DSMC Chapter 155.1

On the matter of who could outlast whom, Yan Jiyun had an enormous natural advantage.

Previously, he would always choose to hide behind the curtains first, but this time he hid directly inside a desk compartment.

Bald Yang also knew that chasing a whole group wasn’t as effective as focusing on a single target, so he locked onto that damn brat!

Second by second, time slipped away, and Bald Yang gradually became impatient.

Yan Jiyun crouched silently, waiting for his patience to run out. Unlike that afternoon, he didn’t dare bask in the sun until he dozed off. This time, he stayed completely focused, listening to every movement Bald Yang made.

He could hear Bald Yang’s breathing growing heavier and faster. Another outburst was probably coming soon.

Weren’t math teachers supposed to have good tempers? Bald Yang was far too short-tempered. They hadn’t even been at this for fifteen minutes, and he was already reaching his limit.

Bald Yang finally gave up waiting for the little brat to walk into his trap. Taking a deep breath, he began searching beneath every desk in the classroom again. He suspected the child was using his small size to hide behind desks, constantly shifting his position while keeping an eye on him.

He searched the room again and again, even checking behind every curtain twice, but still couldn’t find anyone.

By now, Bald Yang’s composure was beginning to crack. The longer it went on, the more anxious and frantic he became.

Ten minutes later, Bald Yang was still running around the classroom like a headless fly, searching for Yan Jiyun.

Meanwhile, Yan Jiyun was pondering a question. Main Mission 2 had already ended, so why was Bald Yang still active? Was it because he was keeping him occupied?

Now he had to figure out how to leave the classroom without being discovered.

The multi-purpose building was eerily quiet. With his hearing, he should have been able to hear anything happening downstairs, but there wasn’t a sound.

After Qi Feng completed the quest, everything had gone silent.

Teacher Qu wanted to kill the child personality, which most likely meant Yan Weilan. Otherwise, why had Bald Yang targeted Yan Weilan instead of the other NPCs? It was obviously premeditated. After discovering that the painting could hide people, greed had taken root in him, and he started abducting more children. As for what he intended to do with them, only he knew.

Yan Jiyun knew that with his current tiny body, there was no way he could fight Bald Yang. Running was his only option.

His target wasn’t Bald Yang — it was to find Teacher Qu. There was no point risking his life fighting Bald Yang to the bitter end.

Unable to find him, Bald Yang finally opened the classroom door and walked out. Seizing the opportunity, Yan Jiyun jumped out from the last desk compartment and sprinted to the compartment beneath the desk nearest the open window in the front row, where he crouched down. Bald Yang was pacing in the hallway outside, not leaving.

Yan Jiyun waited for him to come back in. As long as Bald Yang stood with his back turned, he could jump onto the windowsill and escape downstairs.

‘Come on, Bald Yang. Hurry up and come back inside. Stop wasting everyone’s time,’ Yan Jiyun silently urged.

But then, he suddenly heard faint footsteps climbing from the first floor toward the fourth.

Yan Jiyun immediately tensed.

Why was Qi Feng coming back? The mission was finished, why hadn’t he gone back already?

He had already said he could deal with Bald Yang himself and leave the multi-purpose building.

However, Qi Feng wasn’t alone. Lan Mo, Qiu Xi, and Gu Wenzhu had come with him.

Although Yan Jiyun was touched that they had returned to rescue him, wouldn’t this put everyone in danger?

Still, he trusted Qi Feng and Gu Wenzhu to come up with a good plan. They wouldn’t recklessly expose themselves unless they were confident.

Just as Yan Jiyun had done earlier, Qi Feng deliberately ran onto the fourth floor to lure Bald Yang away from the classroom entrance.

After several loud clattering sounds, Yan Jiyun heard Bald Yang tumbling down the staircase. Moments later, they had taken him down.

He guessed Qi Feng’s group had rigged a wire across the stairs to trip Bald Yang while he was chasing them, sending him rolling down the staircase. They had subdued him without wasting any effort. It was a brilliant tactic.

It seemed this extra instance wasn’t testing the players’ physical abilities, but rather their intelligence. After all, their bodies had already been shrunk enough!

Now Yan Jiyun had only one dilemma left: should he leave the building as a cat or transform back into his human form?

Qi Feng knew he was still inside. If he didn’t show up for a long time, everyone would worry.

But if he appeared in human form, the group would probably stay together from then on, and his pitiful time card simply couldn’t keep him human for that long.

So he could only keep waiting until his teammates left before quietly sneaking out of the multi-purpose building.

After Qi Feng and the other three worked together to deal with Bald Yang, they rushed to the fourth floor, calling Yan Jiyun’s name.

“Nobody’s here,” Lan Mo said.

“I saw him lure that math teacher up to the fourth floor with my own eyes. There’s no way I was mistaken,” Qi Feng replied.

“Now that we’ve dealt with the math teacher, he disappeared in NPC form too. Do you think Yan Jiyun might have…” Lan Mo hesitated. “…been caught while hiding?”

Gu Wenzhu immediately interrupted him. “No. Yan Jiyun is very cautious. He’d never do something without a plan. I believe he’s fine. Besides, I’ve been watching the player count the whole time.vHe’s still alive.”

“It’s possible he used an invisibility prop to leave the multi-purpose building without the math teacher noticing,” Qi Feng said. He also believed in the newcomer’s abilities.

Gu Wenzhu nodded. “Let’s hope Yan Jiyun used an invisibility prop.”

Qiu Xi vigorously nodded beside them. He had always felt there was no obstacle Yan Jiyun couldn’t overcome.

They checked every classroom with an open door or window, but couldn’t find Yan Jiyun anywhere.

With a trace of regret, the four of them left the multi-purpose building.

Keeping a short distance behind them, Yan Jiyun also went downstairs. By taking a shortcut, he arrived at the boys’ dormitory before Qi Feng’s group and quietly crouched by the roadside, waiting for them.

Lan Mo and Qiu Xi walked in front, discussing the NPCs they’d encountered. Gu Wenzhu limped along behind them, and Qi Feng brought up the rear as always, silently protecting his teammates.

What a dependable man.

If they had all been adults — each well over 1.8 m tall — it would have been quite an impressive sight. But now they were all elementary school children, looking like a group of kids returning after finishing an exam, each wearing a different mix of joy and worry.

Yan Jiyun crouched in the bushes by the boys’ dormitory entrance, waiting for Qi Feng to pass. The moment he saw him clearly, he leaped onto Qi Feng’s shoe and hugged his leg.

Qi Feng, whose brows had been slightly furrowed, froze in place. Even his breathing hitched for a moment. If he hadn’t felt the weight on his leg, he would have rubbed his eyes to make sure he wasn’t imagining things.

Caramel had really entered this instance with him!

Suppressing the overwhelming mixture of joy and lingering fear, Qi Feng scooped up the tiny kitten and tucked him inside his school uniform jacket.

Caramel had originally weighed only around 5 kg, not very heavy to begin with. But now, shrunk back to roughly the size of a four-month-old kitten, he weighed only less than 1 kg. He still had a little baby fat, but he truly was tiny.

With teammates ahead and NPCs walking around nearby, neither Qi Feng nor Yan Jiyun said a word.

Yan Jiyun sighed inwardly. ‘Finally, I can reunite with Qi Feng in my cat form.’

Life was truly full of choices. For now, preserving his time card was the priority. After all, it could save his life at a critical moment.

Holding his cat in his arms, the gloom on Qi Feng’s face completely disappeared.

When Lan Mo and the others returned to the dormitory, they found the NPCs gone. They also checked Yan Jiyun’s dorm room and discovered he hadn’t returned.

Yan Weilan, who shared a room with Yan Jiyun, had already gone to the evening study hall.

They had no idea where to look for Yan Jiyun anymore. After everyone finally sat down to rest, Qi Feng said, “I found Caramel.”

“Huh? Where?” Lan Mo had just collapsed onto the bed after exhausting himself in his child’s body. The moment he heard the cat had been found, he shot upright again. “Where did you find him? Aren’t you going to bring him back?”

Qi Feng opened his jacket, revealing the little black kitten curled up inside, yawning. “Right here.”

Gu Wenzhu and Qiu Xi hadn’t returned to their own dormitory yet. Qiu Xi happily reached over to stroke the black cat’s head before giving a hand gesture.

Gu Wenzhu translated for him. “He says, ‘That’s great.'”

Yan Jiyun jumped onto Qi Feng’s bed, which carried his familiar scent, and immediately lay down to rest.

Now that he had changed back into a cat, he wouldn’t need to become human again for quite a while. 

He hadn’t gotten any proper rest since daytime. So he took a nap first; kittens really needed their sleep.

As he slept soundly, he vaguely heard teachers downstairs reminding students to attend evening study hall.

Gu Wenzhu and Qiu Xi had experienced “study hall” in the [Mermaid] instance before, and the memory still haunted them. The two quietly discussed whether they could skip class.

Since they were going to skip it anyway, everyone decided to skip together. They simply turned off the lights, stayed together in one dorm room under the cover of darkness, took a short rest, and compared everything they had discovered that day while piecing together the story.

Qi Feng told them, “The Class 3-3 monitor is probably one of Qu-laoshi’s personalities. In this instance, Qu-laoshi’s main personality is orchestrating a series of incidents to kill him.”

“Yan Weilan went to class. Shouldn’t we be protecting him?” Lan Mo asked.

“In principle, yes,” Qi Feng answered. “But we’ve been awake all day. Tonight we need proper rest. We’re all children now, and our stamina is limited. Only by recovering our energy can we clear this instance successfully.”

Everyone agreed with Qi Feng.

After discussing things a while longer, Gu Wenzhu and Qiu Xi also returned to their own dormitory to rest.

They couldn’t occupy the NPCs’ beds. Who knew what would happen otherwise?

The NPCs downstairs never came up to force them to attend class. Hearing Qi Feng climb into bed, Yan Jiyun slept even more soundly and soon drifted into dreams.

When he woke again, six or seven hours had passed. Miniature Qi Feng lay flat beside him, breathing evenly, deeply asleep.

Climbing up from the pillow, Yan Jiyun rubbed his head against Qi Feng’s soft, youthful cheek. He tried to wake him up once, then twice, but Qi Feng didn’t wake up.

Why wasn’t he waking up?

Qi Feng had been the one to remind him that they always had to stay vigilant inside instances. So why was he sleeping so soundly now?

Something was wrong.

When exactly had he fallen asleep?

And when had Qi Feng?