Forces of TemptationCh45 - Sha, Sha, Sha

In the school, almost all teaching buildings were around five floors and most of the student dormitories didn’t exceed four floors. They were arranged in rows and connected in sequences. It wasn’t of a height where an elevator needed to be installed.

There weren’t many places to install elevators on this large campus. There was the dormitory for international students. The medical and chemical buildings were slightly taller and required a large number of equipment to be transported. There was also the administrative office building that was around 24 floors high. There were two newly constructed high-rise dormitories that were completed less than three years ago. z1KO7J

One was a dormitory building for teachers. The other one was a dormitory building for the mathematics department. The first reason why the mathematics department enjoyed the benefits of the dormitory with an elevator was because they originally lived in one of the oldest and most dilapidated dormitories in the school. The second reason was that the president of Jinjing University was originally a professor in the mathematics department.

Among the seven existing people, there was exactly one student of the mathematics department. It was Xie Xiangyu. The originally broken relationship chain now had a weak tether but this correlation wasn’t enough to prove anything.

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Li Yinhang speculated. “There is an elevator in the dormitory building of the mathematics department but can it prove that the person who left the recording is from the mathematics department? The medical department, the chemical engineering department and even the administrative teachers in the office building can’t be completely excluded.”

Nan Zhou was standing in the stairwell on the highest floor of the mathematics department’s dormitory when she asked the question. The stairwell was sunny. Nevertheless, it felt cold when the autumn sun shone on his body. fpvTm0

Nan Zhou took one step down. He had gone back to his dormitory this morning and even had enough peace of mind to select new clothing for himself. The soles of his strappy Martin boots knocked on the ground and there was a clear echo in the stairwell. Nan Zhou looked up at the still dim lights in the corridor. “There is a small clue in the recording.”

“What?”

“When he ran away,” Nan Zhou explained. “There was a sound in the background.”

Li Yinhang struggled to recall it but she wasn’t successful. She had just fallen into darkness and she had been highly nervous. The hurried footsteps had stolen all her attention and she couldn’t care about anything else.

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Nan Zhou glanced at Jiang Fang.

Jiang Fang nodded to confirm Nan Zhou’s judgment. “Yes. It is a buzzing sound.”

Li Yinhang, “……” So the bigshots had their own tape recorders in their minds, right?

She thought deeply about it on the basis of this clue. A buzzing sound… Md1qta

Buzz.

Nan Zhou had looked up at the lights just now.

Li Yinhang was enlightened. “The light-sensing, sound controlled sensor lights!”

If it was late at night and the corridor was quiet, the light bulbs would emit such a low hum when it caught the sound of footsteps. The surrounding area immediately became bright. This was the slightly burning sound of the tungsten wire. The light bulbs in the corridors of the school were provided by the same company and the surfaces were coated with light sensing materials. It meant that the time when the recorder was fleeing was likely late at night. MZpTaA

It was late at night. There was an elevator. In addition, the person who left the message was very familiar with the room distributions. He was familiar enough to use the elevator and an unlocked room to avoid the rustling sound. It was like he lived there.

It wasn’t difficult to come to a conclusion after combining these elements. The place where the person disappeared was most likely the dormitory building of the mathematics department. It was the space where they were located—this stairwell.

The hairs on Li Yinhang’s body stood up directly. She gritted her teeth and asked, “It is possible… the person who left the message stayed in the laboratory building or the office building late at night… in addition, if he is running like this through the dormitory building then why didn’t he ask for help? If he is from the mathematics department then there must be people he knew in the building, right?”

Nan Zhou suggested, “Prove it.” R9g6m

“How…”

We’re sorry for MTLers or people who like using reading mode, but our translations keep getting stolen by aggregators so we’re going to bring back the copy protection. If you need to MTL please retype the gibberish parts.

Nan Zhou told her, “Find the room.”

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Nan Zhou held the door handle, imitating the person on that night as he slowly pushed the handle down. It was like he was afraid of startling the ghost in the darkness.

The lock spring made a dull sound. It was so small that it was negligible. However, for the recorder who came to escape from the death situation, the sound might’ve resounded like thunder. As they thought, the door wasn’t locked.

There was a blast of cold wind and the door opened inward. The entire scene inside was slowly revealed to the three of them. No one had been here for a long time. The evidence was the thin layer of dust accumulated on the light-colored floor tiles. Li Yinhang wanted to go in but she saw that the two bigshots didn’t intend to go in and shrank back.

Nan Zhou whispered, “Nothing.” aMrELC

Then he looked at Li Yinhang again. Li Yinhang felt like she was a mediocre student who was spotted in class but she just wanted to slink off like a fish. Eventually, she had to grit her teeth and look at the ground in front of her like these two people.

Perhaps it was due to panic. She looked several times but didn’t see anything special. This was just a utility room. There were three or four cabinets in the room. One of them was a transparent office bookcase with glass sliding doors. Through the dusty gray glass, she could vaguely see several empty dark blue file boxes stacked vertically and horizontally.

The other cabinets were exactly the same as the standard lead-gray iron wardrobes in the school dormitories. Broken and redundant wardrobes were probably moved to this abandoned place. In the corner were a few brooms that had split or were missing parts.

There were stacks of express curious boxes. There were six or seven chairs with the ‘Jinjing University’ logo on them and a pot of dead succulents on the window sill. The curtains were so tightly drawn that they didn’t show any bit of light. The potted plants were forgotten behind the curtains and died quietly without any light. 6GWXcY

It was a dark garbage dump.

After observing for a long time, a faint snake-like chill crawled up from Li Yinhang’s ankles, making her very uncomfortable. Li Yinhang tentatively asked, “Um, this should be that man’s last hiding place?”

Nan Zhou nodded and looked at her like he was waiting.

Li Yinhang, “……” LzlGRI

After watching each other for a long time, Li Yinhang was a bit embarrassed. She touched her head. “I’m delaying things. I really didn’t find anything. Or Teacher Nan, you can tell me directly…”

Nan Zhou coldly said, “You should look well.”

Li Yinhang’s back muscles subconsciously tightened. Li Yinhang might’ve left school and entered society early but she still had the frightening muscle memories of this type of overwhelming teacher’s aura. It wasn’t until now that Li Yinhang was convinced that Nan Zhou was a teacher.

Nan Zhou told her, “An instance is very difficult. You must have the knowledge and strength to protect yourself. Look well.” foR5qv

Li Yinhang couldn’t help but flinch. She didn’t dare put her hope on Nan Zhou anymore and focused her full attention on the room. After settling down, a sense of disharmony rushed into her heart. Where was it…

Her face was white and she lost her voice. “Footprints!”

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After hearing the answer, Nan Zhou turned back to the room. Yes. There were no footprints. No one had come to this room for a long time. The party was held a week ago. If someone had really escaped here, the footprints in the dust would extend all the way to the iron cabinet. So why were there no footprints?

Li Yinhang murmured, “Didn’t that man hide here? Have we got it wrong?” rKPYdB

At this time, Nan Zhou stepped into the room. He took a few steps on the light-colored tiles and looked back. The footprints were exceptionally clear. Nan Zhou turned back and walked toward the cabinet closest to the door. He stood in front of it and lowered his head thoughtfully.

Since entering the instance, they had tried various methods. They looked for Hu Li, found clues from themselves, tried to live the characters’ lives and went to Room 403. Nevertheless, they hadn’t found any valid leads.

The game shouldn’t be like this. This was a game and there should always be solutions and clues. Even if it was originally an unsolvable problem the programmer and GM hiding behind it would try to come up with a reasonable solution. It was like…

Nan Zhou closed his eyes and fragmented scenes flashed in front of him. mT0hOM

A full moon in the sky. Smiling, well-intentioned or malicious faces. The sharp burning pain as a current flowed through his body…

If there was no answer then all puzzles were meaningless. The so-called game was exactly the same.

Nan Zhou exerted his strength and opened the cabinet in front of him. The inside was empty. There was only a bunch of rotten rags curled up in the corner of the cabinet that emitted an unpleasant, rotten milk smell.

He heard a sigh of regret from Li Yinhang behind him. Nevertheless, he didn’t stop and opened several cabinets in succession. They were all the same. Nothing was gained from them. BRvgbp

Since there were no footprints, Li Yinhang wasn’t sure if this was the room where the hiding person disappeared. She consciously glanced at Jiang Fang.

If Jiang Fang told them to leave then Nan Zhou would listen. Jiang Fang leaned against the door and had no intention of leaving. He watched Nan Zhou’s back with star-like trust and appreciation in his eyes.

Nan Zhou sensed the gaze from behind him and turned his head. Jiang Fang nodded to him with encouragement.

Find it slowly, think slowly. YcvZdO

Nan Zhou stood up and thought for a moment. Then he walked back to the first cabinet. This was the closest cabinet to the door. If he was the person who left the recording behind and needed to hide, he would choose the cabinet that was closest to the door and least likely to make a noise.

He pulled open the cabinet again and the rotten smell came over. Nan Zhou’s eyes told him there was nothing there except for dirty rags. Still, he crouched down. Half his body was in the cabinet and he used only his hand as the method of perception to grope at all corners.

There would always be a key to solving the problem. A moment later, Nan Zhou’s fingertips touched something. It was hard so it wasn’t a rag. Nan Zhou moved the thing from the tip of his finger to the palm of his hand. He repeatedly touched it and confirmed its shape before standing up. He faced the other two people and extended his palm to them. “I found it.”

Li Yinhang was confused for a moment. Nan Zhou’s hands were clearly holding nothing. However, Jiang Fang walked into the room and naturally placed his finger on Nan Zhou’s palm. The two people looked at each other. uMVO1Y

On the night when the ‘sha sha’ sound infinitely approached, the man hiding in the cabinet shook and made too much movement. Thus, he lost something. It was the key in his pocket. The key could be touched but couldn’t be seen. It was just like its owner. It was as the recording said.

“We shouldn’t have gone there. That place doesn’t exist so we can’t exist—”

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The existence of the key was erased from their vision. If something was invisible to everyone then from the perspective of society, it didn’t exist. Things were like this and the same was true for people.

Jiang Fang took the invisible key and walked out quickly. His request was simple and clear. “Find Xie Xiangyu’s dormitory.” OFiHAv

The man disappeared in the dormitory building of the mathematics department. Xie Xiangyu was the only mathematics student among them. There must be a connection between them.

Xie Xiangyu’s dormitory wasn’t difficult to find. It was on the eighth floor, room 0814. It was just that everyone was out now and the door was locked.

Jiang Fang took the key that didn’t exist and tried to unlock it. Nan Zhou looked up at the signs with names at the door. There were four people living in 0814. They were Xie Xiangyu, Yu Min and Liu Shuoqi.

No matter how much he concentrated, this was the only concept in his head. There were four people here. There were three names on the board. Every time he noticed a problem, it would automatically filter out of his mind, leaving only a faint shadow behind. It was a shadow of a snake in a cup. gJPo8Y

Nan Zhou closed his eyes again. He thought of the morning. In the morning, he returned to his dormitory. There was a cursory inspection and Nan Zhou took his seat. The other three people were frantically studying so it was understandable that they didn’t greet him.

Then when Nan Zhou accidentally touched the roommate sitting next to him, the man was frightened and jumped. Then what did the roommate say? “Nan Zhou, are you a cat? Why do you walk so silently?”

This was when Nan Zhou felt a bit strange. It seemed like… his existence had become muted and it was difficult for others to perceive it.

What if Hu Li and the vanished person who left the message were caught up in something like this? Other people forgot Hu Li and only the recorder remembered him a bit. The way Hu Li was forgotten was very similar to their present situation. They, the players, never even knew the name of the man who had died and left the message. u9Q18C

…What a terrible correlation and coincidence. The even more frightening thing was that the one who left the message also gradually found that the connections between himself and the world were being cut off little by little.

No one could see him, hear him or feel him. All of this happened after he started to hear the ‘sha sha’ noises. Even though he ran and cried out in his familiar dormitory corridor. Even though he shook his sleeping roommate. Even though he knocked on the doors of other rooms for help. Even though he ran through the stairwell and the corridor in the middle of the night, creating the fierce sound of footsteps…

No one responded to him and no one rescued him.

Nan Zhou thought of the storage room they had just found. Behind that door where the ground was covered with dust, there was most likely the recorder’s messy footprints. It was just that they couldn’t see them. 6axO9

Nan Zhou closed his eyes and used his hands to examine the name sign boards hanging at the door. He needed to prove his conjecture. The signs could be removed. Once the previous residents moved out or transferred to other dormitories, these names could be removed and replaced with new names.

Nan Zhou took out one name sign board and held it in his hand. The name was engraved with embossed lettering. Nan Zhou touched it one by one.

Xie Xiangyu, Yu Min, Liu Shuoqi…

Then he touched a complete stranger’s name. He mused on the name in his heart. t8BFRj

“Zuo…”

“Jia…”

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“Ming.”

Zuo Jiaming. wdtjq8

The man who left the recording finally had a name. Just as Nan Zhou was about to speak…

“Sha sha.”

“Sha sha.”

“Sha sha.” XD7oa6

The rustling that suddenly rang in his ears was too subtle and mysterious. It seemed to be a sneer mocking Nan Zhou’s inability to help himself.

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Proofreader: Purichan

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