CH 63

There was a short period of silence before Cheng Yue asked, “Have you seen this woman before?”

Su Xiaomian thought deeply before she said with the utmost certainty, “I haven’t seen this woman, so I also think it’s weird. Not only is my house full of her photographs, but she’s even wearing all my clothes!” 

The group wanted to learn more about the situation from Su Xiaomian, but before they could ask, the office door was kicked open.

“Peng!” 

Gu Xizhou, Si Yu, and the group all looked at the door. After it opened, a male student casually walked in. He was wearing a leopard print t-shirt and a pair of washed out and holey jeans. He held a pile of books in his hands, and his hair was dyed an exaggerated pink.

Noticing the stares of Cheng Yue and the others, he raised his eyebrows in displeasure and chewed on some gum, asking, “What are you looking at? Haven’t you ever seen a cool Ge like me?” 

“Qi Fei, who let you into my office?” Su Xiaomian raised a graceful eyebrow at the young student by the door.

When the student called Qi Fei heard Su Xiaomian’s question, he revealed a stupefied expression and said, “Dang! Just now, I was under the teaching building, and Teacher Su, you insisted on dragging me up here!”

“I dragged you up here?”

“If not you, don’t tell me it was a ghost, ah?” he said. Then, he pointed outside the door and scratched his head, saying doubtfully, “Strange, I just saw you enter the restroom, so how could you get to the office before me?”

Su Xiaomian raised her eyebrows, nonplussed. “What nonsense are you spouting? When did I ever call you?”

As Su Xiaomian spoke, her voice suddenly cut off, and her face grew pale, as if she’d thought of something. She urgently asked Qi Fei, “I was just with you?”

Qi Fei rolled his eyes and hoisted the math materials in his arms, looking at Su Xiaomian as if she was an idiot. “Teacher, is there something wrong with your head, or what? Isn’t this stuff what you just gave to me?”

When they heard this, Gu Xizhou, Si Yu, and Fang Zhi all exchanged a meaningful look. Gu Xizhou proposed, “Let’s go to the toilet to have a look?” 

Everyone agreed one by one and trotted to the restroom.

“No one!” Cheng Yue and a few female students entered the women’s restroom together to loop in and out for a look, but there was no one in it.

“Is she there? Is she there or not?!” asked Su Xiaomian, grabbing Cheng Yue’s arm urgently.

Cheng Yue shook his head, “We didn’t see anyone.” 

Just as Gu Xizhou wanted to begin questioning, he saw Si Yu make a forbidding gesture at him.

“Shh, be quiet,” Si Yu whispered. “Do you hear footsteps in the hallway?”

“It seems like there are.” Gu Xizhou nodded.

The few of them quickly ran to the entrance of the hallway, but unfortunately they only saw a woman’s back. 

“Lfg!” Ve Wljbwljc, ktb tjv lcnlafv Xe Wlhtbe jcv atf batfgr, rjk atf yjmx bo atf oluegf, jcv tfg mbwqifzlbc lwwfvljafis aegcfv jr qjif jr qjqfg. Vtf mglfv bea, “Pa’r tfg! Pa’r atja kbwjc!”

“Lfg? Lbk mbeiv rtf yf lcrlvf atf rmtbbi?!”

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“How could Qi Fei be unable to tell her and me apart? I’m not like her at all. How could he not tell? It’s not possible, ah… It’s impossible!” 

After conversing with Su Xiaomian, Gu Xizhou discovered that she doesn’t know and has never seen the woman inside the photograph. Furthermore, she knows very little about the woman, and her task for them is to find this woman before the start of the new term. Currently, there were twelve days until the new term.

When it came time to divide the rooms, Gu Xizhou, Si Yu, and Fang Zhi all chose the same room. Because he had previously experienced that high-maintenance yao Fu Yiran, Gu Xizhou didn’t have a very favorable opinion of those teammates who wanted to stay with them. He directly rejected quite a few requests.

They were staying in the teachers’ dormitory. Because the term had yet to begin, none of the teachers were at school. Su Xiaomian took responsibility for them and let them stay in the school dormitories.

Gu Xizhou used a key to open the door. Inside the room, two bunk beds were set up. Because it was a teacher’s dormitory, the room’s conditions were much nicer than the room in the first world Gu Xizhou was resurrected in. 

After Gu Xizhou walked in, he looked at the gradually darkening sky outside the window and couldn’t help asking the same question as the NPC. “Why do you think Qi Fei recognized the wrong person? The two of them obviously look different.”

Si Yu said mildly, “Maybe he saw the appearance of Su Xiaomian herself, and not the short-haired woman.”

“You’re right. Tomorrow, when we see Qi Fei again, we’ll ask him whether the woman he saw had long hair or short hair. Then we’ll have the answer.” said Gu Xizhou after he quickly washed his face.

Si Yu said, “En.” He pointed to the empty upper bunk and said, “You sleep on top.” 

Gu Xizhou: “Please, I promise not to wander around!”

Si Yu cast a sidelong glance at him, and Gu Xizhou shut his mouth.

He resignedly climbed the ladder and lay down on the top bunk. As he settled down, Gu Xizhou complained, “Xiao Si, you have no trust in me at all!”

Si Yu: “Shut up. Go to sleep.” 

With these words, the sound of two people’s steady breathing soon appeared. Fang Zhi seemed to have already grown accustomed to this kind of situation. He lay down, staring at the ceiling overhead and counting silently to lull himself to sleep.

Nothing happened during the night. The next morning, Gu Xizhou, who was sleeping until dawn, was woken up by Si Yu.

After seeing the rest of their teammates, Gu Xizhou noticed that quite a few of them had dark circles hanging beneath their eyes. Clearly, they didn’t sleep well last night, or maybe they didn’t dare to sleep at all.

The group went to the school dining hall to eat breakfast. Although the new term had not begun, many students had already returned to campus. Because of the chattering students inside the dining hall, it was always somewhat noisy. 

Gu Xizhou bowed his head to eat, looking around at the few students in the dining hall. He didn’t see any trace of the student from yesterday, Qi Fei.

“What are you looking at?” asked Cheng Yue. He noticed Gu Xizhou searching all over the place and immediately took a quick look at the surroundings.

Gu Xizhou said faintly, “Looking to see whether that Qi Fei is in the dining hall. Last night I thought of something I want to ask him.”

Cheng Yue: “Do you want to ask him what the woman he saw looked like?” 

“En.” Gu Xizhou also didn’t intend to conceal something so large. It seemed that more than just their group of three had thought of this.

Cheng Yue nodded and didn’t ask further.

Because they were unable to determine where Qi Fei was, the team simply divided into twos and threes and prepared to try their luck and see if they couldn’t run into Qi Fei, or maybe that woman, inside the school.

Some people went to the boys’ dormitory, some went to the school building, and some went to the sports field to look for Qi Fei. 

Finally, only Gu Xizhou’s three were remaining. Upon seeing this, Fang Zhi asked, “Gu Ge, where are we going to look for Qi Fei? The school building, the dormitory, and the sports field all have somebody going.”

Gu Xizhou thought to himself, then he pointed toward the building in front of them, saying indifferently, “Go there.”

“The library?” Fang Zhi stared blankly and said, “That Qi Fei doesn’t look like the kind of person to hang around in a library…”

Fang Zhi didn’t say this in a derogatory manner. It was only that Qi Fei really didn’t look like a student who studied diligently. 

“Yesterday, when Qi Fei came to the office, he was holding advanced math materials, and he also mentioned wanting to retake an exam. Now, there are only ten days until the start of the term, and makeup exams are usually conducted before it starts.”

“Therefore, he’s more likely to be in the library than the dormitory.”

Si Yu explained, clearly endorsing Gu Xizhou’s choice.

The three people entered the library in a line. There weren’t many people in the library. As they looked through the floor, they only saw a sparse seven or eight people. At the very end was Qi Fei with his head full of pink hair, simply the most eye catching fool in the crowd. 

Gu Xizhou had just climbed to the second floor when he saw that garish pink hair.

Qi Fei was leaning forward on the desk, asleep. The books in his hands had already fallen to the ground. He really was a learning scum. Rather than coming to the library to read books, it was better to come and sleep.

Si Yu went over and gathered the materials on the ground. He stood up and put them in front of Qi Fei. As if he sensed someone, Qi Fei sat up in daze and apologized.

“It’s you!” When Qi Fei saw them, he moodily rolled his eyes. 

Si Yu was unimpressed with Qi Fei’s attitude. He glanced at the subject Qi Fei was working on in his notebook and said, “Can’t you solve this question?”

Qi Fei was a little embarrassed when he heard this. He said, “None of my classmates are here to take the start of term makeup exam, so there’s no one to ask about the problem.”

Si Yu took the notes Qi Fei set down and easily wrote a few pencil strokes.

Gu Xizhou didn’t understand, but Qi Fei, who’d been working on the problem, immediately understood that Si Yu was writing the answer. At the same time, Si Yu asked casually as if talking with a friend, “Qi Fei, do you think Teacher Su is good-looking?” 

“Teacher Su?” Qi Fei looked a little distracted, and he whispered, “Half of our class’ boys like her, and you say she’s just good-looking?”

“Then, do you think she looks good with long hair or with short hair?”

Gu Xizhou heard Si Yu’s question and suddenly realized Si Yu was using a roundabout way to to seek confirmation of their conjecture from yesterday.

Qi Fei thought for a moment, as if visualizing the two kinds of hairstyles to see which would suit Su Xiaomian. After a moment, he said, “Both look good, but I prefer how she looks with long hair.” 

“Her current hairstyle, you say?” Si Yu asked.

Qi Fei nodded, answering confidently: “Right, ah. Long hair has a very womanly quality.”

After he spoke, Gu Xizhou’s group of three exchanged a look. They could be certain that Qi Fei saw a long haired woman. In other words, Qi Fei saw a woman who looked just like Su Xiaomian, and not the short haired woman.

After they finished asking Qi Fei questions, Gu Xizhou and the others left the library to go discuss and look for the others when they suddenly saw the woman standing on the third floor of the library—— she looked just like that woman in Su Xiaomian’s photograph! 

The three hurriedly ran to the third floor, but there was no one there.

Si Yu swept his eyes over the people in the library to find a prime target. He sat beside a female student by the window. Because he was handsome, the schoolgirl stealthily peeked at him out of the corner of her eyes as soon as he sat down.

“Sorry to disturb your studies. May I ask you a question?” Si Yu asked softly, showing a charming smile.

“Ask, ba!” The schoolgirl raised the corners of her mouth, and there were two lovely dimples on her smiling face. 

Si Yu pointed at the window. Judging from the position, the short haired woman should have been standing there just a moment ago, looking at them downstairs. “Just now, did you see someone here?”

“Are you talking about Teacher Su, ba?” the schoolgirl said with a smile.

Si Yu: “Yes, do you know where she went?”

“She said she was tired of reading and returned to her office!” 

“Thank you.” After confirming the information, Si Yu, Gu Xizhou, and Fang Zhi ran out of the library and were about to go to the office to see whether they could meet that woman.

Just as they exited the library, they ran into two men who were just about losing their heads in fear. Gu Xizhou had an impression of these two people; they were teammates. One of them was called Xia Hang, the other was Bai Dongyang. When they previously separated, Gu Xizhou remembered, there was a young woman together with them.

Gu Xizhou already had a guess in mind, but he still asked, “Why do you look so pale? What happened?”

Xia Hang and Bai Dongyang heard him and began to tremble all over. They said, “Dead- Someone’s dead…”