Chapter 143
Lin Yi lowered his head, “Senior, I know Yuan Yuan.”
Qin Zhou took a deep breath and tightened his grip on the steering wheel.
Lin Yi was carefully watching Qin Zhou’s reactions from out the corner of his eye. His eyes landed on Qin Zhou’s hands on the steering wheel. He was gripping the wheel so tightly, the veins were raised on the back of his hands.
He grabbed the seat belt uneasily. “I knew Yuan Yuan before coming to school, but I can’t remember who she is and how she’s connected to me. I just feel like she’s very familiar…”
Lin Yi lied. On the day of freshman registration, Ou Ying had said that students who enter the Unnatural Engineering University will gradually be forgotten by their relatives and friends. And so, he used this reason.
Now, he was hoping with everything he had that Yuan Yuan had left the campus during her time in university; otherwise, his lie would easily be exposed by Qin Zhou.
But there was no way. He had to do it.
Qin Zhou wouldn’t let him follow him because there was an issue with him.
But he was worried about Qin Zhou and wanted to follow Qin Zhou. So, now, he had to provide a reason that would allow him to go with.
Lin Yi comforted himself. It didn’t matter if Yuan Yuan never left the school after entering the Unnatural Engineering University. In any case, Qin Zhou didn’t have any means to verify the authenticity of what he’d said at this time.
He just needed to go with Qin Zhou to find the 21 missing people.
Qin Zhou’s breathing eased a little and he asked, “And?”
Hearing this, Lin Yi felt relieved. Qin Zhou must have believed his lies. He continued, “I last saw her ten years ago and I’ve never seen her again since. Because she felt so familiar but I had no idea who she was, I kept looking for her. I found traces of her life at home…”
Lin Yi spoke slowly, thinking very comprehensively.
Ou Ying said that relatives and friends would forget them but Lin Yi thought that while people could lose their memory, cleaning up all traces of a person’s life would be difficult. He could take advantage of this.
“So, when I was filling out my application for the college entrance exams, the moment I saw the Unnatural Engineering University, I had a hunch I would find the answers I wanted here.” After Lin Yi finished speaking, he saw Qin Zhou frown slightly and he continued, “So I filled out the form for here…Senior, that’s it.”
Qin Zhou was looking straight ahead. Probably because of his guilty conscience, Lin Yi couldn’t accurately judge what was going on in Qin Zhou’s heart. He thought for a moment and said, “Senior, I didn’t lie…”
Qin Zhou suddenly said, “Did you delete the browsing history for Yuan Yuan’s page?”
Lin Yi nodded: “…It was me.”
Before Qin Zhou could ask why, Lin Yi took the initiative to explain, “The authority of your account is too high. I couldn’t hold back.”
Qin Zhou asked, “Hold back what?”
Lin Yi replied, “The temptation to use public power are for private use.”
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.
Qin Zhou: “…”
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Lin Yi said, “I failed.”
Qin Zhou: “En.”
Lin Yi recognized Qin Zhou’s “En”. Qin Zhou didn’t believe him.
Lin Yi quickly said, “Senior, I really did fail. I didn’t need to intentionally fail. Even if I performed to my usual standards, it’s not like I couldn’t have applied to a specialized college. And if I was planning to apply to the Unnatural Engineering University early on, I should have controlled the scores for my mock exams.”
Saying so, he looked at Qin Zhou nervously.
It was indeed difficult to explain that how he came to the Unnatural Engineering University with such high scores, especially when Qin Zhou knew that he had perfect grades. Lin Yi could only defend himself in this way.
Qin Zhou said, “Are you thirsty? There’s bottled water in the car.”
Lin Yi shook his head. “I’m not thirsty.”
Qin Zhou turned his head and glanced at him, then stretched out his hand to rub Lin Yi’s head, “Get some sleep first. I’ll wake you when we get to the city.”
His hand slipped down and stopped to rest on Lin Yi’s neck. He couldn’t hold back and gently rubbed the red mark on his neck with his fingertips.
Qin Zhou took back his hand when he found that it tickled Lin Yi.
Qin Zhou was back to focusing on driving. Lin Yi thought for a while and nodded. “Okay.”
He was confused. But more talk, more mistakes. It was best not to say anything now and let Qin Zhou think over things slowly.
Lin Yi closed his eyes and prepared to sleep. Qin Zhou said, “Little genius, move the seat back. Isn’t it uncomfortable for you to sleep like that?”
Lin Yi opened his eyes and obediently adjusted the seat.
He then closed his eyes again.
He heard a laugh from Qin Zhou.
Lin Yi breathed a sigh of relief.
Lying back, he feigned sleep, Qin Zhou’s breathing in his ears. The air in the car slowly warmed up and Lin Qi reckoned that Qin Zhou must have turned up the air conditioning for him.
After maintaining this posture for almost an hour, Qin Zhou called to him softly, “Little genius.”
Lin Yi knew how to pretend to be asleep. Only when Qin Zhou called him for the third time did he open his eyes and sit up straight. “Senior, are you here?”
“We’ll be there in a bit.” Qin Zhou said, “Look out the window.”
Lin Yi turned his head to look out the car window. Outside the window was a scene he had not seen for a long time. The moon was hung high in the night sky. The lights were on, the lights of thousands of houses dotting the dark sky.
But what attracted Lin Yi was not just the night view that Qin Zhou wanted to share with him. Lin Yi could see himself and Qin Zhou reflected on the car window.
Qin Zhou was concentrating on driving. Their car had left the fog and merged into the endless sea of cars in the city. Lin Yi was looking at Qin Zhou’s serious and focused profile.
Senior is so good-looking, Lin Yi thought.
The remaining time passed quickly and they arrived at Jinma Street an hour later.
First, Qin Zhou drove through Jinma Street once.
“Did you find anything?” Qin Zhou asked.
Qin Zhou was responsible for driving, and Lin Yi was responsible for discovering the clues hidden in the city streets.
Jinma Street is a bar street. Lin Yi didn’t find anything amiss. But the very fact that it is a bar street made it seem weird.
A day was actually very short. For the students of the purchasing department, being able to leave the Unnatural Engineering University, even temporarily, was indeed a joyous occasion. But no matter how happy they may have been, they would have no business appearing on a bar street.
Much less at three o’clock in the afternoon, when Jinma Street was likely to have been deserted.
Lin Yi asked, “Senior, let’s take a look at the streets adjacent to Jinma Street.”
The only reason Lin Yi could come up with as to why the students would be on Jinma Street was that they had simply been passing through.
Qin Zhou: “Okay.”
He chose a direction and the car turned right to a street called “Right Jinma Street” across Jinma Street.
Lin Yi said nothing as they passed through Right Jinma Street. Qin Zhou turned around, crossing Right Jinma Street again, and into Left Jinma Street.
As soon as the car drove into Left Jinma Street, which was about a hundred meters away, Lin Yi put his hands on the car window and fixed his eyes on a certain store: “Senior.”
Screech——
The sudden braking made the wheels screech.
Qin Zhou stopped the car and turned on the hazard lights.
He then asked, “Where?”
Lin Yi pointed to an escape room shop with a poster soliciting customers outside the door.
There was nothing strange about how it looked, except that Lin Yi saw the poster. There were real people printed on the poster and these real people looked familiar to Lin Yi.
He quickly took out his phone and took a picture, then sent it to Ou Ying.
Qin Zhou contacted Ou Ying directly, “Lin Yi sent you a photo for Wu An to identify.”
“Lin Yi…” Ou Ying: “Okay.”
Two minutes later, Wu An’s excited voice came through. “Zhou Ge, that’s them.”
Qin Zhou: “Are you sure?”
Wu An: “I’m sure.”
Qin Zhou: “Okay, I’m hanging up.”
While Qin Zhou was on the phone, Lin Yi was watching from the side. Although he hadn’t heard what had been said over the phone, judging from Qin Zhou’s reply and expression, Lin Yi must have been correct.
After Qin Zhou ended the call, Lin Yi asked, “Senior, are they really the students from the purchasing department?”
Qin Zhou frowned. “Yeah.”
Lin Yi was surprised. He turned back to look at the poster.
There were far more than 21 people printed on the poster and there were also some faces that Lin Yi had never seen before, which brought about that sense of weirdness.
“It’s a Monster,” Qin Zhou said.
Lin Yi was even more shocked. “Did one of the school’s Rule Monsters get out?”
Qin Zhou said, “Even after so many years since the school’s founding, save for the Rule 0-1 Monster, whose existence is temporarily in doubt, there has been no Rule Monster that has managed to escape. This must be a Monster that hasn’t been accepted by the school yet. It can’t be called a Rule Monster. At most, it can only be called a Monster.”
After saying that, Qin Zhou turned off the car and unbuckled his seat belt.
Qin Zhou withdrew his eyes, lit a cigarette and assessed directly. “A high-level Monster.”
Lin Yi was stunned. He didn’t know how Qin Zhou could have assessed its level at a glance.
Qin Zhou explained, “It doesn’t appear but can attract prey. Right now, I’m feeling the urge to go in.”
It stands to reason that since Qin Zhou has been to so many Rule Worlds, similar to a drug resistance, Monsters wouldn’t pull him into the Rule World unless they had no choice when choosing participants.
Lin Yi looked towards the store. Everyone who passed by the store turned suddenly and made for the escape room store.
The strange thing was that Lin Yi didn’t feel the pull at all. On the contrary, he felt as though he were being repelled.
nooooooo Lin Yi you must be honest with your husband!! yes he is afraid that he might not be human, but Qin Zhou has already forgiven him for lying so many times. how can he still be afraid?
also I feel like the mystery would be so much easier to solve if Qin Zhou had all the facts. He is smart about people and monsters in way that Lin Yi isn’t, and he would probably have more insight into what’s going on…
Sigh, I can only hope Lin Yi chooses to come clean soon.
+1
I know it. Real life instance.
I hope Lin Yi can tell the truth some day.
Caught up with the latest chapter at last ..
Lies breed more lies.. Standing in Lin Yi’s shoes, his lies are understandable.. But being truthful to Qin Zhou might actually be helpful for him..