Teacher Zhang was wearing a white shirt and suit skirt, with her long hair tied up behind her head, looking capable and rigorous.
With a pale face, tightly pursed lips, and a pair of strangely dark eyes slowly sweeping over from below, Jin Nan, who was sitting in the last row, had already tensed all his muscles and quietly clenched the machete in his hand.
Liu Yi and Jia Qing held their breath unconsciously.
Sisters Wang Yueran and Xu Jin also huddled together, staring warily at the teacher on the podium while nervously paying attention to Xia Jing and the old lady in the front row.
Song Yang's gaze stayed on the female teacher for a moment, then fell on the back of Xia Jing's head.
Intuition is a wonderful thing.
Song Yang inexplicably felt that this young man wearing a human skin mask should not be weak.
This is why he didn't interrupt more just now.
Teacher Zhang slammed down the handouts with a thud, then spread his hands and leaned on the podium. He said in a grim tone, "This morning, a classmate died."
With just one opening remark, you could hear a pin drop in the classroom.
"Student Huang Mo, I believe you all know him! Many of you have already witnessed what happened this morning!" Teacher Zhang's voice was a little sharp. She said angrily, "I've told you many times that as students, you only need to focus on your studies. Put all your energy into studying!"
"Don't listen to, don't look at, and don't think about anything else!"
The eight people below immediately pricked up their ears.
Don't think about it!
Xia Jing seemed to be lost in thought.
The theme of the copy appears here.
Teacher Zhang slammed the podium and roared, "If you can't do this, you'll end up like Huang Mo! Do you want to be like him?!"
In the corner, Liu Yi clenched his teeth tightly to hold back from making any sound at this time.
What does it mean that if you don't reach this point, you will end up like Huang Mo?
How did Huang Mo die?
Teacher Zhang said this, so she is really the copy monster?
After Teacher Zhang finished speaking, his cold eyes swept over the eight people again. Liu Yi, Jin Nan and the others' hearts were about to jump out of their throats.
Teacher Zhang suddenly leaned down at a 90-degree angle, like a lion smelling its prey and suddenly crawling to the ground, or like a giant insect, lying on the podium.
Xu Jin and Wang Yueran were so scared that they cried out.
Sitting in the first row, Xia Jing, nervously held in the old lady's arms, looked at Teacher Zhang who was nearby with a calm expression.
Teacher Zhang's face was so close that Xia Jing could almost clearly feel the cold breath of this person in front of him, who was not sure whether he was an NPC or a monster, and saw the white teeth when the other person's mouth opened and closed.
Teacher Zhang stared at Xia Jing and said sinisterly, "Xia, what were you thinking about just now?"
In the middle row, just in case, Song Yang took out a dagger from his space bag and silently paid attention to the situation in front.
Beside Xia Jing, the old lady was about to stand up and stand in front of Xia Jing.
A slender hand gently pushed the old lady back.
Xia Jing's rough voice rang out in the classroom, speaking slowly and calmly: "Teacher, I was just wondering how classmate Huang died."
There was silence in the classroom for a few seconds.
Then there were several gasps.
Teacher Zhang's eyes grew even more sinister, almost popping out of their sockets. She said in a cold tone, "Didn't I tell you... not to think about it?"
The last few words were almost spoken with gritted teeth.
The way Jin Nan in the last row looked at Xia Jing was no different from looking for an idiot looking for death.
The others were so frightened that they nearly jumped out of their seats - was it really okay to provoke the monster so directly?
Monsters need to be killed, but it would be bad if they accidentally go berserk, right?!
Unlike their nervousness, Xia Jing looked at Teacher Zhang for a moment, smiled gently, and spoke lightly, even a little softly: "But teacher, you didn't say that I can't ask."
Teacher Zhang: "…"
Others: "..."
The logic of this "but" seems a bit wrong, but it is hard to refute it for the time being!
Teacher Zhang was obviously choked and was speechless for a second.
Xia Jing kindly reminded: "Teacher, five minutes of class time have passed. Calm down and get to the point."
The others: Are you the fucking school leader? How dare you remind the monster to calm down and get down to business?
Teacher Zhang's face was distorted by Xia Jing's choking.
Her chest was heaving, and she was obviously very emotional. However, she looked at Xia Jing for a while. Under Xia Jing's always calm gaze, she... her eyelids twitched and she avoided his gaze unwillingly.
Standing up and picking up the handouts, Teacher Zhang cleared his throat unhappily and said coldly, "...Okay, let's start the class. But I must once again seriously remind you, no matter what happened with Huang today, or anything else, don't listen, don't look, and don't think about it!"
"Teacher Zhang is not a monster." Song Yang said softly in the middle row.
When Jia Qing heard this, he was stunned: "What? How do you say that?"
In the first row, Xia Jing tapped the table with his pen.
Dungeon monsters are ever-changing and can be disguised in various ways, but most of them have two very obvious characteristics.
First, there will be mutation.
Second, it can kill people.
The so-called killing means that when the prey is brought to them and certain stimuli are given, the copy monsters will definitely kill.
But Xia Jing achieved this level, and Teacher Zhang still did not show any performance. This is enough to prove that Teacher Zhang is not a monster in this copy.
Xia Jing supported his chin with his hand and slowly opened the textbook on the table.
A copy may have only one monster, or it may have a main monster and countless sub-monsters.
Xia Jing actually hopes that there are as many monsters as possible, so that the harvest will be greater.
But Teacher Zhang is not even a deputy monster.
...What a pity.
The female teacher NPC who was lecturing loudly with her back to him suddenly shuddered.
A group of players actually attended a classical Chinese class seriously, and by the time the class was over, they were already dizzy.
"Fuck! I finally graduated high school and went to college, and now I have to revisit 'The Memorial to the Emperor' in a horror game," Jia Qing complained, scratching his head. "Brother Yang, do we really have to do the assigned homework? Will we be locked up in the dark room if we don't do our homework in the campus dungeon?!"
Song Yang ignored him and frowned as he looked around.
It was at this moment that Jia Qing realized that the entire classroom suddenly became noisy as soon as the get out of class was over, and more than fifty students began chattering almost at the same time.
In just a moment, the students in the front row and on both sides of them had all turned to face them, and their youthful faces said to them curiously and gossipingly:
"Hey, did you see Huang Mo this morning?"
"Is he really dead?"
"How horrible! What did he die like? Was it painful?"
"What does a dead person look like? Is there rigor mortis? Are there livor mortis?"
…
In the first row, several classmates behind Xia Jing and the old lady stood up and leaned close to their ears, discussing something in a whisper.
Wang Yueran and Xu Jin were hugged by the arms of two female classmates on their left and right and were gossiping about them.
And Liu Yi, Jin Nan...
The whole classroom seemed like a pot of boiling soup.
"I didn't expect Huang Mo to die so suddenly!"
"How did he die? Does anyone know?"
"Some people say he was crying when he died. Is that true?"
"Did he die in the middle of the night or in the early morning?"
Suddenly, a shrill sound came from the speaker in the upper left corner of the classroom, and a gruff male voice shouted, "Focus on studying. Don't listen, don't look, don't think!"
There was silence in the classroom for a moment.
More than fifty students stood there frozen, like robots with the pause button pressed.
This eerie collective silence gave Jin Nan and the others goosebumps.
But the next second, as if they had not received any unnecessary instructions, all the students started discussing actively again.
In the middle row, the big-eyed girl Xu Jin felt a little uneasy. She said weakly to a male classmate, "...Didn't the teacher tell us not to think about classmate Huang..."
The male student was stunned when he heard this.
Then, he smiled strangely: "But the teacher didn't forbid us to speak!"
Xu Jin and Wang Yueran both shuddered and looked at each other.
When the class resumed, several players felt that they were about to suffer psychological concussion from the continuous noise bombardment for fifteen minutes.
And these fifteen minutes are also full of information.
When people receive information, especially information that is closely related to themselves, they will inevitably start thinking.
It's almost instinctive.
Jia Qing was silent for a long time, then lowered his voice and said to Song Yang, "Brother Yang... do you think we should listen to what Teacher Zhang says?"
Don't listen, don't look, don't think.
This sentence spoken by the female teacher and the campus radio sounds like a copy rule.
Song Yang heard his question and answered softly: "What are you not allowed to listen to, what are you not allowed to see, what are you not allowed to think about? Unless we plug our ears and cover our eyes, we can't stop receiving information. Then, how can we stop our brain activity? The sign of being alive is that we can still think. If you want us to stop thinking——"
Song Yang's voice was filled with coldness: "Unless the person is already dead."
Jia Qing shuddered.
So, "don't listen, don't look, don't think" is almost an impossible thing to do.
Jia Qing swallowed and unknowingly, a layer of cold sweat broke out on his back.
Song Yang suddenly smiled lazily and said, "So, in this instance, what we should consider is what we can see and what we can't see, what we can hear and what we can't hear—what we can think and what we can't think."
In the front row, Xia Jing lowered his eyes and wrote and drew on a notebook.
The thing that this copy least wants them to think about may be the most dangerous thing, and at the same time, it may also be the key to passing this copy.
*
At noon, eight players gathered in the cafeteria.
They hadn't had breakfast and were already starving. No matter how little appetite they had, they had to eat something to replenish their energy.
Jin Nan stuffed his food while emphasizing, "Don't believe that NPC's nonsense. In every dungeon, it's best for all players to stay and not complete it. This dungeon is definitely the same! If we really don't think about anything, then how are we going to find the monsters and how are we going to leave the dungeon?!"
Although Wang Yueran hated rude guys like Jin Nan the most, he had to admit that what he said was right.
Liu Yi hesitated and said, "However, it's impossible for the dungeon to use 'don't think' as a key obstacle to players passing the level."
If the dungeon thinks that just saying "don't think about it" can scare players into stopping thinking, then all dungeons can say "don't think about it".
But the reality is that they only encountered this situation in this copy.
Therefore, "thinking" must have some special meaning in this copy.
Jin Nan scoffed disdainfully and said, "You all heard what those students were discussing just now after class, right? From what I heard, there's always trouble in this school, and more than one student has died. The teacher told everyone not to listen, look, or think about it. He must be trying to suppress the matter. Otherwise, if it gets out of hand, wouldn't the school be finished?"
"Don't listen, don't look, don't think about it. This isn't a dungeon rule at all. It's a sign of the school's guilty conscience," Jin Nan said with narrowed eyes. "There's something wrong with this school. So many students died. The monster must be among the teachers. Huang Mo must have accidentally learned some secret the moment he entered the dungeon, which is why he was killed by the monster to silence him!"
After he finished speaking, the others were thinking secretly.
Liu Yi, the man with glasses, hesitated for a moment, then mustered up the courage to speak: "Although I think the phrase 'don't think about it' is not that simple... but it is true that if we don't think about it, we won't get the answer. And I still care about Huang Mo's death... So, could you please share the information you have obtained?"
Everyone looked at each other.
"That's right!" Jin Nan leaned back in his chair, crossing his legs proudly. "What do you think, Song Yang?"
Xia Jing looked at the handsome man who had never spoken, and found him more and more interesting.
The person who does nothing but attracts the most attention is often the one who attracts the most attention.
Xia Jing picked up a piece of coriander and put it in his mouth to taste it.
It seems that he should be a very high-ranking person.
Song Yang glanced at Jin Nan and said lazily, "I have no objection."
Agreed on the idea.
Everyone pushed their finished plates aside.
Wang Yueran and Xu Jin were the first to share their information: "We heard that 'Huang Mo' doesn't have a good relationship with the teachers...especially the homeroom teacher, the female NPC teacher from the first class. She's called his parents to school several times."
Jia Qing: "From what Brother Yang and I heard, 'Huang Mo' doesn't seem to have any particularly close friends, and he's not close to anyone."
At this point, Jia Qing scratched his head and said, "How come this instance feels like a mystery novel?"
Xia Jing suddenly turned around and asked Liu Yi: "Have you and Huang Mo known each other since childhood?"
Liu Yi came back to his senses, nodded, and whispered, "We are childhood friends."
Xia Jing asked him seriously: "What they just said, are these things that Huang Mo has experienced in real life?"
Liu Yi was stunned for a moment, then nodded hesitantly again: "...frequently being called to school by parents and not having a good relationship with classmates seem to be similar. Everything else is completely different."
Song Yang seemed to be lost in thought.
The worlds constructed by the copies are of course fake, and they are terrifying worlds full of malice.
But, are these two similarities between Huang Mo's real identity and his identity in the copy a coincidence, or is it intentional by the copy?
After Xia Jing asked Liu Yi these two questions, he didn't say anything. He just thought for a moment and said, "My grandma and I received similar messages as you. Also, the boys in Huang Mo's dormitory said that Huang Mo's phone rang twice last night."
"Last night?" Song Yang keenly caught these four words.
If Huang Mo's "past" in this copy is all information given by the copy, then what happened "last night" is also just information?
The timing is too close, it's a bit delicate.
"Yes, last night," Xia Jing analyzed slowly, "Perhaps the game officially started last night, and Huang Mo was the first one among us to wake up. Or maybe the game officially started this morning, and everything related to 'last night' is still just a 'summary of what happened'. As for my phone, I checked it this morning before the teachers came in, and it was off. It must have run out of battery."
After hearing this, everyone was still confused.
The horror game is like a mystery game, and this is the first time they have encountered it.
Is this really normal, or are they going in the wrong direction?
Having said that, Jin Nan sat up straight and grinned.
Obviously, the information he received was different from that of everyone else.
He pointed at the table like a Joe, and said slowly: "Apart from this campus secret, the other thing I heard about Huang Mo is-"
"The roommate who shared the bed with him woke up in the middle of the night last night. When he woke up, he found Huang Mo sitting upright on the bed, silently, turning his head to stare at him."
As soon as these words were spoken, the table fell silent.
Jia Qing, Wang Yueran, Xu Jin and Liu Yi were all stunned.
The old lady hissed.
Song Yang and Xia Jing remained calm.
Jin Nan smiled maliciously: "It was late at night, and the lights were not on. How did he find out that Huang Mo was staring at him?"
"According to him, Huang Mo's eyes are naturally black and white. At night, perhaps because of the light from the window, his eyes look like two big light bulbs."
"He was so scared that he pulled up the quilt to cover his head, but he felt that Huang Mo must have been staring at him for a long time."