(5/5)
Yuying University
Chapter 466: It seems you haven’t done all your homework yet
Wen Jianyan gripped the bone hand, his eyes darkening.
As club members, Orange Candy and the others, like Weasel, could also awaken during the compulsory course period. If that’s the case, there’s no need for them to obediently attend the compulsory course. So why would they come to the school building?
There was only one possibility.
The message Su Cheng had just sent flashed through Wen Jianyan’s mind.
—[The captain is preparing to act according to your plan].
To put it bluntly, his plan was to rob them.
But the problem was… robbing someone in the school building?
And the other party consisted of club members who, like them, were not affected by the compulsory course?
Something felt off.
Wen Jianyan withdrew his gaze, turned around, and walked quickly towards the stairwell.
Since it was currently class time, the corridors and stairwells were all shrouded in darkness. This darkness was very similar to the darkness outside during the previous moral education class, so dark you couldn’t see your hand in front of your face. Even with his glasses, he could only vaguely make out the path upstairs.
Guided by the bone hand, Wen Jianyan soon arrived on the third floor.
The school building only had three floors in total.
And this was the highest floor.
Generally speaking, the total number of people that the classrooms on three floors could hold was the maximum capacity of this instance. However, with the instance having progressed this far, even with previous replenishments, there weren’t enough people to fill all three floors.
Because of this, the third floor was not only the highest floor but also the one with the fewest people.
The bone hand pointed towards the end of the corridor.
The end of the corridor was deathly silent, a straight shot into the depths. The classroom doors on both sides were tightly closed, looking no different from the other two floors.
Just in case, Wen Jianyan activated an item to conceal his presence before walking forward.
The further he went, the more pronounced the trembling of the bone hand became.
Wen Jianyan knew this meant that Weasel was nearby.
Suddenly, he stopped in his tracks and sniffed the air.
…The smell of rust.
It was faint, very faint, almost impossible to detect, but Wen Jianyan was certain that it was undoubtedly the smell of blood.
Suddenly, alarm bells went off in Wen Jianyan’s mind.
He jerked backward, but it was too late. With a “bang,” a blinding pillar of light suddenly cut through the darkness, and an invisible restraint spread out. Although Wen Jianyan was sharp enough, his left foot hadn’t managed to pull away in time and was firmly fixed in place, with no possibility of leaving.
Damn it!!
Wen Jianyan gritted his teeth and bent down, trying to do something. But before he could make a move, the door of a nearby classroom creaked open, and several figures slowly walked out.
And one of them was, to his surprise, Weasel.
A fawning smile was on his pale, long face as he closely followed the person in the lead, looking particularly detestable.
“You’re truly brilliant. I can’t believe he actually came.”
“…”
Wen Jianyan’s gaze swept past him and finally landed on the person in the lead.
He knew that Weasel was just a small fry, and this person was the real mastermind.
The man had fox-like, upturned eyes that glinted shrewdly when they moved. There was a smile on his lips, and he looked very difficult to deal with.
Seeing Wen Jianyan, he didn’t continue forward but stood his ground.
“But of course.”
The man stared at Wen Jianyan with a grin and said, “Who would have thought that the renowned Nightmare rookie, the infamous Pinocchio, is actually a soft-hearted person who wouldn’t abandon his own teammates.”
“…”
Now, even Weasel was stunned.
He looked at Wen Jianyan and gave a rather ugly, miserable smile. “What are you talking about? How could he possibly be…”
Before Weasel could finish his sentence, the man’s face suddenly turned cold.
“Shut up. You have no right to speak here.”
Weasel flinched in fear and shut his mouth, his face looking terrible.
In “Integrity First” live room chat:
[?]
[???]
[Huh?? He knows the streamer’s identity???? Holy crap??? How does he know?]
[Wait, wait, I’m a bit lost… what’s going on?]
At this moment, Wen Jianyan, on the contrary, had lost his initial panic.
He studied the other party with a calculating expression, his gaze passing over the man’s shoulder to look inside the door—
Inside the classroom, several familiar figures were slumped over their desks, seemingly trapped in a deep sleep from which they couldn’t awaken.
He didn’t know if it was because of his low SAN value or if his hallucinations were getting worse, but it seemed as if dark red, fleshy tubes were faintly hanging down from the classroom ceiling, tightly wrapped around them and still writhing.
“Ah,” Wen Jianyan suddenly smiled. “So that’s how it is.”
“Oh?”
The fox-eyed man looked at Wen Jianyan, a look of great interest on his face.
“How is it?”
“Let me guess,” Wen Jianyan blinked and said with a smile, “the Oracle guild hired you to come here?”
He thought for a moment and added, “To be precise, it was the Gentleman himself, right?”
The fox-eyed man didn’t speak.
“Looks like I guessed right,” Wen Jianyan said.
Although club members could awaken during the compulsory course, Wen Jianyan knew that this “slumber” came from the effect of the grave soil. Just because its quantity wasn’t enough to be fully effective didn’t mean it was completely useless.
And to be able to subdue Orange Candy and the others in this way meant that they already had a certain understanding of the compulsory course rules, and they were definitely not ordinary streamers.
—Orange Candy would not fall into the hands of an ordinary streamer.
As for where they came from, Wen Jianyan didn’t even have to think much to find the most obvious suspect.
He had made a great enemy of the Oracle guild, especially its vice-captain.
Before entering this instance, Wen Jianyan had deliberately provoked the Gentleman, precisely to make him take action in this instance.
But after he entered the [Yuying Comprehensive University] instance, he hadn’t encountered any such interception from beginning to end and thought that the Gentleman had given up on the idea… he didn’t expect, ah, that they were waiting for him here.
“Let me guess again.”
Wen Jianyan tilted his head and said lightly, “Although you accepted the mission to kill me, you didn’t expect my team to have Orange Candy and Hugo. If you faced them head-on, you wouldn’t have a chance of winning, so you’ve been biding your time since the start of the instance.”
“However, you didn’t completely give up on the idea either. So, it’s obvious that you’ve been watching and observing us from a distance, and this ‘former roommate’ of mine with whom I had a little dispute…”
Wen Jianyan’s gaze landed on Weasel.
He didn’t know if it was because he now knew his identity, but this time, the other person uneasily avoided his gaze.
Wen Jianyan smiled, withdrew his gaze, and continued:
“…you probably took the initiative to recruit him into your team.”
Thinking back now, all the clues pointed to this conclusion.
Weasel clearly shouldn’t have known which elective they had signed up for, yet he still chose a club related to “Film Appreciation” in the first academic year. If the first academic year could still be explained by luck, then in the second academic year, how could he have happened to choose their “Outdoor Practice” club?
Unless… he wasn’t the one making the choice all along.
Someone else was making the decisions, and he was just the one forced to follow.
“And before, in the back kitchen of the cafeteria, those monsters chasing me were probably your handiwork as well.”
During the entire encounter in the back kitchen of the cafeteria, apart from Weasel, he had not come into direct contact with any club members. Even Orange Candy had not obtained more than one badge from the monsters. This meant that the “monsters” they had come into close contact with were all controlled by badges, while the real controller had always been hidden within the team.
Wen Jianyan believed that in the early stages of the instance, their small team was far from being high-profile and shouldn’t have been treated with such caution.
Unless…
The other side had known from the beginning that the few of them were not to be trifled with.
Wen Jianyan crossed his arms and said in a detached, bystander’s tone:
“And I think… in your ‘alliance,’ besides you and your two teammates, there are probably more people.”
As an alliance of club members, in order to manipulate the situation and obtain intelligence, it was impossible to recruit only Weasel. This meant that it was likely a group of a dozen, or even dozens of people. It was just that in this loose organization, it was led by these three as the absolute core.
Wen Jianyan looked at Weasel again.
This time, his gaze was cold, pricking Weasel so much that he couldn’t help but shudder and subconsciously take a step back.
“I guess,” Wen Jianyan continued, “he was the one who tipped you off. And because of that, you knew that Hugo and I were not in the team, which is why you decided to take the risk and set a trap to ambush Orange Candy and the others.”
“You just said, ‘I didn’t expect the famous Pinocchio to be so soft-hearted,'” Wen Jianyan’s imitation of the other’s tone was so perfect it was a bit creepy. “You obviously got that information from the Gentleman.”
In the Xingwang Hotel instance, the Gentleman had done something similar, trying to use his teammates to threaten him into submission.
Wen Jianyan didn’t think the other would fail to disclose this information to the person responsible for the interception.
“So, after your ambush succeeded, you decided to use this to set a trap and wait for me to come, right?”
As Wen Jianyan’s voice fell, the entire corridor once again fell into a deathly silence.
The fox-eyed man didn’t speak, just stared at him fixedly.
After a long time, he suddenly smiled and began to clap. “I thought I was hidden enough, but I didn’t expect… Truly worthy of being the one who made that guy, the Gentleman, stumble. He described you to me as ‘diabolically clever.’ It really wasn’t an exaggeration.”
“Unfortunately,” Wen Jianyan spread his hands in a mock gesture and sighed, “even someone as smart as me still fell into your trap, didn’t I?”
He suddenly changed the subject:
“But I’m very curious, what are you still waiting for?”
Logically speaking, the moment Wen Jianyan stepped into the trap, the other side had already succeeded.
But the other party had always maintained a distance that was neither far nor near, and didn’t seem to have any intention of making a move, which made Wen Jianyan a little curious.
He narrowed his eyes and smiled.
“If you’ll let me make a bolder guess… I’m still useful, right?”
“Tsk tsk.”
The fox-eyed man shook his head, seeming quite emotional. “It’s a good thing you’re already under control. Otherwise, I’d actually be a little scared.”
“If this were still the previous A-rank instance, you should be dead by now.”
The fox-eyed man said with a smile. Although the words were full of threat, he said them lightly, as if in jest. It was precisely because of this that the cold-bloodedness and terror forged in Nightmare became apparent.
“It’s just a pity,” he raised a finger and tapped his temple, seeming somewhat troubled, “that some force majeure has occurred… The instance changed from A to SS. You did that, didn’t you?”
He used a questioning sentence, but his tone was very certain.
Wen Jianyan was noncommittal.
The other party didn’t mind and continued:
“So… you see, because of you, I could have cleared this smoothly, but now I have to consider the promotion problem, or else I’ll be directly erased. And this club route I chose is already showing signs of fatigue.”
What was worse, a few more troublemakers had now entered the picture.
The appearance of the Bricklayer was something he hadn’t anticipated at all. He knew very well how terrifying this guy was, and it was precisely because of this that their actions in the outdoor practice course had been severely restricted, and they hadn’t obtained a sufficient number of badges.
Thinking of this, the fox-eyed man’s expression darkened slightly.
“So, unfortunately, before you die, you still need to help me take the badges from your teammates and give them to me.”
Wen Jianyan raised an eyebrow. “Why don’t you do it?”
“I’m not stupid enough to touch an unconscious top-ten player.”
The fox-eyed man sneered.
When facing a top-ten player, even if the other party seemed to be unconscious, you couldn’t let your guard down and touch them carelessly. Even delivering a finishing blow could be extremely dangerous.
The reason they had successfully subdued Orange Candy this time was, on the one hand, because the “brain” of the team had left, and on the other hand, there was also a certain element of luck.
Wen Jianyan remained expressionless. “Then why should I do it?”
“You have to,” the man lowered his hand, a crescent-moon-like, slender, curved scimitar appearing in his palm. He said with a smile, “I will ensure that your death is quick and painless, like a kiss from the Grim Reaper. After all, I am very good at making it evolve into the antonym of everything I just described.”
“Alright.”
Wen Jianyan sighed and spread his hands. “Looks like I have no choice.”
It seemed he was preparing to cooperate.
“But,” Wen Jianyan suddenly changed the subject, “do you know why I’ve been standing here chatting with you for so long?”
“…”
The fox-eyed man narrowed his eyes, studying him cautiously, and didn’t answer immediately.
Suddenly, he seemed to realize something, his pupils constricting sharply for a moment. “Watch out!!!”
His words came too late.
A teammate beside him stared at him blankly, his mouth open, as if wanting to say something. But before he could make a sound, a line of blood slowly split open on the front of his neck.
Splt—
Dark red blood spurted out.
And the moment he died, the circular pillar of light that had been trapping Wen Jianyan’s left foot abruptly disappeared.
A ghostly, utterly innocent voice sounded:
“Because he was buying me time.”
With a “thump,” the gradually cooling corpse fell to the ground like a cloth sack, revealing the brightly smiling young girl behind it.
The next second. With the clang of a sharp weapon, accompanied by the flash of cold light from a blade, Orange Candy floated over like a phantom. The rusty greatsword in her hand, almost half her height, carried a pungent smell of blood as it came crashing down, colliding with the crescent scimitar in the fox-eyed man’s hand, emitting a piercing, sharp metallic screech.
The clash of weapons lasted only half a second before they suddenly separated.
The fox-eyed man retreated several meters away. Although he was still smiling, cold sweat was already seeping from his temples. “I didn’t expect you to be able to escape even after all that. Did you see through it from the beginning?… The top ten are truly extraordinary.”
“See through it? Not really.” The girl tilted her head, a cruel and innocent smile dancing in her eyes, which finally brewed into a crimson, bloody light.
She made no secret of her shortcomings.
“My brain isn’t that good.”
The other party was stunned. “Then you…”
“It seems you haven’t done all your homework.”
She shouldered the heavy, rusty sword. The huge blade formed a sharp contrast with her overly slender body, as if she would be crushed by it in the next second.
The smile on Orange Candy’s face gradually disappeared, leaving only a piece of indifference.
She said with a blank expression:
“I won’t trust a traitor.”
Weasel was a traitor.
From the moment he was branded with this label, he was already on her death list.
From that moment on, every word he said was untrustworthy, everything he did had ulterior motives. Besides death, there was no room for negotiation.
The fox-eyed man stood up straight, glanced at his companion’s corpse, and seemed somewhat emotional. “If you had rushed me just now, I might have been dead already. But it seems you were more concerned with freeing your teammate.”
In the blink of an eye, the crescent scimitar in the man’s palm had disappeared, and his entire person began to slowly become transparent.
He said with a smile, “Unfortunately, you’ve already missed the best opportunity to kill me.”
“But, thank you for helping me solve a problem. With one less person, the badges are easier to divide.”
The man glanced at Wen Jianyan and said meaningfully, “We’ll meet again.”
The moment his voice fell, his entire person dissolved into the darkness like smoke.
And the other person, besides him, had already taken this opportunity to use an item and slip away.
With the departure of the two, a few muffled groans came from the classroom.
Wen Jianyan turned his head to look.
It was Su Cheng and the others.
Obviously, after the culprit disappeared, they had naturally woken up on their own.
Having just woken up, they still seemed a bit dazed and hadn’t figured out what had just happened, until they saw Wen Jianyan.
Su Cheng shot up. “You—”
Wen Jianyan: “Yes, I’m back!”
He let out a long sigh, as if he had a bellyful of grievances. “You have no idea how much I’ve been through during this time—”
Before he could finish his sentence, Yun Bilan got up with a blank expression, and then… “thud!”—gave him a headbutt.
Wen Jianyan winced in pain, but he also knew he was in the wrong and cowardly backed away.
“This, this, it really wasn’t my fault that I didn’t return to the team! Hey, hey, hey, don’t come over, I really won’t do it again…”
Fortunately, after one headbutt, Yun Bilan was quickly pulled back by Tian Ye and Wei Cheng, preventing a violent incident against their own captain.
Orange Candy’s sword had been put away at some point. She crossed her arms and watched the fun with a grin. However, her peripheral vision swept over Weasel, who was preparing to sneak away, and her smile was mixed with a hint of ferocity.
Before Weasel could take two steps, he felt his body being pressed down by some invisible heavy pressure, slamming him to the ground, unable to move, just like the time before.
His face was pale, and he trembled, struggling to lift his head slightly. In his narrow field of vision, he saw a pair of a young girl’s feet walk up to him.
“Where do you think you’re going?”
The other’s voice came from above his head. The originally sweet voice now sounded like a demonic tune from hell in his ears, extremely terrifying.
Weasel’s lips moved, as if he wanted to say something, but all the sounds were stuck in his throat. He couldn’t say a single word, only watch helplessly as the other got closer and closer.
Suddenly, a gentle, youthful voice came from a distance.
“Wait a minute.”
“…!” Weasel was stunned. He struggled to turn his eyeballs and look in the direction of the voice.
It was Wen Jianyan.
In his line of sight, the young girl’s feet also stopped moving forward.
Her voice, with an unreadable emotion, sounded from above his head. “What? You’re not going to stop me this time too, are you?”
“Yes.”
Another set of footsteps approached.
Steady, calm.
It was Wen Jianyan.
Tears welled up in Weasel’s eyes, on the verge of falling. He had finally found his voice. “Thank you… thank you! As long as you spare my life this time, I, I swear, in the future, I—”
“It’s such a waste to just kill him like this.”
The young man’s voice was still gentle.
Weasel’s voice was abruptly cut off in his throat.
Wen Jianyan stood beside Orange Candy, lowered his eyes, and looked at the man on the ground, smiling again. “Take the badges from him and wait until twelve o’clock tonight.”
In the man’s trembling, bloodshot eyes, the young man’s face was still handsome and gentle, as harmless as a spring breeze.
“We happen to need someone for an experiment… to see what happens when a club member has no badges at all.”
Orange Candy was stunned at first, then beamed with joy:
“Good idea!”
Hearing this, Weasel began to tremble violently and uncontrollably again, even more violently than when Orange Candy had threatened to kill him just now. His eyes were filled with endless fear. He almost screamed his lungs out, but just as a single syllable escaped his throat, he was mercilessly stepped on the back by Orange Candy, the sound of bones breaking with a “crack”:
“Shut up!”
Weasel’s eyes rolled back, and he almost fainted.
Orange Candy beckoned to the others. “Are you all rested? Come over and help me tie him up!”
Wen Jianyan smiled and retreated to the back.
Ding-ling-ling—
The bell for the end of class rang.
With the ringing of the bell, the darkness that had been shrouding the corridor began to dissipate bit by bit, and soon disappeared without a trace.
Wen Jianyan leaned against the wall, flexing his wrist, and watched as the others tied up Weasel.
He lowered his eyes, his gaze falling on the web between his thumb and index finger.
He didn’t know since when… the color of the dark bluish-black bite mark had deepened again. The teeth marks that had been almost invisible last night were now clearly visible again. The purplish-blue veins under the skin protruded, looking very shocking.
“…”
Listening to the noisy sounds not far away, Wen Jianyan’s eyelashes trembled.
Last night, at the club recruitment fair, he hadn’t been found because his “use” for that day had already been expended.
Obviously, as time went on, this “mark” was gradually reviving.
When it fully revived, the teachers and students of the club would be able to find him directly.
Wen Jianyan took a deep breath and put his hand down.
There wasn’t much time left for him.
