DSMC Chapter 139.1

T/N: Sorry for the sudden hiatus! I underestimated my job’s workload lol

Lan Mo and Shi Yan chased after Yan Jiyun. Although they were slower than him, they still discovered the drowned student by the lake at the first opportunity.

Yan Jiyun had not forgotten the main quest he had received. He had many things to do, and he also had to find Teacher Qu from Instance B, he just did not know what role the man was playing here.

He should be able to follow the direction of the deceased’s investigation while searching for Teacher Qu at the same time. Although the NPCs in the game possessed a high degree of autonomy, they all still had their own route settings; they could only improvise details according to their character profiles.

From the crowd, Yan Jiyun heard information about the death. Just like Jiang Shiwen, the deceased from Instance A, the round-faced classmate’s name could be heard clearly. He was called Yang Pingping, a third-year high school student from an ordinary class, with relatively average grades.

There was no more information about Yang Pingping among the crowd.

Lan Mo and Shi Yan were both students. After surviving the night, they could spend the daytime living like ordinary students: eating breakfast, then returning to the classroom for lessons.

Yan Jiyun decided to continue following Lan Mo. Since Lan Mo had once suspected his identity, staying near him was the safest option. Moreover, by following him, he could smoothly enter classrooms and investigate information about the students.

He waited for Lan Mo and the other two to finish investigating at the lakeside. They could wander freely among the crowd and had discovered slightly more information than Yan Jiyun.

They found the coat Zhao Yue had left behind by the lake, and inside it they discovered his library card.

Yan Jiyun had been staring at it the whole time. The library card probably contained important clues, but the school library was unlikely to be open this early.

The three found no further clues. Just as they were about to leave, Yan Jiyun suddenly stepped in front of them, blocking Lan Mo’s path.

Lan Mo looked touched. “After spending one night together, the kitty’s grown attached to me.”

Shi Yan rolled his eyes at him, while He Yuanle crouched down. “Kitty, want to come into my backpack?”

After thinking for a while, Yan Jiyun decided that compared to He Yuanle, whom he had only met halfway through, he trusted Lan Mo’s character more. Feng-ge’s judgment could not possibly be wrong.

Lan Mo very knowingly unzipped his backpack, and Yan Jiyun climbed inside. The backpack had been swiped from a supermarket, and inside were the homemade tools they had prepared.

Holding the backpack, Lan Mo felt the added weight and sighed emotionally. “First time I’ve managed to abduct an NPC in a game. Never thought it wouldn’t be a gorgeous beauty, but a cat instead.”

Though he said that, the cat he was holding actually reminded him more of Feng-ge’s Caramel. Still, if the cat were truly a newbie player, there was no way it could enter a level-four hard instance, which dispelled his suspicion regarding Yan Jiyun’s identity.

Shi Yan neither agreed nor disagreed. Although he was somewhat cold by nature, being able to catch hold of an NPC capable of predicting missions was undoubtedly a good thing.

He Yuanle muttered, “Does it dislike my backpack? Mine’s obviously prettier.”

Shi Yan replied, “It’s not that it dislikes your backpack. It probably just dislikes you.”

He Yuanle pouted, looking utterly wronged.

Yan Jiyun’s reason for choosing Lan Mo was simple: Lan Mo was someone Qi Feng trusted, and Yan Jiyun had also met him several times before.

The backpack was not fully zipped shut, so he could still observe He Yuanle’s expressions through the gap. Ever since He Yuanle had been possessed last night, Yan Jiyun had remained somewhat uneasy about him.

However, after closer observation, he realized that He Yuanle really did know how to make use of his appearance to lower other people’s guard.

For now, it seemed that his use of his appearance actually involved some brains behind it. At least temporarily, Yan Jiyun saw no malicious intentions from him.

Of course, he still could not be certain whether He Yuanle had companions.

The three blended naturally into the atmosphere of ordinary students. After breakfast, they returned directly to their own classrooms. None of them seemed worried that lessons would pose any disadvantage to players.

It seemed that the danger in Instance A lay in the classroom, while the danger in Instance B emerged entirely at night.

Lan Mo was in Class 3 of the third year, Shi Yan was in Class 5, and He Yuanle was in Class 9. The three were neither particularly close nor especially far apart, but if something happened, they would not be able to regroup immediately.

It had to be said that Lan Mo’s luck was genuinely good. He ended up in the same class as the deceased, Yang Pingping.

Yan Jiyun once again returned to the classroom. He wondered whether the other instance would count him as absent after losing him.

Of course, there was no way he intended to actually attend class here either.

Using Lan Mo’s backpack as cover, he successfully snuck into the third-year teaching building of Instance B. Sounds from the entire floor poured into his ears.

Voices of players and NPCs alike mixed together, and after filtering through them carefully, he picked up quite a lot of useful information.

But the most important thing was still determining how many students were involved in the first main quest. One of them had already died.

Among the remaining four students, Han Ruibai and Cheng Su behaved as usual in class, while the other two were terrified. The pair were likely from the neighboring class; during break they stood in the hallway whispering quietly to each other, their voices trembling from fear.

Wang Ziming: “Didn’t Yang Pingping return to the dorm with us last night? When did he fall into the lake? You shared a dorm room with him, right? Didn’t you notice anything strange?”

Liu Yixuan: “I fell asleep as soon as I got back to the dorm last night. I never noticed he was gone. This morning I realized he hadn’t been in the dorm at all, but I thought he’d gone to the cafeteria early for breakfast. It was you who told me they found him in the lake.”

Wang Ziming: “Another classmate told me. Say… could it be because we played the spirit invocation game last night? Maybe the spirit got angry and wants revenge? Don’t you remember? It said if we didn’t go make a wish, we’d die.”

Liu Yixuan: “But we all made wishes. Yang Pingping was even more enthusiastic than us. Why would he die?”

Wang Ziming: “Could it be that he didn’t die because of that?”

Liu Yixuan: “If not because of that, then because of what?”

The two suddenly fell silent.

Yan Jiyun also felt that Yang Pingping’s death probably had nothing to do with the wishes. After all, Yang Pingping had not died when the mission was first released.

Why did these two always stop halfway through their conversations? How annoying.

But then, what exactly had caused his death? Was it because he had played that game?

Definitely not. The spirit invocation was only one step in pushing them toward making wishes at the mermaid statue. 

And there was another person who had pushed them toward Mirror Lake as well. That is, Han Ruibai.

He had been the one to initiate the trip to Mirror Lake. Could it be that he had deliberately guided everyone into playing spirit invocation too, using people’s fear of ghosts and spirits to lead them into making wishes there?

What was Han Ruibai’s purpose in doing all this?

Han Ruibai’s personality here differed from the one in Instance A. The Han Ruibai in this instance was hiding something, whereas the Han Ruibai in the other instance seemed comparatively innocent.

However, the fact that Yan Jiyun encountered the same Han Ruibai in both instances suggested that these people were likely key characters. The characters in the neighboring instance were probably mostly the same too, differing only in certain details.

Following that logic, if he solved the main quest in one instance, wouldn’t the main quest in the other instance become easy to resolve as well?

At the thought of this, Yan Jiyun immediately perked up from his previously listless state.

Instead of attending those deadly music classes in Instance A, it would be far better to solve the main quest over here first, sort out the relationships and plot clearly, then take another trip to the other side afterward. That would probably settle most of it.

Of course, thinking about it was simple; actually doing it would be anything but easy.

He had slept fairly well last night, and Lan Mo had fed him a little food in the morning. Now that he was fed and watered, it was time to get to work.

The supernatural instance looked eerie everywhere. Even in broad daylight there was no sunlight at all, the sky remained gloomy and overcast.

Naturally, Lan Mo had no intention of obediently attending classes either. During the first lesson, he immediately found an excuse to slip out of the classroom.

Yan Jiyun guessed that this instance probably did not contain any rule about failing exams and being forced into night study sessions.

The NPCs here all looked drained of spirit. Just looking at them made one feel a sense of lifeless gloom.

After sneaking out of the classroom with him, Lan Mo met up with Shi Yan in the stairwell, and He Yuanle slipped out as well.

He contributed a piece of information. “Yang Pingping got into a conflict with someone from our class yesterday. His girlfriend is in our class too.”

Shi Yan immediately grasped the key point. “Why did he clash with your classmate? Because of his girlfriend?”

He Yuanle shook his head. “No. His girlfriend told me the reason for the fight. Yang Pingping usually had a pretty nasty mouth. That day, he badmouthed one of the top students while talking with his friends, and the top student overheard him. The two sides started arguing, then got into a fight.”

Shi Yan said, “But that still shouldn’t be enough to make someone want to kill him. A top student with a bright future ahead wouldn’t ruin everything over one argument with Yang Pingping.”

He Yuanle said, “That’s only part of it.”

Lan Mo asked, “And then?”

He Yuanle continued, “The top student dated a girl back in second year. At the time, Yang Pingping bullied that girl before. Later… the girl died.”

Yan Jiyun had not expected so many hidden secrets beneath the surface. It seemed every character was interconnected.

Shi Yan asked, “How did she die?”

He Yuanle replied, “One day she suddenly hanged herself in the dormitory. But personally, I don’t think her death had much to do with Yang Pingping.”

Yan Jiyun wanted to ask for the girl’s name. Maybe through that clue, he could uncover the real reason behind everything.

Lan Mo had clearly thought of the same thing. “What was the dead girl’s name?”

He Yuanle lowered his voice. “Jiang Shiwen.”

Yan Jiyun: “…”

The system really was lazy. It simply recycled the same NPC models, swapped their character settings, and tossed them into another instance. Not a single modeling resource wasted.

Still, he had to praise He Yuanle a little. Yan Jiyun himself had not managed to gather this much information, yet after attending one class, He Yuanle had already dug up practically everyone’s ancestral history.

Yan Jiyun wanted to know whether they had discovered anything else during the afternoon they spent here yesterday. Otherwise, how were they only at the same progress as him, a player who had entered Instance A just half a day ago?

Or had something even more outrageous than exams happened after they entered?

Did Instance B have some kind of special rules?

Yan Jiyun felt that following Lan Mo had definitely been the right choice. If there really were special rules, he could temporarily avoid danger by staying near Lan Mo. After all, Lan Mo already possessed some experience within this instance.

However, they still did not seem to know that Yang Pingping had gone to the music building with several other classmates the previous night.

There was no way Yan Jiyun could suddenly transform back into a human and tell them about Yang Pingping hanging out with those students. It would be far too abrupt. He still needed to find a suitable opportunity to return to human form and make contact with Lan Mo.

For now, he remained quietly crouched inside Lan Mo’s backpack.