"Why do you know so much?" the younger sibling asked.
Hua Haoming: "Because I'm one of the people who emerged from the game, or rather, I'm a game player."
Xia Bai didn't know if others believed him, but he was convinced Hua Haoming had entered the game. He'd seen Hua Haoming in photos in that post before, and judging by his expression, he might have emerged from more than one game.
Perhaps he had another identity. He
wasn't a quiet person, but he wasn't someone who would meddle in other people's business, either. He was so patient. He explained everything to them so earnestly, starting from the initial abnormality. It wasn't out of kindness, but because of his identity.
He was from "another department," someone Lao Yang had hired to help him find the God of Joy.
Xia Bai thought this, sitting on the bed, clutching the briefcase tightly in his arms, staring blankly at the door, as if he'd lost his soul.
"Please, how do we get back?" The father asked Hua Haoming with a smile, cautiously and politely.
It seemed he believed Hua Haoming's story—both about the game and about the fact that he was a person who emerged from the game.
In the dim light, several people's gazes shifted to Hua Haoming, as if their hope for survival rested with him.
"Break the game and we can leave,"
he said simply, but everyone knew it wasn't that simple.
"What if, what if we can't beat it?"
"Then we'll all truly disappear—die in the game, and the dormitories will be sealed off to prevent other ordinary people from being drawn into the game."
They immediately understood why so many factories, amusement parks, and restaurants had closed in the past two years—it wasn't all due to poor management.
"How do we beat the game? Are there any strategies?" the father continued to ask.
Hua Haoming said, "Usually, games are based on a specific location. We're at school, so this should be a school-related game."
He had some idea, but the scope was too broad.
"Some players have named this game 'Searching for the Truth,'" Hua Haoming continued to generously offer them the strategy guide.
"'Searching for the Truth?' Searching for the truth?" Wen Dong asked.
Hua Haoming nodded. "As far as I know, there are two types of maps in the game. One is the most common, standard map, which is mostly about finding the truth. The other is the rare, special map, which has a wide variety of gameplay and no set rules." "
So, we're likely on a standard map. In that case, we can just find the so-called truth and leave the game?" Song Qiang was a little excited, craning his neck in anticipation.
Hua Haoming smiled. "Then you have to be able to persevere until you find the truth."
Thinking of the children Hua Haoming had shown them, being held captive by ghostly hands and doing exercises, and the corpse puppets with real human heads in the horror house, Song Qiang's smile began to fade.
"Also, don't resist NPCs in the game unless necessary. Play your role well when facing them."
The others still had many questions, but Hua Haoming interrupted them after stating the most important one. "We're currently in a game lock-in mode, which means we can't leave the dorms and the game is about to begin. This lock-in mode won't last long, usually five to ten minutes. I suggest you use this time to get ready and introduce yourself to each other."
Everyone, including the boy who had just questioned him, began frantically searching for protective gear and offensive tools.
Lin Xiang took this opportunity to place Xia Bai's snakeskin bag on bunk number one. Standing tall, he easily pulled the sheets off bunk number one and tossed them onto bunk number four.
"..."
This time, the boy remained silent. Perhaps his fear of the game outweighed his anger, and his mother was holding his hand and patting him gently to comfort him.
Lin Xiang snorted, his voice quiet but not deliberately low enough to be inaudible. "Xia Bai, that's how it is. Don't let them think you're easy to bully."
He trailed off even more. "What if they think you're easy to bully and start bullying? You're both medical students. What if they bully you and make you carry corpses every day?"
He said this to frighten Xia Bai, to make him realize the severity of the consequences. Who knew, after he finished speaking, that Xia Bai's eyes, which usually seemed dazed, would light up a little.
Lin Xiang: "?"
Xia Bai quickly went to search his bag, and Lin Xiang thought he was seeing things.
Two large snakeskin bags and a bulging schoolbag. Xia Bai's luggage was larger than the other three people's because he brought everything he could carry. Although he had a lot of things, they were all in good order.
He quickly took a stack of yellow paper out of the schoolbag and put it in his trouser pocket. He then took out a fruit knife from the blue and white luggage bag and handed it to Lin Xiang, saying, "I'm sorry."
Lin Xiang knew why he apologized. If he hadn't come to see Xia Bai off, he wouldn't have been involved in this horror game. However, "I took the initiative to say that I would come to see you off. It was I who wanted to see Heping Medical College."
He took the fruit knife, full of emotion, "Xia Bai, you gave me the only life-saving tool."
Xia Bai: "No, I still have it."
"You are always like this." Lin Xiang said with emotion and helplessness: "It's like you insisted on saying that you didn't go to the cemetery on purpose to carry me out."
Hua Haoming stared at the strange talisman paper sticking out of Xia Bai's pocket: "..."
"Pa!"
The dull sound of slapping broke the warmth here. The father of bed number three slapped his son and pointed at his head, "Speak up and introduce yourself. Why are you still like a taciturn person and look like a loser!"
The son was silent for a few seconds before he stood up, turned to face them, clasped his hands on the back of the chair, and said with his head slightly lowered: "My name is Song Mingliang, and I study dentistry."
His father immediately said: "I am his father, Song Qiang. My son is too honest and introverted. He is actually very smart and reliable."
Since they introduced themselves at the beginning, the boy in bed number two also said: "My name is Wen Dong, and I study psychiatry. This is my sister, Wen Qiu."
The boy in bed number four didn't speak, and her mother said for him: "This is my son, Meng Tianyou, who studies clinical medicine."
Xia Bai followed: "My name is Xia Bai, and I study forensic medicine."
After hearing his major, Meng Tianyou's mother frowned. Song Mingliang's father, however, looked at Hua Haoming with a warm smile, "Is this your brother?"
Xia Bai: "A distant friend."
"..."
Lin Xiang took the initiative to introduce himself, "I'm Xia Bai's high school classmate, a good buddy, my name is Lin Xiang."
The self-introduction briefly dispelled a little panic. After the introduction, the dormitory quieted down, and with the ticking of the clock, panic spread again.
Hua Haoming said that the general lockdown time is only 5 to 10 minutes. When he said this, everyone looked at the clock on the wall. Four minutes had passed, not to mention that it took him some time to open the door and smash the window.
It's almost time.
Tick, tick, tick...
Song Qiang wiped the sweat from his forehead, and Meng Tianyou's legs were shaking faster and faster.
Outside, a hollow silence reigned, the only sound audible in the world except the ticking of a clock. This meant they were drawing ever closer to the horror game, about to be confronted.
"Tap, tap, tap..."
a sound, like the clatter of heavy heels on the floor, drifted closer from the corridor outside.
They finally heard other sounds outside the dormitory, but instead of relaxing, it only heightened their tension.
The tapping stopped at their dormitory door.
Several people's hearts leaped to their throats.
"Knock, knock, knock." Three knocks sounded, not violent.
Tensions rose, and no one stepped forward, holding their breath, afraid to speak.
Finally, Hua Haoming reached the door. With a gentle twist, the door, which had previously refused to open, swung open.
Several people in the dormitory, each holding a tool, stared nervously at the door.
Behind it stood a woman who looked to be about fifty. Behind her, a man hurried past, carrying a basin of water. The noise from the corridor streamed into the dormitory, a perfectly normal place, and they felt as if they had returned to the real world.
The moment the door opened, Xia Bai was greeted by this scene, and heard a "ding-dong."
[Game loading complete. The standard map, Peace Medical College, is now online.]
The voice didn't come from anywhere in the dormitory, nor from outside; it seemed to echo in his mind.
[You happened to be in the Peace Medical College dormitory when the Peace Medical College map was launched. It must be a special fate. Welcome players to Peace Medical College and experience its beautiful story. I wish you all happy gaming.]
"What a special fate!" Lin Xiang cursed softly.
Judging from his reaction, he wasn't the only one who heard the voice.
"It's almost lights out, why aren't you guys back in your dorms?" The woman standing at the door must be the dorm supervisor, but not the one they were looking for.
As they entered the dormitory, they saw two dorm supervisors in the hall: one fair-skinned, the other slightly plump. The woman at the door had a gaunt, sallow face, wrinkled like paper from a slap.
"Why are there two girls here? Girls live upstairs, don't come to the boys' floor!" the dorm supervisor frowned.
They didn't know who was supposed to live in this dorm, so they could only stand there nervously.
The dorm manager was even more displeased. "Hua Haoming, Lin Xiang, and Song Qiang, go back to room 304! Wen Qiu and Meng Qing, go back to room 405!"
Now they all knew where they lived, and understood their roles in this game: they were all students of Heping Medical College.
Hua Haoming took the lead, and the three men went to dormitory 304 on the same floor. Wen Qiu and Meng Qing were a little late, mainly because Meng Qing looked at her son Meng Tianyou several times with reluctance and fear.
Seeing them all go to their respective places, the dorm manager was satisfied. "Wash up and get to bed early. It's almost time for lights out. Don't leave the dorm after lights out, or you will suffer the consequences."
Normally, it would be around 6 p.m., just beginning to get dark. But the dorm manager said it was almost time for lights out.
Xia Bai looked out the corridor window, seeing endless darkness.
The clock on the dormitory wall also read 11:55 p.m.
The walls had become more worn, with a few crooked marks of water seepage, as did the beds on the floor.
Beyond the first time, nothing else had changed; their belongings were still there.
After the dorm supervisor left, the four freshmen who were supposed to live in this dormitory breathed a sigh of relief.
The dorm supervisor had just said not to leave the dormitory after lights out, and since the lights were still on, they should be able to leave. Taking advantage of this little time, the four of them walked to the door and looked outside.
When the dorm supervisor was calling everyone back to bed, the footsteps in the corridor were hurried, and they didn't know which dormitory was making noise. They even heard two boys painfully discussing anatomy class as they passed by. It looked like a normal university dormitory.
But it wasn't their real university dormitory.
If everyone in the dormitory building was sucked into the game, there wouldn't be any noise, and the dormitory doors should be closed.
Therefore, this reality seemed eerie.
Wen Dong asked, "Song Mingliang, you're here the earliest, do you see any familiar people?"
This was their first day of college registration, and most of their classmates didn't know them. Whether these were their real classmates, they could only ask the people who arrived the earliest and stayed in the dormitory the longest if they had seen them.
Before Song Mingliang could say anything, Meng Tianyou said, "He keeps his head down. Where is he going to see his classmates?"
Song Mingliang turned his head and looked over. He didn't lower his head like his father did when he was around. Instead, he looked directly into people's eyes and spoke in a moderate voice with clear pronunciation: "I haven't seen many of them. I can't tell."
They wanted to watch for a while longer, but the lights in the dormitory and the corridor suddenly went out.
The four of them almost synchronized and subconsciously took a step back and retreated to the dormitory. At the same time, Wen Dong quickly closed the door.
There was no moon tonight, and the dormitory was pitch black.
They couldn't see each other's faces, but they could hear their breathing was a little rapid because of the rush just now.
Xia Bai stood for a while, took out his mobile phone, and found that it was still working. He used the phone to light up a little and returned to his bunk number one.
Wen Dong also returned to bunk number two, followed by Song Mingliang to bunk number three. Meng Tianyou stood there for more than ten seconds. In the darkness, he couldn't see his expression and didn't know what he was thinking.
Beds one and two were by the window. Wen Dong saw Xia Bai about to climb onto the bed and said, "Let's draw the curtains. Who knows if we'll see a ghost watching us from the window when we look up at night?"
In the darkness, Meng Tianyou didn't see their movements and assumed Wen Dong's "we" referred to the four people in their dormitory and was asking them.
"I don't sleep by the window," he said sarcastically.
"Yes! If you don't sleep by the window, you sleep by the toilet. Then you have to guard the toilet door, or some ghost will crawl from the toilet into your bed at night!" Wen Dong, fed up, retorted, "I know we're all inexperienced in this kind of unknown horror game, and we'll all be anxious and panicky, and anxiety and panic can make us irritable, but we're not your mother!"
Xia Bai had already drawn the curtains.
Song Mingliang remained silent from beginning to end.
Meng Tianyou didn't respond to Wen Dong's words, but he made a lot of noise as he made his bed.
Wen Dong said nothing more and climbed into bed with his eye mask and a pair of scissors.
After Xia Bai made the bed, he found the family tree from the file bag, held it in his arms, and lay down quietly.
The dormitory was very quiet for a moment, but no one must have fallen asleep.
Today is the day for them to register for school, and they all came with joy to come to this school they had longed for for a long time.
They finally got into this century-old prestigious school as they wished, and lived in the dormitory they had imagined.
However, it was here that they were involved in a horror game of life and death, or to exaggerate, walking into heaven and coming to hell.
Wen Dong was right, maybe they were the chosen ones in the eyes of some people, but they were just freshmen with no experience, who had been studying hard in school and had never even entered the society. Facing the unknown night and the pressure of death, who could sleep?
Xia Bai held the family tree, and was sad and tense with them for a while, and his eyelids slowly closed.
Thick darkness enveloped this old school. It seemed to be carrying a lot of tides, wet and sticky, wrapping around people, making those who were sleeping feel like they were drowning.