Chapter 128
Year 20xx, X month X day, rainy
The school is having general cleaning today.
Principal Wang said it should be cleaned up.
It must be spotless outside and inside.
But I don’t have the tools.
I’m not talking nonsense.
I didn’t manage to borrow a broom until school was almost over.
But it’s no use if you don’t have enough time to run.
The first word of the first sentence: 学.
The second word of the second sentence: 校.
The third word of the third sentence: 里.
The fourth word of the fourth sentence: 有.
The fifth word of the fifth sentence: 鬼.
The sixth word of the sixth sentence: 快.
The seventh word of the seventh sentence: 跑.
Together they were: 学校里有鬼快跑 — There is a ghost in the school, run.
But this was not the main reason why Lin Yi’s face darkened. The more important reason was what the female teacher kept repeating.
The teacher said, “One, two, three, four…twenty-three, twenty-four, twenty-five…”
“Tsk.” She said, “Why is there still one missing?”
How could there be just one less!
Xia Hui died and the missing person was still missing. There should be two less people in the class!
Xia Hui was gradually becoming more and more like a cat; his body has reorganized itself into this strange appearance. It was impossible for him to come to class. The one the teacher referred to as missing can only be Xia Hui.
So.
The missing person was in the classroom right now.
Lin Yi was suddenly startled.
He then began to scan the class. Whether the participants or the student NPCs, everyone he could see was sitting in their seats. In his field of vision, the participants were all the participants who entered the 8-4 Rule World together. The student NPCs were also all the same student NPCs he’d these before. There was no one unfamiliar at all.
Right now, there were two empty seats in the class.
One was where Xia Hui sat, and the other was where he just saw the diary.
Cheng Yang, who was next to him, noticed Lin Yi’s movements. He stopped cursing, came closer and asked softly, “Lin Yi Xiong, what’s wrong?”
Although the teacher did nothing but count over and over, the order in the classroom was very good and class wasn’t noisy. Even whispers would seem abrupt.
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.
When Cheng Yang asked this question, the other participants looked towards them.
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Efc Ol jrxfv atfw cba ab jmmfqa Jtfcu Tjcu’r vfilnfgs, ktlmt kjr jiwbra bqfcis afiilcu atf batfg qjgalmlqjcar atja atfgf kjr rbwfatlcu kgbcu klat tlw. Ktflg fnfgs wbnf kbeiv cjaegjiis jaagjma atf jaafcalbc bo atf batfg qjgalmlqjcar.
This was not the time to share findings and speaking out directly might scare Cheng Yang. So, Lin Yi shook his head and did not tell him about the current situation.
Anyway, Lin Yi has yet to figure it out himself.
Lin Yi kept feeling like the words on the diary were too abrupt since it came with absolutely no warning.
It’s like someone suddenly tells you one day that today is the end of the world, but the weather is sunny with a slight breeze and flowers in bloom. Although the weather is gloomy now with no breeze or flowers, today was already their third day in the 8-4 Rule World. Except for the curse letter in the package, there were no traces of ghosts here.
If there was a ghost here, they should be able to detect it.
For example, a lightbulb that flickers on and off, the faucet that keeps running but cannot be turned on or off, a figure that suddenly disappears at the end of the corridor, or a cryptic NPC that always stays here.
These examples were all signs of the presence of ghosts.
Ghosts had appeared in the 2-6 Rule World.
From the get go, Lin Yi had been able to detect traces of the ghosts. But in the 8-4 Rule World, there simply weren’t any signs.
So Lin Yi felt it all strange.
It was so sudden that he even thought this sentence might just be a prank. Just like the curse letter, that in the eyes of many people, is just a disgusting prank.
Unless the ghost referred to in this sentence was not a real ghost, but something else, something that was just called a ghost.
Ghosts are scary existences in public perception.
In the context of the 8-4 Rules World, scary existences would include curse letters, cats, that thing and pigeon releasers.
Regarding the reference to ghost in this sentence, Lin Yi was more inclined to consider this the person who released the pigeon, that is, the person who wrote the first curse letter.
Because the package was stored in the delivery locker of the dormitory, the cats and the thing summoned by the package committed the crime in the dormitory. But Lin Yi saw this sentence in the teaching building.
He began to wonder if the student, who had never appeared in the classroom, had discovered the pigeon releaser and wrote this sentence to warn others.
This student didn’t dare to show up, so he never appeared.
Even when he does come to class, he hides in a dark corner where he cannot be discovered.
But there was also a contradiction. The teacher’s emphasis on the missing person was indeed tempting them into becoming curious and suspicious about this person. Even Cheng Yang could tell.
And now this missing person was warning them that there was a ghost in the school, which was illogical.
Lin Yi made a progressive equation conversion in his mind.
Because the teacher was deliberately tempting everyone to find the missing person, so:
The missing student warning everyone that there is a ghost in the school = the female teacher warning everyone that there is a ghost in the school
The female teacher’s essential identity was as an NPC, a role created by 8-4 Monster, so:
The missing student warning everyone that there was a ghost in the school = the female teacher warning everyone that there was a ghost in the school = the Monster warning everyone that there was a ghost in the school.
This was simply impossible.
Monsters were malicious towards the participants. Monsters only want to see participants fall into their traps to devour them once they violate the Rules of Death. Therefore, important NPCs in the Rule Worlds were fundamentally malicious.
Therefore, the missing student NPC couldn’t have left this sentence to remind others to be careful. Lin Yi tried to reread the sentence ‘There is a ghost in the school, run’ with malice.
If this sentence was not a reminder, then it was deliberately misleading.
The antonym of to remind is to conceal and mislead.
So this sentence was actually misleading them?
How can it be misleading?
Was there, in fact, no ghost in the school? Or will he be targeted by the ghost if he runs away?
Without any more clues at hand, Lin Yi was not sure in which direction this note was misleading them to.
The female teacher was still counting away and saying, ‘Why is there still one missing?’
Lin Yi’s eyes had scanned back and forth in the classroom countless times, but he still couldn’t find the missing person. He also looked specifically at the window. The curtains hung quietly on both sides of the window. He looked at the curtains. Then he looked back.
Someone could be hiding behind the curtains. The missing student should be behind the curtains. This was the only place in the entire classroom where someone could hide.
But Lin Yi didn’t intend to find the missing student. It didn’t matter whether the student appears or not. What was important was that Lin Yi wanted to figure out the direction of the student’s concealment and misdirection.
He looked back at the diary on the table. The page where he wrote ‘There is a ghost in school, run’ wasn’t on the first page of the diary. There were many pages rolled up in front of it.
Lin Yi wanted to steal this diary. He wanted to know what was recorded in the notebook before this entry.
Right now, his exploration of the main plot was at 0%. Lin Yi wanted to try if he could start exploring the main plot of the 8-4 Rule World from this diary.
After class, everyone left the classroom.
Lin Yi and Cheng Yang also returned to the dormitory building. Before returning to the dormitory, Lin Yi went to open locker no. 202. The locker was empty and there was no package.
Because of Ren Li’s warning, the other participants also looked in their delivery lockers.
It seemed that someone else had received a package, a sophomore boy. He stopped Cheng Yang angrily and questioned Cheng Yang.
Cheng Yang was confused. “The fuck would I send you a delivery!”
But Lin Yi didn’t have time to accompany Cheng Yang to solve this problem. He quietly told Cheng Yang, “Stay in Room 204 tonight and don’t open the door for anyone unless its me.”
Cheng Yang was stunned, “You…”
Lin Yi walked away quickly, went all the way back to his room and then climbed out of the window.
He picked up two twigs on the ground and picked at them with his nail as he walked towards the teaching building.
He was going to steal the diary.
If he’d gone out directly from the main entrance of the dorm building, he’d have been seen.
He ran all the way back to the teaching building. He thought the classroom door to Class 1, High School 2 would be locked, so he prepared what he had on hand to unlock it. But the door turned out to be unlocked.
Just closed to appear locked.
It was as if she knew he would come back and deliberately left the door a crack waiting for him.
Lin Yi thought for a while and pushed the door open, even though he realized that he was heading towards a huge trap with every step.
But it wasn’t dark yet and he hasn’t received the delivery yet. He was still safe for now. If he hesitates any longer, he may not be.
Lin Yi entered the door and paused.
He saw that the teacher had not left yet and was still standing on the podium.
However, considering that the teacher never restricted the students’ actions, Lin Yi continued to walk to the desk with the diary without much hesitation.
Lin Yi took out the diary from the table. He turned to leave, but the teacher looked over.
Lin Yi paused.
The teacher had given him the impression that she was nothing more than a mindless repeater, but now she turned her gaze towards him.
Was it because she noticed that he took away a diary that didn’t belong to him?
In one breath, Lin Yi made a new decision.
He didn’t know if taking the diary away would cause anything. It was getting dark soon. Lin Yi didn’t want to accidentally trigger the teacher’s Rules of Death because of this diary. Just like how in the 7-7 Rule World, Qu Jialiang running away from his room triggered the old dorm manager’s Rules of Death.
In any case, what he wanted was just to see the contents of the diary. That was the whole purpose of taking it away.
He could just read it now.
Lin Yi opened the front of the diary and read while keeping watch on the teacher.
As he had guessed, there was content at the front of the diary.
[Year 20xx, X month X day, rainy.]
My homework is missing
I’m looking for my homework
I saw it yesterday
Looks like it was stolen
Do you think I can find the person who stole my homework?
Oh, found it.
Lin Yi paused for a moment. He looked at his thumb. His thumb touched the ink on the diary, causing the word to smear.
This entry had just been written.
And this time it wasn’t using the oblique reading method of the previous entry, but the first word of each sentence.
The first words of each sentence were connected to form:
我、正、在、看、你、哦。 — I’m looking at you.
Lin Yi was momentarily silent. “I’m looking at you.” Someone was indeed looking at him. When he took out the diary, the teacher turned her eyes to him.
Lin Yi reckoned that he must have found the missing student.
The student was right in front of him — the female teacher.
From the beginning, the teacher never said she was a teacher.
It was just that when she stood on the podium, Lin Yi and Cheng Yang had assumed she was a teacher.
It wasn’t only teachers who could stand on the podium, students could too.
Lin Yi looked up.
The female teacher gave him an eerie smile.
Oh my god I got chills. The image of the student just. Standing there and watching him while he reads the diary??
Also then if she was one of the students, then who was missing before our catboy was cat-beamed?
Thanks for the chapter as always!!
“cat-beamed” HELP SKSKSJSJSJSJ
This is becoming creepier with every new chapter.. 😰
It’s 10am but why is it so eerie bro oh god