DSMC Chapter 168.2

At this moment, Yan Jiyun genuinely wasn’t thinking about anything.

Earlier, when he had shielded Qu Wanyao from that attack, he hadn’t felt much pain. But this time, the pain was excruciating. His head was nestled against Qi Feng’s neck, and he was lying on top of Qi Feng, completely unable to move.

Perhaps because Qi Feng’s relationship with him might be more complicated than he realized, he was more willing to let himself be vulnerable in front of him, just a little.

Something in Qi Feng’s heart softened.

He didn’t rush Yan Jiyun. He knew how much being hit could hurt, and he understood the feeling all too well.

After giving Yan Jiyun a little time to recover, he finally spoke. “How is it now?”

Before Yan Jiyun could answer, Director Jiang, who had disappeared moments ago, suddenly appeared with a camera operator and gave the two of them a huge close-up.

Director Jiang’s excited voice came from above them. “Cut! That’s a wrap! Excellent! Please keep that exact state going!”

Yan Jiyun: “……”

What a garbage NPC. His shoulder was practically killing him, yet all Director Jiang cared about was whether their shot looked good.

Just then, Qu Wanyao, who hadn’t been seen anywhere for a while, suddenly appeared from who-knows-where and held out a hand toward Yan Jiyun. “Are you okay? That chair looked like it hit you pretty hard.”

Yan Jiyun: “……” 

He really couldn’t be bothered to respond.

What did he mean, “looked like”? It had actually hit him hard enough to nearly make him pass out from the pain, okay?

He pushed himself up from Qi Feng with one hand, and Qi Feng gave him a hand as well.

Qu Wanyao said, “It looks pretty painful. I went to find some medicine for bruises and injuries. Come here, I’ll put some on for you.”

Yan Jiyun froze for a moment.

So that was why Qu Wanyao hadn’t been here just now. He had gone to find medicine for him?

Yan Jiyun suddenly had a better impression of him.

His shoulder wasn’t the only thing that hurt anymore. His head had started hurting too.

Did Teacher Qu have too many personalities or something? Couldn’t one of them just show up and yell at him, “I’m Qu Wanyao! I’m going to fight you!?”

After Yan Jiyun got up, Qi Feng also stood and swiftly took the medicine from Qu Wanyao’s hand. “I’ll put it on him.”

Qu Wanyao looked at the medicine that had been snatched away. He seemed about to take it back, but ultimately decided against it. He had been rather annoyed with Yan Jiyun just now anyway. If someone else wanted to help him apply the medicine, that was fine.

He gave Yan Jiyun a haughty glance and said, in a tone that was obviously trying too hard to conceal his concern, “Apply the medicine properly. I don’t want your injury delaying the production schedule.”

Yan Jiyun: “……”

Who would’ve thought he’d end up getting medicine for his injury this way?

He gave Qi Feng a meaningful glance, and the two of them moved to the side to apply the medicine.

In the previous mission, the female ghost had created a separate space for the players. This time, however, things were different. The female ghost had directly possessed one of the actors and attacked them.

There really were all kinds of tricks.

Qi Feng said, “We need to keep an eye on the extras from now on. The female ghost has changed her method.”

Yan Jiyun undid the buttons of his shirt, exposing most of the left side of his back.

“The script never mentioned a female ghost taking revenge here. Yet now there’s a real avenger hiding among the cast and crew.”

This wasn’t the first time Qi Feng had applied medicine to Yan Jiyun. The last time had been during the Peak Tournament.

He saw the marks left by the female ghost’s nails on Yan Jiyun’s shoulder and was somewhat surprised. “You were scratched by the female ghost earlier?”

“Mm.” Yan Jiyun turned his head to look at his left shoulder. “It hurts like hell. Can this medicine actually be used?”

“It should be fine. In a game, if an NPC says something is medicine, then it’s medicine. The smell seems normal too.”

Qi Feng sniffed it. “An NPC gave me medicine before, too. It smelled the same. It really can treat bruises and injuries.”

“You must be pretty popular, then.” Yan Jiyun guessed that Qi Feng probably found it easy to gain the favor of female NPCs.

“Not as popular as you.” Qi Feng’s words seemed to carry another meaning. “Bear with it. This medicine is pretty strong. Once you get past the initial sting, it’ll feel cool.”

“Oh.” Yan Jiyun nodded. He felt Qi Feng’s fingers spreading the cool ointment over his wound. It did hurt quite a bit, but he could grit his teeth and endure it.

“Actually, you didn’t need to take that hit for me just now. A chair hitting my back wouldn’t have hurt.”

Qi Feng stared at the nail marks on his shoulder, his movements becoming gentler and gentler. “If it had been Gu Wenzhu, I would’ve done the same thing. You don’t need to take it too seriously.”

Yan Jiyun was worried that Qi Feng might feel burdened by it. He wasn’t the kind of person who helped someone and then expected repayment. He had simply acted on instinct. How could he have had time to think about anything else in that moment?

“……”

Qi Feng fell silent and quietly continued applying the ointment to his shoulder.

Once he finished, the medicine began to take effect, and Yan Jiyun grimaced from the pain.

Director Jiang approached with a frown. “Can you still film later?”

Qi Feng pulled Yan Jiyun’s shirt back into place.

Yan Jiyun buttoned it up and said, “I can’t. I just got hit by a chair.”

Director Jiang nodded.“Then rest for now. We’ll film Qi Feng’s scenes with the second female lead first.”

Yan Jiyun had been planning to go over the other scenes with Qi Feng, but apparently that plan wasn’t going to work. Qi Feng was the male lead, and he still had plenty of entanglements with the second female lead.

‘Don’t tell me there’s a kissing scene too?’

The thought flashed through his mind, and he gave a mischievous little laugh inwardly.

Not everyone got to enjoy NPC perks.

He reminded Qi Feng, “Any NPC could be Qu-laoshi. Be careful.”

Even the female ghost could share the same face as Qu Wanyao. No one had ever said Teacher Qu couldn’t be female.

Yan Jiyun glanced at the remaining time on his Human Form Time Card.

Another half hour had disappeared. Director Jiang really didn’t give them any time to breathe.

Watching Qi Feng get dragged away by Director Jiang, Yan Jiyun turned and walked out. The other players were searching through the school, looking for information related to the old cases of students jumping from the building.

After Mingya High School stopped operating as a high school, the campus had been completely abandoned.

On the second floor of the music building, Yan Jiyun found Shi Yan in an old classroom and asked him something.

“When you guys were searching the pocket of the student who fell into Mirror Lake, you found a library card, right? Did you ever check the library afterward?”

Shi Yan seemed to remember after Yan Jiyun reminded him. “I wouldn’t have remembered if you hadn’t brought it up. The library card is in Lan Mo’s backpack. That’s evidence from Mingya High School. Does it have something to do with this instance?”

Shi Yan and He Yuanle hadn’t experienced the Little Class Monitor’s instance, so his question was perfectly reasonable.

Yan Jiyun said, “If you haven’t used that piece of evidence and you still haven’t found the biggest boss of the Mingya High School instance, maybe Zhao Yue’s library card will be useful. But that’s just my guess.”

Qi Feng was currently surrounded by NPCs filming and couldn’t get away.

Gu Wenzhu had trouble with his legs, but his hearing was excellent and his reactions were pretty good, so staying at the filming location was fine.

Qiu Xi and Lan Mo had gone to Shooting Group B to search for relevant clues. None of them actually knew which scene would truly touch upon the key point of the script. They were all searching bit by bit. Even the important scenes they had selected were based on their own assumptions. It was entirely possible that not a single one of them was correct.

Shi Yan nodded. “There hasn’t been much progress so far. I can go take a look.”

“I’ll go with you.”

Shi Yan asked, “When’s your next scene?”

Yan Jiyun glanced at Director Jiang, who wasn’t looking at him. “I’m going to sneak out first. Every time I film, I run into a female ghost. I want to find out who she is first.”

Shi Yan asked, “Aren’t you going to tell Feng-ge?”

“You tell him. If I go over there, Director Jiang will definitely notice me.”

Shi Yan thought about it.

Yan Jiyun was the “first female lead” of the production. It really would be difficult for Director Jiang not to notice him.

While Qi Feng was touching up his makeup, Shi Yan reported where he was going. Qi Feng glanced at the corner where Yan Jiyun had been standing and said to Shi Yan, “Keep Yan Jiyun safe.”

Shi Yan gave him a strange look.

When had he never noticed that their captain actually knew how to show concern for people?

Then again, it wasn’t that strange. He had personally witnessed Yan Jiyun taking the hit from that chair that had fallen from above to protect Qi Feng.

“Okay.”

Their exchange was brief and to the point.

In the corner, Yan Jiyun was thinking that this instance had really let him see just how harmonious Qi Feng’s relationship with his teammates was. 

But how had he ended up falling out with another friend back then? It actually made him rather curious.

The script for Mingya High School should be the closest thing to the truth Teacher Qu wanted them to uncover.

Yan Jiyun didn’t know why he had suddenly thought of the library.

He had practically visited every important building in the school, yet the only place he hadn’t been was the library. And the library was exactly the sort of place where something could happen.

He went over everything they currently needed to do.

1) Find out the identities of Female Ghost No. 1 and Female Ghost No. 2. Female Ghost No. 1 appeared frequently, so she was definitely important. Female Ghost No. 2 was Qu Wanyao’s younger sister, but Qu Wanyao seemed to have absolutely no memory of her. That was extremely strange.

2) Figure out the main storyline of the script. The main plot ran through all the supposedly haunted locations in Mingya High School. The female lead, Su Xiran, had already died. What role did she play in Mingya High School 2.0? Had she killed Female Ghost No. 1 or Female Ghost No. 2? Had she been pushed from the building by a ghost, or by the “killer” in the script?

3) Figure out how many versions of Teacher Qu existed in this instance. How many roles was he playing here? Which ones had split off from his primary personality, and which belonged exclusively to his secondary personalities? These were all things Yan Jiyun desperately needed to know. 

Without stopping for even a moment, Yan Jiyun headed to the library with Shi Yan.

The library was located in one corner of the campus.

If this were an eight-hundred-word school essay, describing it that way would have been perfectly fine.

The problem was that it was the middle of the night. The entire place was deathly silent. There wasn’t even the sound of insects. Every time their feet stepped on a dead branch on the ground, it was enough to make their skin crawl.

That was exactly why Yan Jiyun had brought Shi Yan along. Although he was already regretting it a little, because Shi Yan wasn’t Lan Mo. He was quiet and didn’t talk much.

Yan Jiyun took the initiative to speak. “Don’t you think this place is really creepy?”

Shi Yan remained completely calm. “It is pretty creepy.”

Yan Jiyun asked, “Can you sing?”

Shi Yan didn’t understand what he was getting at. “I’m okay.”

Yan Jiyun rubbed his arms. “How about you sing Good Luck Comes?”

Shi Yan: “……”

He remembered that Qi Feng liked listening to classical music.

Why, then, had he started looking at Yan Jiyun in a completely different light?

The song is 好运来.There’s several eng tl of the title, such as “Good Luck” or “Good Luck Arrives” or “Good Fortune”, etc. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hORxJChiRiQ