Chapter 109
Lin Yi sat up from the bed.
After a while of just sitting there, he realized that he wasn’t in the remodeled lecture hall, but in his own dorm room.
“”
Horrible singing reached Lin Yi’s ears. Lin Yi followed the sound.
Cheng Yang was hunched over his desk. Lin Yi was startled to see that Cheng Yang was reading a book.
“I bought cloth, made vinegar, and looked back to see the eagle catching the rabbit…”
Cheng Yang was still singing and hadn’t noticed that Lin Yi had already woken up and gotten off the bed.
Lin Yi approached Cheng Yang and found that Cheng Yang had earphones plugged into his ears. When he got close, Lin Yi could even hear the actual song leaking from the earphones.
He glanced back at the table and was startled by what he saw.
Cheng Yang was actually reading a book; and a textbook at that and not some strange reading material or something.
Cheng Yang had light shining on his desk and when Lin Yi came near, it cast a shadow.
Cheng Yang paused and then let out a scream. “Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!! Prosperity, democracy, civilization, harmony…”
Lin Yi hesitantly took off his earphones. “It’s me.”
Cheng Yang patted his chest. “Damn it, that almost scared me to death. Lin Yi Xiong, don’t you know even people can scare people to death!”
Lin Yi took the second half of the sentence seriously and pointed to the textbook in front of Cheng Yang in horror. “Cheng Yang Xiong, are… are you possessed?”
The fact that Cheng Yang was actually reading a book was so surprising that Lin Yi’s concerns from the 4-4 Rule World were temporarily suppressed. Cheng Yang was always distracted in class and he never took down notes. Lin Yi had enough reason to suspect that Cheng Yang was possessed by some ghost.
Cheng Yang snorted, closed the book and said, “Isn’t mid-terms coming up soon?”
Without waiting for Lin Yi to say anything, Cheng Yang hurriedly asked, “So Lin Yi Xiong, tell me, was the 4-4 Rule World really hard?”
Lin Yi gave a vague noise of assent and then asked, “Midterms? When is it?”
Cheng Yang took a deep breath and said, “I heard from the student union that there were a lot of casualties this time. You don’t know how worried I was about you. I went to the student union’s lecture hall every day after class and I kept seeing them carrying out corpses. I prayed for you everyday.”
Lin Yi reached out and flipped through the textbook Cheng Yang had been reading. He then looked at Cheng Yang’s notes: “…you copied it wrong here. Cells are the basic unit of the structure of life and only with cells can complete life functions. So cells are the pivotal level of life activities③. And cell proliferation…”
Cheng Yang said excitedly, “I got such a scare when President Qin carried you back in today.”
Lin Yi: “Cells secrete chemical signals to…”
After this short segment of Duck Lin Yi talking with Chicken Cheng Yang, Lin Yi paused and asked, “Senior carried me…back?”
He didn’t really want to talk about what had happened in the 4-4 Rule World. The situation in the 4-4 Rule World is complicated. Talking about it would inevitably bring out secrets that he didn’t want to tell others.
But Cheng Yang’s words forced Lin Yi to face this topic.
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.
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Ca atja alwf, Jtfcu Tjcu ageis tjv atbeuta rb. Llr xcffr kfca kfjx jcv tf lwwfvljafis mgewqifv ab atf ugbecv, gluta ys atf vbbgkjs, rajglcu vewyobecvfvis ja Ebbw 304 bqqbrlaf.
As he watched, Qin Zhou took the key he’d gotten from the dorm supervisor and opened the door. He then put Lin Yi on the bed.
Cheng Yang cried.
“Lin Yi Xiong…”
The more he thought about it, the sadder he became. No matter how strong and courageous he may be, he simply couldn’t accept Lin Yi’s death.
Through the tears that were pouring out his eyes, Cheng Yang saw Qin Zhou reappear at the door of Room 304. Frowning impatiently, Qin Zhou asked, “Why are you crying?”
Cheng Yang tremblingly pointed at Room 304, sobbing, “Lin…Lin Yi Xiong…he…”
“He’s not yet awake.” Qin Zhou said.
It wasn’t until a fews more sobs after that Cheng Yang suddenly realized what Qin Zhou meant by this. He immediately got up and rushed to see Lin Yi.
Qin Zhou stopped him.
Lifting his collar, Qin Zhou said, “Wash your face.”
Cheng Yang had been crying so hard, his tears and snot had mixed all together. Cheng Yang wiped his face and said, “Seeing Lin Yi Xiong is more important.”
Then when Cheng Yang saw Qin Zhou’s brows furrow even deeper, Cheng Yang realized that the president of the student union wasn’t telling him to wash his face so for his sake but rather, Qin Zhou was worried he’d get his tears and snot all over Lin Yi.
“I’ll get right on it!”
Cheng Yang turned and went back to his room to wash his face. Qin Zhou’s voice came from behind him again: “If he wakes up, let him rest. Tell him there’s no need for him to join the review meeting.”
Cheng Yang nodded hurriedly. “Okay, okay.”
Qin Zhou turned his head and looked at Lin Yi one more time before leaving the freshman dormitory building.
As Qin Zhou left, the doors of the other rooms on this floor opened and the first-year students poked their heads out to watch Qin Zhou’s retreating back. They then looked towards Cheng Yang.
“Go! Go! Go!”
Cheng Yang said unhappily, “Nothing to see here!”
After recounting to Lin Yi what had happened, Lin Yi suddenly felt a little awkward and a little embarrassed. “Were there… a lot of people who saw Senior carry me back?”
“For sure.” Cheng Yang said, “In the first place, President Qin is a famous figure on campus. Just like some celebrity, every thing he does and says attracts a lot of attention.”
Lin Yi was shocked. He couldn’t explain why but his heart was beating hard in his chest. “Then…then…”
Cheng Yang said, “Besides, while you were asleep, I went out for a walk and heard some gossip.”
Lin Yi looked at Cheng Yang nervously: “What gossip?”
Cheng Yang said, “Everyone’s guessing that you must have made great contributions in the 4-4 Rule World and that’s why President Qin personally sent you back.”
Lin Yi: “…”
Lin Yi’s face froze and the complicated thoughts in his mind instantly disappeared without a trace. He’d been overthinking things. “Oh.” he said.
Cheng Yang bumped Lin Yi’s shoulder with his. “But I don’t think so.”
Lin Yi looked at Cheng Yang’s gossipy face and quickly turned around to tidy up the desk Cheng Yang had messed up. He said, changing the subject, “Let’s go eat? I’m hungry.”
Cheng Yang: “Let’s go!”
It was autumn and by 6:30, the sky was already beginning to darken. Cheng Yang and Lin Yi lingered in the dormitory for a while and it was already 7:00 when they headed to the cafeteria. By then, the sky had completely gone dark.
There weren’t many people in the cafeteria. After they got their food, they found an empty table.
As they were eating, Cheng Yang gave a ‘tsk tsk’ sound. Lin Yi immediately turned wary eyes at him.
Cheng Yang sighed and said, “It’s been a week of eating in the cafeteria all alone. I haven’t had anyone to talk to during meal times.”
They’d felt hunger while in the 4-4 Rule World. Lin Yi estimated that the flow of time in the 4-4 Rule World was basically the same as in the real world. Logically speaking, since the 4-4 Rule has existed for so long, the flow of time should have been very fast, allowing the Monster to open the next round sooner.
However, Lin Yi already had the answer to this apparent contradiction.
It was probably because of Yuan Yuan. “It” had promised Yuan Yuan to reduce the frequency of the 4-4 Rule appearing in Unnatural Engineering University. This was why the flow of time in the 4-4 Rule World was so slow.
The questions that bothered him came to mind once again. Lin Yi couldn’t hear what Cheng Yang was saying. He had his eyes lowered, all thoughts focused on organizing his thoughts regarding the 4-4 Rule World.
It could now be confirmed that ‘It’ was the 4-4 Monster. Before ‘It’ became a Monster, his name was Cen Qian.
Due to having a murderer for a father, Cen Qian’s mother abandoned him. Cen Qian was left to be raised by his grandmother. After his grandmother passed away, he lived alone.
Perhaps it was his mother’s abandonment, the loneliness of living alone and the strange looks people kept directing at him, Cen Qian bred evil and eventually became the 4-4 Monster. He then created this Rule World that the student union designated as ‘4-4’.
Lin Yi reckoned that when Cen Qian created this Rule World, he probably set up the time rewinds in the hope that he could travel to the past to save his past self.
The time rewinds create a closed time loop where the past affects the present, the present affects the future and the future also affects the past. But when all was said and done, some things were simply doomed to come into being and couldn’t be changed.
Participants caught in the closed time loop, will go on looping forever until they’re caught by the Rules of Death.
Apart from them, Yuan Yuan was the only one who had discovered the true main plot.
Perhaps because she often helped others, when Yuan Yuan discovered the main plot, she got a firm grasp on Cen Qian’s weakness as well.
At most, he was just a young man who lacked love and was extremely lonely.
Yuan Yuan made a deal, trading her company for each one of Cen Qian’s birthdays for his agreement to reduce the frequency of the 4-4 Rule appearing in the Unnatural Engineering University. The less frequent occurrence increased the survival rate of the university’s students.
All of the above were things that Lin Yi was certain of but there were also questions.
Since Yuan Yuan stayed in the 4-4 Rule World, how did she reappear in the real world?
Since she was now back in the real world, how was she able to appear in their time rewind loop this time? Moreover, Qin Zhou was sure that Yuan Yuan had deliberately led Zhou Qi to violate the Rule of Death.
And finally, what was that shadow he’d seen on the floor?
Were all these questions somewhat related to that shadow?
And why did Cen Qian call the shadow the ‘master’? Or the ‘owner’?
There wasn’t much difference between ‘master’ and ‘owner’.
But Cen Qian was already a Monster at that time. The owner of a Monster?
The owner of a Monster…
Lin Yi was startled. He remembered that Ou Ying once said that the Monster’s number didn’t represent the strength of the Monster but rather that the Monster’s number was assigned according to when the Monster appeared.
Just like the 16-8 monster; it was a new monster and according to the existing Monster numbers in the campus rulebook, it was assinged the number’16-8′.
Lin Yi still remembered the panic on Cen Qian’s face when he saw the shadow; like a kid caught doing something bad by his parents.
If the 4-4 Monster had a parent, who would its parent be?
The 0-1 Monster.
The shadow he saw was the 0-1 Monster!
This conclusion was so surprising that Lin Yi abruptly stood up. The students eating around them turned to look at him. Their expressions looked very frightened, thinking that something must have happened.
Cheng Yang was taken aback by Lin Yi’s sudden movement and he hurriedly asked, “What’s the matter?”
Lin Yi picked up his phone and started to automatically call Qin Zhou.
Ou Ying had granted him permission and he had the permission to contact Qin Zhou.
If the shadow was the 0-1 Monster, these questions that were bothering him could be explained.
Of course, Cen Qian wanted to keep Yuan Yuan in the 4-4 Rule World but unfortunately, he was discovered by the 0-1 Monster. As the owner of many Monsters, the 0-1 Monster certainly wouldn’t want to see the 4-4 Monster abandon the dark and turn to the light.
So the 0-1 Monster sent Yuan Yuan out. Only the 0-1 Monster would have this ability.
The 4-4 Monster wanted Yuan Yuan to be with him but the 0-1 Monster didn’t.
The 0-1 Monster even removed Yuan Yuan’s memory and used the 4-4 Monster’s likeness to shape a person.
The 4-4 Monster wanted to be accompanied and loved by someone. The 0-1 Monster made the 4-4 Monster watch as Yuan Yuan accompanied and loved someone else.
So on the surface of the lake at the beginning of the 4-4 Rule World, Cen Qian angrily smashed the knife at the TV and said, “In the end, I’m the only one left.”
This was the punishment given to Cen Qian by the 0-1 Monster.
Why was ‘It’ in his body?
Because ‘It’ came chasing after him.
Why did his parents turn into the walking dead?
Qin Zhou said that what enters the Rule World isn’t the human body but something akin to one’s soul.
Without one’s soul in one’s body, wouldn’t one turn into the walking dead?
So his parents weren’t sick? They’ve just returned to the Rule World?
Then he…
Was he actually a person created by the 0-1 Monster?
The more Lin Yi thought about it, the more frightened he became. Reason told him that there were still details to be filled in. His guesses were all just speculations and he had no evidence to back it up. They were totally untenable. Regardless, he was swallowed by this great fear.
That was until his phone buzzed. Lin Yi lowered his head dully and Qin Zhou’s voice came from the receiver.
“Little genius, what’s the matter?”
“Little genius?”
“Lin Yi?”
The blood in Lin Yi’s whole body froze. He looked at the lit phone screen and realized that he shouldn’t have called Qin Zhou.
He reached out and hung up the call.
No, why can’t you just talk to him… Well, I understand, there’s not enough trust, but do you need to get into another few life-or-death situations before that? Don’t you know that calling him like this and then hanging up makes him worry?? Aaaah, what I dislike just as much as misunderstandings is not talking to each other!
Thank you for the chapter~
Too many questions but m gonna wait
my boy!! you can’t resolve everything by yourself, please ask him for help 🥲 you know he won’t hurt you!
Where did your – communication is the key- attitude go? Some secrets should be shared, maybe you are scared of rejection but i believe you can do it
Thank you for the update ❤️💯
…..shibal then who is he…? ..was he really created by the 0.1 monster…..
Talk, boy, talk !!! Two smart brains are definitely better than one in situations like this..