Chapter 123
“What is it?”
Lin Yi stood opposite Cheng Yang. He couldn’t see what was written on the note, only the bloody note itself. Cheng Yang had immediately been stained with blood when he took the note out of the package.
Cheng Yang gulped. He wanted to speak but was too frightened to make any sound come out of his throat.
But he didn’t want to hand the note to Lin Yi, lest Lin Yi’s fingers get stained with the blood as well.
He took a deep breath and exhaled before speaking with difficulty, “It says…it says: It is your turn to hide your life.”
Lin Yi paused. “What?”
“I haven’t finished reading yet, there is still one more line.” Cheng Yang trembled and said, “If you want to live, pass it on.”
Lin Yi frowned. “Pay with your life?”
“It’s not ‘pay with your life’, it’s ‘hide your life’.” After Cheng Yang corrected Lin Yi, he asked nervously, “Lin Yi Xiong, I…I think I know how Xia Hui died.”
Xia Hui hadn’t opened the package at all. So, of course he couldn’t have seen the note in the package and so, didn’t pass it on.
Lin Yi pursed his lips.
Cheng Yang asked, “Should I…should I pass it on?”
Lin Yi asked, “How would you pass it on?”
Cheng Yang was confused by the question. The note he received seemed to have been sent to him by the last cursed person, but it was delivered by express delivery. He tentatively said, “Isn’t there… a mailroom?”
At this point, Cheng Yang suddenly had a realization.
No wonder the dorm manager’s room here was called the mailroom!
A mailroom! To receive mail! And to send mail!
Lin Yi had also realized this. He asked, “To whom?”
Hearing Lin Yi’s somewhat cold tone, Cheng Yang quickly explained, “I don’t intend to harm anyone. I mean, I can pass this curse letter to Ren Li. Just like with the 7-7 Monster and 2-6 Monster you told me about. As long as we use the Rules of Death against them, they can be killed. I will pass this curse letter to Ren Li, so that the 8-4 Monster will be killed by its own Rule of Death. Once it dies, all of us can leave.”
Lin Yi stretched out his hand and said, “Hand me the note.”
Cheng Yang: “Forget it, I won’t.”
He said, “You’re not targeted by the Rules of Death yet. What if I hand the note to you and you also get targeted?”
Lin Yi took back his hand. “Then you hold it and show it to me.”
Cheng Yang: “Okay.”
Cheng Yang spread open the note on his palm and showed it to Lin Yi. Lin Yi looked at the note.
‘It is your turn to hide your life’ was written in red blood. But it wasn’t all blood. When Lin Yi got close, he could smell paint mixed in.
He stared at these eight words.
The words were written boldly. The word ‘now’ was written crudely but the note was brimming with great resentment. This one word alone made the note look extremely vicious, as if this note truly was a curse that had the power to kill someone.
However, the words “If you want to live, pass it on” was not written with the same blood-paint mixture; instead, it was written with ordinary gel pen ink.
Lin Yi looked at the handwriting of these two sentences. They were written by two different people.
Lin Yi lowered his eyes and fell into deep thought. Cheng Yang saw Lin Yi’s thoughtful expression and didn’t dare to say anything for fear of disturbing Lin Yi’s train of thought.
Actually, when Cheng Yang took the note out of the package, Lin Yi had automatically imagined the contents of the note.
It wasn’t as though he hadn’t heard of vicious pranks; the most ominous of which was a curse letter.
Curse letter pranks are also quite common on campuses. Curse letters would usually say something like, ‘If you don’t pass on this curse letter, you will encounter an accident within three days.’ Or, ‘Give it to five people or your family fall into ruin’.
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.
Lin Yi had been the recipient of such curse letters when he was in school. Some people would be frightened by the contents of the curse letters and pass them on. In this way, the curse letters would spread more and more like dividing cells.
Vlwlijg megrfr tjv yffc atf reypfma bo wjcs wbnlfr. Ktf wbra ojwber bcf yflcu atf Ajqjcfrf tbggbg wbnlf “Ktf Elcu”. Ktf wbnlf gfnbinfr jgbecv j megrfv nlvfbajqf. Ccsbcf ktb gfmflnfr atf megrfv nlvfbajqf klii vlf klatlc rfnfc vjsr.
“Wlj Lel vlvc’a vlf yfmjerf tf ojlifv ab qjrr bc atf ifaafg,” Olc Tl vfmijgfv joafg atlcxlcu obg j ktlif.
‘Failure to pass on the curse letter’ does indeed qualify as a trigger mechanism of a Rule of Death but the biggest bug in this Rule of Death is that, as Cheng Yang had said, they could pass the curse letter to Ren Li.
Monsters formulate and respect their Rules of Death. When a Monster is targeted by the Rules of Death, the Monster will not resist. It would be too easy for them to kill the Monster like this. Even if it weren’t Cheng Yang who received the curse letter today, but some other participant, how could the 8-4 Monster guarantee that the participant, in his panic, wouldn’t pass on the curse letter to itself?
After listening to Lin Yi’s explanation, Cheng Yang’s face turned so pale that it was practically bloodless. Lin Yi’s rebuttal squashed his only chance for survival.
Cheng Yang held his head and lost his will to fight. “I’m going to die… I’m going to die… Oh, damn it, I was chosen. This is enough bad luck for eight lifetimes.”
Lin Yi didn’t have time to comfort Cheng Yang, he murmured: “Hide your life…”
He focused on the words ‘hide your life’.
‘ Zang ’ is a polyphonic character, pronounced as ‘zàng’ and ‘cáng’.
Lin Yi thought of other words with the same pronunciation.
When pronounced as ‘zàng’, ‘hide your life’ is homophonic with ‘bury your life’.
If read as ‘cáng’, the words ‘hide your life’ and ‘pay with your life’ can just barely be considered homophones.
Whether it is the word ‘bury’ or the word ‘pay’, the word ‘hide’ is written very differently from these two characters. Moreover, the writing for the word ‘hide’ is far more complicated than either of these two words. Generally speaking, a typo would have been a character with simpler writing. Therefore, there was basically no chance that the word “hide” here was a typo.
Thus, the word the note wished to emphasize was ‘hide’.
When the word “Zang” is pronounced as “zàng”, it generally refers to Tibet; while when pronounced as “cáng” it means to hide, to conceal, to collect, to store.
Lin Yi pondered and said, “Xia Hui died because whatever it is found him.”
Cheng Yang didn’t understand. “What do you mean?”
Lin Yi said, “‘Hide your life’ means literally what it says. While still alive, a person is the very entity of ‘life’. So ‘hide your life’ means to play hide-and-seek with it. If it finds you, that’s equivalent to finding your life.”
Cheng Yang tried to understand Lin Yi’s words.
Lin Yi added, “The Rule of Death is being found by it.”
Cheng Yang was stunned.
Xia Hui had returned to his room last night. His name was even on the door of Room 204. He had easily been found by that thing. Lin Yi explained the reason behind Xia Hui’s death.
Lin Yi’s words gave Cheng Yang a creepy feeling. He stuttered out, “So… So I don’t have to pass this on to the next person. I just need to hide tonight, right?”
Lin Yi: “Yes.”
Cheng Yang suddenly became anxious and he began to look around. “But where should I hide?”
There were too few buildings in Baoxiang Secondary School’s campus. There was only one teaching building, one dormitory building and one road connecting the two.
In this teaching building, only the door of High School 2, Class 1 could be opened. Cheng Yang said, “Lin Yi Xiong, do you think it would be okay for me to hide in the classroom tonight?”
Lin Yi shook his head. Among the few lines the female teacher had, apart from taking attendance and reporting the missing person, she had said, ‘The last person should remember to lock the door.’
“That’s not a good idea.”
Lin Yi directly and categorically rejected Cheng Yang’s suggestion. “The classroom door will be locked. Let’s not even talk about how difficult it would be to stay behind in the classroom when it gets locked. And even if you do manage to hide in the classroom, what if that thing’s spawn point is actually in the classroom? Won’t you find yourself locked in with that thing?”
His words were not groundless. The female teacher has been emphasizing that one missing student. Could it be that that student NPC was the ghost hunting them down?
Cheng Yang grew frightened once again and broke into a cold sweat. “Then where should I hide? Even if you beat me to death, I’m not hiding in your room.”
There was no need to consider the dorm building. None of the other participant would dare take him in. Cheng Yang believed that Lin Yi would, but he wasn’t going to willingly bring harm to Lin Yi. This note could be passed on to the next person, just like the plague. It was contagious. What if it could be spread even without use of the express delivery?
Wouldn’t he simply be dragging Lin Yi down to die together?
What about the road connecting the dormitory building and the teaching building? That road was more desolate than the road leading to the teaching building area in the Unnatural Engineering University. At least, there was greenery on both sides of the Unnatural Engineering University’s roads. At nighttime, one could crawl into the shrubbery and hide. But, Boaxing Secondary School’s road had nothing, not even street lamps for lighting.
Lin Yi glanced at the public toilet.
Cheng Yang looked in the direction of Lin Yi’s gaze. His heart suddenly trembled and his face turned ashen.
The stalls weren’t fully enclosed. Like most public toilet stalls, simply crouching down would allow one to see if anyone is inside. Or if that thing happened to be quite tall, it could simply move close to the door and look directly down from above.
It definitely wasn’t a suitable place to hide.
Lin Yi had seen that bloody trail in the toilet left by Qu Jialiang’s body in the 7-7 Rule World. He knew very well how unsuitable public toilets were as hiding places. “We will exchange rooms tonight.”
Cheng Yang refused immediately. “No, what kind of brother would I be if I let you die in my place out of fear?”
“I’m not dying in your place. I’m not going to die.” Lin Yi glanced at the parcel box in Cheng Yang’s hands and said, “I wasn’t the one who received the parcel. And my name wasn’t on the receipt. It’s you who that thing wants to find; not me. Even if I am found, I won’t die.”
Cheng Yang asked, “Are you sure?”
Lin Yi was actually not sure. He was worried that if something were to really happen to him, even if Cheng Yang manages to stay alive, he would feel guilty. He thought for a while and said, “At the very least, my death isn’t a hundred percent certain if I’m found. Unlike you, who will for sure die if found.”
Cheng Yang scratched his head irritably. “Lin Yi Xiong, there’s no point in exchanging rooms. If something happens to you, I won’t be able to survive here anyway.”
“Of course it’s not pointless.” Lin Yi said, “I can find a way to hold that thing back. I just need to stall it until dawn. Have you forgotten what I told you? In the 7-7 Rule World, I faced the vase girl head-on for several nights.”
He said, “Our rooms are right next to each other. If I really can’t hold it off any longer, we can just swap places through the window. Now, stop being stubborn. If you don’t even try and die here, what if I’m the one who receives the package tomorrow? When the delivery arrives, I’ll have no choice but to wait for death by myself.”
When Lin Yi said this, Cheng Yang had to nod in acquience.
Hearing the assurance in Lin Yi’s tone, as if they really could hide tonight away, Cheng Yang finally felt a little less depressed and he said, “If I didn’t know that you like President Qin, I could see myself going bent for you.”
Lin Yi had a cold look on his face, “If you really appreciate what I do for you, then don’t fall in love with me.”
Cheng Yang: “…”
“What about this package? Should I destroy it?” Cheng Yang asked.
They didn’t have any fire on hand, so Lin Yi said, “Throw the note into the toilet.”
Cheng Yang: “Okay.”
The note was thrown into the toilet. Cheng Yang pressed the flush lever and watched the note get sucked into the sewer.
Although the package box was small, it wasn’t small enough to be flushed away. So, Cheng Yang threw it into the trash can in the toilet.
Because the recipient’s name was written on the express delivery note, he knew that the thing would go looking for Cheng Yang tonight. The faster he dreaded the coming of night, the faster night came.
In Room 202, Lin Yi asked Cheng Yang to get under the bed. He moved the table and leaned it against the bed, so that even if the thing rushed in from the door, it could block the thing’s sight and give Cheng Yang time to escape.
Lin Yi also tried it himself. Whether he came in through the door or looked in Cheng Yang’s direction from the window, he couldn’t immediately spot Cheng Yang under the bed.
Lin Yi only then felt relieved. He didn’t say anything more to Cheng Yang. At a time like this, the more he said, the more nervous Cheng Yang would be.
Lin Yi left Room 202 and closed the door for Cheng Yang on his way out.
Then he went to Cheng Yang’s Room 203.
Lin Yi closed the door and then looked out the window.
It was getting dark.
He looked away and began to think about how he could stall that thing until dawn when that thing inevitably comes to this door, the door to the room of the participant whose name was written on the delivery receipt.
He rubbed his throat. Lin Yi was planning to imitate Cheng Yang’s voice.
Lin Yi is able to imitate the audio in the MP4 player so well that he could even coax himself to sleep when the MP4 player isn’t close at hand. He should be able to imitate Cheng Yang’s voice.
“Cough…cough, cough.”
Lin Yi cleared his throat first. He was about to say something to test whether he was convincing enough when —
Outside the door —
Chi chi chi——
Lin Yi recognized this sound. It was the sound that both he and Cheng Yang had heard last night.
The sound of a sniffing cat.
Lin Yi stepped forward and stood by the door, listening carefully to the sound.
This sound wasn’t coming from outside Room 203, but from Room 202, the room where Cheng Yang was currently staying.
The sound of sniffing was heard for a long time and then there came the sharp scratching sound against the door of Room 202. There was more than one cat scratching the door, at least seven or eight.
The sound of scratching became louder and louder, as if the cats were trying to open the door in this manner.
Lin Yi was stunned.
He suddenly felt that he had overlooked something.
He tried to think back:
Last night they came into contact with Xia Hui’s package and the cat chased after them, chasing after the smell. After they washed their hands, the cat disappeared.
Xia Hui had died last night but Xia Hui hadn’t been killed by a cat, something else had killed Xia Hui.
Xia Hui’s package disappeared; the package had been opened by the cats.
But there was only a note in the package; not the body parts that Lin Yi had imagined before.
So why do the cats open the express delivery package? That thing wasn’t inside the package anyway.
Why do the cats open the package?
It isn’t the cats who kill, so why did a cat chase them both after catching whiff of the package’s smell on them?
Now, they’ve thrown the note down the toilet and the package in trash can in the public toilet. Before leaving, they also used washing powder to wash away the smell of the package on their bodies. The cat disappeared after they washed their hands yesterday, but even after washing themselves today, not only did the cats not disappear, why were they zeroing in on them?
The “chichichi” outside sound the door became louder and louder. Just listening to the sound, Lin Yi could imagine a scene of a group of cats gathering outside the door of Room 202.
He suddenly thought of that it of pop science he’d read about cats.
An expert who studies cats said that it is well known that dogs have a good sense of smell and this ability is even used in human society, such as when dogs are utilized as drug detection dogs. But a less well known fact is that a cat’s sense of smell is ten to fourteen times that of a human’s, and is even more sensitive than a dogs’.
Food that you can smell from a meter away can already be smelled by cats fourteen meters away. Cats also have an odor collection system called the vomeronasal organ. Their outer nostrils have larger openings to inhale. At the same time, they can better identify weak odors and their upper labial grooves can specifically collect odor particles. They only need to lick their noses to update odor information.
Lin Yi suddenly raised his head.
What was the smell that the cats detect on the package? Is it the smell of that thing or…
The recipient’s scent?
Lin Yi thought of the express delivery receipt on Cheng Yang’s package.
The sender’s name was immediately apparent as a fake name but the recipient’s name was indeed Cheng Yang’s.
The recipient was accurately written as Cheng Yang and the recipient’s address was accurately indicated as Cheng Yang’s dorm room number.
And so, did the package smell like Cheng Yang?
The answer required almost no thought.
It did!
Xia Hui’s scent had also been on Xia Hui’s package. It was Xia Hui’s scent the cats smelled last night. And so, the two of them had been able to wash away Xia Hui’s smell when it had contaminated them. But today, while Lin Yi could wash away Cheng Yang’s scent from him, it was impossible for Cheng Yang because Cheng Yang himself was the very source of the smell on the package.
The cats weren’t tearing open the package to let anything out of the package, but because the cats were remembering the smell on the package, just like how drug-sniffing dogs will familiarize themselves with the smell of drugs beforehand.
The whole process went like this:
The cats tear open the package, notes the smell and follows the scent to find their target.
So, the cats were actually showing the way for that thing.
Anyone who receives the package will die regardless of whether they touch it or not.
Because, for the recipient, hiding away was no use and washing up was no use too. There was simply no way for people to wash away their own unique scent.
Thank you for the chapter 😍
It is spooky! Thank you for the update!
Oh nooo so if they had flushed the package away the cats wouldn’t have been able to find the smell of CY at all?
hope cheng yang will be alright 😱
What about like exchanging clothes? Can u hide your scent then? Since you’re wearing the other party’s clothes, won’t the other person’s scent rub off u?
They need tons of perfume..