Chapter 73: Werewolf Community 10

Chapter 73: Werewolf Community 10

The moment Qin Fei finished saying, "There's no whistle in the third sandbox either," Teacher Anan immediately swept in front of him like a whirlwind.

"You're... wrong!"

The female ghost gritted her teeth as she spoke.

The red veins in her eyes multiplied, converging into a stream of blood that trickled down her cheeks.

"Die—!!!"

At first, the female ghost's tone sounded terrifying. However, perhaps due to her long career as a kindergarten teacher, Qin Fei couldn't help but perceive the rhythmic inflection in her voice as if she was narrating a scary story to children.

...It was hard to feel genuinely scared.

Qin Fei's casual demeanor only fueled Teacher Anan's anger further.

Her ghostly, pale hand was already tightly clasped around the young man's slender, fair neck.

Wanting to exert force, she suddenly choked.

It was as if Qin Fei's neck was covered by an invisible steel plate; no matter how Teacher Anan tried, she couldn't squeeze down on it at all.

Teacher Anan: "...."

What was going on??

She couldn't kill randomly, that was true.

But this person had answered incorrectly!

He hadn't found the whistle, so the restrictions on her should have been lifted.

Why couldn't she still make a move? ??

Qin Fei ignored the ghost's astonished expression and, with a grin, patted his pocket before pulling out an object.

Those well-defined hands were spread out before Teacher An An, and in his palm lay a small whistle.

It was a pale white hue, tinged with a hint of gray, resembling a human finger bone.

Teacher An An's eyes widened abruptly.

Qin Fei: "What do you think? Didn't I tell you that your whistle wasn't in any of those three piles of sand?"

"Because..."

He blinked, his expression relaxed and joyful, "It was with me."

Teacher An An didn't respond, her gaze fixated on Qin Fei, dazed.

She couldn't fathom how this had happened.

The whistle was clearly buried in the sandpit by her own hands, so how did it suddenly end up in this person's possession?

But she did grasp one thing at least.

She finally understood why she couldn't bring herself to kill him.

Because he hadn't said anything wrong at all!

Seeing Teacher An's distraught expression, Qin Fei kindly tried to reassure her, "What's the matter? You finally found the whistle, aren't you happy?"

Teacher An: ?

He was trying to comfort her?

How dare he comfort her!

Who needed his comfort, ah ah ah ah!!

Teacher An was on the verge of losing her mind with anger.

He had found the whistle, but she was about to die!

Who could possibly be happy about that?

No, no, that's not right.

Not even a ghost could feel joy in this!

Under Qin Fei's smiling gaze, Teacher An An's form deflated like a punctured balloon, shrinking rapidly into a thin, crumpled human-like parchment within seconds.

Then, an invisible flame ignited from one corner of her figure, reducing the entire ghost to ashes in an unusually swift manner, vanishing without a trace.

If Lin Ye and the others from San Tu were present, they would realize that Teacher An An's demise bore a striking resemblance to how Song Tian had described Xiao Sang's death.

Just a second before the ghostly figure vanished entirely, Qin Fei heard a faint voice echo through the air:

"I really shouldn't have set that fire."

It was a sigh from Teacher An An herself.

The dark clouds that had blocked the sunlight gradually dispersed, and Qin Fei looked around, sensing the distorted feeling of a faded old photograph slowly fading away. The grass and trees in the kindergarten regained their vitality once more.

Qin Fei had emerged from the mission space.

On the attribute panel, the score between the Red and White teams had already shifted to "Red Team: White Team = 5:1."

The two additional points he had just earned from defeating Teacher An indicated that the other players were still engaged in their missions.

Qin Fei opened the live stream's chat, where the viewers were in a state of ecstatic celebration.

"Awesome streamer!"

"My wife is cheating!"

"What's going on? Does the streamer do magic? I didn't understand how he got that whistle at all??"

These were viewers who had joined the stream halfway through and missed the earlier parts.

Qin Fei smiled at the invisible camera in the air, eliciting another wave of enthusiastic praise from the audience.

After briefly interacting with the viewers, Qin Fei closed the chat interface and refocused his attention back on the kindergarten.

Recalling the scene by the sandbox, he estimated that there were around ten children present, roughly the same number as the players who had entered the kindergarten.

However, the players vanished in groups, with varying numbers.

If each child could bring about a ghost-hunting mission, there should be some left after distributing them among all the players.

Clearing his throat, Qin Fei tentatively addressed the emptiness around him, "I accuse that all the children in the kindergarten are ghosts."

No response.

Did he generalize too much?

Qin Fei continued, "Teacher An An's class consists entirely of ghosts."

Still no reaction.

Seems like a player can only complete one mission within the kindergarten.

With a slight sigh of disappointment, Qin Fei gently exhaled and turned to walk into the kindergarten building.

...

As Qin Fei entered the teaching building, in one corner of the kindergarten, Ghost Fire and Lin Ye were frantically dashing around, both covered in sweat.

Floating above their heads was a system countdown timer, unprecedentedly huge, resembling a suspended mountain in the air that could crush them to death at any moment if it were to fall.

However, the timer's monstrous size wasn't due to its own enlargement.

It was because Ghost Fire and Lin Ye had shrunk.

Inside this tiny toy room, originally no more than 15 square meters, Ghost Fire, with his legs resembling two chopsticks, was on the verge of tears from anxiety.

"F*ck! F*ck f*ck f*ck, what should we do?!"

Ghost Fire was truly beside himself, pulling at his hair as he ran.

"Where the hell is that Sakura hiding???"

Lin Ye's athletic prowess was inferior to Ghost Fire's; he was already gasping for breath after running.

He crawled into a basket, which was filled with a pile of oversized rubber balls, each larger than his entire body, looking rather menacing.

Moments ago, in the playground of the kindergarten, after that inexplicably emerged player had identified the ghost, Lin Ye and Ghost Fire were teleported here together.

They found themselves inside the kindergarten's toy room.

This was precisely where Song Tian had discovered the ball earlier that day.

However, their mission was entirely different from Song Tian's.

The toy room's door was locked, and apart from Lin Ye and Ghost Fire, there was also a little girl in a pink dress who had appeared with them.

"Hey, where are the others?"

The girl in the pink dress looked around, her expression turning sour when she realized her playmates were gone.

Spotting two grown-ups before her, her eyes rolled as she suggested, "Why don't you two play with me?"

Then, the system notification popped up.

"Identification successful! Ghost-hunting phase has begun!"

"Mission Location: The Toy Room"

"Mission Hint: Play hide-and-seek with Little Sakura! Close your eyes and count to ten, she'll be hiding somewhere in this toy room~"

(NOTE: Friendly reminder, the child is not skilled at hiding. She will be in the most conspicuous spot in the entire room.)

When Lin Ye first received this mission, he was quite delighted.

Not only did it come with a clear mission clue, but the toy room was rather small. Where could that child possibly hide?

It would be an effortless find, wouldn't it?

Yet, as the countdown of ten seconds ended, both Lin Ye and Phantom Flame's bodies suddenly shrank, and kept shrinking until they were as tiny as the legs of a chair.

The toy room had now become an unimaginably vast space for them.

As for the little girl in the pink dress, there was no trace of her to be seen.

Phantom Flame and Lin Ye immediately scrambled around, frantically searching every corner.

The obstacles posed by their shrunken forms were far more than just an expanded search area.

The toy room was already cluttered with all sorts of items, with cabinets, shelves, and baskets that could potentially hide someone now appearing enormous to the two players.

The System, in a rare act of mercy, granted them 30 minutes to search. However, just opening the gigantic cabinet door took them a full 15 minutes.

Upon discovering it empty, Phantom Flame was furious, stomping his feet in anger.

"Where else could she be hiding?!"

The System had hinted that Sakura was concealed in plain sight, but where could one find a person in such an obvious spot?

Phantom Flame was on the verge of losing his mind, using all his strength to topple a large stuffed doll.

The doll fell with a crash, stirring up dust that made Phantom Flame choke and cough.

Lin Ye: "..."

Feeling compelled to reassure the much older Phantom Flame, Lin Ye said calmly, "Calm down, calm down."

The ghostly flame calmed down rather easily with some reassurance.

As he continued searching for the little girl's figure, he sighed heavily, "Ah! Will we both end up dying here?"

Lin Ye: "…."

"Sis, can you not say such ominous things?" Lin Ye couldn't help but complain.

He knew a week before an exam to avoid mentioning the word "fail"!

The ghostly flame wore a mournful expression, "If only Xiao Qin was here."

"With him around, he would surely find a way to solve this problem."

These words actually jogged Lin Ye's memory.

In fact, since the mission began, Lin Ye had been vaguely feeling something.

He felt that they were on the wrong path.

He felt that this game of hide-and-seek was definitely not as straightforward as it appeared.

There must be something crucial that they had overlooked.

But time was pressing, and before he could delve deeper into his thoughts, his body was already impulsively driven into swift action.

Now, under the influence of the ghostly flames, Lin Ye couldn't help but wonder:

If Qin Fei were here, what would he do?

Lin Ye recalled in the Yin Village instance, how Qin Fei sat in the dim funeral parlor, his expression stern yet his tone gentle, casually analyzing the system's intentions with an indifferent demeanor.

"Merely following the rules is insufficient. The system doesn't even need to deliberately deceive players; it only needs to conceal crucial information to catch them off guard at pivotal moments."

That was what Qin Fei had said to Xiao Xiao back then.

At that time, Lin Ye wasn't yet close to him, but he had secretly eavesdropped, etching every word Qin Fei spoke into his memory.

So, could this mission reminder also be a trap set by the system?

Since entering the instance and escaping the torment of mathematics and physics, Lin Ye's mind had never functioned as swiftly as it was now.

He felt that the information in the mission prompt couldn't be entirely false.

Otherwise, players would have no chance of survival.

However, the system wouldn't be so benevolent as to plainly reveal the answer to them.

Sakura being hidden in an obvious place should be true.

But it definitely wouldn't be the kind of "obvious" they were familiar with.

Lin Ye felt that his line of thinking was spot on.

The system's mention of 'obvious' was both a hint and a lure.

Where could something be prominently placed, with a clear target, yet still overlooked by the players?

Lin Ye's forehead was drenched in cold sweat, and time for contemplation was running out.

Where? Exactly where...

Not far in front of him, the ghostly flame darted around like a headless fly. When he turned back, he found Lin Ye standing motionlessly, as if frozen in place.

Though Ghost Fire was foolish and had few redeeming qualities, he was always quite amiable towards his teammates.

If an ordinary player had encountered Lin Ye's current state, they would likely have started cursing. But Ghost Fire merely frowned.

He continued searching while reminding Lin Ye, "Don't just stand there in a daze. Come help me search. We still have hope for the next two minutes, so don't give up..."

Before he could finish his words, Lin Ye suddenly slapped his thigh with a loud "Pia!"

Ghost Fire was startled by the crisp sound.

What was he doing? Was he trying to experience some cool self-mutilation before dying?

But Lin Ye abruptly lifted his head.

With a sharp gaze, he surveyed the area, quickly fixing his eyes on a particular spot ahead.

"I've got it! Let's search over there!" he exclaimed eagerly.

Lin Ye was pointing at an enormous teddy bear.

The bear was hung on the wall at a height that was currently out of reach for both Lin Ye and Phantom Flame.

Fortunately, there was a chair beneath the toy bear. They had examined the bear shortly after the game started, reaching it by standing on the chair.

Upon hearing Lin Ye's confident statement, Phantom Flame's eyes sparkled with hope, thinking their salvation was near. But when he followed Lin Ye's pointing finger and saw the teddy bear, his excitement dimmed.

"You mean it's hidden inside the teddy bear?"

Phantom Flame's face fell.

"But we already checked there, didn't we? There was nothing."

Indeed, the teddy bear was so prominent that they had noticed it immediately, even before they had shrunk in size.

As the game officially began, based on the given hints, the first thing that came to both of their minds was indeed that bear.

After all, it was quite famous – hiding things inside dolls, like the notorious case of a Hello Kitty doll used to conceal a corpse. Anyone who had been online would be familiar with such stories.

Surprisingly, Lin Ye shook his head in disagreement.

"No, it's not inside the doll."

Those once innocent and naive round eyes now held the sharpness of a seasoned player.

"It's behind the teddy bear," Lin Ye declared decisively.

It was a conspicuous location.

In a spot that was not easily noticed.

Among these square storage compartments, there was only one such place.

Ghost Fire didn't quite understand what Lin Ye was saying.

Behind it?

Behind the teddy bear was just the wall, wasn't it?

Could it be that there was some hidden secret within the wall?

Now that he mentioned it, they hadn't actually checked behind the teddy bear earlier.

Given their tiny size now, after climbing onto the stool, they could barely reach the bear's belly. They poked at it a few times to confirm that there was nothing inside before hurriedly trying to open the cabinet door.

What had Lin Ye suddenly figured out?

Ghost Fire found himself completely unable to follow Lin Ye's line of thought. Was this the mental agility of a high school student?

He wanted to ask Lin Ye why, but the young boy had already dashed towards the toy bear, climbed onto a stool, and was making his way up with somewhat awkward movements.

"Hey, hey!" The will-o'-the-wisp hurried over. "Wait for me, I'll assist you."

"Who cares," the ghostly flame mused.

Anyway, he wouldn't be able to find it himself, so he had no choice but to trust this young man now.

Moreover, the way this young man stood there in deep thought just now really bore a striking resemblance to Qin Fei.

It inexplicably gave off an incredibly dependable vibe.

Time was of the essence, every second counted.

With their combined efforts, just as the countdown reached the final five seconds, the thin cotton rope tied to the top of the large bear finally snapped under their strenuous tugging.

The enormous doll crashed to the ground, and what was concealed within the narrow gap between the teddy bear and the wall was fully revealed.

It was a picture frame, flat and pressed tightly against the surface of the wall.

No wonder it was hidden so thoroughly by a doll.

The photograph in the frame was none other than Xiao Sakura's.

She had played hide-and-seek and ended up hiding within a picture.

It was an ingeniously cunning hiding spot.

Ghost Fire was taken aback, his expression instantly transforming into wild delight: "Damn it!!"

To be honest, he had been on the verge of despair just now. He had been clinging onto a last burst of determination, feeling that he couldn't give up until the very last second before death.

Yet, to his surprise, Lin Ye had actually guessed correctly.

The countdown above his head abruptly ceased, and Ghost Fire felt the sword hanging over him vanish simultaneously.

The photograph spontaneously ignited in mid-air. The girl, who should have only been an image, revealed a terrified and resentful expression within the frame, her eyes fixed downward, staring intently at the person outside the frame.

But she had nothing left to fear.

She swiftly turned to ashes along with the photograph and frame.

"It's so hot... Teacher An An, I'm so hot. I don't want to play this game anymore, we all don't want to play anymore!!"

Phantom Fire and Lin Ye's figures swiftly returned to their original size. At the same time, a faint child's voice echoed in the air like the buzzing of a mosquito.

With a soft click,

the door to the toy room slowly opened.

Still in a daze, Lin Ye and Phantom Fire stood rooted to the spot, yet to recover from the shock.

As the door swung wide open, they unexpectedly met Qin Fei's gaze in the hallway.

"Y-You, how did you know we were here..." Phantom Fire muttered to himself.

Qin Fei: "..."

How could he explain that he had genuinely just passed by?

He didn't answer the Ghost Fire's question. Instead, his beautiful eyes blinked gently as he praised the two in front of him, "Mmm, not bad. You're in second place."

Ghost Fire instinctively responded, "Huh? Then who's in first?"

Qin Fei pointed at himself with his finger.

Ghost Fire fell silent.

On the attribute panel, the score between Team Red and Team White had changed to 7:1, and in the blink of an eye, it became 9:1.

Accompanied by hurried footsteps, San Tu's figure appeared at the other end of the corridor.

She rushed over like a rocket, her speed breathtaking!

Upon seeing the three people in the hallway, San Tu tried to stop but ended up sliding forward due to inertia before turning back.

Panting heavily, she said, "That was a killer run!"

Ghost Fire was surprised. "Sis, what mission did you get?"

How could she exhaust herself to such an extent?

San Tu simply didn't wish to recall.

Unlike Qin Fei and Phantom Flame's experiences, after completing the mission, that ghost seemingly wasn't willing to let her off easily.

"At that time, she was engulfed in flames all over."

San Tu irritably grabbed her long ponytail, still feeling lingering fear from the memory.

"But even while on fire, she tried to chase after me!"

Flames coiled up like a serpent, wrapping the ghost child like a burning cannonball. His body was continuously dissipating, but he stubbornly chased after San Tu with immense willpower.

San Tu took off running!

She wouldn't be caught by the ghost, but even just a touch from the edge of those flames would be unbearable!

"Why did this happen?" Phantom Flame was perplexed.

Qin Fei, however, sensed a familiar scent in the air. "Did you do something to that ghost?"

San Tu replied, "Seems like... I didn't, right?"

She wore an innocent expression. "That ghost wanted to play '1-2-3, Statue' with me."

San Tu had received a solo mission. Although the game was called '1-2-3, Statue,' its rules were quite different from the version played by children in the real world.

"Right at the start of the mission, I was teleported behind a kindergarten's small running track," San Tu explained.

The ghost stood by a large tree, about ten meters away from her, facing the opposite direction and covering its face.

Initially misled by the game's title, San Tu took advantage of the ghost not looking at her and turned around to run in the opposite direction.

However, she soon realized that every time she turned, footsteps would immediately echo in her ears.

When she looked back, the ghost would be closer than before.

Phantom Fire frowned. "So you have to keep your eyes on that ghost; the moment you look away, it'll rush towards you?"

San Tu nodded. "That's right."

Qin Fei hummed. "I think I get it now."

Phantom Fire: "?"

What did he get? They had just explained the rule, hadn't they?

But Lin Ye glanced at Qin Fei.

He pondered.

If Qin Fei were to encounter such a task, what would he do?

His expression froze.

Lin Ye said, "You wouldn't happen to be…"

"I simply walked backward," San Tu interjected.

Unlike Qin Fei with his convoluted thought process, she didn't attempt to exploit any loopholes in the game rules at all. She genuinely believed that since the ghost would advance towards her whenever she turned around, why not just not turn around?

"I didn't even dare blink, and kept my eyelids propped open with both hands," San Tu continued.

"After a while, the ghost stopped covering its eyes and turned around to glare at me fiercely. It was quite terrifying."

She retraced her steps backward all the way out of the track, completing the mission in the process.

The ghost child in front of her immediately burst into flames.

Then it began chasing after her.

Lin Ye: "..."

How can you say you didn't do anything to the ghost?

Who would be delighted after being treated like that?

Ghost Fire asked, "Before the ghost vanished completely, did it say anything to you?"

San Tu shook his head. "No. He kept shouting that he was going to kill me. That's all he said."

Qin Fei, Lin Ye, and Ghost Fire: "..."

The kid must have been driven mad with rage.

Why did they feel a bit sympathetic towards him all of a sudden?

Lin Ye frowned and said, "Based on the information we've gathered so far, I suspect that the kindergarten teacher might have set fire to their own class, burning the students."

Qin Fei nodded. "Yes, that's right. You're not wrong at all."

He pulled out a few sheets of paper from behind his back as if he were performing magic, and handed them to the three of them.

"Before you all came out, I took a stroll around this kindergarten," he said casually.

"And that's when I found these."