Chapter 3 The video I left behind
Chapter 3: The Video He Left Behind
Zhou Ming sat in front of the computer desk, his entire body stiff. His hands, gripping the armrests, were as cold and rigid as if they had been soaked in ice water.
This was the second time he had seen this scene, and even though he was mentally prepared, he still found it too eerie, practically making his scalp tingle.
After a few seconds, the person in the video finally calmed down a bit.
He saw the other party slowly pull open a drawer, take out a dagger from inside, and stab it into his own thigh.
As the other party plunged the knife into his thigh, he murmured with a blank expression: "You're already crazy… You're already crazy! Do as the diary says!"
The original owner pulled the dagger out of his thigh, then stabbed it down again!
After several stabs, he finally pulled out the dagger and tossed it aside, then limped to the restroom.
Zhou Ming watched this scene, shaking his head slightly.
Undoubtedly, this guy's mental state was completely abnormal; he was thoroughly insane. Zhou Ming found it quite normal for such a person to commit murder.
However, he was very curious why his counterpart in this world had become like this. Had he encountered something strange?
The video paused for five minutes. After five minutes, the original owner emerged from the restroom, sat back in the chair, and continued filming.
"I'm sorry, I lost control… Don't worry, even though you'll be using my body later, you won't be a cripple. This body's healing ability is very powerful."
Zhou Ming knew the other party wasn't lying. He had seen the wounds on his thigh when he showered earlier.
There were three wounds, already scabbed over, causing no hindrance to his movement and no sensation.
But judging from how the wounds healed, those three wounds must have been quite gruesome and terrifyingly deep, almost certainly puncture wounds left by a dagger.
The strange thing was, despite the horrific wounds, he didn't see any signs of stitches. This meant that such deep wounds healed naturally without suturing, which precisely proved that the insane Zhou Ming hadn't lied; his healing ability was indeed extraordinary.
In the video, the original owner continued calmly:
"Now I need to tell you a few things, because these things will definitely cause you trouble later.
The first thing is that I killed people. I killed three ordinary people: my landlord, a teacher from my elementary school, and a local gang leader…"
Zhou Ming had seen up to this point last time before being called away by a sudden visit from a neighbor.
In the video, the original owner first confessed who he had killed, then told him how to clean up the messy bedroom.
"Also, I have bad news for you. Sister Xingyue is missing. I became one of the Hidden Ones precisely because I want to find Sister Xingyue…"
The original owner's words struck Zhou Ming like a bolt from the blue, splitting his mind open.
"I still have one mission unfinished. I've put its information on the desktop.
This mission is related to university graduation. Please help me complete it. Other me, I know this is very unfair to you, so if you want to live as an ordinary person, I won't blame you.
But… but to find Sister Xingyue, you can only become one of the Hidden Ones. If you are like me, then you will definitely go look for her."
At this point, in the video, the original owner's eyes turned red, and tears streamed down his face.
Afterward, he spoke a lot more intermittently. Because the original owner's mental state was very unstable, some parts were incoherent, and Zhou Ming had to replay them repeatedly to understand what he was saying.
According to the original owner's description, he was not in a normal timeline, but in a dangerous world where urban legends ran rampant and people could die at any moment.
In this world, he was enrolled in the "First University of Anomaly Processing" and was about to graduate.
He was a third-year student and the student council president. He had good relationships with teachers and classmates, excellent learning ability, perfect assignment evaluations, and was the top student in his entire grade with the most hope of graduating as valedictorian.
According to his current life trajectory, after graduation, he would undertake a dangerous job related to handling anomalies. It was a high-risk profession that required adherence to secret principles, officially named "Hidden Ones." The original owner's life goal was to become one of the Hidden Ones.
And becoming one of the Hidden Ones was precisely to find the missing Ping Xingyue, the most crucial step in his plan.
To enable him, this stand-in, to perfectly replace his insane self, the original owner left him over fifty videos, each two hours long.
After watching the first video, Zhou Ming came to a conclusion: he currently had two things he absolutely had to do.
First, he had to change his habits, correct his words and actions, understand his counterpart's life experiences and relationships in this world, and what people thought of him, etc., to perfectly conceal his identity as a transmigrator.
Second, he had to quickly learn about anomalies and master martial arts, marksmanship, and weapon combat to a normal level as soon as possible, because he was about to graduate.
If he couldn't achieve these two small goals in a short amount of time, then two outcomes awaited him.
It was possible that his identity as a transmigrator would be exposed. At that time, the local Relevant Department would classify him as an anomaly under the "Anomaly Law" and sentence him to death.
Another possibility was that his professional skills were not up to par, leading him to die honorably during a mission, ending his brief transmigrated life.
"What a mess." Zhou Ming said bitterly, feeling immense mental pressure and a headache.
In reality, Zhou Ming felt he had already been sentenced to death, because these goals didn't seem achievable just by effort.
The original owner had diligently studied in this world for over ten years, got into a deadly university, chose a life-threatening major, and only barely managed to survive in a crisis-ridden social environment with a vast amount of anomalous knowledge.
And now, he, a hothouse flower, was expected to cram over ten years of the other party's knowledge in a short time. Just thinking about it made it clear how unrealistic it was.
What's more, practical combat skills were even deadlier. That wasn't something one could master just by memorization and thinking. Without years of training, it was impossible to develop muscle memory. The success rate of restoring himself to the real Zhou Ming's combat level was almost zero.
Zhou Ming's only hope was that the legendary combat instinct truly existed, and that this body itself inherited the original owner's astonishing combat awareness, requiring only a little practice to recover.
Oh, I almost forgot… The troubles don't stop there!
The three people the original owner killed were also a thorny problem. Although the original owner repeatedly emphasized in the video that he had perfectly handled the crime scenes, Zhou Ming knew he must already be under police surveillance.
Because the three people the other party killed were his current landlord, his third-grade elementary school teacher, and a local triad boss.
Two of the three victims had direct connections to him. A simple investigation and filtering would pinpoint the target. In such a situation, what good was it to have perfectly handled the crime scenes?
Damn it, this is truly screwed!
"Buzz buzz buzz—!"
His phone on the desk suddenly vibrated, startling Zhou Ming. He quickly picked it up and saw the caller ID: [Teacher Wang Xinyun].