WTNL Chapter 16.2

Decai Middle School
Chapter 16.2: What kind of plague god are you?

The young man before him suddenly spoke. He raised his eyes, his gaze clear and bright. Excitement was hidden beneath a calm surface, looking exceptionally breathtaking in the darkness.

Su Cheng subconsciously held his breath.

Wen Jianyan took a step forward, holding the mirror surface in his palm out to Su Cheng:

“Look inside. What do you see?”

Su Cheng looked into the mirror surface, full of doubt.

Illuminated by the flashlight’s light, that small mirror shard appeared exceptionally bright, like an irregular ice crystal flashing with a cold luster.

“…There’s nothing.”

Su Cheng tried hard to examine it for a good while, and said somewhat blankly.

“Right.”

Wen Jianyan smiled: “It’s exactly nothing.”

Su Cheng was a bit confused: “Wait, I’m a bit lost. What do you mean?”

Wen Jianyan: “Didn’t you notice? Even when there is light, it cannot reflect a person’s face.”

Su Cheng was taken aback and looked down into the mirror shard.

The flashlight was still shining steadily, but the inside of the mirror shard was hazy. Fleeting light and shadows danced, but it simply couldn’t reflect a human face:

“This… is really true.”

Su Cheng slightly widened his eyes.

Wen Jianyan pulled his hand back, nodded in satisfaction, and said: “So, it’s not a mirror shard, and the ‘original place’ in the hint doesn’t refer to the fourth floor.”

“Then where else could it be?”

Su Cheng felt his brain was already a mess; his thinking simply couldn’t keep up with the other’s pace.

Wen Jianyan was also lost in thought.

These hidden items should be interconnected.

The Normal-level hidden item was the severed finger. And when he entered 408, his “self” in that mirror was trying to make him cut off his pinky finger. The Hard-level hidden items were the tooth and hair, which were exactly the mediums Xiao Jie and the old witch used to make deals with the mirror. According to this logic, the Epic-level hidden item should be related to Xu Yuan or the “fake Xu Yuan” who tried to steal Xu Yuan’s identity. Therefore, its position on the timeline was earlier, and its status was the most crucial.

“Return the object to its original place; the beginning is the end.”

Based on the hidden logic within this hint, this shard was highly likely related to the very first sacrificial summoning.

Thinking of this, Wen Jianyan dug out the small pamphlet he had found at the altar from his pocket.

He took the flashlight from Su Cheng’s hand and, using the light, began to read through it a second time.

The handwriting in this pamphlet was scrawled and messy. Many parts had chaotic logic, barely forming coherent sentences. Most of the blank spaces were filled with bizarre symbols drawn haphazardly, making it difficult to extract clear and complete information from it.

However, relying on guesswork, Wen Jianyan already had a vague concept of this instance’s context and outline. Therefore, the efficiency of his interpretation this time was much faster than back in the teaching building.

On one of the pages, he found a few lines of messily written notes.

“I heard their conversation, but I am not hurt.

I’ve heard these words countless times since I was young. By now, these evaluations don’t affect me much anymore.

She just didn’t have other people’s opinions to refute.

I don’t hate her.”

Wen Jianyan raised an eyebrow in slight surprise. Clearly, the “she” in this passage referred to Xu Yuan.

He flipped to the next page.

“Mr. Mirror comforted me, saying it’s not my fault.”

“I just don’t have what she has: a good family, a pair of parents, a pretty face, an understanding personality, and natural popularity.”

“I don’t hate her.

I’m just really envious of her, so envious it’s driving me crazy. Every day when I see her in the dorm, I think…”

The next few words were blacked out. Wen Jianyan had to distinguish them carefully to barely make out what those words were.

—”If only I were her.”

“Tonight, Mr. Mirror whispered to me that it has a way to help me.”

“I can have it all.”

Wen Jianyan looked thoughtful.

No wonder.

He had felt it was very strange from the beginning. Killing a cat, skinning it, summoning an evil entity—in this series of actions, the hardest part wasn’t the execution, but the “knowledge.”

How did an ordinary middle school student know how to summon an evil entity?

Now, this question was answered.

—It was the “mirror” itself that told her.

Wen Jianyan continued to flip through the pages. Soon, he found a clue on a page filled with doodles.

He had flipped past this page before, but at that time he didn’t know the meaning of the lines—Wen Jianyan traced his fingertip over the rough paper. A familiar shape was sketched on it with casual strokes.

He took out the mirror shard he had obtained and placed it on the paper.

The irregular edges aligned perfectly, fitting together seamlessly.

Inside that hazy mirror shard, a line of crooked small text slowly surfaced.

“Today, I picked up a talking mirror shard at the old place. I call it Mr. Mirror.”

The old place?

While Wen Jianyan was deep in thought, a sudden dampness touched his fingertip. He froze slightly and picked up the mirror shard.

On the paper page, that line of crooked small text had been soaked by water from an unknown source. An indistinct wet mark slowly spread out, causing the surrounding handwriting to bleed into blurry ink colors.

Wen Jianyan: “!”

He abruptly remembered something.

Every ghost and monster in this instance, whether it was Xiao Jie, Xu Yuan, or even the mutated old woman, had water constantly dripping from their bodies.

Even the instigator was no exception.

It was even mentioned in Xu Yuan’s diary—after returning to the dorm, the other party stood by her bed and didn’t leave, and the sound of water droplets pattering onto the floor came from her body.

At first, he thought that sound came from the fresh blood dripping from the cat skin.

However, a cat’s blood volume is limited. Under no circumstances could it continuously drip for an entire night, nor could it disappear without a trace the next day.

Therefore, the sound wasn’t from blood.

It was from ordinary water.

Wen Jianyan casually stuffed the mirror shard and the pamphlet back into his pocket, then rushed to a window on the side and poked his head out to look—

The night was heavy, and everything was shrouded in an unsettling darkness.

By the faint glimmer of light, he could barely make out the rough outline of the entire campus.

The teaching building, the dormitory building, the playground, the artificial lake, the cafeteria.

Wen Jianyan sketched the school’s map in his mind.

Soon, he realized that the cafeteria and the playground were all far from the central axis. Only the teaching building and the dormitory building faced each other directly, separated by a not-so-large artificial lake.

They both had four floors.

The most crucial room number was 408; it’s just that one was the second room on the right, and the other was the second room on the left.

All the clues connected together, making Wen Jianyan involuntarily hold his breath.

In other words, these two buildings mirrored each other with the artificial lake as the center.

And the surface of the lake was also the largest mirror on the entire campus.

Just then, the familiar system notification sound rang in his ears again:

[Ding, detecting that the plot deviation degree has reached the threshold, the instance is undergoing uncontrollable changes…]

[New storyline unlocking…]

Fuck, again?

Wen Jianyan gasped.

The moment the system voice faded, Wen Jianyan saw the front doors of the teaching building opposite, which had been tightly shut all along, suddenly open wide.

Under the faint light of the streetlamps, shifting figures could be seen inside each classroom. Shadows of varying depths moved silently behind the pitch-black windows, slowly surging towards the main doors—

Wen Jianyan felt a chill down the back of his neck.

If he guessed correctly, this mirror shard in his hand was the original “Mr. Mirror.”

It was picked up by a student by the lake. After seeing through the other’s weaknesses and desires, it gradually tricked the other into fully summoning it, until it became its current form.

Then, the solution to this instance was very simple.

“Return the object to its original place.”

Throwing the original Mr. Mirror back into the lake should end all of this.

—However, looking at the ghostly shadows flickering outside, the time left for them was running out.

He turned to look at Su Cheng: “Quick, we have to leave the dormitory building right away.”

Su Cheng opened his mouth, seeming to want to ask something, but his voice got stuck in his throat.

Because both of them simultaneously heard a familiar sound.

A humming sound, intermittent, echoed like a ghost in the pitch-black corridor. It was chilling and bizarre, making one’s scalp tingle.

It was the old witch!

Fuck, she sure knows how to pick her timing!

Wen Jianyan, being the target of the other party’s aggro, sprang up like a frightened rabbit, grabbed Su Cheng, and ran in the opposite direction of the sound: “Go, go, go!”

Their chaotic footsteps echoed in the corridor.

The humming behind them stopped.

“Hm? It’s so late,” the old witch’s harsh voice sounded exceptionally weird, like some sticky snake: “Let me see who is still running around in the corridor?”

Su Cheng subconsciously turned his head for a glance behind.

In the dim light, a massive, tumor-like thing could be faintly seen moving slowly in the darkness. The cracks opening on it flickered slightly, like countless vicious eyeballs peeking outwards.

Su Cheng’s hair instantly stood on end.

Mommy! What the hell is that thing?!

Just then, the muffled sound of a bell rang from downstairs.

“Dong— Dong—”

The bell struck twice, heralding the arrival of 2:00 AM.

Not far away, the stairwell was right in front of them. A beam of light could be faintly seen shining down from above.

Wen Jianyan gasped, yanked Su Cheng into a sharp turn, and rushed into a room on the side.

Su Cheng looked pantingly at the young man before him, asking in confusion:

“Didn’t you just say we need to get out of the dormitory building? Why did you drag me in here?”

The old witch’s movement speed was very slow. Although going into a dorm room could provide temporary shelter, it couldn’t solve the problem from the root, and might even lead to their retreat path being blocked.

“I understand.”

Wen Jianyan’s chest heaved rapidly as he nervously whispered:

“But it’s the top of the hour now. That group of streamers is probably heading downstairs.”

Su Cheng: “Are you worried they will continue to act against you?”

“…”

Wen Jianyan touched the bridge of his nose and let out two dry laughs: “Haha, about those veteran streamers on the fourth floor, there might be something I haven’t mentioned to you yet…”

Twenty seconds later.

After hearing everything, Su Cheng looked expressionlessly at the clearly guilty young man before him, the corners of his mouth twitching uncontrollably.

After a brief silence, he asked, half in despair and half in breakdown:

“Uh, friend, I want to ask you, is there anyone in this instance you haven’t offended?”

From players to NPCs, to ghosts and monsters, almost no one was spared. They were all screwed over by this guy in front of him!!!

What breed of jinx am I tied to exactly!!!

The barrage in live broadcast room 789326qwk had gone crazy with laughter.

[Hahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!]

[Hahahahahahahahahaha thank you to the opposing streamer, finally asking the question that’s been on all of our viewers’ minds!]

[Other streamers broadcast by accurately controlling the boundary between rolling over and not rolling over. But this scammer is frantically testing the edge of rolling over every single day, spreading his wings like a roc!]

[Hahahahahaha I want to die laughing.]

Wen Jianyan’s gaze drifted for a moment, and he whispered somewhat unnaturally:

“Ahem, well, actually there still is.”

—For example, that phantom constantly lying in the mirror. He hadn’t offended him, right!!

“…”

After listening to Wen Jianyan’s defense, Su Cheng’s eyelids twitched ominously.

For some reason, he had a strong feeling… with this guy’s style, offending every single existence in the entire instance should just be a matter of time.

Even the only one who hadn’t been screwed over would probably not be spared sooner or later.

This was the intuition of a victim.

__

Author’s Note:

It’s the Seer; knife him tonight!

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