Free Web NovelLate at night, Tangcheng University, School of Literature building.
A laboratory of about 200 square meters was lit, and by the light coming from inside, a metal sign reading 【Cultural Relics and Museology · One】 could be faintly seen hanging in front of the laboratory door.
Inside the laboratory, at a long table, a short male student with freckles on his face was facing a laptop, working late into the night.
The male student was named Li Ziqi, a first-year graduate student in the History Department, studying under the same Professor as Mao Sanyou.
Earlier, Professor Hou was quite angered by Lu Yibei and the female student named Xin Yi. The more he looked at the cultural relics collected from ✧ NоvеIight ✧ (Original source) the antique market during the day, the more annoyed he became, so he simply had the students send them back to the school earlier and store them properly in the laboratory.
As a heavy game enthusiast and a stingy person, Li Ziqi naturally wouldn't miss this opportunity to freely use the school's network, so he volunteered to bring the cultural relics over and then, as expected, started playing games.
"Phew—!" After winning another game, Li Ziqi let out a long sigh of satisfaction and leaned back in his chair, stretching.
"I've long heard that the network in the laboratory building is incredibly fast, many times faster than the dorms. Trying it today, it's truly extraordinary, so satisfying!"
After resting for a moment, Li Ziqi got up to make himself a cup of coffee. Just as he was about to return to the computer to start another game, his gaze inadvertently swept towards the window facing the corridor as he passed by, and a chill instantly ran down his spine.
At this moment, the office was empty, the corridor was particularly gloomy, and the night sky outside the window was pitch black, as if it wanted to swallow people whole.
After freezing for two seconds, Li Ziqi withdrew his gaze, shook his head with a wry smile, returned to the long table and sat down, patted his cheeks, and muttered, "Don't be so suspicious. It's a long night, why sleep? It's better to play a few more games while I can."
As he spoke, he clicked the start option on the game's main interface and threw himself into the game with full enthusiasm.
He was playing a popular shooting game. One mode involved a four-person squad entering various urban legend incident locations, searching for urban legend, and using firearms loaded with silver bullets to kill them, completing bounty missions.
Although most of the urban legend appearing in the game were ugly and distorted in appearance and their appearances were terrifying and startling, Li Ziqi had played for a long time and seen all sorts of frightening things, so he no longer felt any disturbance in his heart.
Logically, it should have been like this...
However, this newly started game seemed a bit off. Li Ziqi, who prided himself on being a urban legend hunter, could usually find urban legend and start hunting within five minutes. But this time, over ten minutes had passed, and the four-person squad had only found traces of extensive urban legend activity, with no sign of the urban legend themselves.
As time went on, the teammates began to grow restless. Before long, one person left the game. With someone taking the lead, the other two teammates quickly followed suit and left the game.
"Damn it, a bunch of useless teammates!" Li Ziqi cursed fiercely, picked up the slightly cooled coffee from the table edge, and downed it in one gulp. "Hmph, I don't need you guys, I can complete the mission by myself!"
After speaking, he continued to control his character and searched in a map resembling an abandoned hospital scene. freewebnøvel.coɱ
From the background story, this hospital had been abandoned for a long time. The surrounding walls were covered in mold, and occasional shoe prints and footprints could be seen on the dusty ground, as if people frequently walked in the dimly lit corridors.
Li Ziqi controlled the character to walk along a corridor. Gradually, yellowed scraps of paper began to appear on the ground, and black and white photos of Doctors hung on the walls. The faces in some photos had been gouged out with a sharp object, leaving only dark, empty holes.
Accompanied by eerie music, the character continued to move forward. Li Ziqi habitually glanced at the mini-map and then his body suddenly stiffened.
His character had already left the mini-map's range.
A bug? It must be a bug, right? Li Ziqi thought, rotating the mouse to control the character and looking at the map ahead where there seemed to be a large area of space, then swallowed.
Immediately after, he controlled the character to jog towards the safe house.
There, the character could enter rest mode, which was a built-in healing method in the game mechanics, and also served to reload the map.
Li Ziqi had completed this map countless times and was very familiar with the building's layout. Soon, his character returned to the safe house door.
However, the safe house door had been closed at some point without him knowing.
Li Ziqi frowned, his face darkening.
In the game, only players could close the safe house door. Now that the door was closed, it was obvious that one of those three guys had done it before leaving the game.
"Damn it, those guys actually closed the door when they quit!"
He cursed fiercely. As he spoke, he controlled his character, grabbed the melee weapon baseball bat, and rushed forward to smash the safe house door wildly.
"Clang—clang—clang—!"
Amidst the sound effects of metal clashing, Li Ziqi's anger gradually subsided. The moment he stopped attacking, his character's gaze landed on the mesh window of the safe house door. Looking through the mesh window and seeing the scene inside the safe house, he was startled.
After the three players left the game, their characters were all leaning against the wall furthest from the door, facing the door, lined up in a row.
Looking at the characters who had lost player control, like dead people, expressionless and with empty eyes staring at him, Li Ziqi suddenly felt a chill in his heart. He muttered "Bad luck!" under his breath and quickly pressed the Esc key to bring up the menu bar, preparing to exit the game.
Just then, a series of faint footsteps came from the speakers, sounding as if someone was slowly walking behind him.
Li Ziqi moved the mouse to control the character to turn around and look, but saw only the dark and empty corridor.
"Tap—tap—!"
The faint footsteps continued to come from the speakers. Hearing them, Li Ziqi couldn't help but feel a chill down his spine. The next moment, he exited the game without hesitation.
As the mission failed notification sounded, the footsteps that had chilled him also disappeared from his ears along with the scene sound effects.
However, in the few seconds while the game interface gradually turned gray, Li Ziqi didn't notice that the three characters in the safe house suddenly moved, turned around, faced the wall, and then the screen went black before jumping to the main interface.
After exiting the game, Li Ziqi's tensed nerves did not relax.
Today was the first time in his life he had spent the night in the laboratory, and he had also encountered such a strange situation in the game, making him start to feel suspicious and jumpy.
He sat in front of the computer, absentmindedly browsing bilibili 'guichu' videos, but he couldn't help but quickly turn his head to look behind him, and then towards the corridor outside the laboratory. He constantly felt as if someone was always hiding outside the empty laboratory or corridor, with only two cold eyes peeking at him.
Li Ziqi's scalp tingled, and his heart pounded like a drum. In fact, he knew very well that all of this was just him being startled and jumpy due to the game bug, and it was all his imagination born of fear.
But knowing it didn't stop his mind from uncontrollably thinking about some terrifying urban legend circulating around the school.
Li Ziqi felt some regret in his heart. He knew he should have played for a shorter time and rushed back before the dorms closed.
As he was thinking, suddenly...
"Tap—tap—!"
Faint footsteps came from the corridor outside, which should have been empty, just like he had heard in the game earlier.
Li Ziqi's body suddenly froze, and panic and fear flashed in his eyes.
"Tap—tap—!"
The footsteps carried a steady, rhythmic tapping sound, hitting his heart one by one, getting closer and closer.
Approaching the laboratory.
"Who, who's outside!"
"Is it the security guard patrolling the building? Are you guys outside in the corridor?"
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Sweat beaded on Li Ziqi's forehead, and he felt his voice trembling.
The faint footsteps outside the corridor suddenly stopped, and the sound vanished instantly.
Li Ziqi suppressed the fear in his heart, pricked up his ears to listen, but heard nothing. There was dead silence outside the corridor, only the whirring fan sound of the laptop's cooler kept coming from his ears.
Li Ziqi stared intently at the door. Time slowly passed, each second feeling like a year of torment. Just as he was about to buckle under the psychological pressure, footsteps sounded again outside the corridor.
"Tap—tap—!"
The sound was getting closer, but still very faint, like an illusion.
When the footsteps reached the vicinity of the laboratory, they disappeared once again.
Suddenly, the expressionless faces of the three characters in the safe house inexplicably flashed through Li Ziqi's mind. His body trembled, and his emotions completely collapsed. He let out a loud shout towards the direction of the door.
"Are the people outside the security guards patrolling the building? I don't care who you are, this kind of joke isn't funny at all!"
"If you keep scaring me like this, I'm really calling the police!"
...
After shouting a few sentences, Li Ziqi's emotions were vented, and he suddenly seemed less scared. He quietly stared at the direction of the door for about ten minutes, finally feeling relieved.
Immediately after, he plugged headphones into his computer and refocused his attention on the guichu videos.
After watching a few particularly funny guichu videos and laughing out loud, the fear brought by the previous anomaly finally dissipated. Li Ziqi opened the game main interface again and clicked "Start Game".
As the loading finished and the character entered the map, his expression suddenly changed.
Coincidentally, he had randomly gotten the abandoned hospital map again.
"It's all random, it's all random..."
Li Ziqi mumbled two sentences to comfort himself, then controlled the character to move. However, he hadn't walked two steps before his hands left the keyboard.
He saw that his three "teammates", due to some unknown bug, had their heads missing as if they had been decapitated, yet they were still constantly running deeper into the abandoned hospital.
After a while, Li Ziqi came back to his senses and fumbled to exit the game.
Just then, the computer screen suddenly went black. Accompanied by a strange laugh, a pair of pale hands suddenly reached out from the computer screen and grabbed his head...
----
"Ding dong—ding dong ding dong—!"
In the early morning, Tangcheng Four Seasons Hotel.
Lu Yibei, who had just finished studying the "Art of Self-Explosion and Being Exploded" with the Ancestor in his dream, went to the hotel rooftop to complete his daily sunbathing. Just as he returned to his room, preparing to take a nap, he was awakened by a rapid doorbell sound.
Opening his eyes, after completing a sit-up that lasted over an hour, he looked towards the door and asked impatiently, "Who is it!? So early in the morning..."
"It's me, Ma Zhen!" Professor Ma's voice came from outside. "Lu Yibei, hurry up and get ready, we're going to meet my old friend."
...
Lu Yibei looked at the sky outside the window, which had just been illuminated by a ray of sunlight. He was silent for a few seconds, then pretended not to hear Professor Ma's call and started talking to himself.
"Who is it, anyway? Why aren't you saying anything? If you don't say anything, I'm going back to sleep!"
"Ding dong—ding dong—!"
Hearing Lu Yibei's voice, Professor Ma pressed the doorbell hard twice again. "You brat, hurry up and get to the restaurant to eat. If you're late, everything will be gone!"
Breakfast? Breakfast is a must, I still need to maintain my health! A glint flashed in Lu Yibei's eyes. "Oh! Professor? Please wait a moment, I'll be right out."
In this world, only Miao Miao Jiang and breakfast cannot be let down!
As he spoke, he jumped out of bed, putting away the Paper Cicada Immortal figurines he had placed in various corners of the room for vigilance while getting dressed.
Five minutes later, he followed Professor Ma to the restaurant.
Looking at the empty restaurant, as if no one had ever visited it, Lu Yibei looked at Professor Ma expressionlessly and complained, "Professor, scholars can't lie! Look at this..."
"You rascal, what do you know? Going to bed early and getting up early, developing good living habits, aren't you the one who benefits?" Professor Ma cursed and slapped the back of Lu Yibei's head hard.
"Go get me a bowl of soy milk, two pieces of bread, and a plate of fruit. I'll go ahead and save us a seat."
Watching Professor Ma leave, Lu Yibei rolled his eyes. "There's no one here, what seat are you saving? It's so early in the morning, people haven't even come to eat yet!"
As soon as he finished speaking, he heard a very gentle voice beside him.
"They've already eaten, you know. They finished a long time ago. It's just that there was an emergency situation over at Tangcheng University, so everyone has already left!"
"Huh?" Lu Yibei was startled for a moment, turned around to look, and saw a young girl.
She was a young girl with short blonde hair, wearing a slightly puffy off-white down jacket that completely enveloped her body, making it impossible to see her figure.
The moment Lu Yibei turned around, his gaze met her beautiful almond-shaped eyes. Under the light, her clear blue eyes seemed to be covered with a layer of mist, sparkling brightly.
In short, she was very cute, like the kind of girl who would cry for a long time if you punched her.
"Hello, my name is Fu Xinyi, and I'm Professor Zhang's student." The girl extended her hand and smiled gracefully at Lu Yibei.
Seeing that Lu Yibei didn't shake her hand, she took the initiative to grab Lu Yibei's hand, held it in her palm and shook it, then leaned close to his ear and whispered, "Let me tell you, they rushed to Tangcheng University because someone died there. It was a student from our project team, and I heard it was a urban legend incident!"
"How about that, isn't it scary?"
Lu Yibei nodded perfunctorily, then tilted his head and probed, "Miss, have we met somewhere before?"
"..." Fu Xinyi stared at Lu Yibei with wide eyes for a few seconds, then let out a chuckle. "Classmate, that pickup line is quite classic! Alright, I won't talk to you anymore, I need to hurry to Tangcheng University to see what's happening."
As she spoke, Fu Xinyi waved at Lu Yibei, and her footsteps were light, as if she were dancing, as she left the restaurant.
Watching her retreating back, Lu Yibei frowned tightly.
Definitely met her...
Is she, perhaps, a bit like the "internal spy" who appeared last night?
Thinking this, Lu Yibei jogged to the food pickup area, grabbed a croissant and put it in his mouth, then mumbled a shout to Professor Ma, "Professor, you'll have to find a way to get your own breakfast! I need to go to Tangcheng University!"
Hearing Lu Yibei's shout, Professor Ma looked in that direction and saw the figures of Fu Xinyi and Lu Yibei leaving one after the other. He was startled for a moment, then angrily slammed the table. "Hmph, you brat, forgetting your Professor when you see a pretty face!"
