CH 74

(All of you play the game for me!)

Edited by Silver Wind 

The night descended.

Like a light carriage going down a familiar road, Zhou Wenyan and Shen Dongqing felt their way into the Dean’s office.

This time around, there were no homicides in sight when they opened the door, and they managed to step inside the office smoothly.

However, the office was absurdly quiet tonight; let alone little children, not even the shadow of a ghost could be seen. 

Perhaps the children could only be called out when the music box sounded.

Zhou Wenyan: “Did you bring the music box?”

Shen Dongqing felt his pockets: “I forgot about it.”

The bulk of the music box was slightly big and it was not convenient to bring it on his person. Hence, he had placed it inside the room, and he only remembered that it was not on him when they needed to use it.

“I’ll go back and get it.” Shen Dongqing turned around to leave. Just as he was passing through the door, he seemed to think of something, which made him turn back. “The painting is gone.”

When Shen Dongqing was in the office last night, he had stepped on the portrait painting. Right now, however, the canvas was still on the floor while the person in the portrait had disappeared, only leaving that one familiar footprint.

The Dean had come out.

* * * 

During the night, players would usually choose to hide in their room, bury their heads, and sleep. Hence, no one realised that there was a human figure slowly making his way to the second floor quietly before he pushed open one of the room doors.

Creak—

The creaking noise of a door opening rang out in the corridor.

Perhaps someone had heard the sound, but they chose to maintain their silence. 

The Uncle looked left and right before he slinked into the room. Borrowing the moonlight, he could see that the room was completely empty. He closed the door with light movements and turned on his flashlight to rummage through the room.

After searching for a while, the Uncle ceased his movements. He raised his flashlight to scan the area and discovered that there was a music box below the pillow.

Most people would never bring a music box into the game, which meant that it was highly possible that they had found this prop in the Dean’s office last night.

The Uncle stuffed the music box into his clothes, first revealing a joyous smile before he spoke in an offhand and ferocious manner. “I knew they were fucking lying to me.” 

Since he had found the item he wanted, the Uncle intended to leave while its inhabitants had yet to make their return. However, just as he turned his body, he froze on the spot.

Unbeknownst to him, the door behind him had been opened by someone. A black and thinning figure could be seen standing in the corridor. They were not far from the entrance, but they could not be properly discerned.

The Uncle swallowed his saliva, not daring to move. Instead, he made use of the distance between him and the other person to start talking nonstop: “I don’t want to do this as well, who told you to hide the prop? I want to live too.”

That person did not move. The Uncle could only sense that he was being stared at by that ice-cold gaze. 

The Uncle released a heavy exhale as he raised the music box: “If you don’t give this to me, I might as well destroy it! None of us will get the chance to leave!”

Saying that, he pretended to smash the music box towards the ground with force.

But the Uncle only wanted to scare those two brats and he was prepared to stop at any given time. When all was said and done, he was not willing to lay waste to such an important prop for nothing.

Sure enough, immediately after he said those words, that black and thin figure seemed to sway before they walked closer to the door. 

Pleased, the Uncle stopped his action. “Is it bad for everyone to work together? As long as you give it to me, I’ll safekeep…”

His voice ceased abruptly.

Under the moonlight, the person walking over was not Shen Dongqing, and it was not Zhou Wenyan either, it was…

Wearing a  long black dress, the ashen-pale Dean gave him an eerie smile. 

The Uncle shuddered, immediately shutting the door in subconscious reflex. But shutting the door was not enough; he took quite a few objects to block the door, wanting to slow down the speed of the Dean’s arrival.

Da da da—

The Dean’s footsteps were neither hurried nor slow, but each step seemed to land on the Uncle’s chest, making it difficult for him to breathe.

The Uncle was akin to an ant on a hot plate; he did not know what he should do as he stood in the small and narrow room. 

The door had been blocked, there was only the window… Right, right, the window!

The Uncle flung himself towards the window, using one hand to pull open the window as he used one foot to step out.

“This is the second floor, it doesn’t matter.” As he said that, he lowered his head to look down.

And then he was confronted with a small face. 

“You’re a bad person.” Shun Shun raised his head, the space between his forehead artless and innocent. “You stole my stuff.”

The Uncle tried to defend himself. “No, it wasn’t me, someone else took it, it wasn’t me!”

Shun Shun: “It’s you, you’re a bad person.”

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Vtec Vtec uluuifv jcv rwlifv jr kfii.

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In the dead silent kindergarten, a wretched scream rang out, followed by a loud thud, like something had smashed into the ground.

The music box rumbled as it rolled far away, triggering the clockwork spring on top, which caused the sweet-sounding music to reverberate. 

Ding ling ling, ding ling ling—

Shun Shun walked out from the shadows with a bounce in his step. Leaping past the puddle of blood, he stooped over and picked up the music box. He held the music box in his embrace and crooned out a song: “I am the little hero of this kindergarten—”

But Shun Shun did not remain happy for long, since he saw familiar figures standing on the second floor looking at him the moment he turned around. It was unknown how long they had been standing there for, and they even made him jump in shock.

Frightened, Shun Shun hugged his music box, turned around, and ran. 

Other people were the ones running as they were being chased by the ghost, but in this instance, Shen Dongqing was the one chasing the ghost as he ran.

He chased up to Shun Shun in two to three strides, and he took advantage of his height to haul the child up.

Shun Shun’s short legs swayed in mid-air. They flailed for a long time before Shun Shun finally understood he had no way of running, thus, he opened his mouth to called for external assistance: “Mommy—”

Unfortunately for him, Shen Dongqing covered his mouth swiftly. 

“Wuu wuu…”

He was a small BOSS in front of the other players, but in the face of Shen Dongqing, he was reduced into a small and little child, who was pitiable and helpless.

Shen Dongqing’s voice became gentler: “Don’t be nervous.”

Shun Shun became more panic-stricken in expression, and he looked like he was going to cry out in the next second. 

Shen Dongqing: “Let me ask you a question, is that alright?”

Under such circumstances, it was not up to Shun Shun to reject his request, so he held back his tears and nodded.

When they realised the Dean in the painting had disappeared, Shen Dongqing and Zhou Wenyan had distributed their tasks and went their separate ways: one of them would obstruct the Den while the other would catch Shun Shun.

Furthermore, Zhou Wenyan had deliberately instructed Shen Dongqing to ask Shun Shun two questions after he found him. 

Shen Dongqing recalled those questions before he asked: “Did you cause the deaths of the kindergarten staff members?”

Shun Shun felt the three words “cause the death” was not an appropriate descriptor. When Shen Dongqing moved his hand away, he said: “All of them were bad teachers, they shouldn’t be in the school, I only chased them away.”

If they were normal teachers, it goes without saying that they could be chased away. But those people were players, if they were forced to leave the game premises before the game concluded, their only ending was death.

Shen Dongqing: “Why did you chase them away?” 

“I already said that they’re bad teachers!” Shun Shun pursed his lips before he tried to explain, “They don’t like my friends, they tried to hurt them, and they did bad things, which is why I wanted to chase them away, I want to protect the kindergarten!”

At this moment, Zhou Wenyan shook off the Dean and came to the first floor of the classroom building.

Still holding onto Shun Shun, Shen Dongqing handed him over to Zhou Wenyan before he recounted the answers to the questions he had asked just now.

After hearing his narration, Zhou Wenyan said: “He’s not wrong in saying that.” 

The three players in their instance had more or less committed those taboos.

The Long-skirted Lady promised to play with the children but went back on her word later; the circumstances that surrounded the Blonde-haired Boy was unknown, but from the looks of it, he probably encountered Guo Guo last night, and he struck first to gain the advantage due to his fears; the Uncle belonged to the death-seeking category through and through, since the people who originally took away the music box was both of them, and Shun Shun was supposed to look for them. In the end, Shun Shun had bumped into the thieving Uncle, who was then summarily disposed of.

Zhou Wenyan looked towards the deathly pale and small faced Shun Shun before he asked: “What happens if you lose the game?”

Feeling strange, Shun Shun tilted his head: “If you lose, you lose, it’s just a game ah.” He said resentfully, “Why are all the adults so petty?” 

Zhou Wenyan finally understood.

The death condition for this instance was not the game playing. The Dean had already stated it clearly: the players must fulfil their duties and obligations, and be a good teacher.

It was just that the game hit them with a sentence, asking “whence did the children die”, which made the players aware of the fact that the children they were teaching were all ghosts. Since first impressions were the strongest and prejudices die hard, the small things in everything were covered with a veil of strangeness. Plagued by insecurities, the players would even start holding their guards against the students.

And once they started having malicious intentions towards the children, it would trigger the death condition, thus causing the big and small bosses of the kindergarten to appear. 

Shen Dongqing was still confused: “So where did the children die?”

It was unknown what the question had jabbed in Shun Shun, because he started to struggle with his entire body. Inexplicably, he shrieked: “Everyone is fine, all of you are bad people, bad people!”

Like a loach, Shun Sun wriggled out of Shen Dongqing’s grasp. Having attained his freedom, he rushed back into the classroom building, and he even turned back to make a grimace at Shen Dongqing,

Zhou Wenyan looked over. 

What greeted him were a number of small faces pressed against the classroom window as they stared at the two people standing outside expressionlessly.

Zhou Wenyan: “Perhaps not a single one of them had died.”

Shen Dongqing did not understand what he was trying to insinuate. Hence, he looked at Zhou Wenyan with his distinctive eyes, perplexed.

Zhou Wenyan felt that he looked exceedingly cute with that appearance, so he pinched his cheek. “I am quite close to the answer, do you want to play here for two more days?” 

This was the confidence that a big boss had.

Other players would be crying and shouting to get out of the copy, but when it came to Zhou Wenyan, it was the question of whether they wanted to play for two more days here.

Shen Dongqing shook his head. “There’s nothing fun to play here.”

Zhou Wenyan said: “Hm, we can solve the riddle apropos tomorrow then.” 

* * *

After waking up on the second day.

In the face of the Uncle, who had split apart like a watermelon on impact, the other players were no longer fazed by such a strange sight.

In fact, Fang Qi even felt curious: “There’s only two floor here, how did he manage to fall into such a state?” 

Blonde Lady: “Vomit—”

Perhaps because losing her boyfriend had proven to be too huge of a blow, Fringed Girl had lost her consciousness after she woke up. She was like a living spirit who had been wrongly put to death as she wandered around the kindergarten.

Presently, there were only five players who were capable of conscious action.

Zhou Wenyan gathered all of them together and said: “Take turns and play the game with the children.” 

The Blonde Lady and Male Student exchanged gazes. Hesitantly, they asked: “This… is that feasible?”

If they were to play a game with the children despite knowing that they were not humans, wouldn’t they be looking for death?

Zhou Wenyan said: “There is no danger.”

The Blonde Lady and Male Student were still reluctant to brave the danger, and only Fang Qi followed in the big bosses’ footsteps closely. 

Zhou Wenyan became slightly impatient. Lifting his eyelids, he glanced at them with a superficial smile. “Playing the game is not necessarily dangerous, but not playing the game… that might not be the case.”

The Blonde Lady and Male Student shuddered in response. Left without a choice, they could only look for the students to play a game.

With the passing of the night, all of the students reverted back to humans from their porcelain doll states, and all of them were squeezed inside one classroom.

It was like they were completely unaware of the fact that they were porcelain dolls; when they saw the teachers enter the classroom, they kept saying that they were hungry and that they wanted to eat. 

The Blonde Lady and Male Student walked inside and randomly found one of the children. “I want to play a game with you.”

The originally noisy classroom quietened down instantaneously.

“Are you certain?” They asked in unison. “You want to play a game with us?”

Truth to be told, the Blonde Lady and Male Student really wanted to say that they did not want to play. 

But they had no choice, there were wolves in front of them and tigers at the back and they could only choose one. Thus, they toughened their scalps and agreed.

Fang Qi was under comparatively less pressure as he nodded his head as well.

The children were very happy because there were three people who were going to play with them. However, their happiness did not last long since they saw the two demon kings walking in soon after.

Shen Dongqing leaned against the door and waved at the children in greeting: “Hi—” 

The children’s smiles stiffened.

“No, I don’t want to play with them!”

“I don’t want to either!”

“Go away, go away!” 

Evidently, the two consecutive failures that they experienced previously dealt a severe blow to the children, and they did not want to play with the pair any longer. Thus, all of their heads started shaking like rattle-drums.

Upon seeing that, Shen Dongqing said regretfully, “Fine…”

Only the three players played with the children.

The twelve children split into three groups, and each group played a different game with the players. 

Guo Guo tugged the Blonde Lady and uttered: “Teacher, let’s play bean bags together oh.”

The Blonde Lady faltered as she caught the bean bag. Swallowing her saliva, she asked: “How is it played?”

Guo Guo explained: “Stand in the circle, if the bean bag hits you, you lose.”

Blonde Lady: “What will happen if you lose?” 

Guo Guo giggled, “Why don’t you guess?”

The Blonde Lady’s heart chilled.

It was definitely some kind of bad ending…

But since she had no other alternative, Blonde Lady could only pray that she could win the game. 

She held onto the bean bag tightly: “Bring it.”

The three students stood around the Blonde Lady, and they were holding one bean bag each.

Guo Guo opened her mouth, “Three, two, one— start!”

The bean bags were thrown towards the Blonde Lady one by one. 

Since the Blonde Lady was going up against three alone, it was a little difficult for her to salvage the situation. In the beginning, she was capable of dodging, but the bean bag throwing became more and more intensive as the game proceeded. Out of a moment of carelessness, she was hit by one of the bean bags.

The bean bag was very light, but her entire body went cold.

What should I do, I’m going to die…

The Blonde Lady closed her eyes in extreme despair. 

However, despite remaining shut-eyed for a period of time, the scenes that she had imagined did not occur. She only heard Guo Guo say: “Teacher, you’ve lost oh.”

“Teacher is so useless.”

“Let’s leave.”

Having said that, the three children left, leaving the Blonde Lady to stand there alone, dazed. 

There was no punishment at all; it was as though it was just a small game.

The Blonde Lady stilled momentarily before she looked at the rest.

The Male Student and Fang Qi had won their games, though more scared than hurt. The Blonde Lady had lost her game, but there were no scary consequences.

And through the game, they earned a piece of information. 

Fang Qi received a piece of old newspaper, while the male student obtained a detailed list of the staff.

Fang Qi remarked, “So we can obtain the clues by playing the game? That’s way too simple!”

The Male Student also shared the same sentiment.

Therefore, why were they on tenterhooks for the past two days? They only had to play the game with the children directly. 

However, they did not want to. If it were not for Zhou Wenyan forcing them to play the game, how could they possibly believe that playing the game with the children would pose no risk to them?

Having understood that the game was not dangerous, and that it allowed them to gain information, the players required no further urging. Rather, they went to battle again in turns, treating the children like game copies that they were going through.

After being asked time and time again, the children started kicking up a fuss: “I don’t want to play the game anymore!”

Fang Qi gave them a malevolent smile. “You don’t get to choose.” 

They were previously clamouring about wanting to play the game, and now they were crying and shouting because they did not want to play any longer? Since when was there such a fortunate thing?

However, the children still wanted to pretend that it never happened, so they sat their butts on the ground, refusing to play the game with them.

It was at the moment where Shen Dongqing stood up: “You can play with us then.”

The children: …… 

If they had to choose, they would definitely choose the other three players.

Hence, the children climbed to their feet reluctantly as they hung their heads dispiritedly. The children with poorer psychological qualities were already on the verge of tears. “Play, let’s play, ying ying ying…”

As Shen Dongqing bit into his ice cream, he mumbled out: “All of you play the game for me!”

Without any suspense, the children were played to the point where they were in despair, while the players obtained all the clues. 

The children who finally gained their freedom again ran out of the classroom swiftly. Judging from their appearances, it looked like they never wanted to play the game ever again, and they did not even want to hear the word ‘game’!

Meanwhile, the players were too lazy to give chase, and they started to organise the clues they had in their hands.

《 The Kindergarten’s Unacceptable Management, Logistical Purchase of Harmful Food, Twelve Students were Severely Poisoned as a Result, and They Remain Unconscious 》

《 The Dean of Haiduo Kindergarten Committed Suicide out of Guilt, Contact has been lost with all the staff involved after the event, Haiduo Kindergarten is Permanently Closed 》 

《 The other students have fully recuperated one after another, the twelve students have yet to awaken 》

《 The Name List for Haiduo Kindergarten’s Staff 》

……

A story stringed itself together. 

The Dean of Haiduo Kindergarten had a sick child, but it did not hinder her from being a good Dean and Mother. Perhaps, Shun Shun had fallen sick during that period of time, so she had no time to care for the kindergarten. However, her absence caused a lapse which the evildoers exploited, and they did some bad things for money, which resulted in mass food poisoning among the students. The most severe of the cases were the twelve students who were still unconscious to this day and their lives were in danger.

The Dean felt incredibly guilty because of this and Shun Shun had passed away from his illness. Under these two heavy blows, she committed suicide.

And perhaps because of her guilt, she built another Haiduo Kindergarten for the children after death.

T/N: To the Ko-Fi supporters, I will get to the extra updates soon, probably for the next arc ><

Thank you for your patience!!