WTNL Chapter 3.2

Decai Middle School
Chapter 3.2

The drawer was covered in dust, piled with useless clutter: yellowed old photos, a few crumpled bills of loose change, half a red comb with broken teeth, paper scraps, torn fabric ends, and some small glass knick-knacks. Nothing special.

Except…

Wen Jianyan’s gaze shifted, his line of sight pausing slightly on a corner in the drawer.

Lying there was a small pouch wrapped in red cloth.

Against a hazy, grayish background, that blood-red little cloth pouch appeared excessively bright, almost to the point of being glaring, like a gushing wound of fresh blood.

He paused, then carefully reached out and picked up the small cloth pouch.

The cloth pouch wasn’t large, only about the size of a thumbnail. The opening was tightly bound with a thin black thread, inexplicably exuding a bizarre sense of ominousness.

Wen Jianyan untied the cloth pouch.

The blood-red fabric silently parted, revealing a short section of pitch-black, glossy hair tied with a red string, and…

A molar.

The ghastly pale tooth was extremely glaring against the red cloth background, appearing exceedingly eerie.

Wen Jianyan felt the air around him seem to drop several degrees in an instant.

Just then, a crisp “ding dong” sound rang in his ears: “Congratulations to the streamer for obtaining a hidden item (Hard) in the instance!”

[Collection Progress 1/3]

Wen Jianyan asked in his mind, “Is there any reward for finding a hidden item?”

Like, the kind of points that can be exchanged for survival time!

He held his breath in anticipation.

The system’s female voice replied without any fluctuation, “More rewards are waiting to be unlocked.”

Wen Jianyan: “…”

Alright then.

So it seems there are no points.

Forget it, forget it, having something is better than nothing.

He sighed, wrapped the red cloth up again, tucked it into his pocket, and reset the drawer.

In places the streamer couldn’t see, the barrage was already chatting passionately:

[If I’m not mistaken about this newbie instance, out of the three hidden items, one is Easy, one is Hard, and one is Epic?]

[Fuck, an item that other streamers had to risk their lives to break into the duty room and exhaust all their effort to get… was obtained just like this, so easily?]

[Good heavens, the newcomer’s first hidden item is Hard level. This streamer is not ordinary.]

[Is the person above new here? Anyone can tell this streamer isn’t a newcomer at a glance, okay? We just don’t know which big shot’s alt account this is.]

Wen Jianyan left the duty room and headed towards the dormitory entrance.

He took a deep breath, then used his fingertips to carefully push the door open a crack, stealing a glance outside.

The sky was dusky, heavy shadows enveloping the campus before him.

Just as he had expected, this school occupied a very small area. The teaching building not far away was only four stories high. From this angle, he could also vaguely see a crooked little playground and a small artificial lake not far away.

The lights in the teaching building were all dark.

Just as Wen Jianyan was about to retract his gaze, he suddenly noticed—

In front of a window on the fourth floor, a shadow stood silently.

In the darkness, an even heavier shadow outlined the silhouette of a human figure.

The shadow stood fixedly in front of the window, standing there silently and motionlessly.

For some reason, Wen Jianyan just felt that it was staring at him.

He immediately felt an icy chill crawl up the back of his neck, instantly raising a patch of goosebumps.

So creepy…

Right at this moment, that shadow raised its hand, gently pressing it against the window. A ghastly pale, blurry face emerged from the darkness, slowly and deadly pressing against the window—

“Bang!”

The next second, a clear sound of a door being slammed rang out abruptly without warning, practically exploding right in front of Wen Jianyan’s face.

Holy shit aaaaaaaaah!

Wen Jianyan’s scalp instantly went numb, and his hair stood on end.

He saw the main door before him being forcefully pushed open, revealing itself under the night sky.

The tall and bloated figure of the old witch appeared in the night. She wiped her hands on her greasy skirt while looking at Wen Jianyan with some surprise: “Intern, you’ve already sent the roster over?”

Wen Jianyan’s heart pounded wildly, but a smile had reflexively hung itself on his face:

“Y-Yes.”

“So fast?”

“Because didn’t you need people to help…” The young man shyly touched the back of his head: “So I came back at the fastest speed.”

The old witch sized Wen Jianyan up and down for a few seconds, finally squeezing a cold snort from her nostrils:

“Pretty clever.”

She walked past Wen Jianyan and headed forward: “Follow me.”

The main door of the dormitory building closed behind the old witch.

Wen Jianyan subconsciously looked towards the direction from just now—the window on the fourth floor of the teaching building was empty, there was nothing there.

He swallowed his saliva.

Although it probably wasn’t right to think this way… thank goodness the one who came was this NPC.

At least she looked somewhat human.

Wen Jianyan repeated the words “somewhat human” over and over in his heart several times before finally gathering the courage to turn around and quickly catch up to the old witch’s back.

The old witch stood at the entrance of the stairs, looking upwards.

The narrow stairs extended into the deep shadows. Through the thin walls, noisy sounds could faintly be heard coming from upstairs:

“This batch of new students really has no rules.”

After saying that, she abruptly let out two giggles.

Her voice was gruff, but the tone was as coy as a young girl’s. The malicious and joyous light deep within her two dull little eyes was particularly hair-raising:

“Must manage them properly…”

The woman with a massive figure took a step, softly humming a bizarre and pleasant tune in her mouth, walking upstairs step by step.

After experiencing a series of hysteria and denial of reality, all the newbie streamers were temporarily forced to accept their current situation—their lives were hanging by a thread, and there was no other way but to cooperate with the rules.

Although they had no intention of helping their competitors, in order to prevent the newcomers from getting in the way, veteran streamers would still inform them of the rules inside the instance.

The difficulty of this kind of D-rank instance wasn’t very high. As newcomers with no audience base, the first thing streamers had to do was unlock the hidden information on their identity cards.

The more they understood their identity within the instance, the better they could cope with various emergencies, and the higher their survival rate would be.

Everyone was rummaging through boxes and cabinets in the room they woke up in, searching for all personal information related to their identity cards.

Su Cheng tightly pinched his identity card, lying on his stomach on the floor, panting as he struggled to dig through the clutter under the bed.

His survival time was only four hours, the shortest among these companions.

No matter how he spoke to the live broadcast area, the barrage and viewer count were all deserted, showing no signs of growth at all.

Therefore, if he didn’t successfully find something…

He wouldn’t live past tonight.

This feeling of seemingly watching the Grim Reaper approach made Su Cheng feel extremely panicked, making him almost unable to breathe.

Cold beads of sweat slid across his hot, bloodshot cheeks, landing with a patter on the dusty floor.

The ground under his palms transmitted vibrations.

“Thump, thump, thump.”

It seemed to be heavy footsteps approaching.

Following that was a woman’s humming.

The melody was cheerful and simple, intermittent, faintly spiraling in the eerie corridor, gradually becoming clearer along with the footsteps.

Su Cheng broke out in a cold sweat.

He abruptly stood up, subconsciously looking towards the veteran streamer in the opposite dorm.

Obviously, the other party had also heard this gradually approaching ominous signal and became equally vigilant.

The footsteps and humming stopped simultaneously.

“Ahem, ahem.” After deliberately clearing her throat, a rude voice full of malice abruptly rang out, echoing in the dark, narrow corridor: “Assemble!”

The deathly silence that followed the noise became exceptionally unbearable.

“…”

The streamers looked at each other, standing frozen.

Finally, led by a few experienced veteran streamers, the remaining streamers all half-believing and half-doubting, moved out of their dorms step by step.

A tall and bloated woman stood at the end of the corridor. The buzzing, flickering light above her head fell on her broad shoulders, illuminating that face covered in flab with crowded features.

She observed the sparse “new students” before her with those dull little eyes. Her gaze was vicious and sticky, like a venomous snake winding its way up a calf:

“Too slow.”

That face full of flab squeezed out a malicious smile:

“Being able to enter Decai Middle School is your blessing. Yet each and every one of you is actually so slack, not knowing what’s good for you.”

“Not following the rules will be punished.”

Her voice gradually lowered, becoming more and more bizarre, simply making one unable to resist their hair standing on end and their whole body going cold.

Some streamers even couldn’t help but take a step back.

After seeing the NPC appear, the barrage in every streamer’s live broadcast room livened up.

[As expected of the old witch, still as intimidating as ever!]

[Hehehe, looking forward to it!]

[I wonder which streamer will be the first to be punished this time!]

The old witch swept her gloomy gaze around. Seeing that everyone was quiet out of fear, she slowly revealed a satisfied smile:

“However, considering this is your first time and you aren’t clear about the school rules either, I won’t do anything this time. But you won’t have such good luck next time, remember?”

She emphasized her tone.

Panicked and weak sounds of agreement rang out, echoing unevenly in the corridor:

“Re-Remembered…”

“Have you remembered!” The old witch raised her volume without warning.

All the streamers shuddered, shouting in unison: “Remembered!”

“Very good.”

The old witch nodded in satisfaction: “Starting today, you can call me Teacher Yang.”

“It’s almost mealtime. After counting the numbers, I’ll take you to get familiar with the places.”

Seeing the current situation, the barrages in all the streamers’ live broadcast rooms seemed somewhat regretful.

[Ah, it seems she doesn’t intend to strike right away this time…]

[Because the streamers this time are very obedient, there are no troublemakers.]

[Yeah, and after all it’s a D-rank instance. The difficulty is low, so it’s excusable not to have a starting kill.]

[Tch, boring, I’m out.]

Just when the barrage was chatting passionately, they saw the old witch make a move they had never seen before.

She turned her head and shouted: “Xiao Wen!”

The barrage went dead silent for a moment.

[…]

[…]

They saw a tall, handsome young man walk out from the shadows behind the old witch. His hair was a bit messy, and even wearing those askew glasses, it still couldn’t hide the superiority of his facial features. Instead, he carried a bit of a green, scholarly aura.

His expression was shy and docile:

“Yes, Teacher Yang, please speak.”

“The re-copied roster is with you, right? Count the numbers.”

The barrage area of every streamer exploded, brushing rows and rows of question marks:

[???]

[Wait? I’ve seen this Decai Middle School instance several times; I’ve never seen this NPC!]

[Isn’t this a D-rank instance? How could it be temporarily modified?]

[Hahaha, came over from next door to stake out; seeing your confused faces makes me feel so good!]

[Hahahahahaha same, I also came from next door!]

[The above user’s comments involve a streamer in the same hall and will only be open to viewers]

[Wait, what the hell? I can’t understand it anymore…]

[Asking for directions!]

[Live broadcast room 789326qwk, you’ll come back to thank me after watching it.]

[The above user’s comments involve a streamer in the same hall and will only be open to viewers]

While the [Decai Middle School] live broadcast hall was in a state of chaos, the sign outside the live broadcast hall underwent a subtle change at some unknown time.

Hall difficulty level: D
Historical highest unlock progress: 72%
Viewing value: E

The letter E slowly flashed, then turned into a D+.

—

Author’s note: 

There is an inside mole; abort the transaction!

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