Chapter 339: Careful of the Rabbit (XIII) Predetermined Fate

The Rabbit God Statue sat upright in the dilapidated shrine, its black robes neat as if carved, never fluttering with the water flow.

The erosion of time and the corrosion of the water had chiseled wave patterns onto its surface. It had long lost its initial luster, yet it remained sacred and solemn.

Strips of red silk were scattered around the statue, also lying still and obediently at the bottom of the pool. Their edges were white and rotten, and the writing was illegible.

Qi Si approached step by step, feeling none of the discomfort one might expect when facing a deity. Even when he was right next to it, he couldn’t sense the slightest ripple of divine power.

It seemed like just an ordinary statue, a lifeless object.

Qi Si’s peripheral vision caught sight of something startling and alarming. He bent down and picked it up.

It was the only well-preserved prayer ribbon, and written on it were three words that no game NPC would ever know:

【Mysterious Game, Rules, Transaction】

The handwriting was messy and unrestrained, yet clearly written stroke by stroke—it was Qi Si’s own handwriting, though Qi Si had no memory of writing it.

Residual Authority of Contract was contained between the lines, triggering a faint resonance in the Soul Contract skill. He could therefore confirm that he had written those three words himself.

Combined with the current state of the Rabbit God, which possessed no divine power, he seemed to have vaguely deduced the logical line behind the instance.

He entered the Careful of the Rabbit instance to seize divine power. In one timeline, he succeeded in the past era of Rabbit God Town, causing the Rabbit God of Hope Middle School to subsequently possess no divine power.

Precisely because the Rabbit God lost its divine power, Hope Middle School’s plan to sacrifice orphans for good student test scores fell through, forcing them to urgently adjust their teaching policy and strictly demand better performance from students… The cause and effect seemed reasonable at first glance. The only troublesome thing was that the Rabbit God’s divine power was indeed missing, but whether the ‘him’ in the other timeline succeeded in obtaining it had nothing to do with the ‘him’ here.

If the ‘him’ in this timeline wanted to get what he wished for, he had to go to the past of Rabbit God Town, which was before the Rabbit God’s divine power was seized, and obtain it at an earlier point in time.

The ending was already set in stone, not just for Lu Ming, but for him as well.

Reiko would die, and the Rabbit God’s divine power would be seized by him through the Authority of Contract. The former was an outcome Lu Ming could not accept, and the latter was the purpose of his trip.

What he needed to do was form a closed loop, pushing the partially glimpsed ending to be achieved exactly as written.

Because he had to keep winning, every step must be taken along the predetermined route, allowing no deviation.

Therefore, in order not to create discrepancies in the details, Reiko was destined to die, just as she had in countless past loops.

He was a selfish person who would stop at nothing, willing to sacrifice the whole world for the slightest benefit, let alone exchange Reiko’s death for divine power… The water flowing with golden vines surged into the shape of a Möbius Strip before his eyes, and Qi Si instantly knew the solution to this instance.

This was an extremely simple instance. Li Yuan was much more reliable than Qi; if he said he would give him divine power, he wouldn’t set up obstacles. His visit to this instance was merely a formality, without too many complex puzzles or twists… Lu Ming’s hope was destined to be dashed. No one cared about the thoughts of an NPC; he was just an insignificant sacrifice in a transaction at the level of deities, like a human casually waving their sleeve and unintentionally knocking an ant onto the ground… Qi Si returned to the surface. His vision suddenly twisted, and when he regained his senses, he was standing on the lake shore, next to the warning sign.

Although his clothes were damp, they were only moistened by water vapor, not soaked through by the bone-chilling lake water.

The experience of sinking to the bottom of the lake just now seemed like merely a hallucination from the depths of a nightmare, with no physical evidence to prove the event occurred.

Qi Si walked back to the teaching building, went up to the third floor, and returned to the Grade Nine (9) Class classroom.

At half past seven, everyone should have arrived, and the class monitor responsible for morning reading closed the front and back doors of the classroom.

Qi Si noticed that there were nearly half fewer students in the classroom than yesterday. The girls had basically all disappeared, and two fewer boys were present—the exact two who had been dragged out by the Dean of Students last night.

After class, the students were laughing, joking, and chasing each other as usual, no different from a normal middle school break, as if no one noticed that half the people were inexplicably missing.

Qi Si turned his head, grabbed the wrist of the boy in the back row, and asked, “Why are there so few people in the class? Do you know where they all went?”

Although the boy was impatient, seeing the razor blade Qi Si held between two fingers, he answered patiently, “They either couldn’t handle the pressure and transferred, or they committed an offense and were advised to drop out. Some even had powerful families who secured better futures for them.

“Sigh, they’re so lucky. They’re probably still asleep right now. Only unlucky ghosts like us have to stay in this rotten school and desperately compete for the high school entrance exam.”

Qi Si raised an eyebrow and asked, “Did they arrange it? They all left overnight?”

The boy looked at Qi Si in confusion: “Lu Ming, are you still half-asleep? They’ve been leaving intermittently for quite some time. The earliest ones ran away half a year ago, right after the school rules were changed.”

“Changed school rules?”

“Yeah, I don’t know what’s wrong with the principal’s head. When we enrolled, they promised we’d have a happy three years, but then they suddenly started cracking down hard on our grades…”

The boy was genuinely emotional and complained endlessly about how miserable the last six months had been, which matched the information Qi Si had learned from the report.

He roughly understood that in this instance, students who violated school rules and discipline would disappear, but a reasonable, unsuspicious explanation would be provided for each disappearance.

And the memories of the NPCs were obviously chaotic, automatically modifying their perceptions under the instance’s interference; their statements about time and events were also inaccurate, even remembering an overnight disappearance as a gradual departure over half a year… So, were their memories of “Lu Ming” also inaccurate?

They said “Lu Ming” was Lu Ming’s older brother, who committed suicide by jumping off a building recently.

But the truth was, the one who died by jumping off a building was Lu Ming.

The modification of perception was done to make the instance’s logic smoother and prevent NPCs from noticing obvious inconsistencies.

Imagine if Lu Ming died on July 31st, and it was widely reported in the newspaper, yet he appeared perfectly fine in the classroom on August 1st—such a huge bug would inevitably arouse suspicion among the NPCs.

Therefore, the one who died could only be Lu Ming.

How to explain that Lu Ming looked exactly like Lu Ming? Simple: treat him as Lu Ming’s twin brother.

Thus, the Lu Ming’s Diary was actually Lu Ming’s Diary, and the young man in the footage cleaning the rabbit bones, who seemed closely connected to the Rabbit God, was Lu Ming himself.

And because Lu Ming did not have an older brother, when Qi Si specifically asked the NPCs about the brother, he received confused and negative responses.

Only once, when he mentioned “Lu Ming” in Li Fang’s office and casually brought up Lu Ming’s death, did Li Fang seem to recall something, displaying fear and impatience.

At noon, Reiko waited for Qi Si—or “Lu Ming” in her eyes—at the classroom door as usual.

Although Qi Si knew she was going to die and felt no pity to change her fate, he still offered a friendly smile and chatted with her casually.

“Lu Ming, the Dean of Students talked to Teacher Li this morning, and they argued for a long time,” Reiko said worriedly.

Qi Si, the culprit, raised an eyebrow slightly: “Oh? Did something happen?”

“I don’t know. I’ll go ask Teacher Li after we eat.” Reiko sighed. “Sigh, Teacher Li often argues with the school’s higher-ups for us. She’s a genuinely good teacher who cares about us.

“In the beginning, the school never cared about discipline or studies. Hope Middle School was a mess from top to bottom. It was Teacher Li who risked being disliked by the students to seriously teach us knowledge and regulate our behavior.

“For the past six months, the school has become overly eager for quick success, pushing us to the brink. It’s also Teacher Li who withstood the school’s pressure, filtering out valuable practice problems for us and improving our study efficiency…”

“Hmm, she’s certainly responsible,” Qi Si agreed sincerely.

Li Fang and Reiko both belonged to a special category of NPCs; prompt text could pop up on them, and their corpses existed somewhere in the school.

Qi Si guessed that they both probably died before the start of the seven-day loop.

Li Fang could see her own corpse because her death was inevitable; Reiko couldn’t see her corpse because Lu Ming was still trying his best to save her, and her life or death depended on the game between Lu Ming and some high-level entity.

Lu Ming died and did not enter the cycle of reincarnation, instead trapping the entire Hope Middle School in a ghost domain, repeating the loop again and again, just so Reiko could live… This self-sacrificing complex was something Qi Si could not understand.

He followed Reiko noncommittally, walked through the cafeteria, and exited with an empty tray, without arousing suspicion from the student on duty.

Although he was using Lu Ming’s body, theoretically a dead person, he had absolutely no intention of letting hair or maggots enter his stomach.

Afternoon classes proceeded as normal. Li Fang was strict as always, but showed no other emotions like anger.

If Reiko hadn’t mentioned it, Qi Si would never have guessed that she had just had a heated argument with the Dean of Students. However, it seemed the Dean of Students was a generous ghost and hadn’t sold out Qi Si for ratting him out.

When Qi Si snuck into the office this morning, he had tucked the self-criticism letter into the homework assignment. Li Fang must have received it while grading homework; she didn’t ask him for the letter after class or invite him back to the office.

The day ended uneventfully. Qi Si no longer felt the novelty of the first day, but he did feel a sense of nostalgia.

When he was in middle school, he had never studied so peacefully. He was either targeted and disturbed by a group of boring classmates, or he was figuring out how to use bloody methods for revenge, and then, after causing a death, devising a plan for acquittal and destroying the evidence… At exactly five o’clock in the evening, time once again came to a standstill. Space was filled with gray silence, and handwritten text appeared before his eyes.

【Escape from Rabbit God Town Second Run】

【Achieved Ending: The Spirited Away Boy and Girl】

【Time until the next opening of the Escape from Rabbit God Town game: 00:00:00】

Beneath the fluttering prayer ribbons, Lu Ming sat quietly in a chair, looking at Qi Si.

“It’s time,” he said.

Qi Si knew that the only way for him to establish contact with the past Rabbit God Town in this instance was through the Escape from Rabbit God Town game created by Lu Ming.

Lu Ming must have paid some price to break through the barrier between the present and the past, repeatedly sending players to Rabbit God Town two hundred years ago.

Perhaps in his view, Reiko died because she was sacrificed to the Rabbit God, and as long as he could return to Rabbit God Town to change the past, he could solve the problem at its root.

But things were clearly not that simple.

The Rabbit God had not been in Hope Middle School’s territory, or rather, had lost the divine power to grant wishes, for half a year.

Otherwise, Hope Middle School’s senior management could have continued to bargain with Him, instead of suddenly starting to strictly enforce student studies.

So, who exactly accepted Reiko’s sacrifice?

Qi Si suddenly thought of a very interesting possibility, a tragedy inadvertently caused by a time paradox.

He lowered his eyes, grinning strangely like a hyena: “Good. Let’s start quickly then.”

Lu Ming snapped his fingers.

The prayer ribbons in the world spun and danced like spirits. Amidst the floating light and shadows, lines of text refreshed.

【Game Name: Escape from Rabbit God Town】

【Mission Objective:???】

【Friendly Reminder: Careful of the Rabbit】

【Save Points: “Suspicious Questioning”; Reiko’s Rabbit God Mask】

【Do you wish to load the save and start the game?】

“Yes, load Save Point Two.”

【Escape from Rabbit God Town Third Run, Start】

“Xiao Qi, look quickly! They’re selling rabbit masks over there!” From a high vantage point, Reiko lifted her skirt and ran to the mask stall, picking up a Rabbit God Mask and putting it on her face.

The perspective returned. Qi Si was attached to Xiao Qi’s body. Reiko, smiling, said: “Everyone has been so polite to me lately! They used to say you were the child most like the Rabbit God!”

Qi Si could not control the body. Just like in the Second Run, he walked toward the stall owner and took the Rabbit God Mask offered by the owner: “The Fireworks Festival is approaching. I want to ask what I need to do to become more like the Rabbit God. Is there anything I’m not doing well enough?”

The stall owner smiled apologetically: “Qilang is already doing very well. We run a small business, so we always have to say a few pleasing words, just to build good karma…”

The plot continued to fast-forward. Qi Si heard himself say: “Father always said he was sick because he wasn’t pious enough, and that even I am no longer the child most like the Rabbit God…”

Reiko said: “How could you possibly not be pious enough? Something must be wrong… I think Uncle Shenwu is a very good person; he always smiles at me, but Mom doesn’t seem to like him very much… ‘Mom also told me not to play with you, but she won’t know if I don’t tell her. I love playing with Xiao Qi the most!”

“I think your mother misunderstood me because of someone’s unfair evaluation. Maybe you can take me to see her, and we can clear up the misunderstanding.”

“After Father passed away, Mother hasn’t allowed me to bring anyone else home. Should I go back and try to persuade her?”

“No need to trouble yourself with that. And please, Reiko, don’t tell her that I said these things to you, so as not to put her in a difficult position.” The plot before the save point ended here, and Qi Si regained control of his body.

He turned his head and said to Reiko the same words he had said during the Second Run: “Reiko, let’s walk along this street and look outside Rabbit God Town.”

But this time, he pointed to the southeast, the opposite direction from the Second Run.