DSMC Chapter 140.2

At that moment, He Yuanle had already spotted them. “B-Big shot! You’re in this instance too?!”

Lan Mo glanced between them. “You know each other?”

He Yuanle excitedly circled around Yan Jiyun. “We met in the Peak Competition!”

Without wasting any time, Yan Jiyun grabbed He Yuanle by the arm. “Then let’s go.”

He Yuanle blinked. “Wait, where are we going?”

Lan Mo thought about the props they had moved in the auditorium earlier and couldn’t help thinking that Yan Jiyun really did not look like someone who belonged in a Level 2 Intermediate instance. He was far too calm.

The three returned to the auditorium. Rehearsals were still ongoing. Lan Mo located the boxes they had carried earlier and rummaged through the props until he found a black wig. Then he went backstage and grabbed a performance dress as well, taking both without hesitation.

He Yuanle’s face turned red. “You guys… aren’t planning to dress me up as a girl, right?”

Lan Mo: “For mission purposes, Cheng Su is currently in the hospital, and we don’t know if she’s alive or dead. The best way is to go to her dormitory and look for information.”

He Yuanle looked at Yan Jiyun. “Isn’t he more suitable?” 

In return Yan Jiyun glanced at him indifferently, and He Yuanle, under pressure, said timidly, “Okay, I’m more suitable, because I’m short.”

Well, He Yuanle could pass as a middle school girl who hasn’t finished puberty. He’s about 1.65 meters tall, and with a proper wig, he looked feminine enough. On top of that, he did have a baby face. Even his voice is soft enough to sound like a girl. 

Yan Jiyun was very satisfied with He Yuanle being dressed up as a girl.

As soon as he stepped outside, an NPC looked at him and said, “Wow, that girl is so cute.”

He Yuanle leaned his head against Lan Mo’s back. “You guys have to get me to the girls’ dormitory safely.”

Yan Jiyun said, “He Yuanle, stop pretending. Someone with your face who relies on their brains couldn’t possibly have never worn women’s clothing. When you apply lipstick, you looked very skilled at it.” 

He Yuanle raised his head from behind Lan Mo, the innocent look in his eyes fading. He couldn’t keep up the act anymore after being exposed. “Fine. How did you figure it out?”

Yan Jiyun discovered it last night after He Yuanle got possessed. It’s clear the shorter man was good at pretending. It might be a form of self-protection.

“Your acting isn’t very convincing,” Yan Jiyun said.

He Yuanle sighed. “Fine, it’s really no fun being exposed.”

They talked as they walked, and soon arrived at the girls’ dormitory building.

Cheng Su’s dormitory room is easy to find; it’s in Building 3, Room 501, on the far right of the fifth floor.

He Yuanle straightened his skirt and said confidently to the two of them, “Wait for my good news.”

He Yuanle was no longer the delicate and frail person he pretended to be; who needed help to walk, and Yan Jiyun’s impression of him changed completely.

Lan Mo Yan Jiyun gave a thumbs up. “I couldn’t stand his acting last night.”

Yan Jiyun resonated with him and nodded, saying, “It’s better to be more truthful.”

There weren’t many girls visiting the dorm at this time, and the two of them had their own plans, so they had to go check on Yang Pingping’s dorm.

The three agreed to meet at the entrance of the dormitory building in half an hour. If he didn’t come, it meant something had happened and they didn’t need to wait.

Then, one of them went to the fourth floor, and the other went to the third floor.

Lan Mo stayed on the fourth floor last night, so he was relatively familiar with the environment upstairs. Yang Pingping’s dormitory was also on the fourth floor.

Yan Jiyun went to the third floor, to Han Ruibai’s dormitory, room 309, which was exactly the same as the dormitory he lived in Instance A.

At this time, there aren’t many NPCs in the dormitory building, but he still can’t let his guard down.

The door to room 309 was locked. Thankfully, he always brought lockpicking tools with him, so opening the door was a piece of cake for him.

Han Ruibai’s dormitory remained unchanged, which means that as long as the roles played in Instance B remain the same, their basic information will not change; only their personalities and related events will change.

He hasn’t found a way back to Instance A yet, might as well verify the commonalities between the two instances one by one.

The layout of Han Ruibai’s dormitory in Instance B was no different from that in instance A. Among the four-person dormitory, his bed and desk were the tidiest. 

Yan Jiyun looked around and also noticed that everything Han Ruibai used was older than what the other students had.

Han Ruibai in Instance B doesn’t seem as happy as he does in Instance A. Economically, his family definitely wasn’t well-off.

Yan Jiyun opened his private closet. There weren’t many valuables inside, but there was a relatively new laptop.

Clearly, the laptop didn’t match the old shoes and other items he had outside, and none of his clothes were brand-name.

Yan Jiyun knew that despite the weird settings of this instance, it still had to be logical within the given settings. Therefore, Han Ruibai’s private properties pointed him to being poor, and that was incongruous with this brand-new laptop. This was a deliberate clue, not a mistake. 

He took out Han Ruibai’s laptop and turned it on. However, the laptop had no battery, indicating that it hadn’t been used in recent times. 

Yan Jiyun found the charger. Finally, the laptop turned on, but it was password protected. He searched through Han Ruibai’s desk and related books but couldn’t find the password.

He decided to take the computer with him; perhaps one of the three could crack his computer password.

However, he guessed that the appearance of the laptop was most likely related to other information. Had Han Ruibai received some unexpected wealth?

He lived frugally, yet he owned a laptop this pricey. Perhaps, this indicated that he did not own this laptop? 

Besides the laptop, Yan Jiyun also found five letters with cheap-smelling perfume. The scent was so strong that Yan Jiyun couldn’t help but sneeze. He rubbed his nose and quickly read through the five love letters.

The top letter was probably the earliest one. It was filled with the writer praising how attentive and captivating Han Ruibai was in class, and finally asking if he would like to be her friend. The following letters were all about a young girl’s feelings, including conflicts with her best friend, disagreements with her family, and her hopes for the future.

The letter was signed at the end, but no name was written.

Signed: A person who wants to become a mermaid.

Mermaid?

What is the relationship between Instance B and Instance A?

Is there an actual relationship? Is “Mermaid” also a secret of one of the schools?

Just after finishing reading the letter, Yan Jiyun heard the system issue a mission notification.

[The player triggers a side mission: “A person who wants to become a mermaid.”]

[Mission Details: Han Ruibai received a love letter, but doesn’t know who sent it. Please help Han Ruibai find this person.]

How can he help Han Ruibai find this person?

Both instances offered missions related to Han Ruibai, suggesting he plays a significant role in them.

Yan Jiyun brought along a few pink letters, intending to share his nose’s misery to the other three. 

After searching through most of Han Ruibai’s belongings, he quietly left the dormitory.

He heard fighting sounds upstairs, which meant that Lan Mo must have encountered some unexpected situation.

Yan Jiyun found a backpack, stuffed the newly acquired laptop and letters inside, and ran upstairs.

Before he even reached the stairwell, he saw a man in black wearing a baseball cap vaulting over the stair railing.

When Yan Jiyun ran over, she only smelled a faint familiar fragrance. It was Teacher Qu!

Damn it, how did he appear before he turned back into a cat?

Lan Mo chased after him downstairs. “That person was also in Yang Pingping’s dormitory. He took something important.”

Yan Jiyun knew that Teacher Qu was fast, and there was no point in chasing after him now. He also couldn’t change back into a cat now. And in his human form, he would not gain any points with Teacher Qu — he might even get beaten up instead.

He asked Lan Mo, “What important thing?”

Lan Mo: “There was a voice recorder stuck under Yang Pingping’s drawer. I was just about to listen to it when that man snatched it away.”

The commotion just now must have been from him fighting Teacher Qu.

Yan Jiyun had been searching for a long time and never expected to run into him here. He sighed, “He must be very skilled.” Even Lan Mo couldn’t beat him.

Lan Mo thought he was implying that he was weak. “This room is too small. If the space were bigger, I would definitely be able to win.”

Yan Jiyun wondered if this Teacher Qu would recognize him in his cat form.

Teacher Qu was his breakthrough point to return to Instance A, but he still needs to contact him as a cat.

Yan Jiyun and Lan Mo searched Wang Ziming and Liu Yixuan’s dorm room again in the dormitory building, but found nothing special.

He guessed that these two were probably not the main characters.

It took exactly half an hour, and nothing else went wrong. They met up with He Yuanle at the entrance of the dormitory building.

Shi Yan also came over, but he was a little confused when he saw Yan Jiyun.

He Yuanle took the initiative to introduce Yan Jiyun to him.

Shi Yan was also one of Qi Feng’s teammates. He trusted Lan Mo more, and seeing that Lan Mo did not object, he did not say anything more.

They began sharing the information they had found.

Yan Jiyun tossed the laptop to them. “Who can crack a computer password?”

His tools could pick locks, but they couldn’t bypass computer passwords. The stupid prop really wasn’t very intelligent.

All three of them shook their heads.

Lan Mo said, “Feng-ge can, but he’s not here.”

Logically, Yan Jiyun wasn’t supposed to know they were Qi Feng’s teammates, so he didn’t mention that he might have met Qi Feng in Instance A.

He stored the laptop away for now. “Then let’s look at the other clues first.” He took out the stack of love letters, instantly triggering the side mission for everyone.

He didn’t care much about the mission itself. What he really wanted was to figure out the connection between the two instances as soon as possible.

[Want to be Human] livestream channel:

“I think I can tell now. Kitty Baby’s kind of down lately, and a little exhausted. You can’t even see his usual excitement anymore.”

“Maybe the instance is just too hard? He’s probably overworked his brain. He really does look tired. This dungeon is mentally exhausting.”

“This is my first time seeing two connected instances. Could this be a surface-world / inner-world type setup?”

“The surface world represents beauty, while the inner world represents darkness.”

“I don’t think it’s that kind of setup. It’s probably just literally two separate instances.”

“I agree with the comment above. I haven’t seen the Level 2 instance [Mermaid], but I’ve watched players enter [Mingya High School] before. It really is difficult. The secrets of Mingya High are hard to uncover. But Kitty Baby’s situation feels different. He’s already found the ‘Mermaid.’ Though I’ll tease you all a little: the ‘Mermaid’ is probably nothing like what everyone imagines, hahaha!”

“I think the person above deserves to get hit with durians. So who is the Mermaid?”

After exchanging all their information, Yan Jiyun’s group also wanted to know who the Mermaid was.

He Yuanle had found a set of black clothes in Cheng Su’s dorm room.

Shi Yan had investigated Jiang Shiwen’s death. Emotional entanglements were complicated, but they didn’t seem directly connected to Yang Pingping’s death.

As for Lan Mo’s investigation into Yang Pingping’s dorm room, aside from the recording pen, there had been nothing else.

After consolidating all the clues, the group split up once more.

The main mission needed progress, and so did the side missions.

Yan Jiyun slipped into an empty office. Inside, he transformed back into a cat, leapt out the window, and dashed off in the direction Teacher Qu had disappeared earlier.

No way he wouldn’t be able to find him.

‘Teacher Qu, here I come!’