The entire corridor was filled with a nauseating burnt smell.
Twisted, deformed trees contorted in grotesque shapes, resembling flames, while nearly all the windows had been burned away, with shards of glass scattered across the ground.
In the dormitory building, a cold light filtered through the crumbling walls.
As night fell, shadows cloaked by branches and leaves twisted into various bizarre shapes under the moonlight, as if countless eyes were quietly watching Xiao Huai.
The entire campus was utterly different from his memories of Ivy League Girls' School.
This was a true hell, a desolate school, completely abandoned.
Once filled with the laughter of students, it had now become a dilapidated haunted house, with eerie moans occasionally echoing from the remnants of shattered windows.
The moment he stepped out of the dormitory, the countdown on the system interface began.
There were only three rules to the game: the doll must not be discovered, and the player must not be caught.
Being caught meant the player could be discovered, visible to the ghosts.
As long as he wasn’t caught, he could continue to fulfill the second rule.
Find Miss Hanako’s doll.
In this game, if nothing went wrong, Hanako was not the ghost; the real ghost was someone else.
Xiao Huai didn't bother hiding his doll. He tucked it into the pocket of his jeans under his skirt.
This cursed substitute doll was the same no matter where it was placed.
In contrast, the most dangerous place might just be the safest one.
The cold wind swept through, stirring up withered branches and leaves, and a torn newspaper was pinned under a stone.
Xiao Huai glanced over and saw several headlines on the paper.
“Psychiatric Patient…” “Arsonist…” “Attending Doctor…”
He scanned the surroundings and, confirming no one was nearby, approached the stone to pick it up.
“A terrible fire devastated Ivy League Girls' School, resulting in the unfortunate deaths of over three thousand students. The perpetrator of this fire was found to be Jiang Shuli, a patient from the Fifth Psychiatric Hospital of Jinyan City.
It is reported that Jiang Shuli's daughter, Hanako, tragically perished in the blaze, along with her other siblings. This tragedy severely impacted Jiang Shuli's mental state, leading her to suffer a significant psychological breakdown.
Investigations indicated that Jiang Shuli was suspected to have felt extreme sorrow and despair over her daughter's death, prompting her to set fire to Ivy League Girls' School. The fire not only caused substantial property damage but also claimed the lives of over three thousand students.
In response to this tragedy, relevant authorities in Jinyan City have taken emergency measures. Jiang Shuli will be transferred to a treatment area for severely ill patients to receive more professional psychological counseling and therapy.
This incident has profoundly impacted the Jinyan City community, sparking deep reflection on the treatment and safety management of psychiatric patients. We will continue to follow the developments of this incident and extend our heartfelt condolences to the victims and their families…”
The newspaper was dated 1987.
At that moment, suddenly, the campus broadcast crackled to life.
The harsh broadcast echoed throughout the empty campus.
“Attention all students! Attention all students! The game of hide and seek has begun! Capture the player Xiao Huai and receive a reward from the divine!”
“Attention all students! Attention all students! The game of hide and seek has begun! Capture the player Xiao Huai and receive a reward from the divine!”
The announcement repeated over and over.
Accompanying it were more shrill, terrifying screams.
Shadows loomed across the campus, and Xiao Huai glanced at the nearest window, clearly seeing a pitch-black monster rising from the ground in an extremely twisted posture.
It was small, definitely not a high school student.
Its face only revealed its white interior when its mouth was opened.
Xiao Huai’s pupils constricted as he quickly changed his position.
The screams coming from the dormitory were the loudest, while the teaching building seemed relatively safer.
Xiao Huai dashed into the teaching building, feeling his left hand's injury start to split due to the intense movement.
He hid in a storage room, panting heavily.
It seemed there was more than one ghost—there were over three thousand students who had already died.
He had inadvertently turned a single-level dungeon into a battle royale mode; indeed, his luck had reached an extreme low.
However, rather than pondering his misfortune, he was more intrigued by the characteristics of these corpses.
Because… their mouths were not charred black but white.
This indicated one thing—before being burned alive, they had already died, or lost their ability to move.
Many of those who perished in the fire were not burned but suffocated to death.
The flames released a large amount of carbon dioxide, smoke penetrating the nostrils and blocking the lungs.
The inside of the mouth would definitely not be white.
There must be more to the story behind that fire in 1987.
How did Jiang Shuli manage to burn down an entire school by herself? Did she have an accomplice?
Could this perpetrator be human?
“Bang! Bang! Bang!!”
The sound of impact suddenly reached his ears; the monster was already charging towards him. Xiao Huai grabbed a dustpan from the storage room without hesitation and forcefully pushed open the door to smash it outward.
The loud clang of metal against a corpse echoed down the corridor as Xiao Huai dashed upstairs.
A horde of twisted monsters chased after him frantically.
Fortunately, their bodies were incomplete—those missing legs couldn’t run as fast as those missing arms.
Under the moonlight, he continued to run up, sweat soaking his shirt, the white T-shirt clinging to his taut abs.
A few drops of sweat clung to his long, thick eyelashes, slightly blurring his vision.
The bandage on his left hand had long since torn, but he ignored the blood seeping out and kept running.
Something was off… something was definitely wrong.
Even if the game wanted to eliminate a player's existence, it shouldn't be using such an overpowering method to kill.
One person against over three thousand ghosts—it was impossible to win.
Unless, there was a safe house.
A safe house… where could it possibly be?
Xiao Huai tried to remain as calm as possible while fleeing, his heart racing from the exertion.
His brain needed to think; he couldn’t let external distractions cloud his judgment.
School rules, school rules.
Eighth school rule—“8. Please do not play with fire carelessly.”
Xiao Huai decisively accessed the system store, searching for a lighter.
“Lighter price: 50, current price: 500.”
It truly was a marketplace taking advantage of the chaos. He suddenly noticed that his survival currency had increased from 66 to 790.
He had previously neglected the gods' livestream and hadn’t checked for messages.
However, it seemed he had been fortunate enough to receive sponsorship from these deities.
In the gods' livestream, several deities were comfortably watching Xiao Huai’s stream, their chins resting in their hands.
“This newcomer looks pretty good; what a pity.”
“What a poor child, injured and still risking it all for our amusement; let’s reward him a bit.”
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