Chapter 348: Beware of the Rabbit (22) False Time and Space

Qi Si manipulated Kanna Shichirou’s body to lie on the futon, placing the recorder by the pillow to continuously play the legend of the Rabbit God.

“The story of Lord Rabbit God is the story of Usagami Town…”

Amidst Reiko’s devout narration, the Rabbit God statue in the shrine was as quiet as a chicken, like a dead object.

Qi Si could almost imagine that if this deity had human emotions, he would probably want to eat him alive—well, him and Qi.

It had to be said that the Rabbit God was tricked by Qi and Li two hundred years ago, and was about to be tricked by him again two hundred years later. It was truly a clash of fates.

Qi Si smiled pleasantly, pulled open the brocade quilt in the corner of the wooden futon, covered himself, and then took out a palm-sized Rabbit God wooden carving from his inventory, holding it in his hand, concealed by the quilt.

He closed his eyes, and lines of white text appeared on the system interface in the darkness.

“Name: Rabbit God Statue”

“Type: Item (Cannot be taken out of the instance)”

“Effect: The holder can use it to enter the time and space where Usagami Town is located”

“Remarks: A game played by many Hope High School students. The mission objective is to rescue ## (data deleted), but so far no one has cleared it.”

The description in the effect column seemed unambiguous at first glance, but upon closer thought, it could very well be a play on words.

Is “the time and space where Usagami Town is located” truly the past of Hope High School as players perceive it?

Do Usagami Town and Hope High School truly have a sequential relationship in time?

Who exactly is the mission objective to rescue?

Perhaps not just Reiko, but the Rabbit God, the people of Usagami Town, and other children… all could be options after the hash mark.

With a contract born of desire as a chain, all people, gods, and living beings are imprisoned in one corner, unable to escape.

On the golden outline of the game panel, blood-red handwritten characters stood out vividly.

“Escape from Usagami Town, Third Playthrough”

“Mission Objective: Escape from Usagami Town”

“Friendly Reminder: Beware of the Rabbit”

“Save Points:’Suspicious Questioning’; Reiko’s Rabbit God Mask; Reiko’s Prayer Ribbon; Reiko’s Death; Imprisoned God”

“Can pause, can fast forward, can exit”

Qi Si felt that with the recorder playing on loop by his ear, even if he fell asleep, his sleep quality probably wouldn’t be very good.

Moreover, he had many situations he planned to verify at Hope High School. Only after drawing definitive conclusions could he continue to implement his plan in Usagami Town.

He silently recited the words “exit” in his mind.

“Escape from Usagami Town, Third Playthrough Paused”

“In this playthrough, you learned the secrets of Usagami Town from the Kanna family head, and escaped Usagami Town from the southeast with Reiko and Kurokawa Akira.”

“In the mountains outside Usagami Town, you, Reiko, and Kurokawa Akira got separated. You took the opportunity to kill Reiko, completing the mission ‘prevent Reiko from being chosen by the Rabbit God’ in a twisted way.”

“In the latter half of the night, you and Kurokawa Akira were found by the Kurokawa family head and brought back to Usagami Town. After learning the consequences of the failed Rabbit God Festival, you voluntarily offered to take on the responsibility of containing the Rabbit God.”

“You became the current God Lord, moved into the divine residence of the Usagami Shrine, and will live there until August 7th…”

The text on the game panel appeared and then faded, and his vision was filled with glass-like cracks. After the color blocks scattered, it was the same darkness.

The scent of rotten wood and incense in the air gradually dissipated, replaced by the smell of disinfectant and the dampness of sewage seeping into the walls. The originally light and dry brocade quilt also became heavy, damp, and soft, pressing down on him.

Qi Si opened his eyes. The light in the scene was dim, likely because the lights were off, with only a few faint lines of light leaking in from the window, allowing him to see the ceiling with the hanging lamp.

He was clearly in dormitory 0415 of Hope High School, lying on Lu Ming’s bed number 3.

The other beds were empty, probably because evening self-study hadn’t ended yet, and they hadn’t returned.

As for whether his three roommates were diligently studying in the classroom, doing homework and extracurricular problems, or playing a battle royale in their ghost forms, that was unknown.

Qi Si got out of bed, walked out of the dormitory, and the sound of the door opening activated the sensor lights in the corridor.

The pale white light shone down on him. He looked down at the time displayed on the Destiny Pocket Watch.

It was seven-thirty, still early before the end of evening self-study. Lying in the dormitory doing nothing would be too much of a waste.

The recording pen had one bar of battery left. Qi Si held it in his hand and walked along the corridor towards the staircase. The sensor lights

He descended the stairs. There was no one else on the other floors. The sensor lights near the staircase lit up in response, while the distance was a dark, bottomless abyss.

As he was about to reach the first floor, Qi Si pressed the switch on the recording pen.

“Four… two… nine… seven… three… six…”

The hoarse recording played on its own, like a ghost’s whisper in the silence, echoing with hollow reverberations.

The female dorm supervisor with curlers in her hair came walking in slippers, a flashlight in one hand and a broom in the other, waving it as if facing a formidable enemy: “Who’s there? Come out?”

As a ghost, she couldn’t see Qi Si, who had turned on the recording pen. She could only see the lights in the stairwell automatically lighting up, as if someone had passed by; there were sporadic footsteps, but no one in sight.

It was not yet midnight, and she hadn’t awakened her ghostly cognition and memories. She still adhered to human common sense, and what she saw made her feel incredibly eerie.

“Did a student return to the dorm early?” the female dorm supervisor shouted, her voice gradually weakening. “Just come out and register, no points will be deducted this time…”

Qi Si pretended not to hear, skirted around her, and quickly walked out of the dormitory building.

Behind him, the female dorm supervisor murmured with a trembling voice, “It’s haunted… it’s really haunted…”

Outside the dormitory building, no one was in sight. The promotional screen of Everlife Technology Company dutifully glowed, automatically playing PPTs and videos.

In the images, researchers in white lab coats busily moved through the corridors, their eyes behind their glasses tired and vacant.

Under the starless and moonless night, a vast expanse of white mist filled the roads, scattered by the streetlights on both sides into a murky haze.

Qi Si walked towards the administration building, following the map in his memory.

This instance didn’t seem like a real world. Earlier, when he searched other students’ desks, everyone’s stationery supplies and arrangements were identical to Lu Ming’s, leading him to guess that this was a ghost domain constructed based on Lu Ming’s consciousness.

Later, the two timelines intertwined through Lu Ming’s game as a catalyst; Reiko’s various dead bodies appeared in every corner, triggering immersive hallucinations; and even various classrooms staged horror skits in exaggerated and absurd forms… Qi Si was basically certain that this was an abstract world, similar to “Lu Ming’s Nightmare,” and did not replicate reality one-to-one.

Since that was the case, any building chosen by Lu Ming as an element to be placed here must have something worth exploring, or at least one or two clues.

The numbers recorded in the recording pen sounded like a password.

In general text-based games, any password clue that appears must have a use.

The teaching building, cafeteria, and dormitories clearly had no need for a password. The only place where a password could be useful was the administration building.

Qi Si tightly gripped the recording pen and brushed past the black and white disciplinary director’s shoulder to enter the administration building, without attracting the attention of anyone, human or ghost.

Perhaps because Lu Ming himself didn’t often come to the administration building, or because the eerie game was kindly eliminating redundant information interference for players, the interior of the administration building was as shoddily drawn as the disciplinary director.

The first-floor corridor was entirely a black, white, and gray two-dimensional drawing, without even perspective, like a child’s crude doodle. The doors were merely outlined with black lines, making it clear at a glance that they couldn’t be opened.

Qi Si walked into the flat corridor, as if entering a shoddily made game backend. Both sides were blurry color blocks, with flat doors drawn on them, appearing somewhat comical amidst the eeriness.

Qi Si tentatively touched the door panel. As expected, there were no door seams or handles.

This actually reduced trouble, saving him from having to search room after room like in

In a sense, the eerie game’s malice towards him was far less than his own malice towards himself.

A three-dimensional staircase stood at the end of the corridor, strikingly out of place with the surrounding two-dimensional scene, drawing particular attention.

Qi Si stepped onto the stairs, finally returning to the three-dimensional world, and knew the location of the last puzzle piece.

He ascended step by step to the second floor. At the end was boundless darkness, with only a wooden door embedded in the darkness, standing solitary and majestic.

The door was indeed fitted with a password lock.

Qi Si walked over and entered “four two nine seven three six,” which was repeatedly played in the recording pen.

With a “click,” the wooden door opened, emitting a “creak” as it swung wider.

Against the black and white background, a phantom flashed before Qi Si’s eyes.

The boy, carrying a recording pen, secretly followed the teacher in black, all the way to the administration building, and then slipped into a corner shadow.

Perhaps that teacher habitually mumbled the password when entering it, or perhaps the tracker had good eyesight. In any case, the boy learned the password. Unable to find paper and pen, he recorded it with his recording pen.

He carried the recording pen with him, probably to investigate something, to collect some evidence, and the evidence he was looking for was behind the door, of great importance… Qi Si pushed the door open, walked through the painted bookshelves, and headed straight for the three-dimensional office desk in the depths of the room.

The two drawers under the desk were both locked with mechanical locks.

Qi Si pulled a thin wire from his special bracelet and pried them open one by one.

The left drawer contained a stack of documents, the topmost of which was actually a roster of past God Lords of Usagami Town.

Kanna Shichirou’s name was clearly the last one, circled in red pen, its purpose unknown.

Counting up three names from there was Kanna Hideya, the name of the Kanna family head.

This undoubtedly contradicted the information Qi Si obtained in the ‘Escape from Usagami Town’ game.

In the game, the Kanna family head avoided selection through shamanistic means; in the known history of Hope High School, he was chosen as he should have been.

This was enough to show that what happened in the

Hope High School was indeed built on the land of Usagami Town, and hundreds of years ago there was indeed an Usagami Town that was destroyed by the Rabbit God’s curse.

But that was already past, established history, and cannot be confused with the time and space of Usagami Town that Qi Si entered.

Different choices would lead to different world lines, independent of each other.

Qi Si could still seize the Rabbit God’s divine power as planned, without worrying about a grandfather paradox.

Below the roster were several manuscripts with handwritten paragraphs.

“The people of Usagami Town believe that children are the purest and most innocent, and even if they possess powerful strength, they can be easily controlled…”

“Children have not yet been exposed to too much of the material world, and therefore lack overly strong desires, and gods happen to be without desires. Children will be the best material for creating gods…”

“They succeeded… but they made a huge mistake. Without desires, without emotions, they would kill wantonly like instinct-driven animals, eliminating everyone and everything that made Them feel threatened…”

“Kanna Shichirou became the new Rabbit God, far more cruel than the previous Rabbit God. He enjoys playing a game called Kagome Kagome. All students who have been to the lake will play it upon returning, until someone dies…”

“All the bodies were thrown to the bottom of the lake. He was very satisfied and willing to grant our wishes… Then we’ll transfer another batch of consumables from the orphanage… I wonder how many people need to die to achieve eternal life?”

Qi Si narrowed his eyes.

In Hope High School’s timeline, the Rabbit God indeed lost its divine power, and Kanna Shichirou became the new Rabbit God.

The so-called Rabbit God Festival was definitely not what the girls did in the dormitory, but the Kagome Kagome game that had always lurked beneath the surface.

Students who had been to the lake were entranced, unconsciously starting to play Kagome Kagome until someone died… That deceased person was the sacrifice for the new Rabbit God.

Everlife Technology Company knew all of this and deliberately took in orphans into Hope High School to sacrifice them. Their purpose was never something as boring as improving student grades, but rather… eternal life.

As for the other students, perhaps they were tools for committing atrocities and covering up crimes, or perhaps they were just extra income. Without exception, they were all drawn into it, becoming part of the evil.

The game “Escape from Usagami Town” did not, as Qi Si previously thought, open a door to the past that could change the future.

The game was just a game, a simulation of the background constructed by Lu Ming based on the information he investigated, with appropriate adaptations.

In the game, Kanna Shichirou was not chosen as the God Lord, and to make this more plausible, even the Kanna family head was spared.

Hope High School, on the other hand, simulated the possibility that Kanna Shichirou never became the Rabbit God. Unfortunately, no matter who the Rabbit God was, Reiko could not escape death.

Lu Ming had no choice but to let players enter the game to find a new way out.

Even more unfortunately, Qi Si did not follow the usual path in

“So… was the Rabbit God in ‘Escape from Usagami Town’ the original Rabbit God, or the real Kanna Shichirou?” Qi Si fell into deep thought.

The game’s background was fake, but Reiko and the Rabbit God were real, after all, there were soul leaves and contractual rules as proof.

Qi Si could feel Reiko’s soul, and also the Rabbit God’s restrained divine power.

The Rabbit God here at Hope High School was gone, yet there was a living Rabbit God in the

Could it be because… “Because I locked Him in my game,” a young voice said emotionlessly from behind him.

Qi Si looked back to see Lu Ming, dressed in a school uniform.