DSMC Chapter 173.1

The answer was no.

Yan Jiyun entered the Mingya High School world from ten years ago alone, in the identity of a high school student.

Whose world was this? He was certain it wasn’t the female ghost’s. There was only one possibility: the world belonged to Teacher Qu.

Yan Jiyun still remembered that his mission was to uncover the truth behind the female ghost’s jump from the building within one hour.

But now that he had entered a memory scene, was the flow of time the same as the time allotted for his mission?

The timer in the system hadn’t stopped. The countdown was still running. It seemed that entering the memory space alone wouldn’t slow down the passage of time.

This damn system was really stingy.

[Want to be Human] livestream channel: 

“HAHAHA, I knew it! The moment Kitty Baby stood out from everyone else here, I knew the female ghost would take a liking to him!”

“Why is Kitty Baby the only one who’s special? All the other players were left outside.”

“Because he’s our one and only Kitty Baby! Ever since he came out of the [Innocence] instance, he’s been standing out from the crowd. Even the Little Class Monitor gave him a gift. When he returned, the fact that he was allowed to remain in this instance in his high school student identity was already a convenience given to him — it’s basically the system giving him a backdoor. At first, it looked like Kitty Baby was being treated unfairly because everyone else had returned to their normal forms while he was still stuck with a high school student’s face. But now we know just how big a backdoor Teacher Qu gave him. Without that high school student’s face, I don’t think anyone could have entered Teacher Qu’s memory archive.”

“Big shot’s analysis makes a lot of sense. It still seems to follow Mimi’s usual game logic. As long as he triggers something, there’s bound to be a new mission, and they’re always specifically targeted at him. I’m dying. I don’t even know whether to call him lucky or unlucky.”

“He’s probably neither particularly lucky nor particularly unlucky. He’s simply the chosen cat. Speaking of which, has seriously no one seen this [Mingya High School 2.0] instance before?”

“Apparently not. If someone clears it, does that mean both Mingya High School 1.0 and 2.0 will be sealed? The answer has already been uncovered.”]

Yan Jiyun had returned to the Mingya High School period once again.

Only this time, he appeared as an observer rather than a player who needed to complete missions.

His perspective could only move according to the protagonist’s line of sight, so there was nothing he needed to do.

However, whose perspective was he seeing through now?

The female ghost’s? Or another NPC’s?

He couldn’t control his own body, but all five of his senses were intact. It was as though he had been locked inside his own body, unable to do anything.

Standing opposite him was an exceptionally beautiful girl. Her facial features and eyes looked remarkably similar to Teacher Qu’s when Yan Jiyun had first met him.

There was a hint of sweetness in her smile, though she seemed somewhat rebellious. She wore light makeup that violated school regulations, and several strands of her hair had been dyed a different color.

She clasped both hands behind her back. “Ge, you don’t have to wait for me this afternoon. I’m planning to leave with some of my classmates.”

Yan Jiyun’s head moved on its own, and he found himself nodding at the girl in the prime of her youth.

From Yan Jiyun’s perspective: “Don’t come home late again. Mom’s going to lecture you.”

The girl chewed her gum and rolled her eyes dramatically. “Mom doesn’t even have me in her eyes. Leave me alone. Anyway, I’m not walking home with you after school on Friday.”

From Yan Jiyun’s perspective: “If you’d just study seriously, Mom wouldn’t have to lecture you.”

The girl said, “Argghhhh, Ge, you’re so annoying. I’m just naturally different from you. I’m stupid, okay? I can’t get anything to stick in my head. I only like music. I’m not like you; you learn everything so quickly. I don’t want to compare myself with other people. I’m perfectly happy being free and carefree like this. You just keep being your good little student.”

From Yan Jiyun’s perspective: “Fine. I understand.”

Now he understood. This wasn’t the female ghost’s memory at all, it was clearly Teacher Qu’s own memory. The female ghost was actually one of Teacher Qu’s personalities.

As for Female Ghost No. 2, who looked exactly like Qu Wanqiao, she was more like a hint for the players. Female Ghost No. 2 had called Qu Wanqiao “Ge,” which meant Teacher Qu’s main personality was telling them in this way that the events buried in his subconscious were related to his “younger sister,” not romance.

Meanwhile, in the consciousness worlds of his other personalities, every script they had constructed revolved around “romantic love” and “platonic love.”

The only thing missing was “familial love” — especially since in the [Innocence] instance, there’s a distinct lack of such love despite the triplets setting.

The secondary personalities had tried to conceal the truth: “family” was the real theme. The person who had died was Teacher Qu’s younger sister, not his girlfriend and not his close friend.

Yan Jiyun couldn’t control his body.

He could feel himself moving, passing by people he had seen before: the NPCs from Mingya High School. His good friend was Han Ruibai, and quite a few of the students around him were people he recognized.

The girl from earlier was about the same age as Han Ruibai and the others. Yan Jiyun saw the class she belonged to. She was also a senior in high school.

Based on their ages, Yan Jiyun deduced that the girl and Teacher Qu were fraternal twins.

So the truth had actually been hinted at long ago in the [Innocence] instance. It had simply been hidden extremely subtly.

The brotherly affection in the [Innocence] instance had been so overwhelmingly “touching” that it was genuinely difficult to imagine that the truth involved a pair of fraternal twins.

Of course, Yan Jiyun hadn’t completely ruled out that possibility before.

At the time, he had suspected that the person who died might have been Teacher Qu’s biological younger sister, but he hadn’t considered that they were twins.

It seemed his general line of reasoning had been correct.

For now, he would simply follow Teacher Qu’s perspective and continue watching.

The plot was moving at fast-forward speed. There was no unnecessary dragging things out; anything irrelevant had been skipped entirely.

At this time, Teacher Qu was still a high school student.

However, he was relatively quiet. Aside from Han Ruibai, who talked to him quite often, everyone else treated him like an academic prodigy.

Teacher Qu had a rebellious younger sister, but his family didn’t seem particularly well-off.

This could be seen from the pencil case he used and the food he ate for lunch. He was actually quite frugal and wasn’t a child who spent money carelessly.

After lunch, he returned to the dormitory to rest. When he woke up, it was time for afternoon classes.

Everything proceeded as usual.

Teacher Qu’s mental state didn’t seem to have any problems.

Yan Jiyun noticed that his books were exceptionally neat. Aside from language-related subjects, nearly all the answers on his test papers were perfect, and everything was meticulously organized.

This showed that he was a student with exceptional natural talent.

That afternoon, a teacher even brought up the possibility of recommending him to one of the top universities in the country.

Teacher Qu didn’t immediately agree.

The university was very far from home. It would take an entire day and night by train, or four to five hours by plane. 

Given his family’s financial situation, they probably couldn’t easily afford the expense. However, the teacher also told him that the school would cover his expenses, though there would be some additional conditions and such.

Teacher Qu didn’t reject the offer outright. He took the recommendation application form home and said that he would think it over carefully.

The teacher gave him a deadline.

Yan Jiyun could now hear what Teacher Qu heard and see what Teacher Qu saw. His excellent hearing hadn’t stopped working here either.

As he followed Teacher Qu out, he heard hurried footsteps leaving the office ahead of them.

Who had come to the teacher’s office but hadn’t gone inside?

In less than ten minutes, Yan Jiyun had watched an entire day of Teacher Qu’s high school life.

Being a top student really was different. His life wasn’t particularly dull either. The teachers respected him greatly, and even the school laboratory was somewhere he could go whenever he wanted. However, whenever he passed the art room, he would always take a couple of extra glances.

After one PE class that afternoon, he passed by the music building. 

He saw Qu Wanqiao’s younger sister coming out of the music building. There was clearly no happiness on her face. She walked by herself, and when she saw Teacher Qu, she deliberately pretended not to notice him.

The two of them simply passed each other.

Yan Jiyun could roughly match everything he had seen so far to the various instances: the art room, the music building, the resentment that had existed between the twins.

Everything could be traced back to the same source.

The secondary personalities had distorted the facts without actually changing them.

They had simply used a different method, twisting everything in a more negative direction.

If a person’s memories of the past gradually become blurred, then a distorted memory repeated over and over will eventually become the truth. It was like telling a lie so many times until the liar believed it themselves. 

The clock in the classroom continued ticking, time passed rapidly within the space.

Fifteen minutes before the final class was due to end, all the senior students studying in their classrooms heard a tremendous crash as something heavy hit the ground.

Someone, driven by curiosity, poked their head out of the window. 

Then, they let out a scream. “Fuck! Someone jumped off the building!”

In an instant, the entire teaching building erupted into chaos. 

“Who?”

“They jumped from the sixth floor. It must’ve been a senior, right?”

“That’s so scary. Is the pressure really that bad?”

“I think it was a girl!”

All those words entered Yan Jiyun’s ears, and they entered Teacher Qu’s ears as well.

At the same time, Yan Jiyun could feel Teacher Qu’s heart pounding violently. He was completely distracted, unable to bring himself to write another word.

Five minutes later, the homeroom teacher hurried over. She tried to maintain a calm expression, but the worry on her face was impossible to hide.

She quietly said to Teacher Qu, “Wanqiao, come with me for a moment.”

The other students were already accustomed to teachers coming to look for Qu Wanqiao, the academic prodigy, for all sorts of reasons.

They thought nothing of it.

But this time, the homeroom teacher wasn’t looking for Teacher Qu because of his studies. It was because of the tremendous crash they had just heard.

Yan Jiyun already knew that the person who had jumped from the building was Qu Wanqiao’s younger sister.

Everything seemed so normal, so why had she jumped? Why had she chosen to do it at this particular time?

The homeroom teacher patted Teacher Qu on the shoulder and said tactfully, “Wanqiao, no matter what you see later, you have to stay strong.”

Teacher Qu covered his chest with one hand. His heart was in complete turmoil.

The farther they went toward the first floor, the harder it became for him to move his legs, as though they had been filled with lead.

He didn’t immediately ask the homeroom teacher to confirm it. He didn’t believe it, yet, he couldn’t help believing it either.

He saw a school teacher covering the girl who had fallen from the building with a blanket. She was lying face-down.

Teacher Qu rushed over. He was moving so desperately fast that he nearly slipped along the way. He muttered to himself, “It’s impossible. It’s impossible. It’s impossible…”

He pushed into the crowd and stood in front of the white cloth.

For a long time, he didn’t dare crouch down and pull it away. But whether he dared to look or not, he already knew who had jumped.

Yan Jiyun saw several long strands of hair sticking out from beneath the white cloth; they had been dyed dark blue. 

There was no doubt, she was Teacher Qu’s younger sister.

He now had the same question as Teacher Qu: why?

Throughout all the instances, Teacher Qu had been desperately trying to find the answer to why his younger sister had jumped from the building. In the [Mermaid] instance, a girl had jumped from a building because of romantic feelings. In the [Innocence] instance, the original plot had been that the second brother was pushed from the building by the eldest brother. In the [Mingya High School] instance, a girl had been killed by a jealous friend.

But none of these answers could explain the reason behind Qu Wanqiao’s sister’s death.

After watching this compressed version of a day in their high school lives, Yan Jiyun had a rough idea of why his younger sister had jumped from the building, and why Teacher Qu had developed alters. 

It was because of everything brought about by his original family — their mother only loved her son; she had never cared about her rebellious daughter.

When Teacher Qu left the homeroom teacher’s office, Yan Jiyun heard those hurried footsteps again. If he hadn’t heard wrong, they had come from his younger sister. 

His sister studied music, which was expensive. Meanwhile, her brother was exceptionally intelligent and wanted to attend a better school. Perhaps she had simply wanted to make way for her brother, or perhaps the thing that had ultimately led to all of this was tuition. Their mother’s favoritism had left something missing from the family. Her brother’s intelligence had also given her an enormous sense of pressure and inadequacy.

His sister had never actually hated her brother. In the end, she still chose to make way for him. And so, she chose to jump from the building.

Yan Jiyun didn’t know whether his conclusion was accurate.

For a moment, he didn’t know whom he should pity, and perhaps what Teacher Qu wanted wasn’t pity at all.