After seeing the list, except for the siblings Wen Qiu and Wen Dong, everyone else subconsciously wanted to go see Meng Qing, but they forced themselves to hold back.
Yesterday, the counselor chose Meng Tianyou, and Meng Qing went instead of him. When she came back that night, she became abnormal. As a result, it was her turn today. If she went again, no one knew what would happen to her.
Maybe she wouldn't be able to survive.
Or maybe she would become very scary.
Song Qiang asked Meng Tianyou on the spot: "Your mother went instead of you yesterday. Do you want to go instead of her today?"
His embarrassed expression and evasive eyes said it all. They all knew that he didn't want to go in his mother's place, and they also knew what he was thinking. If he went in his mother's place, there would be one more abnormal person. Since his mother was already abnormal, it would be better to go one more time.
In this way, he would be safe throughout the game.
Since others could understand what he was thinking, it meant that his decision was understandable. It was not irrational, but it was inevitably selfish and cold-blooded.
Meng Qing didn't seem to think so. As soon as Song Qiang finished asking, she looked up and said, "No, Tianyou can't go. I'll go, I'll go... to the morgue."
Xia Bai turned to look at her. Meng Qing was the same as Song Mingliang. During the day, her mind seemed to retain some clarity of a normal person, so she didn't look scary. She was wearing long sleeves and long pants, but it couldn't cover up the slight fishy smell on her body.
Wen Qiu said that she didn't know what she was doing in the bathroom last night and made a lot of blood. The fishy smell should be the smell of blood, but not entirely.
Since the mother and son had decided this, they didn't care about the others. They didn't have the qualifications.
The only one left was Wen Dong. Obviously Wen Qiu didn't want him to go. She felt the most deeply how weird people who had been to the morgue would be.
At lunch, she came to their table again.
Wen Qiu: "Hua Haoming, let's talk."
Hua Haoming never liked beating around the bush: "Just say it."
Wen Qiu: "Can you go for my brother? You name the conditions."
Hua Haoming: "No."
Unexpectedly, he refused so bluntly. Wen Qiu paused. "Any price is fine. You can even ask for weapons."
Hua Haoming: "Sorry, I'm not sure."
"How could you not be sure? A player in the top 20 of the leaderboard, a member of the Tourism Administration's assault team. How could you not be sure?" Wen Qiu, perhaps a little anxious, immediately launched a double attack.
Xia Bai and Lin Xiang glanced at Hua Haoming, then lowered their heads to eat, pretending not to hear anything.
It turned out that the "other department" Lao Yang was talking about was the Tourism Administration.
Hua Haoming remained unmoved. "Since you know I'm on the assault team, you should know our team's philosophy: clearing the game is our priority, human lives come second. If I go and something happens, can your brother still clear the game?"
Wen Qiu was choked by his words and took two deep breaths. "You're just as annoying as the rumors say—damn annoying."
"..."
Wen Dong also came over. He knew why his sister had come and felt he should speak in person to show his sincerity.
"Brother Hua, are you really that great? If you have a solution, we have some money..."
Hua Haoming was a ruthless rejection machine. Wen Dong was very polite, but he didn't even give him a chance to finish his sentence. "Sorry, I can't help you."
Wen Qiu was even more furious at this. "Don't beg him. I'll go for you!"
Wen Dong understood Hua Haoming's intentions and said, "I'll go myself."
"You go? If something happens to you, how will I explain it to my parents?" The moment she heard this, her anger was still rising.
Wen Dong said, "How will you explain it? We're all your parents' children, we're all the same. I can't explain if something happens to you."
Wen Qiu laughed. "We're not the same."
Wen Dong frowned. "You're the only one who thinks it's different."
Wen Qiu was about to say something else when he caught sight of three gossipy faces, dragging Wen Dong out of the restaurant.
After they left, curious Lin Xiang immediately asked, "Brother, what's that Game Management Bureau Wen Qiu was talking about? Is the Assault Team the same death squad you mentioned who constantly goes to the game? You're actually in the top 20 players on the player leaderboard!"
"After the game came into being, many player organizations emerged. The Game Management Bureau is a relatively official organization among them—the Game and Abnormality Management Bureau," Hua Haoming explained briefly. "Don't I look like one?"
Lin Xiang thought to himself, a little bit.
He didn't know how many players there were in this world, but the top 20 were definitely well-known. And the Assault Team—that sounded so grand and impressive.
Hua Haoming seemed so casual on a daily basis, he really didn't seem that impressive.
He thought back to last night, when the pin rod, which he'd tried his best to block, was easily blocked by Hua Haoming's soft sword that appeared out of nowhere.
"Looks like one, looks like one, looks like one, but just now she said you're just like the rumors. It doesn't sound good."
Hua Haoming said nonchalantly, "I have a good reputation in our team." "
..."
Isn't your team supposed to be made up of great people, the kind that makes people cry?
Lin Xiang: "There must be some misunderstanding. But, brother, you act so aloof, it's easy to be misunderstood."
As he spoke, he asked uninterestedly, "Brother, if the counselor chooses me tomorrow, you won't go in my place, right? Even if I gave you 100 million?"
"Yeah, no," Hua Haoming answered with absolute certainty, completely unaware that he would hurt a young man's heart. "I won't go in the place of anyone else except Xia Bai."
"...?" Xia Bai slowly raised his bewildered head.
Lin Xiang was envious and sighed. "You're worthy of being Xia Bai's distant friend."
"..."
Xia Bai quickly swallowed the rice in his mouth. "I don't need you to go in my place."
"..."
In the end, that afternoon, Meng Qing and Wen Dong went to prepare for the class.
They stood outside the anatomy lab building, waiting, just like before.
Wen Qiu's face remained sullen, and she ignored Hua Haoming's proactive greetings.
Lin Xiang whispered, "Brother, you are sometimes quite straight."
Hua Haoming: "I think I was influenced by our captain."
Maybe because they already knew that he was from the Tourism Administration's assault team, he casually mentioned their team when chatting.
Lin Xiang took the opportunity to ask, "Brother, is your captain very powerful?"
Hua Haoming took a breath, as if his teeth hurt, "Don't ask."
Lin Xiang didn't ask obediently. He has always been curious but has a sense of boundaries.
Xia Bai was a little curious about what kind of person could make Hua Haoming like this.
This time, Meng Qing and Wen Dong came out in less than half an hour. As
soon as they came out, Wen Qiu hurried to Wen Dong and asked him, "How is it?"
After the two previous examples, Wen Dong said uncertainly, "I feel fine. I don't know if I feel right."
No one approached Meng Qing. Yesterday, when she emerged, Meng Tianyou immediately approached. This time, although he took a few steps forward, he didn't move closer, maintaining a few steps' distance.
Meng Qing didn't hug Meng Tianyou tightly as she had the day before. Instead, she simply stared at him with a slightly empty gaze.
Several people secretly observed her, saying nothing.
The afternoon anatomy class was another harmonious exchange between Xia Bai and Professor Liu.
The cadaver's mouth was still sewn shut. Xia Bai suggested cutting the stitches to study the oral cavity, but Professor Liu, always agreeing with him, refused.
Sure enough, there was a problem.
They all thought of Song Qiang's theory about sealing the mouth after death.
That night, several players were preoccupied. Besides Xia Bai's group, each of the other three families had someone enter the morgue, and who knew what would happen that night.
Wen Qiu came over and said to Xia Bai, "Xia Bai, please keep an eye on Wen Dong. If he has any questions, message me immediately."
Xia Bai nodded.
Hua Haoming asked, "What about you?"
"If Meng Qing goes to the bathroom again tonight, I'll definitely go and see what she's doing." Wen Qiu said, "It's just that I'm alone, and she's been to the morgue twice. If there's any danger, I'll send you a message and you must come up."
Hua Haoming agreed.
After class that evening, when they returned to the dormitory, the atmosphere was much more tense than the previous two nights.
Wen Dong's legs kept shaking, and he looked very nervous. He was the first person to have been to the morgue and knew he might mutate, but he didn't know what form he would take.
To comfort him, Xia Bai talked with him for a while. As the lights were about to go out and Xia Bai was about to go to bed, Wen Dong suddenly grabbed him.
Xia Bai turned to look at him and saw that he was staring at her. Specifically, he was staring at her lips, his eyes focused and deep.
"Xia Bai, your lips are so red."
Xia Bai stared at him for a few seconds, then pulled his hand away and went to bed.
The clock on the wall struck 12 o'clock, and the entire school was plunged into darkness.
Meng Tianyou: [Wen Dong is also abnormal.]
He had been lying in bed without making a sound, and was also nervously paying attention to the situation in the dormitory.
Xia Bai did not reply to him. There were two abnormal people in the dormitory. One wanted to take off his pants, and the other said that his lips were red. Xia Bai wrapped himself tightly in the quilt. The
dormitory fell into silence. The two normal people were always paying attention to the movements of the two abnormal people.
At 02:05 in the night, Wen Dong
, who was on the bed opposite Xia Bai, took action first. He got off the bed and searched around the dormitory. The people in bed number four were tense like mummies. After Xia Bai saw them, he had to turn over and secretly look down.
Wen Dong found a mirror.
When Xia Bai was about to see what he was going to do, a terrified scream broke the silence of the dormitory.
The scream came from upstairs, from Wen Dong's sister, Wen Qiu, who was holding a mirror.
The scream was so panicked and loud that even they downstairs could hear it clearly, as if she had encountered something extremely terrifying.
Xia Bai got off the bed directly and ran upstairs. He saw Song Mingliang leave the dormitory last night. He was not punished, so he left without any hesitation.
Meng Tianyou hesitated for a moment. Wen Qiu's roommate was Meng Qing, so he came down and followed.
Xia Bai met Hua Haoming and Lin Xiang at the stairs. The three of them didn't say anything and ran to Wen Qiu's dormitory without wasting a second.
The door of 405 was still closed. Hua Haoming called Wen Qiu, and a weak response with a crying tone came from inside.
He kicked the door open directly, and a strong fishy smell came over, causing his stomach to churn.
Xia Bai turned on his phone and turned to the direction of the bathroom.
The structure of the male and female dormitories in this dormitory building is the same. The bathroom is on the other side of the four beds, not next to the balcony, and is a secret bathroom. The bathroom is half open, but you can't see inside clearly.
A large pool of blood spilled on the ground outside. The blood passed by Wen Qiu's feet and was even overflowing.
Wen Qiu slumped at the door of the bathroom. His white clothes and hair were stained red. He looked scary and pitiful in the dark and dilapidated bathroom door.
Hua Haoming asked her what was wrong, what had happened. She uttered only meaningless syllables in a daze, her dazed eyes still reflecting the horrific scene she had just witnessed.
She hadn't slept tonight, huddled nervously in her blankets. As expected
, Meng Qing had gone to the bathroom again.
She had heard everything clearly: Meng Qing got out of bed, opened the bathroom door, and heard the water running.
At first, she didn't move, listening to the splashing water as she mentally prepared herself. The bloody figure staring at her last night had left a deep scar on her.
That bastard Hua Haoming kept saying it wasn't her first time playing the game, but can human fear disappear after just one experience? She had only played two more games than the others, not become a god.
Then, she smelled that stench that wasn't purely blood again, and she knew she had to go.
Even slower than last night, she moved silently in the darkness to the bathroom door, her breathing subconsciously pausing.
She didn't need to open the door; the gap was wide enough for her to peer inside.
She pressed her hands into the blood, crouching on the ground, trying to lower the light from her phone into the dark bathroom.
A small, faint beam of light from her phone drifted into the dank darkness. It couldn't overcome the utter darkness, but it managed to push back the darkness, leaving behind a hazy, yellow filter.
A figure sat on the floor with its back to her, water from the showerhead streaming down its head and over its entire body.
Meng Qing had strikingly fair skin and long, thick, black hair. In the darkness, it fell down her back, blending into the darkness, and her pale body seemed to be split in two.
As if noticing someone watching her, she slowly turned her head.
Her face, beaded with water, her mouth widened, her eyes hollow.
Her body twisted backwards as she turned her head.
Wen Qiu saw her body and the object it was blocking, and instinctively let out a scream, nearly fainting.
In the damp, drain-clogged bathroom, Meng Qing was left with only an empty body cavity.
The author has something to say:
Captain: Don't discredit me in front of my wife.
Xia Bai wrapped himself tightly in the quilt: "Old Gong, there's a pervert here."
Hua Haoming: "? You said someone else is a pervert?"