Chapter 145
After introducing the background of “Xiushen Academy”, the staff member led everyone into the escape room.
He asked the players to line up in a long queue and gave each player a blindfold. “Everyone, please put on the blindfold and then put your hands on the shoulder of the person in front…”
Lin Yi looked at Qin Zhou. He’d promised Qin Zhou he wouldn’t stand out, so he was waiting for Qin Zhou’s decision.
The two of them are at the end of the line. He could either puts his hands on Qin Zhou’s shoulders, so that he’d be the last person in the line, or Qin Zhou puts his hands on his shoulders and Qin Zhou becomes the last person in the line.
If this place were normal, it wouldn’t matter either way.
But this place wasn’t normal. It was full of dangers both in front and behind. The person in front couldn’t guarantee whose hands where on his shoulders and the person in the back couldn’t guarantee whether there would be something else following behind him.
Lin Yi saw that Qin Zhou was also thinking about this matter. He thought for a while and suggested, “Senior, can I go last?”
He could take off the blindfold to see what was going on on the way to the escape room. Because the hands of the person behind would be on the shoulders of the person in front, once their eyes were covered, their other senses would be amplified and though any movement of the person behind would be invisible to the person in front of him, the person in front would be certain to feel it.
If Qin Zhou would be one in front of him, he could look around without being noticed by others.
Qin Zhou saw through to what he was thinking. Lin Yi could keep a low profile but he would also be unable to search for clues.
It was indeed dangerous here but Qin Zhou couldn’t stop Lin Yi from looking for clues. Only by having enough clues would they be able to survive.
From this point of view, it was indeed safer for Lin Yi to walk at the end of the line.
Qin Zhou tilted his head.
Lin Yi understood Qin Zhou’s signal. He put on a blindfold, stretched out his right arm and put his hand on Qin Zhou’s shoulder.
He was using his left hand to adjust the position of the blindfold to ensure that he could see their feet and his right side.
Before he could finish, Lin Yi felt the line move. Without him noticing, Qin Zhou’s shoulder had slipped from his hand.
Lin Yi quickly reached out and his hand was caught by a warm one that had reached back.
This hand took his and rested it on the waist of its owner.
Lin Yi breathed a sigh of relief and grabbed the corner of Qin Zhou’s waist.
He was sure it was Qin Zhou. After all, he had spent a lot of time touching this waist in a certain dorm room at school just a few hours ago. He was also familiar with the feel of this fabric.
After that, Lin Yi started to peek. He saw the staff member lead them through a door.
The light dimmed after entering the door. There was obviously a light on behind the door but the door was like a black hole, not a single ray of light made it in.
Lin Yi saw the black fog. In the Unnatural Engineering University, the black fog represented the loading progress bar for the Rule World.
It should be the same here.
After seeing what was going on at his feet, Lin Yi was about to look behind him again. Suddenly his shoulders sank. A pair of arms had silently put their hands on his shoulders.
He couldn’t help but tighten his grip on Qin Zhou’s clothes.
This was a chain reaction. Lin Yi felt Qin Zhou’s body stiffen for a moment.
To avoid worrying Qin Zhou, Lin Yi gently scratched Qin Zhou’s waist.
Then his body slowly stiffened. He clearly felt the hand on his shoulder fall. The hand then also grabbed the corner of his waist and scratched it.
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.
Olc Tl aglfv tlr yfra ab ribk tlr ygfjatlcu. Lf rmgjamtfv Hlc Itbe aklmf wbgf.
Ktf atlcu yftlcv tlw jirb rmgjamtfv tlw aklmf wbgf, klat atf rjwf gtsatw.
Ktja atlcu kjr lwlajalcu tlw!
Bcbklcu atja tlr fnfgs wbnf kjr yflcu kjamtfv ys rbwfatlcu yftlcv tlw, Olc Tl delmxis aegcfv tlr tfjv jcv rabqqfv agslcu ab qffx j ibbx ja tlr gluta rlvf.
After walking like this for almost 4 or 5 minutes, the train finally stopped.
But there came no message from the staff member telling them that they had reached their destination or that they could take off their blindfolds. It was like a train that had lost its engine, leaving only the connected carriages parked on the tracks.
Lin Yi counted the number of people. There were twenty-seven players participating in the game this time, including him and Qin Zhou. The line of twenty-seven people was neither long nor short, so the voice coming from the front of the line could be heard but not very clearly.
Lin Yi caught the keywords.
“The guide”
“Gone.”
The keywords were so accurate that the current situation was made evident without any need to waste brain cells.
The first person in the line had also been wearing a blindfold and had been led forward by the staff member. Now the staff had disappeared.
He had disappeared completely. This creepy feeling was spreading from the front of the line. The next second, Lin Yi felt the weight on his shoulder ease. The hand on his shoulders had disappeared.
Feeling only cold wind behind him, Lin Yi was sure that the thing that had been following him had disappeared. He then took a step forward, pressed close to Qin Zhou’s back, and whispered, “Senior, something has joined us.”
Qin Zhou took off his blindfold immediately after hearing this.
For Lin Yi to declare with such certainty that something had joined them must mean that he’d felt it.
The light stung his eyes but Qin Zhou didn’t close them. Seeing that Lin Yi was okay, he breathed a sigh of relief.
Hearing Qin Zhou taking off his blindfold, Lin Yi was about to take his off too.
They knew very well that the disappearance of the guide meant that the Monster’s world had been loaded and they had reached their destination.
But before Lin Yi took the blindfold off, Qin Zhou reached out and grabbed his hand.
Qin Zhou said softly, “Don’t rush.”
Qin Zhou was the only one in the line who had taken off his blindfold so far. The others were still blindfolded. Although it was difficult to think that taking off the blindfold could be courting death, the situation right now was beyond even Qin Zhou’s knowledge.
In an environment of uncertainty, the best thing to do was to not be the first person.
This was what Qin Zhou meant when he told Lin Yi not to stand out.
The reason why Qin Zhou took off the blindfold was to confirm Lin Yi’s safety. He had become the first person to take off the blindfold. He wasn’t going to let Lin Yi become the second person to take off the blindfold. After all, there wasn’t much difference between first and second. Both would be considered as standing out.
Lin Yi could still see a little bit. But Qin Zhou grabbed his hand to stop his movements and pulled the blindfold down on him.
Lin Yi couldn’t see anything now and could only hear Qin Zhou’s breathing.
After a while, Qin Zhou let go of his hand but said nothing else.
Lin Yi hesitantly reached for the blindfold. When Qin Zhou didn’t stop him, he took it off.
Most of the other people have taken off their blindfolds and the group has dispersed, no longer maintaining the ‘long dragon’ form.
The first thing Lin Yi did when he took off his blindfold was to count the number of people. Qin Zhou said, “28.”
The thing following Lin Yi had successfully snuck in.
Lin Yi could hear a hint of solemnity in Qin Zhou’s tone.
In a Rule World, a Monster would choose to possess a participant to hide among them. According to a Monster’s rules, their strength will decrease in proportion to the strength of possessed participant, thus ensuring the fun of the Rule World.
However, the Monster here didn’t seem to abide by this; instead, joining them directly. No one could guarantee whether its strength has been weakened or whether there were rules to restrict it.
Lin Yi looked at the other people. When he entered the store, he had looked at the faces of the others. But now, no matter who Lin Yi looked at, they all seemed familiar. If he hadn’t been so certain that a pair of hands had touched his shoulders, he might even have mistakenly believed that he had counted wrong.
Qin Zhou noticed these actions earlier than he did, so Lin Yi didn’t waste any more time distinguishing who was the twenty-eighth extra person. He looked at the scene in front of him.
At this time, they were in a run down room. There was nothing in the room. The walls were dilapidated and water was seeping from the top of the walls. Dark green moss grew in areas where water kept soaking through. The whole room was filled with a damp smell.
Aside from the damp, there was also a sense of horror in the air exaggerated by the others in the room.
By this time, that mysterious impulse had disappeared. No one could figure out why they suddenly changed their plans to come play in an escape room, though it had indeed been their own choice to come.
This was weird enough but what was even weirder was the sudden disappearance of their guide.
The boy at the very front was shaking all over. His fear was more visceral than the others’. He kept describing to the others the incomprehensible phenomena he had encountered.
“I was sure my hands were on that little brother’s shoulder. But the next second he was gone! Just gone!”
Someone tried to explain it away. “Did the guide suddenly run away?”
After all, they had simply placed their hands on the shoulders of the person in front. The person in front could easily shake off the people behind them simply by walking a little faster.
The boy shook his head in horror. “Impossible! I was grabbing onto his shoulders and his clothes. I remember it very clearly. I was worried that this would happen, so I held on tightly. But the next second my hands were empty. ”
Saying so, he spread his hands open, palms facing up. Just like the situation just now, his hands were empty.
Although he recounted in an obviously frightened manner, few people could empathize with him. And even though the boy had made it clear, someone still said stubbornly, “You mustn’t have grabbed him properly.”
The boy became anxious. But the others were unwilling to say more to him and began to wander around the room.
“What’s the situation now?”
“Do you want to get out of here?”
Someone pulled at the iron door. The iron door was not very stable. It made a “clang” sound during the pushing and pulling process. This sound kept irritating the boy. Finally, he was pushed to his limits. The boy shouted, “Alright, fine. I think there’s something fishy here but I don’t want to play anymore.”
There were no windows in the room, only this door. The man walked to the door angrily and yelled at the door. “I don’t want to play anymore, let me out!”
No one answered.
Everyone stopped and looked at the boy. Lin Yi and Qin Zhou also looked at the boy.
The boy shouted again, “Hey! Is there anyone there? Can you hear me? I! Said! I don’t want to play anymore! Open the door quickly.”
No one answered.
The boy flinched but at this moment a girl also spoke.
Lin Yi recognized her as the one who’d been chatting on WeChat with her friend.
The girl also said, “I don’t want to play anymore either. I have other things to do. You don’t need to refund me the money.”
With a comrade stepping up, the boy mustered up the courage to kick the iron door hard. “Fuck, I told you we aren’t playing anymore and we won’t ask you to refund the money. Open the door quickly!”
No one answered.
The boy suddenly became angry and kicked the door hard several times, “I told you…”
Boom–
The boy’s kick flung the door open. He probably wasn’t expecting to succeed and the boy was stunned for a couple of seconds.
Lin Yi immediately looked outside the door. In the eyes of others, it was pitch dark outside. But Lin Yi saw people walking through the darkness.
Before he could tell Qin Zhou, footsteps could suddenly be heard.
The boy, while still hesitating whether to go out like this, was suddenly kicked hard by someone from outside. The kick was very forceful and the boy was knocked down to the ground, blood immediately appeared on his face.
Immediately afterwards, eight bald men, all of whom appeared to be tougher than Cheng Yang rushed in. These eight people had tattoos all over their bodies and held stainless steel keel whips in their hands.
Everyone was stunned seeing this. These newcomers didn’t look like good people.
However, because of the background of “Xiushen Academy”, they regarded these people as escape room NPCs, diluting the fear normal people would have towards people covered in tattoos.
Everyone became dissatisfied.
They came to play the game. They were customers and it was their choice whether they wanted to continue playing the game or not. But now one of the customers had been struck down.
“Why did you hit him!”
“Fuck, refund me my money. I’m not playing anymore.”
Lin Yi’s fingers curled. It was obvious that these people haven’t realized that they’ve been transported to a whole different world.
But it didn’t seem like there was anyway he could make them understand. Just like the freshmen selected by the Unnatural Engineering University, if they hadn’t seen someone die with their own eyes, they wouldn’t have been able to accept the truth of the situation.
Accusations were being shouted in the room but the people who came in had no intention of letting them continue. The keel whip in their hands were the weapons to silence them.
Eight people with eight keel whips began striking at the people in the room.
They didn’t differentiate between the boys and girls, whether they had been vocal or not. Wherever the whips struck, the skin immediately turned dark purple. No blood dripped but blood could be seen seeping into the skin.
Screams filled the room, but the louder the screams the harder the men hit.
Soon, the cracking of bones could be heard.
Xiushen Academy assured the parents that by no means would violent corporal punishment be used to correct their children.
In light of this, the academy’s guarantee was obviously worthless.
Lin Yi was being closely protected in Qin Zhou’s arms and yet, he was still hit several times. Qin Zhou, who was protecting him, obviously had it much worse.
The beatings were so painful, bones were being shattered.
“Senior!” Lin Yi wanted to rush out of Qin Zhou’s arms but Qin Zhou held him tightly.
“Don’t move.” Qin Zhou gritted his teeth; trembling with pain with every word he spoke. “Don’t worry. It doesn’t hurt.”
thank you for the chapter!
Qin Zhou protecting his boyfriend makes my heart soft… Lin Yi, how can you not trust him?
Oof. The academy seems like a low level mafia now
… Does this means the monster also get hit?
A trembling M monster this time? Lol.
this made me audibly snort lmao sdlkfsjdfsldkfj