Chapter 144
Lin Yi stared at the store. Because of the keywords ‘High-level Monster’ and ‘attraction’, he didn’t know what to do now. He turned to look at Qin Zhou. Qin Zhou was also frowning, deep in thought.
When he noticed Lin Yi looking over, Qin Zhou asked him softly, “Let’s go together?”
Lin Yi’s heart suddenly jumped.
He knew what Qin Zhou was worried about. This was a high-level monster with a high degree of danger and difficulty. And they only had one day, no, even less than a day. They had to return to school and the journey back to school was long. It will take time.
If they cannot escape within the allotted time… They might not die at the hands of this Monster, but they will definitely be killed by the Unnatural Engineering University.
The time aspect has made the situation even more difficult.
“En.” Lin Yi nodded without hesitation: “Let’s go together.”
Qin Zhou smiled, as if he had already expected Lin Yi’s answer.
After locking the car, the two of them walked to the escape room shop.
When passing by the poster, Lin Yi glanced at it. Some of the faces on the poster had their eyes open and some had their eyes closed.
This escape room store wasn’t big. It was sandwiched between two larger stores. You need to walk up a narrow corridor to the second floor to reach the store.
Lin Yi followed Qin Zhou. He looked ahead and saw other people who were attracted to the store walking in front of them. Lin Yi turned back and looked behind him. There were people behind them as well.
No wonder Qin Zhou was able to directly evaluate it as a high-level Monster. Even the 2-6 Monsters and 4-4 Monsters that had existed for roughly a decade could only prey on a dozen people at a time; but by Lin Yi’s rough count, there were already more than twenty people here.
Qin Zhou reached out and grabbed Lin Yi, who paused.
Qin Zhou pulled him towards him. “Don’t look around.”
High-level monsters are intelligent. If it hides among the participants like a Rule Monster, Lin Yi’s search for clues may directly lead to him being targeted by the Monster.
Lin Yi responded softly and let himself be led by Qin Zhou up to the second floor.
With the two of them holding hands like this, people cast looks at them from time to time.
Lin Yi blushed. He got a clue. The people who entered this store were not being manipulated. They still retained their independent thinking ability. It was probably just like impulsive consumption. Their brains right now were being occupied by impulsive emotions.
They were even still able to fiddle with their mobile phones like normal.
Lin Yi glanced at the cell phone screen of a girl next to him.
The girl was chatting with someone on WeChat.
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.
[Jiejie, I’ve been waiting for you for almost an hour. Why aren’t you here yet?]
Ktf ulgi asqfv j gfqis.
[I went to the escape room shop.]
[? ? ? ]
[? ]
[Aren’t you claustrophobic? Did I remember wrong?]
[I am but I just suddenly got the urge to play]
[But aren’t we supposed to watch a movie? The movie’s about to start]
[Next time, I just want to play the escape room today]
[……]
Olc Tl klatvgfk tlr fsfr jcv ibbxfv ja atf sbecu ijvs rfiilcu almxfar ja atf ogbca vfrx.
Qtfc atf olgra uefra jgglnfv, atf sbecu ijvs ja atf ogbca vfrx rabbv eq jcv rjlv, “Lfiib, ktlmt lcrajcmf kbeiv sbe ilxf kjca ab qijs?”
Olc Tl ofia j abemt bc tlr tjcv jcv aegcfv tlr tfjv ab ibbx ja Hlc Itbe.
Qin Zhou shook his head slightly. No one spoke at the moment. He signaled Lin Yi not to be the first to speak.
The lady at the front desk didn’t seem surprised and customers who had now crowded almost the entirety of the lobby. “There will be an instance of “Xiushen Academy” at 10:30. It’s our store’s most popular instance. Would you like to give this one a try?”
Saying so, the lady at the front desk handed out flyers for “Xiushen Academy” to everyone.
When Lin Yi got the introduction sheet, the sense of rejection he felt became even more intense. Lin Yi immediately raised his head to look at Qin Zhou.
He felt repulsed, while Qin Zhou should feel attracted.
However, Qin Zhou was still able to control the impulse in his heart. Others, however, could not. They all rushed forward. “I want to play with this.”
The lady at the front desk seemed quite used to how popular “Xiushen Academy” was and she wasn’t at all surprised by the enthusiasm of the customers. “Okay, okay, don’t crowd me. There’s no limit on the number of people for this instance. Everyone can play. .”
‘There’s no limit to the number of people’.
Lin Yi saw Qin Zhou frown deeply because of these words.
The lady at the front desk said again, “Please line up and pay here.”
When Lin Yi heard this, he couldn’t help but imitate Qin Zhou and frown.
Then he heard a chuckle from beside him and Qin Zhou lowered his head and looked at him: “I have money.”
Lin Yi was silent for a moment and said, “Oh.”
For a moment, he felt like a laughing stock. A funny one that for a while, Qin Zhou felt much more relaxed.
That’s good.
Lin Yi thought.
A queue quickly formed, with Lin Yi and Qin Zhou at the end.
It’s not that they weren’t in a rush; there was just no point in rushing. This store had made it clear that the leeks would be cut all at once.
However, the payment still went very fast and it was quickly their turn.
Their mobile phones couldn’t be used outside the Unnatural Engineering University since they were people forgotten by the outside world. Their SIM cards had long been canceled and could no longer be used. Thus, they could not pay with their mobile phones like the others did.
Qin Zhou took out his wallet pulled out a few hundred-yuan bills and handed them to the lady at the front desk.
Lin Yi watched quietly from the side. The lady at the front desk was accepting payment like normal and her expression too was normal. He thought for a while and asked, “Hello, will you play with us?”
The lady at the front desk mistakenly thought that Lin Yi was inviting her and rejected him with a smile, “I can’t, I still have work.”
With that said, she got their change and returned it to Qin Zhou.
Lin Yi: “Sorry to bother you.”
Qin Zhou put the change into his wallet, pulled Lin Yi and walked to the side.
There were also several other staff members there, organizing and preparing the players who’d already paid.
They needed to put away their mobile phone, among other precautions.
After Lin Yi looked at several of the staff members, he said to Qin Zhou: “They all seem to be normal.”
Qin Zhou looked around and said, “En.”
He then lowered his head and sent a message to Ou Ying, in case they suddenly lose contact and Ou Ying sends someone after them.
As Qin Zhou sent the message, Lin Yi lowered his head and pondered.
In other words, the lady at the front desk and other staff members were like him and had no urge to play.
There were two possible reasons for the lack of consumption impulse. The first was that the staff here were to some extent in a similar situation as his own. It may be that their parents have turned strange, or it may be that they also weren’t quite sure if they were human or something else…
The second was that the Monster hadn’t chosen them to be its prey.
One of these was almost immediately eliminated as a possibility.
There was more than one staff member and because there were so many staff members, the possibility of the first reason was infinitely lower.
The second reason was the likely answer. The monster hadn’t chosen the staff here to be its prey.
Why didn’t the monster choose the staff to be its prey? Lin Yi didn’t come up with any theories. The game was about to begin. He was about to enter the world created by the Monster and he had no way to find any clues to confirm any of his theories.
A staff member came to them and said, “Hello, you will need to temporarily surrender your mobile phones.”
Qin Zhou had ended his conversation with Ou Ying. He turned off his cell phone and handed it to the staff member.
Lin Yi quickly took out his mobile phone and handed it to the staff member as well.
“Thank you for your cooperation.”
The staff member said, “In five minutes, someone will take you into the escape room. You can just relax until then.”
Qin Zhou didn’t say anything. Lin Yi said, “Okay, thank you.”
After the staff left, Qin Zhou looked at Lin Yi and told him, “Little genius, don’t stand out.”
Lin Yi nodded and Qin Zhou reached out and rubbed his hair. The only thing he did in that five minutes was to mess up and smooth his hair.
Five minutes later, the staff member who was going to take the players into the escape room appeared.
Because there were so many people, the staff member held a loudspeaker in his hand and said, “Before entering the escape room, let me introduce the background of “Xiushen Academy” to everyone.”
Everyone looked up at the staff member.
“Xiushen Academy is a closed academy. Its purpose is to create the most obedient children. All children who enter Xiushen Academy, whether they are engaged in young love, truants, underachievers, internet addicts…all behaviors related to rebellion will only take a few months to a year for these behaviors to be completely corrected in Xiushen Academy. In the end, good, obedient children will be returned to the parents. Of course, Xiushen Academy can guarantee that violent corporal punishment shall never be used to change the children.”
These words from the staff caused discussion among the players.
“No corporal punishment?”
“Then how will they correct a child with character flaws?”
The staff member smiled: “This is something you’ll need to find out.”
Then, he said, “And you have been sent to Xiushen Academy this day…”
I once read a Goosebumps book with this plot…. Thank you for the chapter!!
Whaaaaa! Thank you!
… So, the child get duplicated and the ‘obedient’ one are the one who got sent home?