Chapter 203: Inauspicious for Everything

Eerie Investigation Bureau, fifth basement level.

Zhang Yiyu woke up in the recording room, her heart still trembling with lingering fear.

At the end of the instance, she had killed Jiang Junjue and climbed into the Coffin herself. Only then did she belatedly realize that someone had to cover the pit with soil for her to successfully travel to another time and space.

Feeling the scorching heat outside through the Coffin lid, she dared not climb out to look for another way to survive. She could only curl up inside the Coffin in despair, awaiting the arrival of death.

She waited and waited, waiting for the forest’s embers, after the flames died down, to cover the Coffin lid, and for the wind to carry distant dust that settled layer by layer in the pit, gradually burying the sunken grave.

Profound loneliness and silence enveloped her, and in the darkness, there was no sound. She didn’t know how long she had waited—perhaps she had slept for a hundred years in the stillness, perhaps so long that she was willing to embrace death as the end of her suffering.

But she didn’t want to die; she wanted to live more than anyone else. She still had a mother who loved her, and they only had each other… Finally, the grave mound was dug open.

Finally, the instance was over.

Finally, she woke up.

Zhang Yiyu gasped for air, but then she saw a long, narrow shadow cast against the light at the doorway, falling upon her and severing her own shadow.

Ning Xu walked in, wearing the exact same smile as before: “Zhang Yiyu, I need to ask you a few questions. I hope you answer seriously.”

“—If you don’t answer well, I’m afraid you might have to be locked back in the containment room.”

…After Qi Si returned to reality, he immediately opened the game forum and entered “No. 33 Middle School” as a keyword in the search bar.

The most recently posted item was a strategy guide for achieving the TE (True Ending) clearance.

#Tips for Achieving the TE Ending “Perfect Student” in No. 33 Middle School#

【1F (OP): As the title says, I just cleared No. 33 Middle School instance with the TE. I searched the forum and found no related guides, so I organized the details myself.

I’ve read many guides posted by the experts, and they helped me a lot. Haha, if I hadn’t read so many posts, I really might not have survived until now. This time, I’m starting a tips thread to share my clearance experience. I hope the format is correct.

This is my first time writing a guide, so I don’t have much experience. There are also many aspects of this instance’s clearance method that I don’t fully understand, so I’ll just mention a few points I think are the most important.】

【2F (OP): First, you must take the school exams seriously. The higher the score, the better. Halfway through, the Teacher Ghost called me into the office. Everyone thought I was going to die, haha, and so did I. But after I entered the office, the Teacher Ghost took out my test paper and started grading it. The score she gave me was 142. She seemed very happy and appointed me as the Class Representative. I somehow survived in a daze.】

【3F: Now that you mention it, I remember watching a live stream. None of the unlucky people who died after entering the office seemed to have scored over 100 (shrug).】

【4F: I remember the rules only said to answer the questions seriously and fill out the test paper completely. I didn’t realize there was a score requirement. That’s really unfriendly to poor students, isn’t it?】

【5F: I watched that live stream. I remember the OP is a university student. Did you really not give back your high school knowledge to the teachers? Or are you a math major?】

【6F (OP) Reply to 5F: I’m not a math major, haha. Actually, the reason I could score so high is thanks to an omnipotent expert I met in a novice instance. He is not only skilled in logical deduction but also familiar with various historical and cultural knowledge. He taught me a lot while helping me clear the instance. So, as soon as I returned to reality, I started studying and reviewing knowledge from various academic fields to broaden my knowledge base.】

【7F (OP): Let’s continue talking about this instance. This instance has a hidden worldview: the school implements militarized management; most students’ parents demand extremely high grades but neglect their children’s lives. Therefore, the company behind the school took the opportunity to use the students for sociological and anthropological experiments. Underground the school, there is a mirror world simulated by AI…】

Qi Si skimmed the post, feeling as though he could see Lin Chen’s clear, foolish, and slightly idiotic face even through the screen.

He mostly understood now: Lin Chen hadn’t died. Because he scored high, the Teacher Ghost accidentally let him go, and he somehow cracked the worldview and achieved the TE clearance.

He hadn’t expected that the casual words he used to trick people back then would be remembered by this guy until now, indirectly encouraging him to work hard and arm himself as a Hexagonal Warrior.

This matter was truly filled with a certain absurd dramatic irony, yet Qi Si couldn’t quite bring himself to laugh.

Compared to Chang Xu, he actually didn’t hold much hostility toward Lin Chen. After all, judging by various signs, this person, due to a sense of imprinting, trusted him considerably. Generally, he wouldn’t pose a threat and could even be conveniently used when necessary.

Still, the news that Lin Chen hadn’t died did make him feel a bit frustrated.

Times had changed. Since acquiring the Soul Contract skill, he had gradually stopped trusting promises outside of the Contract terms and maintained suspicion toward all players whose souls were not under his control.

Lin Chen, who hadn’t signed the Soul Contract, was, to some extent, as much of an eyesore as Chang Xu and Shuomeng.

Thinking of Shuomeng, Qi Si felt inexplicably uncomfortable, as if a row of sharp thorns were growing horizontally and vertically beneath his skin, grating against his flesh.

He casually searched for an overview of the Tingfeng Guild but found no information of interest besides a pile of strategy guides.

This Guild was unlike others; it was loosely organized, had no Guild Master, and only a bunch of Vice Guild Masters cluttering the forum with various titles, making the shining label of “Vice Guild Master” as worthless as a Sanitation Leader.

The entire Guild looked like a club organized by a group of slacker players who had a special fondness for collecting information and gossiping, managed with a degree of looseness comparable to certain QQ Groups dedicated to idle chat and sharing inappropriate images.

Of course, no matter how loose it was, it was still one of the top three largest guilds in terms of total membership and maintained friendly relations with most other guilds. Its members were best left unoffended.

But if the three guilds—Jiuzhou, Tingfeng, and Sera—were placed together, and one absolutely had to be offended, you would definitely choose the Tingfeng Guild without hesitation.

Yeah, if you mess with Tingfeng, you’re essentially kicking cotton.

Overall, Shuomeng wasn’t worth worrying about. Instead of focusing on him, it was better to focus on the “Door” he mentioned.

Qi Si searched for the word “Door” on the forum again.

This time, no blocking interface popped up. Instead, a large number of posts containing the word “Door” refreshed, including “Fake Door,” “Life-Death Door,” and “Open-Door Kill”… Qi Si flipped through all the information from beginning to end. The sky outside the window darkened, yet he still found no record related to the “Eerie Invasion” mentioned by Shuomeng.

Besides wasting time, this proved once again that trying to find useful information on a low-threshold forum was a pipe dream.

Most information probably only circulated within the guilds. Outsiders trying to inquire would be difficult and laborious, and secondly, it would easily expose their tracks… “So, should I find a guild to join?” Qi Si stroked his chin, falling into contemplation.

For someone like him to join a guild would be akin to a mouse crawling into a cat’s nest.

But with the Soul Contract, he didn’t need to fight personally, and there were many ways to handle the specifics… The game space was still on cooldown, so he couldn’t do anything for a while. Qi Si rolled over, yawned long and loud, and reluctantly got out of bed.

He had wasted many days in the Red Maple Boarding School instance, ending up covered in mud. Although the physical state wouldn’t carry over into reality, he still felt somewhat dirty, so he simply picked up his change of clothes and a towel and walked toward the bathroom.

The second-floor bathroom had been derelict for years. Qi Si turned the faucet, and as expected, not a single drop of water came out.

Considering that Xu Yao and the other Ghosts were unlikely to repair plumbing, he could only descend the stairs and enter the first-floor bathroom.

Messy footprints overlapped on the wet floor, forming ant-like patterns, and clumps of knotted hair wriggled like earthworms at the drain opening. Qi Si suppressed his disgust and began to clean it up.

By the time he finished cleaning and showering, it was already seven in the evening.

He returned to the second floor, glanced at the glass tube that had appeared out of thin air on his desk, and dialed a number from memory: “Bob, I heard you’re going to The Americas soon.”

“Good evening, Qi. Why did you change your phone number? Well, I shouldn’t ask that—what kind of person do you need this time?” The voice on the phone was hoarse, as if the speaker’s throat had been cut, yet the tone was quite cheerful. “Just a heads up, a few of my breeding farms were recently shut down for failing health standards, so shipping goods is much more troublesome than before…”

The person answering the phone was none other than Bob, the one who ran the breeding farms.

Qi Si hummed and said, “This time, I want you to help me take something over—a tube of potion, to be poured into the Mississippi River.”

Bob lowered his voice: “You should know that poisoning is too risky. The Security Bureau has been acting crazy lately…”

“Five hundred thousand.” Qi Si interrupted.

Bob immediately changed his tune: “Oh, I knew you came to the right person. I happen to know a few fanatics from the Balance Church who would be interested in this sort of thing…”

“Also, while you’re at it, help me keep an eye on how Jin Yusheng is doing lately,” Qi Si said. “If anything happens to him, help deal with it.”

“Friend, you should know that I’m currently in Modu and heading to Nevada. I won’t be passing through Jiangcheng.”

“Five million.”

“No problem. I happen to be going to Jiangcheng to pick up a batch of goods. Stopping by to look after him is quite convenient…”

Qi Si hung up the phone, lay down on the bed, and held the Pendulum wrapped around his wrist up to his eyes.

The blood-colored Bob rotated counterclockwise, reflecting a faint light that was particularly ominous and eerie.

This was another item, after the 【Rose Heart】, the 【Evil God Finger Bone】, and the 【Sea-God Scepter】, that could be brought into reality. Although it didn’t possess the power of the 【Statue of the Joyous God】 to transform an area into a Ghost Domain, it could effectively enhance his self-preservation ability in reality.

Qi Si had mostly figured out that as long as the item wasn’t ridiculously involved with time and fate, like the 【Pocket Watch of Fate】, he could generally bring it into reality.

Given the extraordinary variety of goods in the game store, if he didn’t want to go out in the future, he could even buy daily necessities directly from the store, primarily focusing on wasting points.

His thoughts reached a certain point, and Qi Si reached out to feel his shirt pocket, only to find it empty.

His expression instantly turned strange.

Where was the lighter? Where was the lighter he had filched from Yamakawa Nobuhiro?

The amnesia state from the game had faded, and the events of the latter half of the instance were now vividly clear before his eyes. It didn’t take long to pinpoint the culprit.

At this point, Qi Si finally understood the source of that discomfort he felt deep down when thinking of Shuomeng.

That guy, Shuomeng, had pocketed his lighter and hadn’t returned it!

Qi Si, who was only ever used to filching things from others: “…”

The phone lying next to him rang without warning; someone was calling.

Qi Si casually unlocked the screen and saw the four-character judgment on the Almanac—

【Inauspicious for Everything.】