Liang Chen's eyes filled with excitement as the light fell on him.
"My turn! My turn!"
Thrilled, he looked toward the person hidden in the darkness on the other side of the long table.
"Midnight! It's me! I got in too!"
Yin Chao followed his gaze. Midnight seemed to have no intention of acknowledging him.
Liang Chen instantly deflated like a punctured ball, his eyes drooping. "I don't have much to say either. I'm just a villager. Pass."
There really were too few clues on the first night.
Several people in a row passed.
Then the light fell on the girl seated immediately before Yin Chao-the quiet girl from Moqi Xinzhi's group of four.
"I'm the witch. Mr. Wanqi was killed on the first night, and I used my antidote to save him, so Mr. Wanqi must be one of the good guys. Pass."
Yin Chao was next.
He considered the girl's words and remained silent for a long time.
Eventually, the broadcast warned him that his time was almost up.
Only then did Yin Chao raise his head. "All I can reveal is that I have a special role. Pass."
The people after him said much the same thing.
Of the five special roles, only the witch had revealed herself.
Once the broadcast announced that Judgment was over, everyone vanished from the long table.
Only Yin Chao remained.
He propped his chin in both hands, an inscrutable smile playing at his lips.
"You're the one behind the broadcast, aren't you?" Yin Chao asked slowly, his tone relaxed. "Linmu."
Sure enough, a pale blue figure appeared at the far end of the table.
"Worthy of the title Child of the Evil God."
Linmu praised him.
Though his features were indistinct, his commanding tone was clearly nothing like that of the timid Linmu from earlier that day.
Despite his many questions, Yin Chao wasted no time. "What do you want my help with? Getting revenge?"
He had guessed it was Linmu because of the story surrounding him.
"You catch on fast," Linmu said with a smile.
A moment later, his smile faded, and he continued, "I want you to help clear us of our guilt."
"Your guilt?" Yin Chao asked, puzzled. "What crime did you commit?"
At those words, Linmu's pale blue silhouette flickered.
Silence fell.
It lasted so long that Yin Chao thought the increasingly faint blue figure would never speak again.
Then Linmu broke the silence.
"We... killed someone," he said painfully.
Those words seemed to drain every last bit of his energy.
The blue figure dissolved into wisps of smoke.
Yin Chao returned to the classroom.
The moment he opened his eyes, he found chaos all around him.
Desks had been shoved askew, and a crowd of furious classmates had gathered in the middle of the room.
Some shouted for her to apologize, calling her a murderer.
Confused, Yin Chao stood on tiptoe to see who it was, only for someone behind him to grab his wrist without warning.
The grip was strong, dragging him several steps backward.
"You only just got out?"
Yin Chao heard a familiar voice ask.
He turned to find Midnight staring intently at him with dark, fathomless eyes.
When Yin Chao failed to answer, the storm in Midnight's eyes intensified. "You're looking very suspicious right now," he snarled.
"Oh."
Unbothered, Yin Chao shook off his hand and asked, "What's going on here?"
Midnight was furious at his attitude but could do nothing about it, so he retaliated by refusing to answer.
Yin Chao felt helpless. This guy was so childish.
He grabbed a random classmate. "What happened? Who's in the middle of that crowd?"
"You don't know?" the classmate asked in shock. "Xu Qianqian jumped off a building."
Of course, Yin Chao didn't know who Xu Qianqian was. Before he could ask, the classmate carried on talking.
"Wasn't it just an argument with Wang Li? Such a tiny thing, and Zhang Di took it way too far."
Zhang Di was probably the boy Midnight had kicked last time, which meant Xu Qianqian must have been the girl with the ponytail.
He instinctively looked toward Linmu and found him huddled in a corner of the classroom, his face deathly pale and his expression decidedly strange.
Could Xu Qianqian be the person he said they killed?
Midnight noticed his gaze and looked over too.
"What?"
Yin Chao said nothing and walked straight toward Linmu.
Naturally, the other players in the classroom noticed.
Midnight followed close behind him and said irritably, in a voice only the two of them could hear, "You really did get another hidden quest."
A hidden quest?
The system hadn't given him any notifications, so it really did count as a hidden quest.
Did my identity as the Child of the Evil God come with a buff that guaranteed hidden quests?
While thinking this over, he arrived in front of Linmu.
All the players quietly focused their attention on him, hoping to overhear some useful information.
After all, this was a purple S-rank quest. Even a minor reward might yield a god-tier item.
Yin Chao planted both hands on the desk and looked down at Linmu.
Linmu had delicate features, slightly long hair lying neatly against his temples, and eyes that seemed to hold pools of clear spring water.
His lips pale, he trembled as he asked Yin Chao, "Y-you... Yin Chao, did you have a question?"
The surrounding players held their breath and listened even harder.
Yin Chao gave a wicked smile. "Your name's Linmu, and this school is called Linmu too. You wouldn't happen to be the principal's son, would you?"
Midnight: "..." He shouldn't have followed.
The surrounding players: "..." Fuck!
"Fuck!"
Someone had accidentally shouted what he was thinking.
Yin Chao ignored the surrounding noise and looked toward its source.
He saw Zhao Guojun angrily take a sip of water, his little finger daintily raised.
Suppressing a laugh, he leaned toward Linmu and whispered, "You killed Xu Qianqian."
Linmu gaped at him, looking at Yin Chao as though he were some terrifying monster.
As soon as he said it, someone kicked open the classroom's closed door.
Yin Chao straightened and looked toward the newcomer.
"Fuck! Is your class staging a rebellion? You dare lay a hand on one of mine?"
Zhang Di shouted from the doorway, a crowd of vicious-looking thugs behind him.
Among those flashy young punks, Yin Chao spotted Liang Chen trying to blend in, his two round eyes opened wide in an attempt to look fierce.
Liang Chen spotted Midnight too and jumped up excitedly to greet him. "Midnight! Midnight! So this is your class! I've been looking everywhere for you!"
He stood out glaringly in the tense standoff between the two sides.
Zhang Di looked as disgusted as if someone had taken a shit on his doorstep. "Who the fuck brought him?" he roared.
Someone answered meekly, "Di, this guy insisted on tagging along to watch. We... we couldn't stop him..."
Watching Liang Chen push through the crowd and eagerly trot toward Midnight, Zhang Di took a deep breath and suppressed his fury.
"Ignore that idiot. Teach these people a lesson first!"
More than half the people who had surrounded Wang Li, indignantly demanding an apology, fled at once.
A handful of girls who had been close to Xu Qianqian and a few boys remained, stubbornly facing off against the intruders.
The difference in strength between the two sides was plain to see.
Just as their classmates were about to take a beating, someone else appeared.
Another person arrived at the classroom door.
It was Gao Chao, dribbling a basketball as he approached.
He looked at Zhang Di, then at his classmates in confusion. "What's going on? I only skipped a few classes. What happened?"
As though they had found someone to rely on, a classmate complained, "Chao, Xu Qianqian killed herself. Just because she argued with Wang Li, Zhang Di spat all over Qianqian's face."
The basketball slipped from Gao Chao's hand, bounced a few times, and rolled away, its thumps echoing clearly through the noisy corridor.
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