In the Ruins of the Sunset, in various game spaces and the screening rooms of major guilds, system prompts sounded at the same time.
[The player you are following "Si Qi" is live broadcasting a copy of "Beware the Rabbit", go and have a look~]
The players entered the live broadcast room at the same time, and the barrages started flowing quickly.
"No, what's the matter? Hasn't he always stopped live broadcasting?"
"The final dungeon is approaching. He probably wants to use the live broadcast to clarify some things and help the unnamed guild build momentum so that he can fool some teammates."
"Last time, someone seemed to say that if they could sit down to Siqi's live broadcast, they would have sex. Is that person still alive? Don't keep your words~"
After the messy discussion, the players' attention quickly focused on the specific content of the copy.
"This dungeon is a bit interesting. The style is quite rare. It seems to be two parallel lines? Single player and two lines. This is the first time I have seen it."
"As expected of the number one newcomer on the list, how brave are you? He actually offended the NPC directly and was asked to go to the office..."
"The pre-prompt message seems to say that the props will be sealed. I can guarantee that he is not much different from the whiteboard. He still dares to enter the office. He is really not afraid of death!"
"I can't wait to see him show off his skills. I have never seen his live broadcast, so I don't know what cards he has."
……
In the office, Qi Si kept his expression low. Seeing that Li Fang was still collecting water, he walked directly to a desk following the smell of blood. He put the computer and lesson plans in his hands on the table, and conveniently put a piece of paper on the corner of the table. The list was crumpled into a ball and stuffed into his pocket.
He felt a hint of wetness on his toes, and he lowered his head slightly to look at the ground.
A pool of dark red blood was seen quietly oozing out from under the desk, flowing slowly around, and soaking his toes at some point.
"Lu Ming, the high school entrance examination is coming soon, and you still look like you are doing nothing! You only scored 67 points in the last mock test in math. I really don't know what you are listening to in class!
"You grew up in an orphanage. You don't have family support like other classmates. You have no way out. If you don't work hard, what will the teacher do to you?"
Li Fang's words were particularly sincere, as if she was worried about Lu Ming, but the sound of gurgling water was mixed between the words, making it look a bit eerie.
From this, Qisi completed part of the original information: there was a change in the family, both parents died, and he became an orphan. Being able to come to this middle school to study is most likely due to sponsorship.
He lowered his eyelids and said politely: "Teacher, I know I was wrong, and I will work harder in the future."
Li Fang seemed not to have heard it and continued chattering: "Lu Ming, you need to have a sense of urgency. If you don't do well in the next mock test, you will stay here forever."
"Stay here forever"? What's the meaning?
Qisi's thoughts moved slightly, and he quietly took a few steps back, leaving a water-red bloody footprint on the clean ground.
At this moment, he could just see the scene under the desk clearly from the angle where he stood.
A twisted corpse poked its head out from the corner of the table, with blood flowing out like a waterfall. The fluffy rabbit face looked up at Qiss, and his facial features could still identify his appearance before birth.
It's Li Fang, she's dead and turned into a rabbit...
So what happened to Li Fang in class?
Is it a ghost or some other monster?
"Lu Ming, haven't you always wanted to leave?" The sound of water flow stopped, and a suspicious friction sound came from behind, "Why do you suddenly want to stay?"
"Because of a moment of laziness, you make a hasty decision and risk your whole life... The teacher doesn't want to see you like this."
Li Fang is turning around and is about to come over.
Don't let ghosts see your body, otherwise it will become a ghost.
After spending so many years hanging out with Jin Yusheng, whose main job is to be a Celestial Master, Qisi still has some basic common sense.
He took a step sideways and blocked the desk, raised his foot and kicked the rabbit on the face. The body rolled back to the bottom of the table and hit the wooden baffle without making any sound.
The smell of blood disappeared, and there were no traces of blood or corpses. There were only dusty old test papers and exercise books under the desk.
Qisi turned around and looked directly into Li Fang's eyes: "Teacher, as you know, my brother Lu Ming is here, and I want to stay with him."
Li Fang's face suddenly turned pale, and her eyes were full of fear: "What nonsense are you talking about? What brother? At a young age, you don't focus on studying. You think about this all day long, and you will go crazy!"
Her fear was so real that it was as if Zeiss was the evil spirit occupying this place, hissing maliciously.
Qisi touched his face innocently and said warmly: "Teacher, I heard from my classmates that a student named Lu Ming had an accident..."
"If you don't study hard, what will you do if you don't have anything?" Li Fang frowned and interrupted him, waving her hand impatiently, "Go back to class. Yongsheng Technology Company sponsors your studies and doesn't let you mess around. Before dinner Send the review.”
The previous abnormality disappeared without a trace, and now it was a completely normal teacher-student conversation.
Qisi silently remembered the term "Yongsheng Technology Company" and left the office calmly.
If it were an ordinary copy, he would not take such radical means to explore, especially if there were no tools to use.
But this dungeon contains the opportunity to gain divine power, and the map is not small. If he wants to gain something, he must seize the opportunity to visit more places.
The teacher's office is one of them.
As a neutral camp and noted as a "good teacher", Li Fang must be a relatively safe source of clues and background information in the early stages.
As for whether he would be killed at the point of death... Qiss wasn't very worried.
In the opening CG, three people buried a little girl, and he saw all this, which easily matched the "Ten Rabbits" children's song at the beginning.
Three rabbits, six, seven and eight, buried the five rabbits together. As a witness, he was also the nine rabbits, and he also had the task of telling the truth to the ten rabbits.
Without him, the story would not be complete.
Therefore, before Ten Rabbit knows the truth, he is most likely safe, otherwise a logical paradox will occur: the truth will be covered up with the death of Nine Rabbit, and the last two paragraphs of the nursery rhyme at the beginning of the copy will disappear.
Even if his reasoning is wrong, it's okay, just use the [Destiny Pocket Watch] to look back once.
The evolved pocket watch of destiny allows him to directly trace back to the fork in fate. He holds the souls of tens of thousands of people in his hands and can trace back at least ten times. Before the number of traces back is used up, his life will not be in danger.
Fortunately, it seems now that his reasoning was pretty much right, and he saved a thousand lives, which can still be used next time.
Half an hour had passed since the start of the dungeon, and Qisi strolled back to the classroom of Grade 3 (9) and sat down in his seat.
No one talked to him during this period, which convinced him that Lu Ming's interpersonal relationship was really bad.
Most teenagers at this age are very curious. If a classmate is called by the teacher, there will always be someone who wants to ask about their experiences in the office.
Unless there is intentional isolation.
Using indifference and neglect to form a net, blocking people layer by layer, isolating them in their own world, euphemistically calling it non-interference... This behavior is all too familiar to Zisi.
Lu Ming's past experiences and reasons for being isolated are worth digging into. His brother named "Lu Ming" is likely to be the breakthrough.
The rabbit is also an important clue, and we need to understand the symbolic meaning of this image as soon as possible.
The main mission has not yet been triggered, so we can only sort out the known clues and formulate an exploration plan based on wild guesses.
Zeiss took out the crumpled list from his pocket and spread it out on the table.
This was another reason why he was deliberately "invited" into the office.
Basically, as long as it is a regular school, the head teacher will have a list of students on hand to call in every morning.
Obtaining the student list is the most convenient way to know the distribution and general situation of the class members. You can even judge the emotional tendency of the teacher from the check marks.
The title of the list was "Arrival of Day Students at School". Zeiss noticed that there were thirty-six names on it, and there were clearly forty people in the class.
He glanced over, using short-term memory to remember the names one by one, and finally determined: Lu Ming's name was not on it. The four people who did not appear on the list were probably dormitory students, and Lu Ming was one of them.
It can be inferred from Li Fang's words that he has probably been living on campus, which is why he said he "wanted to leave."
Ordinary students, even if their parents are dead and live on campus, cannot stay in school forever. What is so special about Lu Ming?
Or...does this school have any weird rules?
The top column of the list is the time. From [August 1st] to [August 7th], the bottom column is full of ticks. It seems that no one has been absent during these seven days.
Qisi couldn't help but tsk: "I have classes in August. Is this an illegal make-up lesson?"
He thought of something and raised his head suddenly.
Today’s date is clearly written on the blackboard in front of the classroom:
【August 1】
The sign-in column after August 7 was blank, and the recording stopped abruptly.
It couldn't be that Li Fang checked all the boxes for the whole week out of fear of trouble, otherwise there was no need for her to leave the blanks at the end unfilled.
Having experienced the copy of "Rose Manor", Ziss accepted the time-disordered setting well, but he never thought he would encounter such an unexpected situation.
He grabbed a boy passing by, pointed at the blackboard and said, "Did you forget to change the date on it? Do you want to talk to the student on duty?"
The boy glanced at the blackboard, then glanced at Qiss impatiently: "Today is August 1st, what's wrong?"
"It's nothing, I remembered it wrong." Qisi let go of his hand and lowered his head to look at the list in his hand.
Is there really a problem, or is he overthinking it?
Li Fang's math class was in the first period of the afternoon, followed by Chinese, English and science classes. Some teachers had kind faces, some had evil looks, and they all looked real.
Qisi listened to the class attentively, and suddenly he felt like he was back in junior high school six years ago. At that time, just like now, his mind was not on studying at all.
The difference is that six years ago, he was thinking about how to kill his classmates every day, but now he is thinking about how to clear the dungeon.
In ten minutes between classes, he easily finished writing the self-reflection requested by Li Fang. He used the routines he used frequently in middle school. He had an excellent memory for some useless aspects and basically copied them without thinking. came out.
He folded the review and put it in his pocket. He turned around and looked at the empty classroom. He suddenly felt that if he didn't turn the place upside down, he would be sorry for the sincere review in his hand.
So, he reached into the drawer of his deskmate and started groping in an orderly manner.
There is nothing inside except textbooks and notebooks.
There are no small pieces of paper or toys. It is surprisingly clean and does not look like a student of this age.
Qisi searched a few more tables without giving up, with the same result.
These students, even the books are arranged in the same order, as if they are game NPCs carved from the same mold and share the same code.
If this was just a holographic game on the market, Ziss wouldn't find it strange. However, Weird Games always pays attention to details and makes the environment and NPCs just like a campus in the real world. This level of uniformity seems suspicious.
"Lu Ming, aren't you going to the cafeteria to eat?" A clear female voice sounded outside the door.
Qisi turned around and saw a girl in a white school uniform standing outside the window. She was not tall and had shoulder-length hair. Her face was blurred in the light and shadow, and it was unclear.
"I have been waiting for you in my classroom for a long time, so I came to find you." The girl's voice was filled with anger, "You are so slow, you have to come to you every time..."
It seems that he really came to find the original person, he should be an important NPC.
Qisi smiled and walked towards the girl step by step. He quietly took out the blade from his right wrist with his left hand and held it between his two fingers.
It was clearly evening, but there was a dim yellow light in the corridor. The breeze blew the hair, and it was calm and quiet.
Standing in the light and shadow, Qiss finally saw the girl's face clearly. It was the girl buried in the pit in the image at the beginning of the copy!
But at this moment, she was not wearing a kimono, nor was she dead, her smile was bright and fresh.
[Name: Reiko (student of Class 10, Grade 3, Hope Middle School, currently in the neutral camp)]
[Note: There are only seven days left]
Two lines of prompt text were refreshed, and Qisi knew the girl's name, which was Reiko.
What concerned him more was the remarks.
Seven days? What's the meaning? Does it mean that this copy is only available for seven days?
What does it have to do with the date August 7th?
"Lu Ming, what are you thinking about?" Lingzi asked softly.
Qisi took out the self-criticism from his pocket and waved it in front of her: "I was thinking about how to get Teacher Li to forgive me. I accidentally fell asleep in Teacher Li's class in the afternoon, and she asked me to write the self-criticism before dinner. Good for her.
"I was writing a review just now, so I didn't notice the time. I'm sorry for keeping you waiting."
"Okay, I would never blame you." Reiko said with a nonchalant smile, "Don't always make Teacher Li angry. She looks fierce, but she is actually a very nice person!"
Qisi narrowed his eyes and asked in a joking tone: "What should I say? Are you bribed by her?"
"Anyway, I think she is very nice. Once I was almost hit by a flowerpot falling from above my head, but she pulled me out. She even asked me if I wanted to stay at her house for a while."
"Oh? Have you stayed at her house?"
"How could I cause trouble for her? I must have refused."
While talking, the two of them had already reached the office door.
The office door was tightly closed and covered with stains and mildew, as if many years had passed. Even the never-dimming light in the corridor could not dispel the gloomy feeling seeping out of the cracks in the door.
Chiss turned the door handle tentatively, and the door opened with a creak.
The office was dark, and the smell of blood rushed to his face. Blood gurgled out from the crack in the door, touching Qisi's toes as if it were alive.
Qiss reacted very quickly, closed the door with his backhand, and took a step back to stay away from the blood stains.
Lingzi seemed to be completely unable to see anything strange in the office, and asked inexplicably: "Lu Ming, what's wrong?"
"Teacher Li is not here." Qisi turned and walked towards the stairs, "It would be better to do this kind of review in person, what do you think?"
Reiko followed him and nodded in agreement: "You'd better apologize to Teacher Li then. She is really nice and she even gave me a rabbit doll before."
Rabbit stuffed animal?
Qisi's ears moved slightly, and he asked casually: "Do you like rabbits?"
"I can't say I like it, but it is really cute, well-behaved and quiet, and it doesn't hurt other small animals like cats or dogs."
Well-behaved, quiet, harmless, innocent.
These four words can be said to sum up the characteristics of rabbits very well.
Qisi's eyes lingered on the dungeon name column.
【Be careful with rabbits】
What kind of rabbits should I be careful about? Why should you be careful about rabbits?
Rabbit, what does it refer to in this copy?
"And Lu Ming, I really feel that I have a close affinity with animals like rabbits. This morning, someone put a stone sculpture of a rabbit on my table and said he wanted to give it to me." Reiko took out a painted rabbit from her pocket. The stone carvings covered with oil paint signaled Qisi to look at them.
It was a rabbit dressed in black, with a human-like body holding the rabbit's head. Its eyes were as red as blood, but its expression was as serious as a funeral.
Just the moment it catches sight, it makes people feel intensely uneasy. (End of chapter)