Only then did everyone understand.
Miao Rouning asked anxiously, "Then, if that's the case, what do the others have to do with this obsessive maniac? Does he have antisocial personality disorder or something? Is he attacking indiscriminately?"
Ning Dantong held the increasingly uneasy Miao Rouning steady and reassured her. "Don't panic. Isn't this instance's puzzle difficulty only two stars? It should be easy enough to uncover the truth."
Then they heard Chen Yuxiang say quietly, "Oh, right. I found a scrap of a diary in my room."
Chen Yuxiang took out a yellowed scrap of paper and showed it to everyone.
There were only a few words on it.
-Chen Chen and Qiao Qiao will be best friends forever.
It should have been a sweet, girlish sentiment, full of warm wishes.
But a long bloody smear crossed the words. Though it had dried long ago, it was so horrifying that they almost seemed to smell its metallic tang.
It was as if... as if someone had slowly stroked this scrap with a bloodstained finger, thousands upon thousands of times, until the paper wore through.
It was deeply unsettling.
In truth, merely holding this old, bloodstained scrap terrified Chen Yuxiang, but she still did her best to suppress the fear deep inside her and reasoned aloud. "That ghost nanny said I was her 'young lady's' best friend, and my surname is Chen, so Chen Chen must mean me. Qiao Qiao should be that 'young lady's' name... right?"
Ning Dantong and Chang Jianfeng nodded in unison, agreeing.
Miao Rouning spoke next.
Her eyes were filled with fear as she shakily took out a photograph.
Fortunately, there was no blood or anything horrifying in the photo. It was just an ordinary graduation group photo.
Otherwise, given Miao Rouning's timid nature, she probably wouldn't have dared even look at it, let alone hold it.
"Um, this is the graduation photo I found in my room. The names of all forty-nine students in Class Four are written on the back, but... none of them have Qiao in their name."
As Miao Rouning spoke, she looked nervously at everyone.
Chang Jianfeng asked politely, "May I take a look?"
Miao Rouning hurriedly nodded and passed it to Chang Jianfeng as though getting rid of a hot potato.
Chang Jianfeng and Ning Dantong examined it carefully together.
Che Quan didn't need to move closer. One glance was enough for him to see everything clearly and remember every detail.
Beside Che Quan, Jiang Cong showed no intention of participating from beginning to end. His gaze remained fixed on Che Quan's exquisite, slightly pale profile.
Suddenly, Jiang Cong lightly licked the corner of his crimson lips, his manner as refined and leisurely as ever...
At first glance, the group photo looked utterly ordinary.
Everyone in it was radiant, their faces bright with youth, their eyes filled with longing for the freer, wider world of the schools they would soon attend.
Honestly.
For a photo like this to appear in such a ghostly place was like injecting a glaring dose of positivity into a horror game.
It couldn't have been more out of place.
Head lowered, Chang Jianfeng repeatedly studied the photo with a grave expression, cautiously sharing his findings one by one. "Although none of the students in the photo have Qiao in their names, there's 'Teacher Chang,' 'Campus Belle Miao,' and 'Chen's Best Friend'..."
Even Yuan Zhou, who had remained unobtrusive until now, couldn't resist coming closer out of curiosity. He spent a while studying the people in the photo and their corresponding names on the back.
Suddenly, Yuan Zhou cried out and instinctively flung the photo away. His face went deathly pale. "There-where I am in the photo-why is there a pair of feet beside me?!"
At his words, the timid Miao Rouning and Chen Yuxiang both gave muffled cries and immediately clung to each other. A closer look revealed that they were trembling nonstop.
Ning Dantong remained relatively calm and soothed them like a protective big sister, while Chang Jianfeng picked up the photo and checked it over several times. Then he said gravely, "There really is... a pair of feet wearing black shoes. The shoes even seem to be dripping water."
Miao Rouning and Chen Yuxiang trembled even harder.
Especially Miao Rouning. She had held that photo earlier, and now she stared at that hand, looking ready to cry, regarding it with such horror and revulsion that she seemed to wish she could chop it off.
Che Quan surveyed everyone's reactions, thinking that humans truly were creatures of intense emotion.
He had intended to continue watching from the sidelines, but at the worst possible moment, the Instance System's timid notification sounded in his mind again:
[Player 002, Che Quan, has been detected showing a tendency toward passive participation. System adjustment: if the player does not become more active, the Skin Hunger Syndrome buff will increase to 500% for ten minutes.]
Five hundred percent.
What would that even mean?
And it would last ten minutes.
Even with the "antidote" right beside him, that would be enough to make him lose his composure.
Besides, there was no way he would have any physical contact with Jiang Cong in front of others. As for hugging and cuddling, that was pure fantasy.
This moronic instance was forcing his hand.
Che Quan's expression instantly darkened.
His dazzlingly beautiful face became all the more vivid and bewitching with displeasure.
Not only did everyone present stare in a daze, but even the normally picky viewers in the live comments surrendered to his beauty without exception.
Chang Jianfeng stared outright, then hurriedly offered Che Quan the photo with utmost care. "Would you like to take a look?"
Che Quan's lips moved. In the end, his expression remained cold and grim as he said, "Yes."
Taking the graduation photo, Che Quan listlessly studied the side showing the people.
Teacher Chang, Campus Belle Miao, and the others were indeed in it, but the people in the photo looked entirely different from their counterparts in the instance.
And Che Quan saw a pair of feet.
Only the portion below the ankles was visible.
They wore a pair of black shoes, old-fashioned and badly worn, soaking wet, with what looked like specks of moss along the edges.
This time, however, they weren't beside Yuan Zhou. They were beside Chen's Best Friend.
Pressed right up against her.
Like a murderous ghost that followed her everywhere.
Yet Che Quan remained utterly unmoved by the sight. He even looked a little bored as he handed the photo back to Chang Jianfeng.
He heard Chang Jianfeng ask, as though appealing to a savior, "Is there a clue in this too?"
Suppressing his impatience, Che Quan nodded. "Black shoes. Look for them."
Then Che Quan asked Jiang Cong behind him, "By the way, don't you have something to tell us?"
At that, Jiang Cong smiled faintly.
Everyone finally had a legitimate reason to look at Jiang Cong.
Jiang Cong was the tallest and most slender of their group, standing around six feet three. Though casually dressed, he still exuded an air of refined elegance.
What stood out most was Jiang Cong's moonlight-silver hair, which fell to his waist.
By rights, a tall, silver-haired young man should have looked particularly out of place among a group of black-haired, dark-eyed humans.
It should have had the awkward feel of a foreigner wandering into their midst.
Yet Jiang Cong's presence didn't feel out of place in the slightest.
Although his hair was silver, his features possessed a distinctly Eastern beauty and elegance, and his eyes and complexion were pale and delicate as well.
Yet within that pale delicacy, there was an inexplicable hint of something cold and inorganic.
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