Ji Xun squeezed the arm Yuan Ci still had draped over his shoulder and found his body taut, already poised to defend himself.
Yuan Ci understood what he meant and suppressed his instinct to attack.
"Good children, I'm coming in-"
Although the administrator said he was coming in, he made no further move.
Ji Xun glanced sideways and nearly laughed aloud. Su Rang was pinching a yellow paper talisman between his fingers, his eyes tightly shut as he silently muttered something.
Judging by his lips, it looked like some kind of exorcism chant.
Room 204 was as silent as a grave.
The administrator gritted his teeth, resentment seeping into his voice. "I know you're not asleep. Hurry up and open the door."
A soft laugh sounded beside Ji Xun's ear. He turned slightly toward Yuan Ci and met his eyes.
He hastily looked away as though he had been shocked, then inwardly cursed himself for overreacting.
It's so dark. He probably wasn't looking at me just now.
Outside, the administrator stubbornly waited for even the slightest sound from Room 204. But the dorm inspection was nearly over, and it remained utterly silent inside.
He had no choice but to give the door a reluctant kick before saying menacingly, "I'll remember you."
Room 204 seemed to have angered the administrator. For the rest of his inspection, he gave every dorm room door a vicious kick.
The sounds of dragging grew more frequent. There was no telling whether the people he caught were NPCs or players.
Once the administrator went up to the third floor, Ji Xun rolled out of bed, and Yuan Ci followed him down.
Only then did Su Rang dare take a deep breath. "That scared me to death."
"Let's leave while the administrator's upstairs." Yuan Ci naturally included Ji Xun, who gave him a suspicious look before acting as though nothing had happened.
Su Rang asked, "What if the administrator comes back?"
Yuan Ci thought for a moment, then climbed onto his bed and stuffed his pillow beneath the covers. He arranged Ji Xun's bed while he was at it.
Su Rang copied him, making his bed look as though someone was lying in it.
The three crept downstairs. Even on the first floor, they could still hear the administrator kicking doors and roaring, along with the students' helpless screams.
Yuan Ci waited outside the dorm building for a while until a pale-faced Si Qi arrived.
Ji Xun had originally planned to go it alone, but what Yuan Ci had said when they met had changed his mind.
He knew far too little about the infinite-flow system. Working with Yuan Ci might be a shortcut to quickly closing that information gap.
"Ci." Si Qi looked panicked. "Thank goodness you messaged me, or I'd have been done for."
Yuan Ci gave a cool acknowledgment. "Let's find Hao Wei."
Hao Wei was already waiting at the foot of the classroom building, accompanied by a member of Abyss. Ji Xun remembered that her name was Lin Lin.
Seeing them arrive, Hao Wei hurriedly asked, "Are you all okay?"
Si Qi was much more relaxed around Hao Wei and briefly told her what had happened in the boys' dorm.
Hao Wei said, "It was about the same for us. A madwoman carrying an axe was inspecting the rooms. Any sound from a room, and she'd rush in and start hacking people."
The scene in the girls' dorm had been even more gruesome. When they left, the corridors were covered in blood, with severed body parts scattered everywhere.
While they were talking, Wei Lin arrived with two Abyss members, Qian Fang and Li Anmeng.
Wei Lin nodded to Yuan Ci in thanks. "Boss Yuan, thanks."
Lin Lin left Hao Wei's side and naturally moved to stand behind Wei Lin.
The remaining eleven players still hadn't appeared. Qian Fang said impatiently, "What's wrong with them? Are they planning to do nothing and wait for us to carry them through?"
Yuan Ci ignored him and headed toward the classroom building.
Seeing this, Wei Lin told his teammates, "We're not waiting. Let's go too."
Walking beside Yuan Ci, Ji Xun asked, "You're working with Abyss?"
He had said Abyss, not Wei Lin.
Yuan Ci gave him an approving look and said casually, "More or less."
Seeing that he didn't want to elaborate, Ji Xun asked no further questions.
The classroom building had six floors, with staircases on both sides. Dawn was responsible for searching the western wing, while Abyss would search the eastern wing.
Wei Lin had originally planned to have the remaining players search the central section, but since they still hadn't shown up, he had to shelve that plan for now.
The classroom building was as sinister at night as it was sunny during the day.
The corridor was so dark they couldn't see their hands in front of their faces. Cold moonlight shone through the windows, and the silence was so complete that only their breathing could be heard.
"Ci, I want to play a song full of righteous spirit." Su Rang was close to tears. He feared nothing in heaven or earth-except ghosts.
So after every supernatural instance, he resembled a scholar drained of his vital energy and needed a long time to recover.
Yuan Ci said, "How about 'A Prosperous Start'?"
If he couldn't play it, he could improvise. Su Rang hummed softly, "A prosperous start, prosperity every-"
Hao Wei was frightened enough already without having to endure his torturous singing. She snapped, "Stop singing! Isn't this scary enough?"
Thump, thump-
Su Rang's voice abruptly caught in his throat as though someone had seized him by the neck, his mouth still forming the final syllable of "where."
It made his expression look rather comical.
They were now in the corridor on the left side of the first floor, with dark classrooms to their left.
Without Su Rang's chatter, they all heard a sound that belonged to none of them.
Thump-
"Sounds like something rolling down," Ji Xun said with a frown.
If only Xin Xin were here. Although her hearing wasn't as sharp as his, her ability to identify sounds far exceeded his.
"What? A basketball?" Su Rang was a bundle of nerves as he reached out and clutched his guild leader's shirt.
Yuan Ci gave him a disgusted look, pulled his hand off, and sent him to cling to Si Qi instead.
"Boohoo, Ci, you don't care about me anymore-" Su Rang whined.
Ji Xun looked at the two of them in surprise, then adopted an expression that said, "I get it."
A vein throbbed on Yuan Ci's forehead. In a decidedly foul mood, he headed toward the first-floor stairwell.
The strange thumping continued, drawing closer and closer.
Su Rang might have been a coward, but he was still an experienced veteran. The instant the sound began, he had readied his flashlight and weapon and taken a defensive stance.
Ji Xun took the flashlight from him and switched it on, aiming it at the floor in front of the stairs.
The rolling grew faster. In the faint beam of the flashlight, Su Rang saw a round, ball-like object tumble down from higher up the stairs.
He wanted Ji Xun to shine the flashlight upward so he could see whether it was a basketball or something else.
But Ji Xun switched off the flashlight, plunging their surroundings back into darkness. Only the faint moonlight allowed them to barely make out the players' silhouettes.
Su Rang said, "I haven't seen it properly yet. Why did you turn it off?"
Ji Xun suddenly grabbed Hao Wei with his left hand and Si Qi with his right, swiftly retreating several steps.
Beside him, Yuan Ci gave Su Rang a hard shove, nearly sending him sprawling onto his backside.
Before he could complain, he saw Yuan Ci raise his leg and kick the ball-like object that had rolled onto the floor, sending it flying.
"Ci-are you showing off your goal-scoring skills in an instance?" The corner of Su Rang's mouth twitched. "Should I clap for you?"
"You've done too few supernatural instances. Your experience is a little lopsided. When we get back, I'll have Qin Mi arrange a few more for you to get some practice."
Su Rang wanted to cry but had no tears. He protested loudly, "I refuse!"
The more Ji Xun watched him, the more he reminded him of Tang Cha, so he explained, "That thing just now was a human head."
Before Su Rang could react, Ji Xun added, "And it belonged to the player named Wang Kaile."
By the light of the flashlight, Ji Xun had caught sight of that half a face as the head tumbled down.
Its eyes were wide open, still holding traces of terror. It was the player who had asked Wei Lin to look after him in the lobby earlier.
Most eerily of all, the head had been cleanly sliced through at the corners of the mouth. The lower lip and everything beneath it were gone.
In the darkness, the enormous cut stretching to the ears made the head look as though it were laughing silently.
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