The other half of the building—girls’ dormitory.
When the sound of the explosion rang out, the new students became more cautious, only daring to open their windows to listen. The actual student NPCs, however, did come out.
Mr. Si was one of them.
He had sharp ears and was the most excited to bounce around. Judging from the direction of the noise, he confirmed it came from the floor where Zhou Qi’an lived.
Not wanting to miss the opportunity, Mr. Si immediately ran over to watch the excitement.
The stench hit him in the face. By the time he reached the fourth floor, he already regretted it.
“Since I’m already here.” He forced himself to bounce up to the fifth floor.
He didn’t see Zhou Qi’an, but his slight mysophobia almost made him pass out.
“Damn it.” Everything here was disgusting.
At that moment, Zhou Qi’an was still on the second floor.
Through the small window facing the staircase, a sliver of pre-dawn light could be seen.
Despite the emerging daylight, the dormitory building remained dark and silent.
Above the third floor, the air was filled with the stench of rotten eggs.
To prevent methane poisoning, the players had previously come down and opened all the corridor and dormitory windows. Any sparks had also been carefully extinguished.
Zhou Qi’an stood in the breeze, listening to the system’s continuous broadcast in the dim light.
[Current story background exploration: 100%.]
[You have completed this instance.]
[You have successfully activated the green escape route.]
[The escape route will open in 40 minutes.]
[During the activation period, players will be partially immune to death rules.]
[Warning: Do not actively enter dangerous areas.]
In other words—don’t ask for trouble, and you won’t die.
Zhou Qi’an fell into thought. Why wasn’t he being teleported out immediately?
About fifteen minutes passed when a sudden commotion of footsteps came from upstairs. It sounded chaotic—definitely more than one person.
He looked up to see a student with a pale, bluish-gray face rushing toward him at high speed. He looked like an NPC. Behind him was a swarm of players.
Zhou Qi’an blinked. So early?
Didn’t everyone usually wait until nearly 7 a.m. before going out?
Could it be that they knew he was leaving and wanted to say goodbye or give him something?
But the students rushing past him didn’t even glance at Zhou Qi’an. Like a gust of wind, they dashed downstairs. The rest followed suit.
“So disgusting! It reeks!”
They simply couldn’t stand it anymore!
Before daylight fully broke, staying in the dorm rooms felt safer than wandering the campus. They had endured the smell for nearly half an hour and had reached their limit.
When someone ahead started going downstairs, the others immediately sped up.
It was like a flock of geese just let out of the pen.
Zhou Qi’an: “You guys…”
Before he could finish his sentence, he was nearly knocked over. He had to jog a few steps just to avoid being trampled.
“This ruckus might annoy the dorm supervisor,” Zhou Qi’an weakly reminded them.
But when he reached the ground floor, the supervisor had already fled.
“……”
The tree pits by the road were in trouble. Almost everyone had claimed one, vomiting loudly.
Among them, Zhou Qi’an spotted Hao Nan and walked over.
“This methane explosion—you played a part in it.”
Hao Nan forced out two words: “Shut up.”
Using others to produce methane—was that something to be proud of?
Thinking back to earlier that night, Zhou Qi’an had even thoughtfully taught them how to isolate air and ferment methane under optimal temperature conditions.
To put it bluntly, he’d taught them how to play with methane, then kept himself far away.
“Hao Nan.”
“Don’t call me Hao Nan,” the carefree-looking youth clung to a tree in despair. “I feel like a dung beetle right now.”
The world was a massive dung ball.
Zhou Qi’an patted his shoulder. “To thank you and your roommates and…”
Everyone under his gaze glared at him fiercely.
Zhou Qi’an cleared his throat. “In short, to thank all of you for your selfless contributions, I’ll perform a little show before I go.”
Hao Nan’s expression shifted slightly, and he even forgot to keep vomiting.
Before you go?
Could it be… He almost asked out loud whether Zhou Qi’an had reached 100% exploration.
Zhou Qi’an didn’t give him the chance to ask. He suddenly frowned. “I can sense someone watching me.”
Vikas was staring at Zhou Qi’an out of habit.
His slightly green eyes now carried streaks of dark red blood. A lack of sleep was part of it, but mostly it was rage. He still hadn’t gotten over the fact that a life-saving item had been used in such a situation.
There were still small cuts on his muscular arm from the tiles shattered by the methane explosion. Before the life-saving doll had taken effect, the blast’s force had caused some internal injuries.
Vikas’s breathing was uneven.
“I can hear the damage in your breath, the madness in your heartbeat.”
Zhou Qi’an stood there and calmly hummed a couple of lyrics.
A glint of light flashed in his eyes. Zhou Qi’an stopped singing and looked over calmly. Noticing something like a weapon in Vikas’s hand, he exposed his slender neck, as if silently asking: Do you dare?
Faced with the provocative gaze, Vikas suddenly put away his folding knife. He smiled, his eyes scanning Zhou Qi’an’s body like a blade: “We’ll meet again.”
There was a brief pause, and those last four words were spoken with deep meaning.
Just a threat?
Zhou Qi’an found that disappointing. To make up for it, he turned and went upstairs to grab a few things for his farewell show. As he entered the dorm building, his peripheral vision caught sight of Ying Yu leaning against a pillar, eyes closed in rest.
Vikas was essentially the outgoing type—people like that were easy to predict, like Mr. Si.
Ying Yu…
This man still hadn’t revealed his true intentions. Zhou Qi’an had a feeling Ying Yu would cross paths with him again—before Vikas did.
Hopefully, when they met again, they wouldn’t be enemies.
“Zhou.” Ying Yu suddenly called out.
Zhou Qi’an stopped.
Ying Yu: “If possible, I’d like to ask a small favor.”
Zhou Qi’an didn’t respond right away. He waited for him to speak first.
“The skull ring on your finger—if you rotate the skull head 180 degrees, three times in a row, it will enter ‘Navigation’ mode.”
The Red Cloak had once surrendered himself to the authorities with information, so it didn’t surprise Zhou Qi’an that Ying Yu knew he had a skull ring.
What did surprise him was that the ring, besides testing player evolution, actually had other functions.
“Once in navigation mode, it will flash red when you approach something valuable,” Ying Yu explained. “You should be under rule protection right now. Combined with your work experience in the school infirmary, entering the comprehensive building should be much safer.”
“If you find any items, you keep the tools. Everything else, I take.”
Zhou Qi’an thought for a moment. The infirmary shift started at 9 a.m., and the chance of encountering the school doctor right now was low. Even if he ran into danger, he could leave the instance when the countdown ended.
A ring that could help him find valuable items? Even if Ying Yu hadn’t told him, he would’ve gone to check.
As for whether he gave anything to Ying Yu—he’d decide that himself after picking first.
All in all, not a bad deal.
Zhou Qi’an glanced at the countdown—35 minutes left. “Alright. If you see Shen Zhiyi, tell him to grab my backpack.”
He changed course and headed toward the comprehensive building.
·
Inside the building, the temperature was several degrees colder than outside.
The faint, rapid sound of a winding spring echoed softly.
It was Zhou Qi’an turning the skull-shaped ring on his finger. The uniquely designed piece looked even stranger in the shadows.
“So cold,” he murmured.
After twisting it three times, the skull began to look incredibly lifelike—its eyes eerily human, constantly scanning its surroundings.
Zhou Qi’an adjusted to the sudden chill in his palm and moved forward cautiously.
He made a full circuit around the first and second floors, but the ring showed no reaction. According to the experience guide Han Li had sent him, “wild items” did exist in instances like this.
Just with extremely low probability.
As he wandered aimlessly, the ring finally responded—a brief flicker of red light.
Zhou Qi’an’s heart lifted. Not far away, there was a half-withered flowerpot on a window ledge in the hallway. He rushed over and carefully touched it inside and out, but there was no system prompt sound.
That meant it wasn’t an item.
But the ring’s glow continued. It dimmed when near the plant, yet brightened when he touched the soil.
Zhou Qi’an sighed and stuffed a few handfuls of dirt into his pocket.
Hidden House’s item development project sourced many materials from instances, so this soil might have some unique property.
But to someone like him—no research background—it was just dirt.
On the third floor, the ring was silent.
As he climbed toward the fourth floor, Zhou Qi’an paused. Only half a day had passed, yet the shadow of death still hung vividly over him.
He lightened his steps and held his breath as he crept to the corner. His body moved like a leaf in the wind, making barely a sound.
“Keep steady,” Zhou Qi’an reminded himself as he bypassed the infirmary on the fourth floor and headed straight to the fifth.
He had planned to skip the fifth floor as well, but an open door ahead caught his attention.
Approaching it slowly, he saw an old, faded sign above the door, barely legible: Dispensary.
Once he confirmed the room was empty, he went inside.
Most of the medicine was locked in cabinets. On the table sat a bottle labeled Hemostatic, but it was empty. The trash can had bits of surgical thread. After walking around and seeing the ring remain inert, Zhou Qi’an decided not to investigate further.
Just as he was about to leave, a flicker of movement in the corner of his eye caught his attention—something on the gray wall.
A landscape painting? In a dispensary? And the frame was a bit tilted.
Zhou Qi’an took the frame down, revealing a hidden switch behind it.
When he pressed it, a muffled sound followed, and a mysterious passageway, filled with a sense of confinement, opened up.
“……”
It felt like a very unordinary secret path.
Damn it!
Why did he have to find it?
Zhou Qi’an hesitated, unsure if he should risk it, and glanced at his mission panel.
He had spent a lot of time meticulously exploring the first two floors. Nearly twenty minutes had already passed.
“Well, I’m already here…” In the end, Zhou Qi’an couldn’t resist human instinct—finding a secret passage and not exploring it just felt like a waste.
The dim, narrow tunnel stretched into the unknown.
Outside light was completely blocked behind him. At first, he could walk upright, but soon the walls grew tighter. Zhou Qi’an crouched, but it strained his back too much, so he ended up crawling forward on his hands and knees.
Midway through, his nose twitched. There was a faint smell of blood in the cold air.
He crawled forward at a snail’s pace for several more minutes before suddenly stopping.
Footprints.
It was so dark inside that any marks were nearly invisible—if not for the traces of fresh blood, Zhou Qi’an might have missed them.
Judging by the shoe size, they belonged to an adult male. The prints were chaotic, making it impossible to tell if the person had been coming or going. Zhou Qi’an rubbed the blood-streaked print between his fingers—and froze.
The blood hadn’t completely dried.
That meant someone had been here just moments before him.
A chill crept up his spine, goosebumps rising all over.
Where had that person gone?
Had they already left—or…?
The silent tunnel echoed only with the sound of rapid breathing.
Zhou Qi’an swallowed hard and began to back away. But he had barely moved when he noticed something strange—another footprint, this time on the wall beside him.
One, two… Faint prints, all facing the same direction.
A sudden thought hit him. Zhou Qi’an held his breath and slowly tilted his head up—
Above, the eyeless school nurse clung to the ceiling like a many-legged spider. The pale, long hairs on his face bristled, and his gaping red mouth was staring straight down.
“!”
Fu-ck. Fu-ck fu-ck fu-ck!
He should have killed that nurse already.
Zhou Qi’an surged forward.
Why not backtrack?
In a tunnel like this, turning around would cost time. Crawling backward was even slower.
Using both hands and feet, he scrambled forward with all his strength.
His biggest fear was the nurse pouncing on him and delivering a fatal blow on the spot.
He was ready to summon the White Silk at any moment to block an attack, but after a few seconds of frantic escape, he realized—the nurse hadn’t struck yet.
Probably because Zhou Qi’an was temporarily immune to the death rules.
But how long would that last? Who knew.
He wasn’t counting on the game’s mercy.
The nurse seemed to breathe through his mouth. In the tight space, Zhou Qi’an could feel foul, putrid air brushing the top of his head, seeping into his scalp.
A faint light appeared in the darkness.
Ahead—an air vent.
Little Hammer appeared in his hand. Zhou Qi’an’s knees were throbbing from the crawl, but he had no time for pain. He surged forward, teeth clenched, and slammed the vent repeatedly.
Luckily, he was slim. Like a fish, he slid through the opening.
Just a breath behind him, the nurse followed—but his massive head got stuck in the vent.
The nurse’s body squirmed violently. Dust rained from the ceiling.
Knowing the creature wouldn’t be trapped for long, Zhou Qi’an scanned the room.
Several capsule-shaped transparent pods stood upright. Inside one, a pig’s head stared through the clear door panel with an eerie, human-like expression—sending chills down his spine.
Zhou Qi’an’s pupils shrank—
This must be the “pods” Mr. Si mentioned.
The skull ring flared with a sudden burst of fire in its eye sockets.
Zhou Qi’an raised his hand and approached each one.
“What is this?”
Inside one of the pods was not a severed pig head, but a live pig, seemingly just delivered. What caught his attention was a half-open box inside the pod, containing a crystal resembling mica, emitting wisps of smoke.
The fire in the skull’s eyes blazed brighter.
Treasure.
Zhou Qi’an’s expression grew serious. He repeated his motto: “I’m already here.”
If stealing this treasure brought danger, he’d regret it for a while. But if he didn’t take it, he’d regret it for the rest of his life.
“Besides, the countdown’s almost over anyway…” he muttered, snatching the crystal and running.
Now this was exciting.
