Chapter 87: Death Class 7 (Part 11)

“That’s true.” Zuo Tiantian gave her a closed-lip smile. “But don’t you feel Ms. Shen is afraid of Leader Xiao? So, I don’t think Ms. Shen would behave like this if Leader Xiao didn’t like it.”

“You too?” Su Jin’s eyes brightened. “I think our leader is cold on the outside but warm on the inside, while Ms. Shen is the opposite. Don’t let Leader Xiao’s outward complaints about Ms. Shen fool you. She gets more anxious than anyone else when it matters.”

Back in Class 7, Shen Qingqiu suddenly sneezed, startling several students. They quickly turned to look at her.

Once they realized Shen Qingqiu had just sneezed, they hesitantly turned back around.

It seemed students of Class 7 were truly spooked. The slightest movement was enough to set them on edge.

Xiao Muyu also glanced over questioningly. Shen Qingqiu waved her hand. She looked down and noticed Xiao Muyu had sent a message.

[Did you catch a cold last night?]

Shen Qingqiu subtly smiled and quickly replied: [No, it was just a sneeze.]

Xiao Muyu still looked her over after reading the message. She had picked out Shen Qingqiu’s clothes, so they shouldn’t be too cold. But Shen Qingqiu had gotten injured yesterday. Xiao Muyu worried she might have gotten a cold being in the water for so long with her weak body. Getting sick in an instance was a major hassle.

Shen Qingqiu knew Xiao Muyu was observing her. She lowered her head and continued typing.

[Worried about me?]

Xiao Muyu: [No.]

Shen Qingqiu: [You’re contradicting yourself.]

Xiao Muyu: [I’m just reminding you to make it easier on others.]

Shen Qingqiu: [What about me doesn’t make it easy on others?]

Xiao Muyu swiped her finger upwards. Pursing her lips, she sent a message.

[You already know deep down. Be serious.]

She had been acting less like herself lately. Her past self would never have engaged in such pointless chatter with Shen Qingqiu at a time like this. Shen Qingqiu was too clever for her own good. Once she gave an inch, Shen Qingqiu would take a mile.

She quickly refocused. She had been deep in thought a moment ago until Shen Qingqiu’s sneeze derailed her.

Seeing no reply from Xiao Muyu, Shen Qingqiu leaned forward in her seat to look at her. Her eyes curved slightly, but she didn’t bother her again.

She wouldn’t fool around when it came to serious matters. From the last row, she couldn’t see the expressions of the students next to her. However, she did notice their small movements.

Most of them appeared dazed. Their reading sounded like a tape recording. Only a few watched her and Shen Qingqiu, their eyes full of questions they dared not ask.

Xiao Muyu suddenly moved. Shen Qingqiu checked the group chat. Xiao Muyu had sent something.

Xiao Muyu: [I suddenly thought of a possibility. Chen Kaijie might not be unrelated to Class 7. He could be within the scope. He wasn’t selected last night, so he didn’t enter the game.]

Shen Qingqiu read it and typed: [That’s possible.]

Xiao Muyu: [There’s another issue. Why are Class 7 students cursed, and why are the teachers involved as well?]

It was an easily overlooked question. Not that they hadn’t considered it before. However, the fact that Class 7 was cursed was already so obvious that their focus had been on how it happened. They hadn’t stopped to think about one thing.

What had the students and teachers of Class 7 done to get caught up in the curse?

No. 004 had already given them a hint. Logical reasoning remained relevant in this instance. The setting couldn’t be random if logic was behind it. There must be a reasonable explanation for why Class 7 got cursed. Why not Class 8 or the entire Yuanning High? Although anxious, the other teachers and the principal weren’t as lifeless as the teachers of Class 7, meaning it didn’t impact them that much.

Su Jin and Zuo Tiantian stared contemplatively at these questions.

Shen Qingqiu: [The students I interrogated didn’t know why Class 7 is cursed. They couldn’t recall any reason. And this instance requires us to explore. We still don’t know the specific method. However, the system did say there are two conditions for clearing the instance: stay alive and complete the quest. This quest might be related to the reason Class 7 is cursed.]

Su Jin, Zuo Tiantian, Chen Kaijie: [Agreed!]

Xiao Muyu: [Being cursed without knowing the reason must have been the system’s setup. However, while memories can be forgotten, tangible things always leave traces. We just need to discover them. Also, the people included in the curse should be related to the reason behind the curse. Based on my earlier conjecture, if the curse also targets you, Chen Kaijie, you must be connected to why Class 7 is cursed. Now, how would a police officer have any connection to the school or the students within his jurisdiction?]

Su Jin: [Brother Chen, do you have any other identity besides a police officer?]

Chen Kaijie: [None.]

Chen Kaijie furrowed his brows, stood up, and got dressed. He began to search for clues in the information he had learned the previous day.

Su Jin: [Then the most common link between a police officer and an ordinary person would be a case.]

Chen Kaijie froze. A case?

Chen Kaijie: [Is it about those students who died in accidents?]

Shen Qingqiu, Xiao Muyu: [No.]

The two of them sent the message almost simultaneously. Xiao Muyu paused for a moment.

Shen Qingqiu immediately sent a “Please, go ahead” emote.

Xiao Muyu chuckled inwardly despite herself. This person knew everything but liked to sit back and listen to her talk.

Xiao Muyu: [The accidental deaths are merely the result of the curse, not its cause. Chen Kaijie, use your position to investigate whether Class 7’s students had prior police reports. They don’t have to be official cases. Minor conflicts or fights count as long as your department was involved. Check not just this year but previous years as well.]

Shen Qingqiu: [You can also look into their parents and neighbors if you can’t find anything.]

Chen Kaijie, Su Jin, and Zuo Tiantian all understood. School bullying incidents weren’t anything new. Kids at this age had an immature mindset and were self-centered. They hadn’t fully developed psychologically, which made it easy for them to escalate things. Class 3-7 was probably no exception to this problem.

Following this line of thinking might lead them to the truth.

Yuanning High had to do radio calisthenics after morning self-study. Once finished, the others began trickling into the classroom.

Students returned to their seats one by one. Only two people hadn’t arrived yet. The entire class was restless. Finally, someone couldn’t hold it in any longer. A boy asked the last students entering.

“Did you dream last night? Did you go in, too?”

The boy spoke in a suppressed voice. He wasn’t loud, yet almost everyone heard him. They turned their attention to their two classmates.

The boy had directed the question at Huang Meng. Her face was pale, with heavy dark circles under her eyes. She seemed to be in a poor mental state. Her reaction seemed to be a beat behind. After a moment, she nodded.

“Who was it?”

“Zhang… Zhang Zhu,” Huang Meng said with a tremor in her voice. She couldn’t remember much about last night’s dream. But the feeling of fear was incredibly vivid. What stood out even more was Zhang Zhu’s scream when he was found.

Unable to say more, she buried her face on her desk, shaking uncontrollably.

The other classmates silently looked down at their books. No one spoke to comfort her because none of them were in the position to do so. Sooner or later, it would be their turn.

Zhang Zhu was the last to enter the classroom. When he walked in, the students became unusually quiet, saying nothing. They all stared at him with unconcealed compassion and sorrow.

Xiao Muyu glanced at the boy who had lost his edge. She then quietly shifted her attention to the two girls on her right, Liu Ya and Lin Xue.

Lin Xue watched Zhang Zhu, much like the others. But Liu Ya, sitting next to her, glanced at him and sneered before continuing to doodle as if she had no interest in what was going on.

Xiao Muyu wasn’t the only one to notice Liu Ya’s strange behavior. Shen Qingqiu and Zuo Tiantian did, too.

But it was understandable. The three had been in this class for only a day. Yet, they could already tell Zhang Zhu had been bullying Liu Ya. It wasn’t surprising Liu Ya would feel gratified if something happened to him.

It wasn’t just Zhang Zhu. Most of the other students in the class were cold toward Liu Ya. She rarely interacted with anyone aside from Lin Xue. Eating meals and going to the restroom were activities that close friends in school would do together. Liu Ya never did any of those with others besides Lin Xue. It showed that Liu Ya didn’t fit in.

During breakfast, Zuo Tiantian, Xiao Muyu, and Shen Qingqiu sat together away from the other Class 7 students. The three ate while quietly discussing.

“Noticed anything unusual?” Zuo Tiantian asked. She looked around as she ate a stuffed steamed bun.

“Liu Ya is strange,” Xiao Muyu replied quietly, sipping her porridge.

“Mm, I noticed, too.” Shen Qingqiu was sitting sideways, peeling a tea egg. “Her expression is odd. And she has no friends in Class 7 aside from her deskmate. Yesterday, I saw four people fight with her. It was all one-sided, of course.”

She appeared focused. Watching her peel the egg with her pale, slender fingers was quite pleasing. She also had a knack for it. She tapped the egg on the table, rolled it around once, and the shell cracked. Then, she peeled the shell off with a twist, perfectly whole. It looked no different than undressing.

Xiao Muyu watched her and couldn’t help but think: Only someone as indecent as her could make peeling an egg so suggestive.

“Then it looks like we were right,” Zuo Tiantian said with a frown. “Bullying is happening in Class 7, and they’re facing retribution for it. If that’s the case, Liu Ya is suspicious.”

Still, she felt something was amiss.

“But if this is payback for bullying, it’s gone too far,” said Xiao Muyu. “Punishing them is one thing. What’s happening now is slaughter. The punishment doesn’t fit the crime. Class 7’s curse seems more like a vengeful spirit at work. In previous instances, except for the purely puzzle-based Collector’s Edition Instance No. 002, vengeful spirits always had their reasons for killing people. I don’t think this instance would force a vengeful spirit to kill without reason.”

Shen Qingqiu placed the indecently peeled egg into the dish.

She used chopsticks to separate the egg yolk and placed it into her bowl. Then, she pushed the egg whites toward Xiao Muyu.

Xiao Muyu paused. Her gaze landed on the egg whites in front of her. She glanced at Shen Qingqiu with a complicated expression.

Zuo Tiantian looked at the two of them in surprise. She bit her lip, holding back a laugh.

Meanwhile, Shen Qingqiu didn’t notice Xiao Muyu’s expression. Xiao Muyu’s words made her consider. “If bullying was the reason, someone must have suffered greatly in that bullying,” she said. “Maybe they even paid the price with their life and became a vengeful spirit. Muyu, you said you saw a ghost woman in red soon after entering the instance. She’s probably the victim.”

Zuo Tiantian nodded repeatedly. “Leader Xiao, you and Ms. Shen have instructed Brother Chen to investigate the police records. If something this serious had happened, maybe he’d find a clue.”

Xiao Muyu gave a nod. She absentmindedly drank her porridge and ate the egg whites Shen Qingqiu had given her.

Xiao Muyu didn’t like eating the yolk of boiled eggs. However, she never mentioned this habit. Few people were aware of it. How did Shen Qingqiu know to take the yolk for herself and leave the whites for Xiao Muyu?

Xiao Muyu couldn’t suppress a frown. Shen Qingqiu always had a way of distracting her from important things. Still, she couldn’t resist asking, “How did you know I don’t like eating the yolk?”

Shen Qingqiu blinked at her. She glanced at the yolk in her bowl, was silent for a moment, and then smiled. “I don’t like eating the whites.”

Xiao Muyu was a little speechless. So, Shen Qingqiu didn’t like egg whites and figured she must not like the yolk?

“I don’t like the whites, you don’t like the yolk.” Shen Qingqiu smiled. “We are a match made in heaven.”

This logic… No wonder she was able to out-argue the system.

Zuo Tiantian watched them, then continued to eat her food. These two would make her full before she even finished her meal.

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Author had something to say:

This is mostly a deduction and transition chapter. How should the next game be? [Holds chin]