wash up first.”

Lin Yi nodded.

Ou Ying stretched out her hand and took Ye Qiong, utterly stunned and dazed, to the bathroom on the second floor. Lin Yi went into the room to check Gao Xu’s body.

Gao Xu had clearly violated a rule of death. This kind of fantastical way of dying could only be done by an NPC. 

There were no obvious clues on the body, so Lin Yi looked around the room again. The layout and furnishings of the room was very similar to the one he’d roomed in last night, right down to the full-length mirror facing the bed.

Lin Yi looked at the location of Gao Xu’s body and then at the full-length mirror. According to the position of Gao Xu’s body and the blood splatter, Gao Xu’s had died right in front of his mirror.

Lin Yi stepped on the bed and looked directly at the full-length mirror.

The full-length mirror was also covered with blood, not a single clear spot left. Lin Yi stretched out his hand and poked the blood-stained mirror, carefully probing its surface. There was nothing wrong with the mirror itself. 

“Little genius……”

Someone called him from behind.

Lin Yi looked behind him, “Senior?”

Qin Zhou had already cleaned the blood off his hands. He looked at Gao Xu’s body, then frowned and asked, “Where’s the other person in this room?” 

“Xue Jie took him to wash up.” Lin Yi jumped off the bed, avoiding the blood on the floor. He stopped in front of Qin Zhou and asked hesitantly, “Senior,… are you okay?”

Qin Zhou didn’t answer his question, saying instead, “I’m not sure what happened last night.”

Lin Yi paid attention to Qin Zhou’s expression. Qin Zhou seemed to have calmed down.

Lin Yi rubbed his nose. “Oh.” 

Qin Zhou said, “I’ve carefully thought over everything doubtful about me. Apart from this, are there any other points that make me doubtful?”

Sure enough, just as Lin Yi had told Ou Ying, Qin Zhou had begun to doubt himself.

Lin Yi was silent for a while and asked, “Senior, do you feel anything?”

Qin Zhou stared at Lin Yi and said after a long time, “No.” 

Olc Tl jrxfv, “Tbe vbc’a offi jcsatlcu?”

Hlc Itbe rjlv, “Oeb Tl jcv P abbx aegcr riffqlcu.”

Olc Tl gfjilhfv atja Hlc Itbe kjr ajixlcu jybea ktja tjqqfcfv ijra cluta jcv rb tf xfqa rlifca jcv ilrafcfv mjgfoeiis.

Hlc Itbe rjlv, “Oeb Tl kfca ab yfv olgra. Coafgkjgvr, tf uba eq ab gfqijmf wf. P abiv tlw jybea ktja tjv tjqqfcfv ktlif tf kjr riffqlcu, atja atf akb ojlilcu raevfcar tjv vlfv. Ktja’r jii P gfwfwyfg.” 

“Little genius.” Qin Zhou called him again, “What do you think?”

Lin Yi told Qin Zhou his analysis but Qin Zhou said nothing after. Lin Yi was silent for a while and asked, “Senior doesn’t think so?”

Qin Zhou said, “Let’s proceed like this for now. I will act alone. Don’t share any clues you find with me and there’s no need to concern yourselves about me. Don’t get too close to me.”

Lin Yi wanted to say something else but Qin Zhou had already turned around. 

He stared at Qin Zhou’s back for a while then turned back to continue looking at the full-length mirror.

About seven or eight minutes later, Ou Ying led Ye Qiong back. Most of the blood had been washed away. Seeing that he was only wearing a pair of boxers, Ou Ying went back to the room and handed the quilt she’d removed to Ye Qiong, letting his wrap it around his body.

Ye Qiong’s own clothes were on Gao Xu’s body and they were so bloody that he couldn’t wear them anymore.

Lin Yi asked Ye Qiong, “Ye Qiong Xue Chang, what happened last night?” 

He and Cheng Yang were freshmen. Everyone else was their senior.

Ye Qiong stared blankly at Lin Yi. His mouth was open but only “hu hu hu hu” came out. He couldn’t even come out with half a sentence that anyone could understand.

Ou Ying shook her head and said, “The shock has passed. I asked him just now, but I couldn’t find anything.”

Lin Yi didn’t speak anymore, he looked at Ye Qiong, after Ou Ying rinsed it off with a water hose, Lin Yi found a large bruise on Ye Qiong’s forehead. 

He stared at the bruise on Ye Qiong’s forehead and fell into thinking. Ou Ying called him out to him twice, “Lin Yi.”

“Xue Jie?” Lin Yi came to his senses and looked at Ou Ying.

Ou Ying signaled Lin Yi to look outside the door. Lin Yi turned his head and found the woman in red was standing there, waiting for them to notice her. After the people in the room turned their attention towards her, the woman in red said, “Good morning, friends. I prepared breakfast for everyone, please head to the dining room.”

Although Lin Yi and Ouying didn’t respond to the woman in red, the woman in red didn’t mind at all. After she confirmed that the people in the room had heard her pronouncement, she continued to the next room to tell the same to the other guests in the villa. 

After the woman in red left, Lin Yi suddenly thought of something and quickly said to Ou Ying, “Xue Jie, please wake up Cheng Yang.”

Ou Ying didn’t ask Lin Yi what he was planning on doing; she simply said ‘yes’.

Lin Yi quickly went downstairs to the dining room. When he arrived at the dining room, he glanced at the table. All the food on the table was bloody once again.

His gaze stayed on the dining table for a short while and then Lin Yi proceeded to the connected kitchen. 

After about ten minutes, Lin Yi came out of the kitchen. Just then, the woman in red was leading the remaining students in the dining hall. The woman in red glanced at Lin Yi who was already seated. Shen then pulled out a dining chair and sat down.

She seemed to be used to the guests’ reluctance to eat, didn’t try to urge them when they showed no signs of eating breakfast. She gracefully picked up a liver-like organ from her plate and put it into her mouth in small bites.

Lin Yi was next to the woman in red. He could hear her chewing.

‘Shasha — shasha’ 

Cheng Yang’s lips were red and swollen, like they’d been pinched too many times in a short period of time. At this moment, even if he wanted to faint, he wouldn’t be able to. His philtrum was still aching dully.

Seeing Lin Yi sitting at the table, trembling with fear, he fumbled his way and sat next to Lin Yi.

Seeing that Lin Yi and Cheng Yang had both sat down, Ou Ying also found a place to sit down as well. At the same time, she pulled Ye Qiong down to sit down as well. Chen Jinnan and Zhou Gan and the other two of that group sat down too. Only Qin Zhou stayed standing, looking at the strange situation in the dining room with a gloomy expression.

But although most of them had sat down, no one made a move to take any of the food. 

There were 13 of them yesterday, but now there was only 9 left. On top fo that, one of these nine was completely frightened out of his wits.

This kind of panic spread endlessly and everyone waited silently for the woman in red to finish eating.

None of them though waited impatiently. The woman in red mentioned that after breakfast, everyone would gather together to play a game again.

Finally, the woman in red finished her breakfast. 

After wiping her mouth with a silk napkin, she stood up. “My friends, it’s time for the game. I can’t wait. You must all be excited as well.”

“Let’s enjoy the joy of the game together.” She said, “Please follow me.”

The woman in red brought everyone back to the same living room. It was much like it was late yesterday afternoon, although it was not long after dawn, the light in the living room of the villa had been extinguished and the only beam of light left was on the table she used to throw the die.

“Everyone, sit down as you please. The game will be starting immediately.” The woman in red stood at the table and directed the,. 

“Xue Jie, hold on to me.”

Lin Yi handed the corner of his shirt to Ou Ying. He then patted Cheng Yang, signaling Cheng Yang to follow him.

In the murky darkness, he brought Cheng Yang and Ou Ying to sit with him on the sofa.

They were seated far away from the woman in red so their hushed conversation won’t be heard. 

When he sat on the sofa, Lin Yi glanced at Qin Zhou. Qin Zhou hadn’t followed him. He leaned against the wall, staring at the woman in red.

Lin Yi withdrew his gaze and Ou Ying whispered in his ear, “Lin Yi, did you find anything?”

“Yeah.” Lin Yi nodded.

While the woman in red was waiting for everyone to take their seats, Lin Yi said in a low voice, “Xue Jie, I went to the kitchen just now.” 

The murder weapon used to kill Luo Yi was a chopstick. And so he went to the kitchen to see if the 2-6 Monster had left any traces in the kitchen.

Ou Ying asked, “What’s in the kitchen?”

Lin Yi thought that he would be met with scenes of blood and gore in the kitchen. After all, the food they were being served was enough to get people’s imaginations running. But he saw none of that.

Instead, I saw something even stranger. 

Lin Yi said: “There’s a lot of food coloring, mostly red.”

“There’s also lots of molds of all sorts of grotesque shapes.” Lin Yi said, “Like human organs, snakes, insects, rats and such.”

Cheng Yang listened with hand over his mouth, his brain had already crashed. Ou Ying thought for a second, “It means that those things on the table were created through those molds.”

“Yes.” Lin Yi nodded, “It’s must be made with something like flour batter. There was a lot of it in the kitchen.” 

The sound of the woman’s chewing also proved it. Chewing meat would not have produced such a fine sound.

“The strangest thing is…” Lin Yi said, “There was only one pair of chopsticks in the whole kitchen.”

And the chopsticks had been cleaned and placed nearly to one side. Lin Yi took a special look at the tips of that pair of chopsticks and saw that one had been sharpened.

Luo Yi must have been done in by that sharpened chopstick. When the 7-7 Monster wanted to kill Lin Yi, it had also sharpened a chopstick stolen from the breakfast table. 

An idea flashed through Ou Ying’s mind. She repeated the key words Lin Yi mentioned, trying to capture the swirling thoughts in her mind. “A pair of chopsticks, grotesque molds and a lot of flour…”

“En, en.” Lin Yi said, “The chopsticks had been cleaned, which proves that they’re still use for it.”

Ou Ying’s heart skipped a beat. “Is it going to use that chopstick to kill someone else tonight?”

Ou Ying’s thinking had been influenced by Luo Yi and Lin Yi patiently corrected her, “No, Xue Jie, this pair of chopsticks is originally something in the 2-6 Rule World. The 2-6 Rule World came first and then us who were drawn into this Rule World. It’s the 2-6 Monster who read Senior’s memories and is imitating the way the 7-7 Monster killed. If Senior hadn’t been drawn in or if the 2-6 Monster hadn’t read Senio’s memories, then this pair of chopsticks wouldn’t have been used to kill people.” 

Ou Ying frowned, thinking about the use of these chopsticks.

Cheng Yang next to him finally couldn’t hold back. He spoke, he spoke, this is the only thing he spoke!

Cheng Yang said, “For eating.”

Listening to Cheng Yang’s voice, Ou Ying was stunned. 

Isn’t the function of chopsticks for eating? And since there was only one pair…

Ou Ying said, “Does the red-clothed NPC use it to eat?”

“Yes.” Lin Yi nodded.

Chopsticks weren’t used to eat those things served on the dining table. The woman in red didn’t use them either; instead, donning gloves and picking them up directly. 

“She must use those chopsticks when she eats other things in private.” Lin Yi glanced at the woman in red and said, “She’s human and the light above her head is also proof. Once the lights are off, just like us, she can’t see clearly.”

Just like the old dorm manager, she’s an NPC and a human being.

“If she’s human, she can’t possibly eat raw organs and animal carcasses either. She used the molds to make those kinds of food.” Ou Ying said, “Why would she do something like that…”

Lin Yi said, “She’s trying to scare us on purpose.” 

Ou Ying was stunned. “Scare us?”

Lin Yi said, “Wearing red clothes makes people think of ghosts. Having the mirror face the bed, also a well-known feng shui taboo and this Anke game she plays is ultimately done to scare us.”

Ou Ying thought for a while: “…”

Lin Yi said, “Xue Jie, your thoughts?” 

Ou Ying: “Her Anke game is real.”

“Her Anke game is the signal of the coming of the rules of death. Rather, she is summoning the rules of death to appear. Yesterday, her cast in the Anke game, produced three ghosts. It’s like having having windows open simultaneously in three room in the 7-7 Rule World. There’s only one rule of death in the beginning, but it doesn’t mean this rule of death will only target one individual.” Lin Yi said, “Senior told me that the more people a Monster eats, the more powerful it will be. The 2 -6 Monster has existed for so many years, using one rule of death to kill multiple people in one night should be an advanced ability.”

In the Anke game, she rolled a three and three ghosts made their way among them.

The lost three people last night. 

This all confirmed Lin Yi’s speculation.

“During the day, her scaring us is to make us think that there are ghosts here.” Lin Yi said: “At night, the thermometer in the room drops suddenly to give us a hint that a ghost is coming. It’s a generally held belief that only the arrival of ghosts would cause the temperature to suddenly drop. The wrongly-situated full-length mirror is also placed so that we can see the ghosts lying on our backs.”

“Seeing and feeling ghosts…” Ou Ying said, “So the rule of death is…”

Lin Yi said, “Believing that there are ghosts in the world.” 

Cheng Yang shivered.

Ou Ying wanted to say something more, but——

‘clang’ ‘clang’

The sound of a falling die resounded in the living room. The woman in red said, “It turns out that the three ghosts followed you because they wanted to kill you. Two of them succeeded. Let’s see what will happen to the ghost that didn’t succeed.” What will it do? Give up? Continue? Or call in more ghosts.” 

Cheng Yang, once again failed to keep to his mute character. “It’s…going to fucking call in reinforcements? Ghost reinforcements?”

The woman in red looked down at the die and her expression darkened, “It’s given up.”

Cheng Yang wept with joy. “Bodhisattva bless us. Amitabha bless us. It is hard to persevere, but it is easy to give up. All ghosts, please follow this path.”

Lin Yi and Ou Ying were not as optimistic as Cheng Yang. Since the Anke game is a means for the woman in red to summon the rules of death, but because of the uncertainly produced by the roll of the die, under situations like these, the woman in red will most certainly have other means. 

Sure enough, the woman in red said, voice somber, “What is its reason for giving up? Is it because it simply wishes to rest for a day? Or is it because the people who’ve passed have become ghosts as well? Or could there be a more terrifying vicious ghost in the villa?”

‘clang’

‘clang’