Chapter 327: Beware of Rabbits (Part 1) — A Corpse in the Woods

The surrounding darkness gradually receded, but the scene before him was still incredibly dim. It looked like a night in the countryside, devoid of lights or fires.

Qis stood with his eyelids half-closed and his hands at his sides, his eyes gradually adjusting to the ambient light as time passed. He saw that he was standing in a dense forest.

Numerous tree trunks slanted on either side of him, and lush, overlapping branches and leaves blocked the paths behind and to his sides, leaving only a narrow, winding path just wide enough for one person, leading deeper into the woods.

A faint, ethereal fragrance floated in the air, wavering and elusive like ribbons, timidly permeating the forest.

A gentle breeze parted the clouds, and several beams of moonlight pierced through the leaves, mixing with a damp, white mist to create a silvery expanse on the ground. The fragrance seemed to cling to the mist, spreading out with it.

Dungeon Name: Beware of Rabbits

Dungeon Type: Solo Puzzle

Pre-requisite Hint: This is a role-playing dungeon. All your items inconsistent with the dungeon background have been sealed.

The dungeon information refreshed, revealing another solo puzzle dungeon, just like the Dialectical Game.

He wondered if the gods had a personal fondness for solo puzzles, or if solo dungeons were simply more convenient for their little schemes under the watchful eyes of the rules.

The item bar went largely dark the moment the 【Pre-requisite Hint】 appeared, leaving only the 【Fate Pocket Watch】, 【Ghost Driver’s Recorder】, and 【Self-Mutilator’s Paper Cutter】 still lit.

The 【Rose Heart】 on his neck and the 【Cursed Pendulum】 on his wrist were gone. The 【Soul Contract】 and 【Crimson High Priest】 remained, but the 【Sea God’s Scepter】 was out of contact.

A bizarre nursery rhyme echoed in his ears:

The big rabbit fell ill, the second rabbit looked, the third rabbit bought medicine, the fourth rabbit brewed.

The fifth rabbit mysteriously died, the sixth rabbit carried, the seventh rabbit dug a pit with its head down, the eighth rabbit buried.

In the gloomy forest, a small tombstone, the rabbit’s cold remains. Cries of sorrow long gone, the sun slowly climbed out.

The ninth rabbit grieved on the ground, the tenth rabbit asked it why?

The ninth rabbit said, the fifth rabbit is gone, never to return. Lift high, bury deep, don’t let the fifth rabbit crawl out again…

It sounded like a group of pre-school children reciting in unison, their voices clear, tender, and lively, yet the content was chilling upon reflection.

Qis recorded the nursery rhyme with the 【Ghost Driver’s Recorder】, looked around, and seeing no other noteworthy clues, he casually walked forward.

Stepping on the moist, leaf-covered ground, he could vaguely see flickering yellow lights in the distance through the intertwining branches, like lanterns or torches.

The hazy mist blurred the light and shadows into a soft glow, inexplicably diminishing the eerie, sinister atmosphere and instead creating a dreamlike, illusory fairyland.

Qis gently pushed aside the branches, deliberately muffling his footsteps, and crept closer, vaguely hearing fragmented human voices.

Poor child, may you not be a God Lord in your next life…

Oh, gods, bless her and her family—

The murmurs continued faintly. Qis adjusted his view and quickly pinpointed the source of the sound.

Deep in the forest, there was a clearing devoid of shrubs, where three dusty figures stood huddled together in the center.

They all wore black cloaks and strange, uniform wooden shoes, their bodies stooped, looking particularly shifty.

One person was digging a pit with a shovel; the pit was already quite deep. He propped the shovel aside and leaned on its handle to rest.

The other two dragged something out of a sack and placed it into the pit; the first person then began to shovel earth back into the pit.

Combining this with the nursery rhyme’s hint, Qis pretty much understood what they were doing—

Murder and burial.

By the moonlight, he clearly saw the faces of two of them.

Males, both around forty years old, with sallow complexions, rough skin, and dry but noticeably ruddy lips, indicating they were alive.

They are humans, and seem somewhat superstitious, believing in the existence of gods; they pray for the dead, which means they aren’t utterly wicked; their expressions are a bit dull, not very intelligent-looking.

Qis made a quick assessment. He silently bent down and picked up two small stones, holding them in his hand.

As the person filling the pit paused to catch his breath, he found his angle and threw one stone, which landed directly on the ground behind the three.

In the silence, a soft

What was that sound?

Who… who’s there?

The three by the pit visibly shivered.

They adjusted their positions and angles in small steps, gradually forming a back-to-back stance, their small heads turning this way and that, clearly trying to find the source of the sound.

Qis hid himself behind the dense foliage, becoming one with the ghostly creatures of the night. He seized the opportunity, twisted his wrist, and threw another stone from a different angle.

This time, the three people preparing to bury the corpse could no longer remain calm.

A ghost! There’s a ghost!

Don’t come any closer!

Screams rose one after another, and footsteps scattered in disarray.

Qis waited at his leisure, watching the three cloaked men shout and run away.

Their escape was chaotic, simply scrambling wherever they saw an opening, as if hiding in the dense forest would protect them from a ghost’s revenge.

Qis thought of rabbits whose burrows had been overturned by a shovel in a field, similarly fleeing in panic, exhausted, easily scared witless, and convulsing to death on the ground.

This association thoroughly satisfied his dark humor. He chuckled softly, stepped forward over the fallen leaves, and looked down into the pit.

In the pit lay a girl with a bright, beautiful face.

The girl wore a red kimono, her pale hands clasped across her chest, and a vivid red flower marking on her forehead was exceptionally striking. If not for her paper-white complexion, no one would believe it was a corpse.

No, even as a corpse, she was still beautiful. Not with the beauty of a human, but like a meticulously adorned artifact, meant for an unknown sacrifice.

Qis wanted to squat down and get a closer look, but found that he was inexplicably unable to move.

His perspective suddenly became uncontrollable, as if forcibly pulled from his body, guided to witness, to record.

The girl’s face drew closer, beginning to twist and contort in an unnatural way before his eyes. Her mouth and nose gradually protruded outwards, her incisors lengthening and baring, sharp and sinister.

It was clearly a rabbit’s face, smiling eerily:

Little Qi, we… will be… together… forever…

The soft whisper, in this context, was sinister and venomous, and a sudden chill ran down his spine, as if soaked by autumn dew.

His perspective moved to a face-to-face position. Qis saw that the girl had opened her eyes at some point, two crimson eyes embedded on either side of her face, asymmetrical, uncoordinated… An untimely drowsiness suddenly overcame him, and the scene before him faded to black.

The next second, a sudden pain shot through his forehead, as if struck by something the size of a thumb.

Soft giggles echoed in his ears, young and clear, likely from junior high school-aged boys and girls.

Lu Ming! How dare you sleep in my class? A high-pitched, shrill female voice approached. A stout woman in black suit pants stood by the desk, looking down at Qis, who was still slumped over the table.

The woman had short hair and a round face, her smooth forehead seemed to ooze oil, and crow’s feet lined her eyes, yet her gaze was extremely stern, belonging to the type of strict teacher who could leave students with psychological shadows in middle school.

The forest, the pit, and the corpse had all vanished. Qis found himself in a spacious classroom, surrounded by students in white school uniforms sitting neatly.

The bright afternoon sun streamed through the clear windows onto the floor, illuminating the entire space with unusual brilliance.

Light filled every corner, leaving no trace of shadow. For a moment, Qis had the illusion that he was a rat in a gutter, about to drown in the light on the floor.

There were no signs of ghosts, and it was even brighter than many places in reality, but for some reason, all the sunlight in the room had no warmth, as if it were painted on.

Qis felt a chill throughout his body, as if he were in the cold of winter, completely awake.

His previous drowsiness wasn’t due to his own sleepiness, but rather some dungeon mechanism, likely serving to switch scenes.

Is this another dual-timeline dungeon?

It made sense; dungeons involving the divine would never be too simple.

Seeing that Qis didn’t immediately respond to her anger, but instead his gaze drifted, looking at who-knew-what, the woman angrily raised her voice:

Qis roughly understood that the character he was currently playing was named

He watched the woman for two seconds and saw a hint on her.

Name: Li Fang (Homeroom Teacher and Math Teacher for Class 9, Grade 3 at Hope Middle School)

Type: NPC (Currently Neutral Faction)

Remarks: She is a good teacher who particularly dislikes bad students.

Li Fang casually picked up the chalk stub she had thrown earlier, held it in her hand, aimed it at Qis, and asked with a cold smile,

Qis withdrew his gaze, swayed as he stood up, and put on a bewildered expression, as if just waking from a dream:

As soon as he said this, all the students first froze, then burst into laughter. A few seconds later, they covered their mouths, stifling their laughter, but the constant

Qis stared unblinkingly at the math teacher named Li Fang. He observed that upon hearing the word

It was as if… she knew some unspeakable secret beforehand.

That emotion quickly vanished. Li Fang surveyed the entire class and shouted,

After restoring order in the class, she looked at Qis again, her face cold, and said,

His objective achieved, it wasn’t wise to provoke the NPC further. Qis lowered his head, adopting an appearance of humble repentance.

Only then did Li Fang turn around with satisfaction, her high heels clicking

The original Lu Ming was a junior high student, likely attending a regular junior high, and the material learned was very basic.

Qis had good grades in junior high and hadn’t forgotten his knowledge; he could basically answer those problems with a glance.

Li Fang kept her eyes on him, calling on him several times to answer questions, and he answered them all correctly.

Quiet discussions came from behind him.

Has Lu Ming been reborn? I remember his math was terrible…

Lu Ming hasn’t been right lately. He actually dared to sleep in the old hag’s class and even talk back to her. Could he have invoked the Rabbit God?

Invoked the Rabbit God? That’s where you sacrifice someone’s life for the Rabbit God to grant the supplicant’s wish? Has anyone died recently?

Don’t you know? Lu Ming’s older brother jumped off a building and committed suicide. Yes, that Lu Ming from the class next door…

Qis perked up, his hand unconsciously writing the characters

Although homophones, he knew how to write each character and to whom they belonged the moment he heard and saw them.

The older brother is named

Seriously, when they called out names, could they really tell who was being called?

Qis pondered for a moment, then wrote the four characters

Dead, and closely related to the original body. According to the usual tropes of horror stories, this person is either a ghost or an important clue.

Math class soon ended, and the students burst into an uproar.

In the chaos, Qis instinctively walked to the podium, picked up the lesson plans and laptop, and followed behind Li Fang.

Seeing his perceptiveness, Li Fang was a little surprised, but still in a huff, she only glanced at him and said nothing.

Qis lowered his eyes, pressed his lips together, and displayed a perfectly appropriate expression of remorse.

It is well known that good teachers like students who admit their mistakes and correct them, and they are generally soft-hearted.

Li Fang walked ahead, Qis silently followed, observing his surroundings with his peripheral vision.

The Rose Manor dungeon had only three NPCs; the Carnivore dungeon had a group of villagers, but they didn’t look alive; dungeons like Hopeless Sea, Shuangxi Town, Grand Performance, and Red Maple Leaf Boarding School all had only one core NPC.

The Frog Hospital, Chang Gui, and Colosseum dungeons, while lively, all exuded an inexplicable eeriness and gloom.

This dungeon, however, was different. At a glance, everyone was exceptionally vibrant, exactly as children of this age should be. Getting closer, he could feel the warmth of human bodies and smell sweat and shower gel.

Girls covered their mouths with their hands, whispering and giggling; boys ran around, occasionally letting out monkey-like hoots. It almost made Qis feel as if he was reliving junior high.

As he left the classroom, Qis glanced at the door plaque: Class 9, Grade 3, precisely the class Li Fang was homeroom teacher for.

If a class had forty students, this school would have at least a thousand people, making it a relatively large middle school.

To get from the classroom to the office, one had to pass through a long corridor. The hallway was also filled with sunlight. Girls leaned on the windowsills chatting idly, and boys embraced and wrestled, no different from a normal school.

Yet, Qis faintly sensed a subtle incongruity; everything around him seemed to exude a palpable falseness, as if something was lurking beneath the peaceful facade.

He couldn’t pinpoint the source of this feeling. Most of his items were sealed, and the main quest hadn’t even appeared yet. He was no better off now than when he first entered the Hopeless Sea dungeon.

In fact, without a tool-person to test death points, he was even more passive than before.

They had reached the office. Li Fang pushed open the door and walked in without looking back.

Perhaps all the teachers had coincidentally gone to class, for the office was completely empty.

You know where my desk is, right? Li Fang asked casually, then walked straight to the water dispenser with her teacup.

Qis felt a gaze fixed directly on him, staring with prolonged malice.

He caught a faint scent of blood, frowned, and looked up.

Ahead, Li Fang stood by the water dispenser, seemingly oblivious, filling her cup, her back to the door.

From that position, if she wanted to look at him, her head would have to twist 180 degrees.

Was it a delusion, or something else?