Interested in Going to School?

As that unknown thing shattered, everything in sight was also shrouded in cracks, turning little by little, until finally, unable to withstand the pressure, it collapsed with a crash.

Yu Xing felt an intense stinging pain in his brain at that moment. His consciousness was stirred by a stick, and he was helplessly plunged into darkness and pain. Then, he opened his eyes with a tearing sensation.

His face was still facing the ceiling, his body lying flat, one hand unconsciously stretched to the side as if being held down by another person's arm, and his other hand gripping the corner of the blanket tightly.

As his senses returned from afar, and a cool breeze brushed against his cheek, Yu Xing realized that he was "awake".

At the same time, Zhao Yijiu on top of him opened her eyes. Fortunately, this time she did not have a stress reaction. Instead, her body tensed for a moment before she sat up directly.

His disheveled hair couldn't hide the sharp glint in his eyes. He reached for the pillow, finding the long nail exactly where he had placed it before lying down, without the slightest deviation.

Yu Xing also got up a beat later. The two of them turned their heads to look at the other side of the bed and saw Zhao Mou sitting cross-legged facing them, his eyes clear, as if he had been observing them for a long time.

"Is the attack by the ghosts over?" Zhao Mou asked.

"Probably," Yu Xing said.

Judging from the sky and the atmosphere, quite some time must have passed before they fell asleep. Zhao Mou seemed to have woken up as well. His glasses were on the bedside table, and his unkempt hair lay limply on his head, with his bangs covering his face like Zhao Yijiu's. His hair was fluffy, which made him look much younger.

"You've been staring at us the whole time?" Zhao Yijiu felt a little stifled. He loosened a button on his collar, bent his legs, lowered his eyelashes, and spoke in a faint voice.

"I don't know why I fell asleep, but then I heard some noises from your side, so I got up to check. I found that you two weren't sleeping soundly. You rolled over and curled up, Yu Xing, when you bumped into her, shrank to the side and almost fell off the bed." Judging from their behavior, Zhao Mou knew that the danger of the night had probably passed, and he even had the mind to joke. "I was initially startled and was going to try to push Yu Xing back, but Yu Xing's sense of danger was very strong. She clung tightly to the blanket and actually rolled back."

Yu Xing and Zhao Yijiu were both taken aback. They were so calm in their dream, but was it really like this in reality...?

Yu Xing glanced at her fingers, which were white from gripping the blanket, and felt a slight soreness even now that she was awake, so she had to believe it.

"A Jiu is always a quiet sleeper. After seeing this, I guessed that the attack on you was a ghost related to dreams or hallucinations. I was afraid that you two might accidentally roll off the bed, so I haven't been sleeping and have been keeping an eye on you." Zhao Mou said it casually. He did more than just keep an eye on you. He directly threw off the covers, sat up, leaned forward, and stared intently like a pervert.

"We encountered a ghostly entity in our dream that interferes with our senses, and it could even disguise itself as you." Zhao Yijiu relaxed slightly. "In the dream, your head fell off."

Zhao Mou: "..."

Zhao Mou: "On what grounds are you persecuting me?"

Yu Xing smiled, yawned, and then stretched, as if that wasn't enough. "Probably targeting someone close to the creature would make things easier for it..."

There's no point in dwelling on this. Now that we've gotten the results, it's necessary to "tell me about the details of your punishment."

"That ghost can enter our dreams. We didn't see its specific form, but we know its first goal was to trick us into getting out of bed, and its second goal was to use its freezing ability to freeze us to death. In short, it's capable of killing, and the dream it created was very detailed. It should be a C-rank ghost. We only banished it from our dream; it's definitely not dead, and probably not even badly damaged." Yu Xing described it succinctly, while thinking of the Female Ghost with the axe.

The Female Ghost is more oppressive, instilling fear in people from a distance. While the dream ghost is not as oppressive, it is more flexible and has more diverse abilities.

Each one can inflict a powerful attack on its own. Compared to creatures like the Human-Limbed Spider, which can be physically attacked, and E-rank creatures like the Faceless Man and Faceless Baby, which are not worth mentioning when traveling in pairs, D-level creatures like the Self-Painting, which have their own attack areas but low initiative, C-rank creatures are already enough to give them a headache.

"Flap flap..." The sound of flapping wings came from outside the window. A small black bird of unknown species landed outside the window, its claws on the edge of the window, staring at them with its big black bean eyes.

The three immediately turned their attention to the black bird that had arrived by chance. After a few seconds, the black bird tilted its neck, let out a couple of bored cries, and flew away.

Its call sounded like a crow, as if reminding the three people in the room.

The thin shirts made the three of them look extremely frail, resembling three mentally ill people who had gotten up in the middle of the night to chat instead of sleeping.

Yu Xing: "... I'm sleepy. What time is it now?"

Zhao Mou: "Congratulations, you woke up at 3:21 AM, and it's 3:26 AM now."

They plan to begin their second day of reconnaissance around 9 a. m. tomorrow. After all, the first few days on the island are the best time to accumulate advantages, and everyone is racing against time. The return time of this group has already made the other two groups feel threatened.

Although Zhao Mou really wanted to stay and study the stick made of the spine to deduce the function of the remains' characteristics, he also had to go out to explore tomorrow. As someone with a wealth of information, he needed to personally measure and experience things in order to reach a conclusion.

However, after tonight's events, both the two who were asleep and fighting off the haunted house in their dreams, and Zhao Mou was awake and watched the whole thing unfold, were exhausted. They were already tired from the first day, and not getting enough rest would affect their efficiency tomorrow.

"Let's catch up on some sleep. We can talk about this tomorrow." Yu Xing slumped back down, and Zhao Yijiu watched him silently before falling asleep as well.

Zhao Mou sighed. He was destined to be a worrier, having diligently watched over them for so long, only to have these two get up, exchange a few words, and then decide to catch up on their sleep.

After falling asleep again, nothing unexpected happened, and the group slept soundly until dawn, only to be woken up the next morning by their ingrained biological clocks.

Yu Xing was the last of the three to wake up. When he opened his eyes, Zhao Mou and Zhao Yijiu had already been walking around the room for a long time and had ordered breakfast.

The aroma of food pulled him back from his reverie. He opened his eyes and asked, somewhat surprised, "Why didn't you wake me? Isn't it a wonderful virtue of your family to have someone still asleep?"

The very first sentence was sarcastic and unhelpful, leaving one unsure how to respond.

Zhao Mou ate his breakfast patiently, swallowing a mouthful before replying, "A Jiu said you weren't feeling well yesterday, that you were being troubled by that power, so I didn't have the heart to wake you. I wanted you to rest a little longer, since sleep is the best way to recover."

That's true. Yu Xing had only gotten used to the turmoil of the curse power, not that the turmoil had subsided. Now that he had taken a nap, the curse power that had been agitated in his body due to frequent contact with ghosts had calmed down a little, and his lost life force had been replenished a little bit.

Zhao Yijiu put down her chopsticks and said coldly, "Our family also has the virtue of not talking while eating or sleeping."

Yu Xing in surprise, "Really?"

Zhao Mou: "Of course it's fake. Do you expect a family that sells information to stop talking? A Jiu is just shy."

Zhao Yijiu: "You're noisy. Also, don't misinterpret my meaning. I just don't like this guy who's so annoying as soon as he wakes up."

Yu Xing casually touched her hair, swept it back to reveal her forehead, and happily ran to wash up.

After washing up, he plopped down at the table, picked up his breakfast, and exclaimed, "It's so good to be rich! Food freedom is now a reality!"

Zhao Mou almost choked.

"We're still a long way from being rich. I already asked yesterday; people living in luxury apartments can buy weapons, but the price of weapons..." He poured cold water on the idea, "A spinal cord clamp is the most basic weapon, costing 10 ghost pounds, more expensive than a night in a presidential suite."

"Other, more powerful weapons range in price from 15 to 60 ghost pounds, and that's just the variety of weapons sold in this hotel. Do you think you're rich?" Zhao Mou asked, his words piercingly directing his question.

Admittedly, Yu Xing brought back four bone balls yesterday, and Zhao Mou also went to ask Daisy, who was elusive and whom he finally caught on the rocking chair, about the price. Three of them were plague-infected and the lowest price was 5 ghost pounds, while the other one was slightly more expensive at 15 ghost pounds. It seemed like enough to stay in a presidential suite for six days, but in reality, it wouldn't even buy a relatively good weapon.

Yu Xing was stunned for a moment upon hearing this. Only one of the same bone balls was so expensive. He recalled that among the ghosts that Linda killed in the Art Appreciation Room, four had broken up from downstairs, and one was an art museum staff member. The expensive one was probably the staff member's remains, because in terms of the difficulty of killing, that staff member must have been the most difficult.

After all, if they were the ones killing the staff, the museum director wouldn't let them off the hook, and they would have almost no chance of escaping from the museum.

However, both Yu Xing and Zhao Mou preferred to collect these characteristics and not exchange them for money unless absolutely necessary, as exchanging characteristics for ghost pounds was clearly a losing proposition.

"Now that you mention it, it seems we are indeed quite far behind. But it's okay, we can earn more money and collect more special abilities. As long as we give away enough ghosts, we'll be rich enough!" Yu Xing waved his hand, exuding boundless pride.

That makes sense, but aren't you being a bit too confident?

Zhao Mou had very mixed feelings about wanting to complain, so he simply stopped talking and dragged Yu Xing and his younger brother, who had finished eating, out the door.

As a temporary team, they agreed to meet on the street outside the hotel, mainly because they didn't want Zhao Yijiu to appear in the sight of other teams for the time being.

Today, only Huang Bai is staying at the hotel to prepare for the situation; everyone else must first adapt to the island's environment, specifically Zhao Mou and Wen Qinghuai, the two civilian staff members.

Zhao Yijiu was very agile; even without the aid of his ghost form, he easily left the already sparsely populated inn.

Yu Xing and Zhao Mou left through the back door as usual, and then walked along the desolate street. It is worth mentioning that the spinal stick weapon they obtained yesterday and the gloves they bought later were given to Qu Xuanqing. They agreed that it was the most reasonable thing to give the weapons to Qu Xuanqing first.

The meeting place was set at the entrance of the Kraun shop, because the shop owner had made it clear that it would not be open for another two months, which meant that its entrance was the safest place, at least there was no need to worry about anything suddenly happening inside the building.

Wen Qinghuai and Qu Xuanqing were already waiting there. The former was wearing a strangely shaped hat that covered his curly hair, and he also had a mask over his mouth, making him look very suspicious.

The latter, wearing gloves and carrying a stick, had a unique and attractive charm as her tall figure was enveloped in neutral clothing.

Including these two, all the members who went out carried newly bought simple backpacks containing their own ghost notices, so that these notices could be recorded at any time.

The first page of the ghost notification letters for Yu Xing and Zhao Yijiu already contained brief information about the Dream Ghost, but it was only brief. It provided them with the Dream Ghost's real name, Shui Yan, but not much other information. It seems that only by continuing to come into contact with this kind of ghost can they learn more.

After they reunited, Wen Qinghuai took out a map he had drawn. Only one corner had a drawing mark, and the rest was empty. He was planning to explore and improve the map as he went.

Sadly, Wen Qinghuai suddenly realized that without Huang Bai, he seemed to be the shortest person in the group... As a southerner, it was normal for him to be a little over 1.7 meters tall, so why was the average height of the group 1.8 meters?

This person was actually pulled down by Qu Xuanqing, a girl. Qu Xuanqing was about the same height as him, but because she was a girl, she was more slender and seemed to be taller than him when viewed alone.

Wen Qinghuai didn't bring this up, but he quietly stepped back a little before getting down to business. "Shall we continue exploring along this street today?"

The 20 people, including the deducers, were divided into three teams, each responsible for a direction. However, a direction does not mean there is only one street. Putting aside these interconnected alleys, Qu Xuanqing and Huang Bai had already seen two very conspicuous major turning points yesterday after pushing forward a certain distance, which could be turned into another street at any time.

"Well, we discovered something yesterday. It seems that large buildings... especially those with historical significance, have a higher probability of yielding sacrificial offerings." Yu Xing cleared her throat and smiled. "Any of you interested in... going to school?"

What?

Wen Qinghuai hesitated for a second, wondering if she had misheard, before resigning herself to asking, "You want to go to school the next day?"