By the time the group hurried back to the teaching building, they happened to run into Wang Ge strolling down the stairs, a key twirling in his hand.
"You're back?"
Wang Ge smiled at them.
Seeing how relaxed Wang Ge was, Chen Yanxi's expression eased slightly as she asked, "Where did you go?"
"I went upstairs to walk the ghost."
"Where's the ghost?" Zhou Liu asked.
"I locked it up on the second floor." Wang Ge toyed with the key in his hand, grinning.
"Huh?" Zhou Liu was dumbfounded.
"Badass." Huang Wenyan gave him a thumbs-up.
Wang Ge waved his hand. "Keep it low-key, keep it low-key."
"Hahaha, when we suddenly realized you were missing, you scared the hell out of us. Especially little Yanxi—she was so anxious she practically wanted to grow wings and fly in here to find you." Chen Man'an teased him.
"That's right, that's right. Little Yanxi was really worried about you." Yang Songyue chimed in.
Wang Ge lowered his head to look at Chen Yanxi, then reached out and took her little hand. With a smile, he asked, "Is that so?"
Chen Yanxi's expression remained calm. She showed no embarrassment at being teased and instead asked back, slightly puzzled, "Isn't it perfectly normal for me to care about my boyfriend?"
That retort left the two people who had wanted to see Chen Yanxi embarrassed speechless. For a moment, they had no idea what to say.
"Hahaha, it feels like Chen Yanxi can stay calm no matter what happens. You can tell at a glance that she's someone destined to accomplish great things." Zhou Liu laughed as he stepped in to smooth things over, then nudged Wang Ge with his elbow. "Don't hold her back, kid."
"Don't worry. I'm counting on living off her in the future." Wang Ge responded with a grin.
After exchanging a few more jabs, the group returned to the basement.
The final boss had been locked on the second floor of the teaching building by Wang Ge. With no obstacles left, they naturally cleared the haunted house.
The hidden quest was in the basement, so they completed it successfully as well, receiving the haunted house's commemorative reward—a baby-head pendant that looked somewhat horrifying.
By the time they left the haunted house, it was nearly one in the afternoon. The group went to the restaurant they had booked in advance and had a meal.
Zhou Liu paid for everyone.
It was just a simple meal, and they did not drink. After all, they still had to play a murder mystery game that afternoon.
Throughout the meal, Wang Ge kept putting food into Chen Yanxi's bowl, making Chen Man'an and Yang Songyue envious for quite a while.
Unfortunately, their boyfriends did not notice this at all. The two of them spent the entire time insulting each other and bragging.
After eating and drinking their fill, they took a stroll down the street to aid digestion before setting off to play the murder mystery game.
"I can't go home too late tonight." On the way, Chen Yanxi spoke to Wang Ge.
Considering that they still had a KTV singing session after the murder mystery game, Wang Ge said, "Then let's finish this quickly."
Hearing their conversation, the four people with Zhou Liu immediately got a bad feeling.
But they had already agreed to it and could not go back on their word, so they could only steel themselves and go along.
Soon, they arrived at the murder mystery shop.
There were quite a few six-player scripts they could choose from. Zhou Liu and the other three had decided not to give Wang Ge and Chen Yanxi any chance to team up, but since the identities were assigned randomly, they could not guarantee that the two would end up as enemies.
So they chose a script where all six players acted independently and were forbidden from forming alliances.
As murder mystery games had developed, their scripts were no longer limited to the classic type where everyone worked together to find the killer.
Once anything had existed long enough, all sorts of strange variations would appear. Murder mystery games were no exception.
The script Zhou Liu and the others chose was one of those bizarre ones.
The six players each acted independently. Everyone had a hidden identity and had done something unspeakable.
Put simply, none of them were good people.
The six of them had committed six different crimes. Some had killed, some had stolen, and some had done one unspeakable thing before doing another.
Their task was to conceal their own crimes while finding evidence of the other players' crimes, reporting them, and sending them to prison.
The last player whose criminal evidence had not been found and who survived to the end would be the winner.
It went without saying that this was an extremely hardcore deduction script. Normally, everyone worked together to find a single murderer. Now, each person had to find evidence of the other five players' crimes while ensuring that their own evidence was not discovered. The difficulty was immense.
According to the DM, this script could take five or six hours to play.
Hearing that, Wang Ge and Chen Yanxi exchanged a glance and smiled faintly.
Five or six hours was unacceptable. It was far too long.
So, not long after the game began, Wang Ge struck first and directly eliminated Huang Wenyan.
Immediately afterward, Wang Ge mercifully sent his girlfriend, Yang Songyue, out to keep him company.
Seeing this, Chen Yanxi pursed her lips and calmly eliminated Zhou Liu along with his girlfriend.
Less than an hour after the game began, only the two of them remained.
"You got eliminated too?" Huang Wenyan gloated.
"Damn, you two are monsters. I'm never playing another brain game with you two again."
Zhou Liu cursed and grumbled.
"One is the top student in the entire school, and the other is second place. There's nothing shameful about losing to them." Chen Man'an smiled sweetly. "Now we can just watch the show. I bet Chen Yanxi will win."
She had just used everything she had to guard against Chen Yanxi, keeping herself extremely tense, yet she had still been eliminated with ease.
Now that she was out and no longer had to face Chen Yanxi directly, she felt much more relaxed.
"I bet Wang Ge will go easy on her." Huang Wenyan was certain.
"They're a couple. They can play however they want and let whoever they want win. Isn't it all the same who wins?" Yang Songyue said leisurely. "I just hope they won't be too lovey-dovey and make us watch them feed us dog food."
"Ah, forget it. Let's just watch the show."
"It's just the two of us now. What do you say?" Wang Ge looked toward Chen Yanxi. "Should we decide a winner?"
"Up to you," Chen Yanxi said. "If you want to win, I can concede."
"Conceding would be no fun." Wang Ge grinned. "Let's keep playing. It'll give me a chance to see what you're capable of, Miss Chen Yanxi."
At that, Chen Yanxi smiled lightly. "Then let's begin."
Eliminating Zhou Liu and the others had been too easy. There had been no difficulty and no sense of accomplishment.
Only by pitting their wits against an opponent of equal caliber, proceeding steadily, calculating carefully, and using every means available could they truly enjoy themselves. Even if they ultimately lost, they would at least have had a satisfying match.
And so, Zhou Liu and the other three watched helplessly as the two of them battled wits for more than two full hours.
It truly was a peak showdown between kings. The two-hour-long battle of wits was astonishingly brilliant, leaving Zhou Liu and the other three completely captivated.
The situation changed in the blink of an eye. One second, Wang Ge seemed on the verge of being dealt a fatal blow; the next, what had looked like certain death was perfectly defused, and Wang Ge could even use it to launch a counterattack.
They felt that if the people on the field had been replaced by them, they probably would not have lasted even a minute before being eliminated.
In the end, Chen Yanxi let out a helpless sigh. One move short, she was eliminated by Wang Ge with a smile.
"Brilliant, absolutely brilliant." The DM applauded the two of them and showered them with praise. "I've hosted so many games, but this is the first time I've seen such an incredible showdown. It was practically a battle of wits..."
Zhou Liu and the other three also gathered around and exclaimed, "You two are way too amazing..."
"Yeah. Toward the end, I basically couldn't understand anything at all. I just felt that it was insanely impressive."
P.S. It's finally settled. This book has officially been renamed from Even If I'm Useless, I'll Still Choose to Starting with Pursuing a Genius Beauty.
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