Chapter 171 Red Maple Boarding School (8) “He’s the worst kid among us.”

Jiang Junjue fiddled with the mushroom for half a day but still couldn’t make heads or tails of it.

A few bolder players also put on gloves and poked around, prodding here and there.

Still… nothing happened.

Qi Si stood nearby for a moment, then picked up his own bowl and chopsticks and walked to the sink on the cafeteria’s west side.

The faucet above the basin looked ancient, a style from the seventies or eighties of the last century.

The iron spout was mottled with rust; the cross-shaped Valve was sluggish and heavy. Qi Si had to strain hard to twist it open.

Cold water gurgled out, biting to the bone when it touched his fingers—hard to believe such icy water could exist in a tropical climate.

Qi Si looked left and right but found no sponge or dish soap; he could only scrub with his bare hands.

Expecting the bowl to be hard to clean, he was surprised that after a mere thirty seconds the inner wall gleamed like new.

Seeing this “NPC” take the lead, the other players didn’t dare slack off; they each grabbed their bowls and chopsticks and crowded around the sink.

Qi Si mechanically returned to the table and set the utensils back in place.

About half a minute later the players had also washed their dishes and came back to the tables.

Outside the building the sky had turned pitch-black; looking out from the doorway one saw only darkness so thick you couldn’t see your hand, no stars, no moon, as though a giant curtain had been draped overhead.

Yet inside the concrete building the light remained normal—still dim, but enough to make out one’s surroundings, tuned precisely to a brightness that could fuel players’ fearful imaginations without hindering movement.

Earlier Qi Si had assumed the light inside came from outside; clearly that wasn’t the case.

Jiang Junjue glanced at the sky beyond the door. “It’s night. Let’s hit the bathhouse first, then head back to the dorm together. Who knows what dangers the night in this instance might hold.”

No one objected; nighttime danger was common knowledge, and Ms. Medina had specifically told them to “sleep early” before she left.

The group walked toward the bathhouse; Qi Si trailed last, unobtrusively tucking the mushroom into his hiking pack and then into his inventory.

In the dim light no one noticed his small maneuver.

Everyone stayed alert, fearing something might leap out from the sides or above for a classic horror-movie jump scare.

The bathhouse lay deep inside the building at the very end of the corridor; the short distance felt endless.

In the silence only the players’ shuffling footsteps could be heard, interspersed with faint suspicious noises.

A low laugh rang out on the right, soft as a ghost’s whisper.

Qi Si shifted his gaze and caught sight of two water stains blooming without warning on the wall to his right, slowly forming human silhouettes.

The shapes drifted along the wall, their heads twisting oddly from time to time, as if chatting while walking.

“They say there are ghosts in the bathhouse. They cling to the ceiling and pick out kids to bathe, turning the chosen ones into mud…”

The voice was thin and eerie, the tone of someone telling a horror story: “Many have seen the ghosts of the dead; once targeted, you’ll see them everywhere.”

“Yeah, they’ve all vanished—everyone who entered the bathhouse died,” another voice chimed in with a giggle. “When you’re sick you die; we’re all dead, buried in the dirt…”

Qi Si stopped in his tracks.

He noticed the other players had also frozen, eyes locked on the water stains, faces rigid.

So this anomaly wasn’t exclusive to him; everyone could see it.

The two voices kept chatting, but the topic shifted.

“Forty-Seven was the first to die; we all thought he’d been taken by an Evil God.”

“After all, he was the worst kid among us, always tinkering with weird stuff.”

The suddenly singled-out Qi Si: “…”

True, he was connected to a certain Evil God; true, he wouldn’t mind wiping everyone out; true, he wasn’t a good person—but there was no need to pin such heaven-condemned labels on him right away. He hadn’t done anything yet; wanting to do something doesn’t equal doing it.

Qi Si observed his surroundings without batting an eye.

The players looked at one another, yet none of their gazes landed on him; apparently they were hearing something different.

Rubbing his chin, Qi Si kept listening to the water stains’ conversation.

The volume dwindled to murmurs and dreamy whispers.

“It’s all his fault—every Evil God, ghost, and plague was brought by him; he brought death…”

“Yes, because he keeps fiddling with those forbidden writings, we’re punished, we fall sick…”

“If not for him, nothing would have gone wrong; we’d all have grown up and died properly at school…”

The last words were barely audible; the stains faded to the same color as the wall, and silence returned.

A warm yet errant breeze blew, making many players shiver.

After a long silence one player spoke up: “Should we still go to the bathhouse? That ‘everyone who’s entered died’ sounds like an explicit death flag…”

A cold System voice cut him off:

【Rule updated】

【4. Students must keep clean; you must wash up in the bathhouse before entering the dorm.】

So the bathhouse was mandatory after all.

“What’s there to fear? Everyone dies sooner or later. I could say ‘everyone who’s breathed air dies,’” Chen Lidong blustered, more to embolden himself than to comfort others.

Jiang Junjue stepped to the front and waved a casual hand: “Just scare-tactic illusions. Our Guild’s studied it—many magical instances show prophecy-like visions that don’t necessarily come true. I’m heading to the bathhouse; if anyone’s scared, you can go straight back to the dorm.”

With a top-tier player deciding, the others stopped fussing.

The line set off again, heading for the bathhouse along the same route.

Rules printed in black-and-white on the System interface carried far more weight than ambiguous phantoms.

Besides, even if everyone would die, there was always an order; no player believed they’d be unlucky enough to be first.

They only needed to crack the rules and clear the instance before death caught up… but what exactly was the main quest?

After a short walk Jiang Junjue halted in front of a room.

They had arrived at the bathhouse.

Every facility at Red Maple Boarding School was crude, yet the bathhouse was large; from outside one could see rows of shower heads dangling overhead like dark fruit.

There was no door—only grimy cloth strips hanging from the frame, tied to iron rings on either side; they could be let down to hide the interior.

There seemed to be no separation between male and female bath areas, nor any stalls inside. Players who wanted privacy could only take turns by gender.

Of the twenty-nine people, only six were female players.

Someone muttered “Ladies First,” Jiang Junjue shot him a sidelong glance, and said wearily, “Let the Comrades skip it—if one of them really kicks the bucket, the other five can’t do much. We can’t afford to lose people on the very first safe day.”

“Nine of us go in first, the rest keep watch outside so we can handle anything that happens.”

He led the way into the bathroom.

Qi Si figured that once enough people had washed, the floor water would turn filthy, so he followed.

The players weren’t sure whether NPCs counted as people, and not everyone was willing to risk going first. Another five minutes passed before seven more reluctantly joined.

They weren’t fearless; they simply felt that sticking with Jiang Junjue, a big-Guild player, might buy them some safety.

Qi Si claimed the shower closest to the door and surveyed the room through half-lidded eyes.

Though no curtain was drawn, the light inside was a shade dimmer than outside. Coupled with the uneven walls, it gave off a greasy, grimy feel.

The floor was dry and footprint-free; apparently no one had washed here for a long time.

Qi Si scraped the cement with his shoe sole, feeling a faint grittiness. A thin layer of dust—not the damp soil of the maple forest—coated the surface.

The players had picked their showers and stood shoulder-to-shoulder in a row.

The Showerheads were packed so close that nine grown men crowding together made the place feel almost cozy, and any monster lurking in the dark seemed less terrifying.

Jiang Junjue was first to strip, revealing a body criss-crossed with scars, and turned the Valve.

Water gushed with a splash, the cold stream carrying a biting chill.

“No hot water here,” Jiang Junjue concluded after fiddling with the Valve.

A player gave a careless laugh: “We’ll make do. It’s not cold; a cold shower won’t kill us.”

One by one the players opened their Valves. Qi Si peeled off his uniform and shoes, hung them aside, and stepped barefoot onto the cement under the cold spray.

Someone had drawn the curtain, cutting the vast space off from the outside world; nine grown men inside suddenly looked rather small.

Qi Si scrubbed himself under the cold water, eyes fixed on the floor.

Perhaps it was his imagination, but the wastewater pooled with frightening speed, gathering exactly beneath the players’ feet until it was a centimeter deep.

In the dim light the floating skin flakes and dust looked like disgusting grease. Even standing on tiptoe, it still clung to their skin, making Qi Si nauseous.

The water from the shower turned colder; he shut the Valve and hastily finished washing.

With so many eyes on him he couldn’t take a towel from his backpack, so he shook himself like an animal to shed the droplets.

“What’s on your back?” Jiang Junjue asked suddenly, half-lidded eyes fixed on the player beside him.

That player had been rubbing his back, fingers flexing to scratch, clearly itchy.

All nine stared; the man, embarrassed, said, “It’s dirt. I leaned against the wall and got some soil on me.”

He turned around, presenting his back to Qi Si.

Qi Si noticed a large gray smear on his back, shaped like a giant mushroom.

Others spotted it too. A short Caucasian blurted, “A mushroom! The dirt on your back looks like a mushroom!”

“I’ll wash it off.” The player twisted his arms behind him, palms covering the gray mark, scrubbing harder. “It’ll come off soon…”

“Good luck,” Jiang Junjue said, shutting his Valve. He pulled a towel from the sack in his inventory, dried himself, and dressed.

He skirted the man and walked toward the door. Seeing Qi Si standing aside trying to air-dry, he kindly offered the towel.

Qi Si hesitated two seconds, then accepted the used towel, wiped his feet, put on socks and shoes, and found a clean spot to stand.

Within minutes the water had risen past the players’ ankles, and floating gray mud ringed every submerged limb.

The player with the gray mark kept scrubbing, but the stain wouldn’t fade.

Instead, it spread with the water. Dirty runoff poured down his back into the communal pool, clearly the source of the gray silt.

Even the slowest now sensed something was wrong.

Those still washing shut their Valves, hurriedly dressed, and edged toward the door, leaving only the one man still clawing at his back.

Hearing the scuffle, the man pleaded in fright, “Wait for me, I’ll be done right away…”

“Stop washing,” Jiang Junjue said. “Move. We’re not waiting.”

The man seemed not to hear, still standing under the cold stream, rubbing his back.

Jiang Junjue studied him a moment, his expression darkening. “When did you get in here?”

Qi Si counted; somehow there was now one extra person in the bathroom.

Nine had entered, yet including that player, there were now ten.

The air froze. Seeing everyone stare at him as if he were a ghost, the man flustered, “I… I came in with you guys.”

Jiang Junjue said nothing, but another player suddenly recalled, “Weren’t you locked in solitary by Ms. Medina? How are you back?”

“I… I served my time and came back…”

No one answered.

The pool on the floor suddenly rippled, congealing into several blank, wooden faces that stared straight at the man.

Within seconds the faces rose from the ground, flew onto the man’s back, and began greedily gnawing the mushroom-shaped stain.

The pain made him throw his head back and scream; he flailed, glancing around in panic.

He seemed unable to see the faces or understand what was happening. Instinctively he cried for help, stretching a desperate hand toward Jiang Junjue: “Save me… please save me!”

No one stepped forward—partly from fear of being dragged in, partly because they had no idea how to save him.

Under their cold stares the man’s body shrank inch by inch, his skin cracking like parched earth, clumps of soil leaking from the fissures.

The faces lapped up the dirt with greedy delight, mouthful after mouthful.

Within two minutes the player was consumed, only grimy residue drifting in the water, turning it to filthy sludge.

At the same instant, every player heard the System Prompt.

【main quest updated】

【main quest: Kill Ms. Medina】