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Chapter 238 - 235 - "How Could Big Brother Suspect Me?

Chapter 238: Chapter 235 - "How Could Big Brother Suspect Me?

The silvery scalpel plunged into the throat of the person on the ground, its blood-stained handle trembling slightly.

In the brightly lit field of view, the light emanating from the ground was even clearer than during daytime.

Su Ming’an took a step forward, retracted the scalpel, turned his head, and looked towards the partially open door at the end of the corridor.

Through a distance that was neither close nor far, and through the crack of the door, he could see a black-haired girl scraping at the door, staring at this side with her round, wide eyes.

"...Ah."

The girl’s somewhat fearful voice rose, and the next moment, the door was immediately shut.

Su Ming’an withdrew his gaze.

The plan for a "clearance" during the night had already been discussed with Lin Jiang.

Lin Jiang was responsible for the second floor, while he took care of the first floor.

Killing other players was more advantageous than detrimental for him, eliminating anyone who might report his negligence, thus preventing him from being reported for dereliction. In such an instance, it was best to avoid dying as much as possible.

Since Dong Xue was staying in the dormitory area on the second floor, which was within Lin Jiang’s jurisdiction, he had informed Lin Jiang in advance not to kill Dong Xue.

He had recognized the ill-intentions of this instance and, to avoid having the battle lines extended further, he did not want the instance to keep resetting.

The longer he stayed here, the greater the psychic damage he sustained.

Having walked the first floor, he had killed six people, both players and NPCs, and he successfully raised his SAN value to 100 points.

The dark corners in front of him, the bloody colors, and the pervasive sounds and hallucinations, had all vanished at this moment.

...But he found that it wasn’t over yet.

Increased SAN value simply meant no longer experiencing hallucinations and no further deterioration of his mental state, nothing more.

It wouldn’t forcibly repair a player’s already damaged mental state.

As a result, he still maintained a level that was neither high nor low, with no strong hallucinations, but his condition was definitely not perfect.

He clenched the scalpel in his hand and looked towards the firmly shut door beside the corridor.

On the first floor, there were still two people alive.

When he killed the second person, perhaps he had incited anger, causing people in other rooms to burst out of their doors, lunging towards him in a state close to mental collapse.

He didn’t even have the chance to send out the High Tower Invitation.

He managed to take care of those people.

In the narrow corridor with no escape, a broad Spatial Vibration was all he needed.

With the addition of a scalpel for the final blow and annihilation, he didn’t let a single one escape.

So, the two people who were still alive mainly survived because they didn’t impulsively open their doors.

He twirled the scalpel in his hand and walked towards the room at the end of the corridor whose door had just been pushed open.

But as he extended his hand, planning to use annihilation to forcibly break down the door, it opened of its own accord.

Standing in front of the door, a pretty black-haired girl was looking straight at him with her moist, glistening eyes.

"Number One Player," Hashimoto Chiha said, "before you make your move, can I get a selfie with you?"

"The way I look right now probably isn’t suitable for photos," Su Ming’an said.

Because he was too close to the Spatial Vibration, his coat was splattered with blood, now bearing traces of fresh red and dark stains.

"That’s okay," Hashimoto Chiha smiled, "...I just wanted to make sure my trip here wasn’t wasted. And, thank you."

"Thank me?"

"Thank you for setting me free."

"...There’s nothing to thank me for," Su Ming’an said, "I killed you, and I’m the one who benefits. There’s no need to romanticize my actions."

"You’re not wrong, Number One Player," Hashimoto Chiha looked at him with her shining, hopeful eyes, "In a competitive instance with intense conflict, is killing players such a terrible thing? I don’t think so. It’s just because your reputation precedes you that those people are so critical of you. I find it quite amusing. They can justify their actions in the name of eliminating the different, killing off players who have gone mad, but in the end, they criticize you for not being allowed to kill them."

She saw the person in front of her extend his hand, seemingly doing something, and then he shared a picture with her.

"The photo has been taken," Su Ming’an said.

Hashimoto Chiha’s eyes widened as she looked at the ghostly image of herself in the photo, shocked by the act of taking a picture without giving any notice.

"...No, I mean, maybe we could take another one? I was talking just now..." she tried to subtly remind him of the straight man photo-taking perspective.

"While you were talking just now, people in the live stream must have taken countless photos," Su Ming’an said. "There are all kinds of angles, you can go back and look for yourself later."

As he spoke, he pressed his finger to her temple.

"Oh, that reminds me," Su Ming’an said. "I am now issuing you a battle challenge."

"What?" Hashimoto Chiha had already closed her eyes but suddenly heard this statement.

"Do you accept?"

"...Ah?"

"Without a response, I’ll take that as acceptance," Su Ming’an said.

The next moment, she saw a deep blue system prompt unfolding in front of her eyes.

[You have accepted the (High Tower Invitation) battle request.]

She was stunned, not yet grasping what the "invitation" was all about when she suddenly felt an intense pain.

The world in front of her turned upside down, and her senses disappeared in an instant.

She tried to struggle subconsciously, but she found herself unable to control her body, and even her consciousness was slowly sinking into darkness.

...Your move, why is it as unannounced as taking a photo!

Hashimoto Chiha’s thoughts emerged for an instant before they sank along with the silent darkness.

...

[Current number of invitations: 1 person.]

...

Su Ming’an retracted his hand and watched as the black-haired girl’s body fell backward, crashing hard onto the ground.

On his journey thus far, he had also experimented with other methods of extending High Tower invitations.

Clearly, the overly subtle ones did not work; he had to explicitly express the thought, "I have the intention to fight you."

The challenge he issued was declined by the first person, and after being declined once, he couldn’t issue a second one for a short period.

Compared to Edward’s ability to forcibly pull people into the Time Domain, this skill seemed low-end. It needed him to speak up and could even be rejected.

But he didn’t think that a hidden skill would be so useless.

Perhaps after unlocking the sealed skill of his equipment, the strength of this skill would be enhanced.

He glanced at the arrangement in Hashimoto Chiha’s room, searched for a moment, but found nothing else.

She did, however, drop an item similar to [Prop No. 23 – Old Toy Bear], [Prop No. 11 – Fluttering Sakura]. It recorded some expressions of a young girl’s springtime emotions.

He could guess that these props were related to the identity tasks that each player assumed.

He didn’t take the item, choosing instead to kill the remaining fish that slipped through the net.

As he turned around, he saw another door in the hallway, now open.

A young man holding a sword stood quietly in the warm light, with an indiscernible emotion in his eyes.

"Big Brother," Mo Yan spoke, his voice a bit hoarse, "...You really have gone mad, haven’t you?"

"I’m not mad."

"But at night, you killed all the others, whether they were players or NPCs..." Mo Yan opened his mouth, gripping the sword tighter, "...Is that really okay? They might have clues on them too."

"I’ve already found the key NPC, and I have some ideas about the general path of the instance. There won’t be a problem," Su Ming’an said.

"..."

Mo Yan lowered his head, seemingly brewing something.

As Su Ming’an stepped closer to him, Mo Yan suddenly lifted his head with a jolt.

In the narrow corridor, the youth’s eyes, always bright, now flickered like a burning, intense fire.

"So, big brother, are you going to kill me too?" he said.

"Will you report me to the headmaster?"

"Of course not! Big brother, you’ve saved my life before, I would never betray you!"

"...But I’ve always had a doubt." Su Ming’an’s hand rested on the door beside him.

Mo Yan’s expression shifted slightly.

"On the First Night, when we first met, you were inside a cabinet," Su Ming’an said. "Later, we encountered Dong Xue. I killed Dong Xue, the instance reset, and we returned to our respective rooms.

Then, while I was still in bed checking the system messages, you were the first to find me and knock on my door, even quicker than Lin Jiang, who lived next to me.

You immediately located my room and came looking for me.

But I never told you where my room was."

He looked at Mo Yan, his tone growing heavier:

"Mo Yan, answer me—why did you go straight to my door and find me with such precision?"

Mo Yan’s eyes widened slightly.

He seemed very anxious, as if eager to explain:

"Big brother, I..."

Su Ming’an watched him, waiting for his explanation.

The Spatial Vibration ability, fully charged, was already locked on Mo Yan.

But at that moment, he realized his vision started to spin.

The corridor before him, the figures standing, the warped light, all began to swirl like a whirlpool, gradually blending into a riot of light and shadow.

...He had experienced this sensation once before.

Instance reset.

"Damn it, Lin Jiang—"

Su Ming’an looked up; the ceiling above was also spinning, blurring, gradually vanishing.

How had Dong Xue died again?

Or rather, was there some other condition for instance reset that he had encountered—

He watched as his field of vision blurred bit by bit, then his consciousness abruptly snapped.

...

Su Ming’an immediately sat up in bed, grabbed the doctor’s uniform from the wardrobe, and the notebook on the desk, stuffing them into his temporary prop bar.

He rushed to the door, pushed it open, and went out.

The familiar darkness was before him; the instance had returned to day one.

At this moment, he did not even have Doctor’s Glasses yet; Night Vision ability did not exist.

Touching the rough wall, he quickly identified the second door on the left, then knocked on it fiercely:

"Lin Jiang! Lin Jiang!"

Thinking that she might have triggered some other instance reset condition, and hadn’t insisted on killing Dong Xue against his advice, his tone was still relatively calm.

But after several unanswered knocks, he gave up the idea of persuading Lin Jiang kindly and directly kicked open the door with eradicated violence.

His cooperation with Lin Jiang had been an experiment all along.

Eliminating all the students would be ideal, and he was not afraid even if Lin Jiang harbored ulterior motives to trip him up.

Moreover, judging from Lin Jiang’s words and behavior, she seemed calm and sincere, making the probability of her cooperating well higher than the probability of her doing something underhanded.

But now, it seemed she had done something unusual.

...Which had led to the instance rollback.

"Click."

The door lock loosened and fell to the ground.

Familiar, faint noises came from behind him, clearly the abnormal creatures attracted by the night. Su Ming’an killed them with a reverse-handed Spatial Vibration with his left hand, and with his right hand, he pushed the door open forcefully—

Darkness.

He stood at the doorway, peering inside, seeing no glimmer of light; the room’s lights weren’t even on.

"Boom—!"

To prevent Lin Jiang from ambushing him from the dark, he immediately activated Spatial Vibration in the direction of the bed.

The wooden bed collapsed, cotton flying. He coughed a few times and heard no cry of pain from the other side.

He realized something.

Touching the wall, he walked in, approached the bed.

He bent down, touching the shattered planks.

The soft touch of cotton clung to his arm. He brushed it away and felt from the broken headboard to the footboard, but felt no flesh and blood.

He also did not smell any blood.

In the darkness, he couldn’t even see where his hands were.

He moved close to the wall, stepping through the cramped room.

His hand found the desk.

There were no traces of any diary on the desk.

He walked to the room’s wardrobe, pulled it open, and reached inside.

The wardrobe was empty. He touched a smooth wooden surface; there wasn’t even a patient’s gown inside, as if there had never been any clothes there at all.

He took a deep breath.

"Tick-tock."

"Tick-tock."

The ticking of a clock came from the walls.

The entire room had no signs of habitation, no diary, no change of clothes, not even the blanket he had just touched; even its surface was smooth.

It was as if Lin Jiang had never lived there.

...But this room was clearly hers.

Su Ming’an had figured it out.

[Instance reset, all progress returned to day one, retained clues, revived deceased NPCs.]

...But deceased players would not be revived.

He walked back along the wall, stepping into the equally dark hallway.

Through the oppressive darkness that seemed to flow before his eyes, like a tidal wave, he saw a pair of shining eyes, somewhat eerie, coming closer to him.

"...Big brother?"

Mo Yan, who had rushed up from the first floor, called out softly.

"Big brother, the instance reset again, we’re back to day one... Big brother, I just checked the first floor, in those rooms where players used to be, there is silence now... Big brother, apart from those NPCs, it seems like we’re the only two players left in the entire White Sand Paradise..."

Mo Yan spoke as he got closer, those eyes flickering like will-o’-the-wisps in the night.

"Stay there, don’t move," Su Ming’an ordered.

The shining eyes indeed stopped in place, motionless, just the eyelids blinking.

"Mo Yan, first answer my question from before," Su Ming’an said.