Opening the somewhat thick A4 paper in her hand, Yue Yiyue realized that she had only received the role of an observer; its thickness was just a misleading factor.
The content on the paper was also very simple.
You are a passerby at this school. Your daily life revolves around reading and studying. In your view, getting into a good university is more important than many other things, so your goal is very clear.
Until a malicious bullying incident occurred at the school, you, who had always kept to yourself, one day received two letters.
You can now choose your faction: the bullies or the bullied.
To help the bullies, observe with cold detachment.
To help the bullied, please quickly take them to hide.
(P.S. Aside from the restroom, everywhere seems to be a good spot, especially the Dean's Office, where you will find something better.)
To ensure fairness, your ability is Fanning the Flames—please develop its use for your survival.
Please follow the school rules, and wearing a blue top and black pants is strictly forbidden at school.
You can only choose one faction, but finding a card (hidden in a corner of the school) allows you to change factions once.
You must not violate the original school rules, as this will ???
She is also inside… Do not take her…
The following words were blurred with ink and illegible.
Yue Yiyue quietly observed her surroundings; everyone was looking down and carefully reading the paper in their hands.
She also lowered her head, pretending she hadn't finished, staring blankly at the thin sheet of paper.
In the original novel, after the game officially started, everyone would enter another world and experience everything.
But the game hadn't started yet.
Yue Yiyue looked around, confirming there was no abnormality in the classroom.
Except for the chair next to them that was completely out of place in the classroom.
Only when the sounds of people placing down their scripts started to come, one after another, did Yue Yiyue close hers.
As she looked up, Yue Yiyue squinted. She wondered if it was her imagination, but she felt the lighting had dimmed even further.
"Well, the script says we have to leave first, and only the people with Script No. 4 and Script No. 6 must stay behind." Wang Yong stood in the shadows, looking at Yue Yiyue with resentment, and finally, with some reluctance, left with the other three people.
"We'll be nearby. When we come back, we'll knock on the door three times, and that's when the game officially begins."
Wang Yong suddenly turned back to say just as the door was about to close.
"Then we'll all go together to the Art Room 317 on the third floor. Zhang Yang has set up the scene there. Remember, only knock three times to open the door."
"Knock three times to open the door," Wang Yong emphasized again.
Saying this, he slammed the door shut heavily.
In a corner unseen by anyone, a wisp of black quietly hooked onto Wang Yong's trouser leg…
Now, only two people were left in the room.
Yue Yiyue looked at Gu Nanqiu, who was sitting right next to her. She was just as beautiful as described in the original novel.
Sitting there, tilting her head slightly, her dark, smooth hair draped over her shoulders, looking intently at the script.
Her expression was so relaxed, as if she merely thought she was engaging in an utterly normal game with her classmates.
She seemed completely unaware of what would happen next or what kind of disgusting scenes she would experience.
Yue Yiyue recalled the scenes of gore described in the book, one after another.
She couldn't allow that.
Yue Yiyue finally mustered the courage to ask: "Should we just sneak back like this?"
"Just the two of us. We can ditch this boring game and go back to rest properly."
Hearing this, Gu Nanqiu looked up in surprise. She looked at Yue Yiyue sitting beside her, her eyes full of confusion.
A long silence followed—so long that Yue Yiyue became uneasy, wondering if she had said something extremely offensive.
She waited quietly.
Waiting for Gu Nanqiu to give her an instruction.
Or…
To criticize her for deserting the field and standing people up.
Before she could get an answer, a banging sound came from the doorway.
Yue Yiyue instinctively stood up, watching the thin wooden door with caution.
But the banging only lasted a moment, followed by a rhythmic knocking—three times.
Da—da—da—
Three knocks formed a set, rhythmically striking the door panel.
"It started so fast?" Yue Yiyue was a little confused by the situation. She thought for a moment, Oh well, this way the awkwardness wouldn't continue to spread in the classroom.
She tried to appear relaxed as she walked to the door as Zhang Yang had instructed and pulled the handle: "Then let's go to the art room first, or we can go back—"
Her voice cut off abruptly.
The person knocking… was… Wang Yong.
It was Wang Yong, his skin peeled off, his eyeballs bulging, with something wrapped around his neck, hanging in the doorway—a mass of blood and flesh.
Due to gravity, his blood constantly dripped down, splattering slightly on the ground, while his intestines and other organs had spilled out of his abdominal cavity, hanging in a long strip.
His body was swaying slightly, blown by the wind.
The distance was just right for him to have knocked on the door.
Yue Yiyue, frozen in place by the shock, even thought for a moment that Wang Yong was still alive.
Because for a split second, she saw those bulging eyes seem to turn, staring straight at the spot behind Yue Yiyue.
Yue Yiyue's pupils constricted. She bit her lip tightly, struggling to suppress a scream from escaping her throat, and took a difficult step back, her legs so weak she nearly fell to the floor.
The person behind her caught her just in time.
Gu Nanqiu's expression was no better.
Her face was frighteningly pale. The hand supporting Yue Yiyue was terrifyingly cold, her fingertips trembling unconsciously.
But neither of them screamed, afraid that the sound might attract something that shouldn't be there.
Yue Yiyue turned her head away, refusing to look at the bloody mess in the doorway.
She leaned against Gu Nanqiu, trying to take deep breaths to calm her emotions.
Her muddled brain struggled to function, flashing through countless original plot points.
But, none of them contained this scene.
Wang Yong shouldn't have died here.
In the original novel, he was clearly peeled alive after the game formally began… he listened in on the conversation by the door, violating a rule, and was peeled as a warning.
He was not peeled and then hung here as if to warn them.
It was as if something had gone off the rails. At this moment, Yue Yiyue's mind went blank, and the desire to escape before the game completely started turned icy cold.
But this scene also coincided with the fleeting sentence in the original novel.
It had just appeared before her eyes a little earlier than expected.
Gu Nanqiu seemed to have just recovered from the shock. Sensing that the person beside her was too weak to stand, she stretched out her slightly trembling hands and lifted Yue Yiyue into her arms.
"Don't look… I'll hold you and we'll leave through the other side. Don't be afraid, I'm here… We're going back now. Something's wrong, something's wrong here…" Gu Nanqiu's voice was slightly shaky. The moment the incident happened, her mind flashed back to Yue Yiyue's discomfort along the way.
She glanced down at the somewhat thin back of the person in her arms and gently patted it with her free hand for comfort.
"Did you know something like this would happen?"
Gu Nanqiu carried Yue Yiyue out through the window. After climbing out, she didn't hesitate and ran towards the Dean's Office.
The sound of the wind whistled past her ears, along with the thump-thump of Yue Yiyue's heartbeat.
She looked down at the person in her arms, trying to control her voice and sound composed: "It's okay. If we leave here, there should be a teacher on duty. If not, we'll go find the security guard at the gate."
"We'll split up later. I'll gather the rest of our classmates, and then we'll all go to the security room together."
Yue Yiyue, who hadn't fully recovered, leaned against Gu Nanqiu and apologized awkwardly: "I'm sorry. I'll come and help as soon as I recover. I actually don't know anything."
"It's just that I had a nightmare before I came here. It was a bit similar to this, so I've been particularly uneasy the whole way."
Yue Yiyue kept her head down, so Gu Nanqiu couldn't see her anxious expression from lying.
She vaguely distorted everything into a dream.
From the fragmented, messy information Yue Yiyue gave her, Gu Nanqiu concluded that they wouldn't be able to leave unless they followed the plot to the end.
Gu Nanqiu was a little confused by Yue Yiyue's words—following the plot?
But there was nothing here, and Wang Yong…
In the distance, something white seemed to flash past, interrupting Gu Nanqiu's thoughts. Just as she was about to look closely to see if it was Zhang Yang or the others, a rhythmic ringing—three chimes—suddenly echoed through the empty academic building. Looking up at the corridor again, she slowed her steps until she stopped.
Yue Yiyue sensed this and squirmed out of her arms.
"The third bell ring signifies the formal opening of the Inner World. The school area is officially open. The Pollution Level is 100%. At this time, dense crowds of students are playing and walking in the corridor, but some students are very different from ordinary people."
That simple line from the original novel, when rendered into reality, delivered such a shock to Yue Yiyue that she nearly passed out.
The corridor was now populated with many, many…"people."
They were wearing school uniforms. Some were holding insulated bottles, seemingly heading to the water fountain.
Some were walking downstairs, arm in arm with their girlfriends, talking intimately.
They looked like ordinary students.
But they all had one thing in common.
They all had pale, bloodless faces—faces that were smooth and completely featureless.
No facial features.
They were mixed among the normal students. Other than that, everything else here was so ordinary, as if they had returned to a normal high school.
Seeing this sight, Yue Yiyue violently pinched her hand, leaving bruises, to prevent herself from screaming.
She looked at Gu Nanqiu, who had a serious expression beside her, and was about to ask her something when she saw Gu Nanqiu's face instantly turn pale.
She exuded a sense of fragility, with red at the corners of her eyes. Looking closely, one could see tears welling up.
This change made Yue Yiyue feel helpless. She instinctively put her arm around the other girl.
"It's okay, don't worry. It's just that something pricked me just now. It felt like needles, and it hurt a lot." Gu Nanqiu's voice was a little weak, as if she hadn't recovered from the pain.
But she still managed to force a comforting smile: "Don't be afraid. I will try my best to protect you. I'm sorry. I should have just left with you earlier."
Saying this, she looked around the environment and pulled Yue Yiyue into a secluded corner, instructing her: "Then I'll follow your lead. We'll go back to the classroom first, follow the script's procedures, find Zhang Yang and the others, and try to go back together. The card I received is 'Observer'; I don't know what use it is."
Now the plot was returning to the sequence familiar to Yue Yiyue.
In the original novel, this murder mystery game was a resentment contaminant.
The contaminant was stained with blood and activated, bringing the students playing the game on campus into the "Inner World—School," an area where many evil spirits survived, thus beginning the entire story.
Blood?
How did this murder mystery script get stained with blood?
Just as she tried to remember and figure out a way to avoid this accident, a sharp ringing in her ears forcibly stopped Yue Yiyue's thinking.
"Okay, I'll follow your lead." Yue Yiyue closed her eyes, feeling uncomfortable, and forcefully cleared her mind of thoughts. She shouldn't be curious about things she couldn't investigate. She felt her pocket and realized her phone was gone.
The original novel had also mentioned this, though she'd forgotten the specific reason. In any case, they couldn't call for outside help.
"My role allows me to choose my faction autonomously, and I'm also an observer." Yue Yiyue licked her dry lips, trying to recall the important details from her simplified A4 paper: "Also, I share a dorm with your character. I initially thought all this information was useless, so I only glanced at it."
Despite the intention to escape before the game formally started, she had still carefully memorized the content on the A4 paper.
Yue Yiyue remembered the bold, capitalized red words in her script. She stood on her tiptoes and whispered close to Gu Nanqiu's ear, seriously explaining: "There are a few rules in my paper. The first is that we can't wear a blue top and black pants, and the other is that we can't violate the school rules."
"I will do my best to escape with you."