Chapter 9 - Lunar Day (8)
Translator: Jayre
Upon hearing the scream, everyone walked out of the shower cubicles.
Zhang GuoQiang realised that the deceased was his roommate and feeling a little uncomfortable, he opened his mouth to curse. “Damn it, why did he die?”
XuXing avoided the blood thinly flowing by in disgust, and suggested, “Let’s stop showering and call the rest over.”
Wang KeLe nodded frantically, face pale. “Alright, I’ll go get dressed now!”
He wanted to leave the place, but just when he turned around, his leg slipped and he fell down into the pool of blood.
He lifted up the hand entirely covered with the viscous sticky blood, eyes trembling, and let out another ear-piercing scream.
Everything happened too quickly and GuMeng still had a face and head full of foam. Seeing everyone about to leave, he hurried back to the shower cubicle and stood under the showerhead, hurriedly rinsing off the soap.
The flow of water along with foam kept flowing down. GuMeng was unable to open his eyes and he plunged into darkness, causing him to feel a little terrified. “EnJin, wait for me. I’ll be done soon, don’t go out first.”
In the shower cubicle next to the next shower cubicle lay a dead person and how he died was still unknown. Even when GuMeng was standing under the hot water, he could not stop the goosebumps rising.
GuMeng was facing the wall and rubbing his hair when suddenly, he felt a hand on the back of his head scratching gently, exerting a comfortable and soothing force.
When GuMeng pulled his hair back, he touched the small hand, touched it once, touched it again, and said gratefully, “Thank you EnJin.”
He rinsed his hands under the stream of water. At this moment, he heard a voice coming from the outside. “Enjin, are you not leaving?”
It was BoYe passing by.
“GuMeng is still inside, I’ll stay here and wait for him.” EnJin replied.
GuMeng’s body instantly became stiff. His eyes shot open, and the temperature of his body dropped instantly.
It had always been hot water running, but it was unknown at what time the hot steam was unable to rise in the shower cubicle.
GuMeng swallowed hard, unable to gather the courage to turn his head. He faced the white tiles and shakily called out, “En…...EnJin?”
The shower curtain behind him was pulled aside. “Here.”
GuMeng hurriedly turned and seeing EnJin, he felt relieved. But his gaze could not stop sweeping across the small shower cubicle. “Just now…… did you see anything else?”
EnJin shook his head.
When the men in the shower room were all cleaned up, XuXing then called the rest over.
The shower curtain was pulled aside and the dead man inside still had his eyes opened, staring, as if he himself did not realise what had happened.
There was a line slashed diagonally across the body, and the edges were jagged. Slowly, the upper body started sliding down and toppled to the floor, letting out a heavy “thunk”.
The scene could not be looked at directly.
Because there were still women at the scene, Zhang GuoQiang carefully tore down the shower curtain and covered the lower half of the corpse, before taking a step away.
“Another one torn.”
Beside the corpse, there were two pieces of paper soaked in blood, torn into half starting from the upper right corner.
XuXing was in deep thoughts for a while, before he compiled the existing information together. “In the afternoon at the auditorium, the female teacher revealed that only ChunZi is able to take a player away. Before we hand over the male teacher, everyone will be suspected by her.”
“This is already the second death today. Following the development of the situation, a certain number of people will die each day. Unless we find the male teacher faster than ChunZi’s speed of killing, the more we drag this out, the more disadvantaged we will be.”
“How do we find the male teacher?” A panicked voice asked from the crowd. “Like the werewolf game? We sit down and have a chat, then we vote for who we suspect?”
“Chatting won’t solve the problem,” TangZhi said calmly. “In this game, the male teacher has to hide himself if he wants to win. He will hence have a perfect explanation ready. From his background to his life experiences, he will be like any other ordinary person. So to find loopholes through chatting is not possible, but the male teacher must have a certain trait, which is related to this school.” He paused. “We need clues.”
ShuiXing tucked her hair behind her ear and said, “I think that Candi’s reasoning makes sense. We should start tonight. Even though we can’t find any clues, I believe that if we live together everyday and pay attention to each other, the male teacher will show his tail.”
Qin JingJing took out the flip phone and looking at the time, she reminded them, “Erm, it’s eight o’clock already. Are we still leaving the dormitories? Will the entrance be locked?”
Everyone looked at one another, filled with hesitation.
In the event one came back late, who knew if they would be locked outside and suffer through some inhumane treatment.
Zhang GuoQiang rubbed his palms and said, “Let’s do this. We shall start tomorrow, it won’t be as scary in the day.”
The other players nodded in agreement.
BoYe said, “From now onwards, I hope everyone will be transparent with their information, and any information we have should be shared with the rest. This isn’t a confrontational game, the only way to escape it is to cooperate with each other.”
Sounds of agreement rang out from the group.
Meanwhile, TangZhi saw a woman at the corner of the group behaving a little unusually. She seemed to be called Yu MengMeng, and she was rubbing her arms unconsciously, eyes dodgy. A look and one could tell she had something weighing in her mind, but then she raised her hand and said, “Agreed!”
TangZhi noted her down.
XuXing reminded, “Death is not immediate.. The female teacher said that one will be taken away after doing something ChunZi does not like. Think about it, are there any abnormal behaviours or similarities between the two dead today?”
Everyone looked at each other, and shook their heads.
“The letter A.” TangZhi alone replied. “This corpse also has a letter A.”
“What letter A!”
“Where is it?”
“I didn’t see it either.”
“Here.” TangZhi raised his hand and pointed it towards the back of his right ear. “I saw it when HeWei died too, it seemed like it was carved by a knife. At first I thought that it was a numbering system of the dead, like ABCD as it continued, but it seems to have another meaning to it.”
Many approached the corpse and looked at it. And really, behind the pale bloodless ear, there was a scarlet letter “A”.
“Could it represent the first day?” GuMeng guessed.
XuXing pondered for a moment and said, “The possibility is not zero.”
“Could it be blood type? Type A blood.” BoYe said lightly.
XuXing nodded his head. “That is also possible.”
TangZhi thought deeply and said, “If this game uses the dead to pass us clues, the process may be a little tricky…… Hopefully this isn’t the case.”
After his reminder, many players had chills down their spine.
Using the dead to convey the clues meant that if one wanted clues, the players would have to die.
Before heading upstairs, GuMeng thought for a while before going to the duty office.
As usual, like a small tail, EnJin followed behind. Where GuMeng goes, he will go.
There was a plump dorm staff sitting in the duty office. GuMeng knocked on the glass window and asked, “Auntie, which room did ChunZi stayed in before she died?”
“Are you referring to third year Class A ChunZi?” The plump auntie smiled and pulled out a thin file from the side, flipping through it. “I remember that she stayed here last semester, I’ll help you check.”
“ChunZi ah, ChunZi was a nice girl……” The plump auntie’s finger slid down the roster as she muttered to herself while she was searching for the name. “Where is it? ChunZi was a good girl…… Ah, I found it. It’s here.”
The auntie flipped the roster around and pushed it towards him. “The sixth floor, dorm 620.”
GuMeng thanked her, and left with EnJin.
In the lift, GuMeng looked at the jumping numbers above and sighed. “Let’s hurry and sleep when we get back, hopefully today will be a peaceful night.”
EnJin asked from the side, “Not going to see ChunZi’s dorm?”
“Cub, your guts must be pretty big, you dare to go to the female ghost’s dorm at night.” GuMeng stuck his hands in his pockets and amused, said, “I don’t dare anyway. If you want to go, you can. I’ll wait for the day when there’s many people to go.”
EnJin was very well-behaved. “Then I won’t go either.”
When they reached the sixth floor, GuMeng reached the dorm he stayed in last night and pushed the door open, walking in.
After switching on the lights, he turned to see EnJin standing at the door, but he was not coming in.
GuMeng took off his jacket, confused. “What’s wrong?”
EnJin glanced at the number plate on the door frame and said, “Your guts must be pretty big, you dare to go to the female ghost’s dorm at night.”
“......” GuMeng hurriedly donned his jacket, and with a foreboding feeling, he asked, “What do you mean?”
“This is 620, ChunZi’s dorm.”
“......”
GuMeng panicked.
*
The author has something to say:
EnJin’s sexual orientation was determined when he saw BoYe and TangZhi at the storage room. It’s similar to the attitude of baby chicks facing the world, accepting everything.
T/N: When I said sporadic updates, I didn't think it would take me more than a month to post this chapter up. At this rate, slow translator is the understatement of the century lol