WTNL Chapter 2.2

Decai Middle School
Chapter 2.2: Damn, Master of Covering Up Lies

The number of online viewers in the live broadcast room rapidly dropped from over eighty.

Just before he was about to rush to the door, Wen Jianyan suddenly stopped in his tracks, abruptly turned around—

And stopped firmly at the door of the duty room.

Unlike the main doors, the duty room was tightly locked.

The young man squatted down, his slender fingers groping inside his cuff. From who knows where, he pulled out a piece of iron wire. With practiced movements, he bent the wire and gently wiggled it inside the keyhole.

“Click.”

The latch made a crisp sound.

In just a few seconds, the duty room door slid inward.

“Phew…”

Wen Jianyan stood up and let out a sigh of relief. From between his drooping fingers, that piece of iron wire vanished as if by magic.

“…”

“…”

The previously dropping viewer count in the live broadcast room suddenly stagnated, falling into a brief silence.

Wen Jianyan pushed open the duty room door and strode inside.

According to the map just now, this was an old-fashioned dormitory building with only three floors in total. The first floor housed the lobby and washroom, the second and third floors were dormitories. The label for the fourth floor was already blurred, covered by reddish-brown rust, making it impossible to see what was written.

However, with such a limited number of dorm rooms on each floor, the scale of this school couldn’t be very large.

Wen Jianyan was fairly familiar with this kind of old-fashioned school with limited funding.

That is…

The places where they stored important items must be very limited.

If you asked where one could gather the most information in the shortest amount of time, this was his best opportunity.

Consistent with the style of the entire dormitory building, the duty room was equally shabby.

A narrow bed stood against the wall for the duty teacher to rest. A few pamphlets were messily stacked on a bookshelf. A dormitory schedule hung on the wall. A desk sat flush against the window. The outward-facing window was usually used to speak with students, but it was also tightly locked right now.

Wen Jianyan didn’t waste a single second, immediately beginning his search with an agility beyond reach of ordinary people.

Locked drawers and cabinets were flipped open one by one, and quickly restored one by one.

Past student rosters.

Teacher duty rosters.

The notification sound of “Information acquired” continuously rang in his ears.

In the barrage, some viewers suddenly understood:

[Oh oh, he’s planning to farm exploration progress.]

[Many streamers only figure out they can farm exploration progress to get points after going through several instances. He actually realized it without any hints, this guy has potential.]

[Eh… in that case, maybe he really can exchange for enough time!]

[Let’s not jump to conclusions so early, aren’t you guys looking at how many minutes are left?]

The rest of the barrage instantly fell silent.

Things like time were always cruel, especially when there were only twenty minutes left at the very start.

Although Wen Jianyan’s actions were truly swift, he still couldn’t stop the seconds and minutes from slipping through his fingers.

The top of the live broadcast room displayed the streamer’s remaining survival time. Unknowingly, that number had dwindled to less than six minutes.

Within an instance, a remaining survival time of five minutes was a decisive hurdle.

If a streamer’s survival time fell below five minutes, they would become the target of the entire instance, indiscriminately attracting the attention of all non-human entities within it—whether monsters or NPCs.

It was no less than holding a little flag, waving it wildly while shouting: “I’m here! Come catch me!”

Once a streamer fell into such a predicament, the danger would only snowball and increase rapidly. Most people probably wouldn’t even last five minutes.

The instant it reached 05:00, the numbers were dyed a glaring, bright red.

Standing in front of the desk, Wen Jianyan’s movements as he flipped through the documents paused slightly.

He could clearly feel the temperature around him drop without warning. The already cold and damp room now became bone-chillingly frigid. That intense chill bordered on terrifying, invading his flesh like a steel blade, seeping into his joints strand by strand.

A strong feeling of being watched came from behind.

Wen Jianyan slowly turned his head, almost involuntarily—

In the vanity mirror placed on the desk, he saw his own blurry figure in the darkness.

A deadly pale hand soundlessly and slowly reached out from the half-open cabinet behind him, pressing against the wall.

Over his own shoulder, Wen Jianyan saw a face emerge from the shadows.

It was a smiling face.

The deadly pale base color looked like melted wax. Simple facial features were assembled on the smooth surface, resembling a bizarre, smiling mask. Right now, it was soundlessly curling the corners of its mouth at Wen Jianyan.

Pitch-black hair was like wet, sticky snakes, with water droplets falling from the ends of the black hair.

Drip, drop.

It leaned out of the wardrobe bit by bit, slowly walking towards the young man’s direction.

One step, two steps.

As the distance closed, the details on that smiling mask slowly became richer.

Becoming more and more like…

Wen Jianyan himself.

Just then, the sound of heavy, dragging footsteps echoed from outside the half-closed duty room door. The sound stopped after every step, appearing exceptionally abrupt in the dead silent room, bringing an extremely ominous atmosphere. Every step felt like it was stepping on a person’s heart.

“Thump”, “thump”, “thump”.

Intermittent humming approached from afar.

The melody was strange and cheerful. Accompanied by the footsteps, it gradually became clearer, sounding exceptionally eerie in the dead silent, empty, and dark environment.

Upon hearing this signature sound, the barrage, familiar with the plot, immediately became excited.

[It’s the old witch! It’s the old witch!]

[This newbie’s luck is simply unbelievable, actually encountering the most troublesome monster and the most troublesome NPC at the same time. I haven’t seen any streamer get this kind of treatment.]

The footsteps stopped at the door of the duty room.

The next second, the humming abruptly ceased.

An overwhelming dead silence suddenly descended.

Wen Jianyan, as if waking from a dream, violently dropped low, diving towards the half-open cabinet under the desk.

The barrage, which had been deserted just a moment ago, finally became lively again.

[Dying of laughter, the newbie is really too naive.]

[If this were normal, hiding in a cabinet or under a bed, while you might not be able to hide from a ghost, the probability of hiding from an NPC is still very high. But right now he has 100% NPC aggro, he will definitely be discovered.]

[Sigh, what a pity. If the opening wasn’t so extreme, this streamer actually has a lot of development potential.]

[Stop complaining, at least it’s quite entertaining to watch right now.]

“Bang—”

The main door of the duty room was violently pushed open from the outside.

A tall, stout, and obese woman appeared outside the door. Extremely thick lenses couldn’t block the viciousness and gloominess in her eyes at all. Her grayish, thick lips were pressed tightly together, white foam seeping from the drooping corners of her mouth. The excess flesh on her face quivered slightly, and a strong, chilling sensation overflowed from her tyrannical face.

“Who’s there?”

“Thump!”

Following a soft sound, like someone hitting their head, the young man stood up, wincing and holding the back of his head.

The glasses on his face were slightly askew, and a bit of dust was smeared on the side of his face.

“Ah!”

As if seeing a savior, the young man’s eyes lit up slightly: “Teacher Yang, you’re here!”

The excess flesh on Teacher Yang’s face quivered. She froze for a moment, clearly not anticipating this turn of events either.

“The Director of Teaching gave me the key and told me to come get the roster of the newly enrolled boarding students.”

Wen Jianyan scratched his cheek and flashed a shy smile at the other party: “They said a student didn’t show up for registration, so the roster needs to be amended. Director Shen needed it quite urgently, so I took the liberty to come in. I’m really sorry…”

Watching the rookie streamer tell barefaced lies on the screen without batting an eye, the barrage area fell dead silent.

The young man was wearing broken glasses he had just fished out from the bottom of the cabinet. Although the arms of the glasses were slightly crooked, combined with his action just now, it didn’t seem abrupt at all. Instead, it made people think they were knocked askew when he was startled earlier.

His previous sharpness and aloofness had long vanished.

He pursed his lips somewhat bashfully. There was a bit of dust on his handsome face, and the glasses gave him a sort of inexperienced, scholarly air, making him look honest and callow. A pair of light brown eyes flickered behind the lenses, carrying an indubitable sincerity and apology.

Teacher Yang narrowed her eyes, her vicious, small eyes staring fixedly at the young man before her through the thick lenses.

Wen Jianyan then seemed to realize: “Oh oh, I’m sorry, I haven’t introduced myself yet!”

He hurriedly took a step forward and extended his hand towards the other party. Midway through extending it, he seemed to suddenly realize something and hastily rubbed his dust-stained palm on his pants, his expression shy and bashful:

“I am the new intern teacher here. You can just call me Xiao Wen.”

He extended his hand again.

Teacher Yang lowered her head, cast a glance at his extended palm, and who knows whether she believed him or not.

The young man blinked in slight confusion and asked with concern:

“What’s wrong? Are you feeling unwell? Do you want to go to the infirmary to get checked?”

Just as he finished speaking, he seemed to suddenly realize something and frowned troubledly: “But Dr. Wang Ping shouldn’t be here today…”

Finally, the old witch let out a heavy, cold snort through her nose.

With an agility unbecoming of her size, she stepped forward and pulled a crumpled, worn-out pamphlet from a hidden compartment deep within the cabinet.

The rustling sound of flipping pages echoed in the narrow duty room.

The old witch licked her greasy finger, opened the pamphlet, and asked:

“Speak, which student didn’t show up for registration?”

The moment her voice fell, the barrage boiled over.

[Holy fuck, holy fuck, holy fuck! She believed him, she believed him, she believed him!]

[Good heavens, you can even play it like this?]

[Damn, I’m amazed! How did the streamer know so much information?]

[Didn’t he just flip through the staff roster and the duty roster and stuff? Are the people above just tuning in?]

[Yes, but, who could make up such a fluent lie in such a short amount of time! This is absolutely brilliant, oh my god!]

Wen Jianyan was completely unaware of the viewers’ reactions.

He lowered his head and leaned in. His long, well-defined finger lightly tapped one of the pages, his fingertip landing on one of the names.

“Cheng Wei”—that was exactly the name on the identity card he had drawn.

The young man smiled: “This one.”

The old witch took a pen from her breast pocket and wrote three words next to Cheng Wei’s name: Unregistered.

The barrage, which had been buzzing with excitement just a moment ago, instantly fell quiet for a few seconds.

“…”

“…”

[Fuck, Master of Covering Up Lies.]

__

Author’s Note:

Sexy scammer, fooling people online.

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