Nan Zhou and the others happened to enter 403 at exactly 7:30 p.m. last week. For the hours remaining, the three people looked at the information on their phones and gathered what they had brought with them when they stepped into the room of death last week.
They were going to repeat what they did last Friday.
For the night visit, they called the Sun Guojing trio to go with them. Sun Guojing decided to go with them without arguing. There was no other reason. He had no way back. Hu Li said that once he heard the ‘sha sha’ sound, it was difficult for them to perceive his presence anymore. Sun Guojing was only one step away from fading out of their world.
The six of them met again, sat together and took the time to confirm their mobile phone records so they had grabbed everything they brought that day. They were trying to recreate that day and bridge, poker, aeroplane chess, table curling and other board games were readily available. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aeroplane_chess)
These were all prepared by Sun Guojing. They didn’t have time to open them after returning with them. The games were still packed in a cloth bag and thrown carelessly on the edge of the balcony. There were two small tickets in the cloth bag, one for the supermarket and the other for the milk tea takeaway. The time for the small ticket was the evening of that day. They ordered the same things in order to restore what happened on the 21st as much as possible. Jiang Fang specially added sugar to Nan Zhou’s milk tea.
After writing down the kebabs and beer on South Street, Nan Zhou looked around. “Anything else missing?”
There was no response. He hummed. “Then…”
The next second, his wrist was suddenly pulled. Sun Guojing exhausted all his strength and gripped Nan Zhou’s wrist, the veins on his neck bulging. It was the grip of a drowning man trying to grab a life-saving straw, Nan Zhou was in no pain. He just stared at his deformed, white fingers.
Sun Guojing held out his mobile phone and almost poked Nan Zhou’s face with it. His teeth were chattering behind his white lips but he couldn’t say a word. Facing such a Sun Guojing, Nan Zhou calmly opened his mouth. “Yes, you say it and I’ll write it down.”
It was as if he hadn’t forgotten Sun Guojing’s existence. He treated Sun Guojing with a normal attitude so this person wouldn’t be alarmed. Unfortunately, it didn’t help. The big and rough man squeezed out a smile that was uglier than crying. “I… kept holding up my phone… reading to you what I want to bring.”
He looked around. “Actually… none of you noticed me just now, right?”
Luo Ge and Qi Tianyun’s eyes turned red but they followed Nan Zhou’s words. “I didn’t forget, I didn’t forget. How could I forget?”
Sun Guojing huddled helplessly to one side. His face was white and the muscles on his face swelled and shriveled. To ease his panic, he raised his hand and added in a hoarse voice, “…I wanted to buy another cake. I used the takeout software to place an order and made a special note to add extra cream for everyone to play with… there are seven or eight cans of silly string spray.”
After that, he lay motionless on the bed. His eyes were glazed over but he was still staring at the ground. Nan Zhou stared back at him and didn’t say anything. The Luo Qi brothers stayed on either side of him and gossiped with him.
Sun Guojing didn’t say anything. He hung his head and was speechless. The brothers had to rack their brains and say something that would make him happy. The brothers spoke to him for a long time. Luo Ge even recalled the barbecue stall that the three of them jointly opened, saying he didn’t know if it would still be there when they got back. Would the tables and chairs be there and could they still open?
Just then, Sun Guojing absentmindedly said, “You two… don’t go.”
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.
He continued, “There is no one at the barbecue stall but it can still be opened. We can’t have all three of us gone.”
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Seeing that the task was almost completed, Jiang Fang got up first and made an appointment to meet the trio downstairs of the sports department dormitory at 7 o’clock.
In autumn, it always became dark early. In the daytime, the maple leaves were light and golden. The red shadows were dazzling and it was so beautiful that it made people hold their breaths. Then as soon as night fell, the maple leaves were blown everywhere by the cold wind. It swept by quickly like a small hand that was thrown all over the place.
The slightly fragile and dehydrated leaves were shattered and crushed under the feet of the people walking around at night and the ‘rustling’ sound made people shiver and wonder if the force was approaching.
In the end, only Sun Guojing decided to go with the Nan Zhou trio to the East Fifth Building. The group of four walked further and further through the maple leaf avenue, the hustle and bustle of the campus behind them.
It wasn’t strong during the day. It was only by visiting at night that they could know how remote the East Fifth Building was. As they were around 200 meters away from the East Fifth Building, 70-80% of the streetlights had been broken. The flashing street lamp bulbs made a strange and clear sound.
Nan Zhou turned on the flashlight ahead of time. The flashlight swept in a fan-like arc, illuminating part of the road ahead. Still, this didn’t effectively alleviate the fear of others. The places that weren’t illuminated by the light became darker, as if there was an unknown giant eagerly waiting for the opportunity to swallow them up in one bite.
It was easy to get to the East Fifth Building. The moment they entered the corridor and the sensor lights lit up, Nan Zhou and Jiang Fang felt the two people behind them take a breath. It was 7:20 p.m.
They arrived at the door of Room 403. Sun Guojing rubbed his frozen and numb palms together in front of his lips, letting out a bit of warm air. He pressed his hand against the doorknob and paused for a long time. It was as if it was his judgment seat. It was his path of reincarnation. He stood still and Nan Zhou’s group quietly stood with him.
At around 7:30, Sun Guojing raised his wrist to check his watch. He confirmed the time, gritted his teeth and was about to press down the doorknob—
However, the door was one step ahead of him. It slowly opened inward, bringing half of Sun Guojing’s body into darkness. Before Sun Guojing had time to feel fear, the lights of the classroom were turned on.
He fell into a bright light. It wasn’t known when they came but Luo Ge and Qi Tianyun, who had left the dormitory early, were waiting in 403. They had obviously been waiting there for a long time.
“Aren’t we holding a party?” Luo Ge’s smile that he forced out was a bit exaggerated. He was clearly afraid that once his muscles relaxed, his entire expression would collapse. He turned his head and showed the room full of balloons and ribbons to Sun Guojing. “Look at what we’ve done for you.”
Qi Tianyun raised the key of Room 403 that he had removed from Sun Guojing’s keyring at an unknown time and shook it. “It is dangerous everywhere. So isn’t it good to go together as brothers?”
The originally fairly simple Room 403 was decorated by the two people and it had a bright and lively atmosphere. If 403 was the habitat of the mysterious force then seeing his home treated this way, it would immediately abandon Sun Guojing and first target the Luo Qi duo to maintain its dignity. Sun Guojing didn’t say anything. He hugged his two brothers one by one, his face pressed against their shoulders and his body trembling fiercely.
After the hard work of the Luo Qi duo, this was like a real gathering of friends. The six people sat on the ground in the gap between the podium and the seats.
Sun Guojing handed Nan Zhou a can of beer. Nan Zhou waved his hand, holding his cup of milk tea with sugar and slowly drinking it. No one could tell that one day earlier, three of the six people were trying to rob the other three, only to be robbed in return.
The Longtan trio started to drink the cans and their faces soon took on a slightly drunken look. Sun Guojing couldn’t help swearing. “Xie Xiangyu, that son of a bitch. He just wanted us to scout the way for him!”
Nan Zhou calmly tried to communicate with the drunkard. “Did he contact you again?”
He didn’t think so. The surveillance incident was exposed and there would be no way Xie Xiangyu would come to see them again. Although Sun Guojing and the others didn’t know about the surveillance, they had already figured out they were being used to explore the way.
Sun Guojing answered, “He didn’t, but I contacted him.”
He waved his hands through the air. “I called and scolded him!”
Nan Zhou held the milk tea and waited for the follow up.
As a result, Sun Guojing rubbed his hands together and spat out as he said angrily, “…Fuck, it took a long time before I figured out that this person had turned the phone on speaker and set it aside. He burned up 15 minutes of my phone bill. I called again but he didn’t answer. That fucking guy, he better hide tightly in some unknown ditch or I will beat him up if I run into him—”
Nan Zhou bit the matcha flavored taro balls and didn’t talk. What exactly did Xie Xiangyu want? He chose to be alone. He clearly found the name cards before everyone else. He didn’t keep it to monopolize the clues but he didn’t communicate with any of them. He hid in a corner of the campus, spying on their every move. In this supernatural instance with such overwhelming power, he refused to cooperate or contact them. It was as if he had no fear at all. Was he planning something by doing such counterintuitive things? Or did he want to get through it by hibernating and waiting?
Jiang Fang squeezed the can of hawthorn juice and asked gently, “What are you thinking about?”
Nan Zhou told the truth. “Xie Xiangyu.”
“Ah, him. He is a very interesting person.”
Nan Zhou’s attention was instantly attracted. “Why do you say that?”
Jiang Fang took a sip of the hawthorn juice. “I can probably understand what he wants to do.”
Nan Zhou listened carefully.
Jiang Fang pressed the can of hawthorn juice to his lips and whispered, “If I was a solo player, I might play like this.”
Unfortunately, there were some things that he couldn’t do now.
Nan Zhou stared at his side profile thoughtfully.
…Jiang Fang’s expression just now was the same as when he was calculating Qu Jinsha at the casino. The corners of his mouth were curved and his eyes were icy and sharp like a wolf.
Nan Zhou blinked and thought, ‘It is a bit cute.’
Nan Zhou still wanted to ask. However, since Jiang Fang had an idea in mind, Jiang Fang was probably on guard. Xie Xiangyu’s matter wasn’t very important. The most important thing was to figure out how they got to the ‘non-existence place’ and how to get rid of the influence of this force.
The 403 during the day was no different from the current 403. There were doodles on the tables and chairs, pictures of great people on the walls, windows that looked a bit gloomy due to the anti-reflective film…
There was nothing unusual. Of course, if the room had changed significantly last week then they should’ve noticed. It wasn’t advisable to speculate on things out of thin air so this path was blocked. So what about another way of thinking?
They spent nearly a day and night full of suffocation, horror and pressure so the three brothers considered this exploration party as a hearty way to vent. The cans of beer were poured down their throats one by one and Sun Guojing’s courage rose every minute. Before long, he had become arrogant and he wanted to fight with the instigator behind the mysterious power. The noise they made really wasn’t small.
Nan Zhou had to sit closer to Jiang Fang. He held his milk tea as he asked this person, “Do you feel anything?”
He was referring to the feeling of being affected by that power. Jiang Fang shook his head. “Not yet.”
There were no signs of ghosts coming to 403 such as the air becoming cold or flashing light bulbs like in the movies. To confirm, Jiang Fang took out the Sixth Sense Cross hanging around his neck. The cross was intact.
Adding in the time when he went to the supermarket to buy apples this afternoon, Jiang Fang had only heard the rustling sound twice. The supernatural power wasn’t aimed at him yet and this cross was naturally useless.
Nan Zhou said, “This force is too irreversible. Standing in front of it, there are too few things we can do.”
Proofreader: Purichan
Jiang Fang: thinking evil thoughts
Nan Zhou: wait he’s cute
Ah, it would probably be even more creepy if these disappeared people did not die, but would have been next to them all this time
Thank you very much for the translation
+1 😭😭😭😭😭
I suspect this too, but they may have become insane and will hurt the ‘living’ players when they visit
and that’s why I think Sun Guojing and Li Yinhang sees the most times, while Nan Zhuo and Xie Xiangyu is targetted because of his completion rate
I don’t quite understand what the second part of your comment is about
I thought the one with most clues will die faster, and so people with closer relationship with Hu Li dies first
Aaaaaaaaa, I didn’t think about it so deeply. In fact, I didn’t even think about how it would be possible to complete this task, although given the ending, it would be logical
So yes, I didn’t think about it
ah, good friends always know how to cheer you up
thanks for the chapter~
I hope the trio makes it out :((
Thanks for the chapter <3
!!!!!!
They almost forgot him! That’s so sad! And his friends doing their best to raise his spirits, they’re some real ride or die 😭😭😭😭
Looking forward to them figuring this one out and maybe? Xiao Xie helping out a little? Unless he’s helping by not being around~
Thank you for the chapter!!! 💓💓💓💓💓💓💓💓💓💓💓💓💓💓💓
These three friends are kinda heartwarming! They rise and fall together
that’s true broship
I almost cried because of these cannon fodder