Global Collapse

"Another one's gone! People are disappearing from here again!"

"Such a terrifying game! Why did they find a game like this?"

"Why am I seeing him again?!"

"We absolutely must not go near that door!"

This Chu Hang was quite reserved. Although the desk was covered in notes, he had only written these four sentences.

Fatty was somewhat mystified.

Luckily, Zi Liang, who excelled at writing supernatural novels, was beside him. Zi Liang had a knack for weaving scattered clues into a main storyline; it was how he'd made his living before this cursed game began.

"'Another one's gone' likely refers to the players of this little game of ours. Didn't someone tell us before that the students who played this game mostly disappeared later? Chu Hang was in their class," Zi Liang continued, frowning, "Moreover, he must be someone with a natural ability, like Yin and Yang Eyes, allowing him to see ghosts."

As for the line, Why am I seeing him again?!

Fatty anxiously plucked a strand of hair. "This sentence ends with an exclamation mark, indicating surprise. Does it mean he saw someone who shouldn't have appeared?"

Did he see someone already dead, or... someone who was supposed to have disappeared?

A chill ran down Zi Liang's spine at this realization.

Fatty had already turned his attention to the last sentence. "I think this last sentence holds the most significance out of the four."

Zi Liang nodded in agreement, the hairs on his own scalp prickling. "I think so too."

They both focused on the final sentence.

"Do not go near that door." Which door is it talking about?

Everyone knows schools have no shortage of doors. The sheer number of classroom and dormitory doors alone could be overwhelming. Finding one specific dangerous door among them would be quite difficult.

At that moment, Zi Liang suddenly reached out and touched the desk before him. "People who should have disappeared have reappeared, and it seems only Chu Hang can see them. There's a door in the school closely connected to this terrifying game that makes people vanish..."

The "door" mentioned in the last sentence must be extremely dangerous. Approaching it would very likely lead to peril. But what connection does this door have to the game?

While Zi Liang was lost in thought, Fatty's neck suddenly stiffened. "Speaking of which, the Key the Doctor obtained... it's for opening doors, right?"

Duh, what else are keys for? Opening skulls? Zi Liang was about to retort, but the words caught in his throat as a realization struck him.

That's right, the Key the Doctor got is for opening doors.

That door could very well be the one Chu Hang mentioned in his fourth sentence!

Although its true purpose is still unclear, approaching it definitely means trouble!

With this in mind, Fatty stood up, intending to head towards the dormitory. "It's already past four-thirty. It'll be harder to find people after dark. I need to notify the Doctor quickly."

Zi Liang quickly prepared to follow.

But just then, he noticed something propping up a corner of Chu Hang's desk. A piece of paper?

The legs of desks from that middle school period were often uneven. Even a slight difference in length could make a desk wobble, which was quite annoying. Zi Liang himself had used this trick back in his school days, folding paper to wedge under a short desk leg.

Although it might just be an ordinary piece of paper, genuinely used only to level the desk, Zi Liang still squatted and pulled out the dust-covered scrap. It was evident this piece of paper had been propping up the desk leg for quite some time, as the entire sheet had turned black.

Zi Liang carefully unfolded the almost misshapen paper. It was, indeed, just a plain piece of paper, with nothing on it but dark dust, completely blank.

Fatty had already pulled open the door and was looking back. "What are you looking at?"

Zi Liang tucked away the blackened paper. "Nothing, just a worthless scrap."

As he said this, he prepared to stand up and leave this wretched place. But just as he rose, his peripheral vision caught something under the desk. Zi Liang instinctively looked over and saw, beneath this desk, a line of deep red writing...

Fatty saw Zi Liang still squatting, showing no sign of leaving, and was about to ask him what was wrong.

But just as Fatty lifted his foot, Zi Liang, who had been squatting, shot up like a mad rabbit and bolted towards him.

Before Fatty could react, Zi Liang grabbed him by the collar and started sprinting, dragging Fatty wildly along.

"Wait! Wait!" Fatty yelled, being dragged by Zi Liang. "What the hell are you doing?"

Zi Liang shouted back without turning his head, "Run!"

What the hell...?

Fatty was still confused when he suddenly felt his scalp tingle with dread, as if something malevolent was staring at his back.

While being dragged by Zi Liang, he managed to glance back.

He saw a twisted, human-shaped figure in a school uniform right behind him. No, there were two!

How did two ghosts suddenly appear?!

Just then, Fatty noticed Zi Liang pull out his phone. Normally, looking at a phone while walking, let alone running, was dangerous. Fatty had heard a case where someone walking and playing with their phone tripped and impaled their eyeball on a stone. But this was a special situation, so checking his phone while running wasn't an unforgivable sin.

Being so close, Fatty instantly saw the image on Zi Liang's phone screen.

Upon seeing it, he gasped, "Holy hell!"

Can someone tell me why our registered characters can transform?!

They hadn't turned into superheroes to fight the two ghosts chasing them; their own little avatars had turned into ghosts!

Even though it was a pixel game, Fatty could still sense the horror emanating from those two transformed figures.

"So, you're saying these ghosts have been following us ever since we entered this instance?" Fatty asked, his mind reeling.

Zi Liang, sprinting desperately, nodded. "I saw a line of text under the desk, written by Chu Hang! It said: They are right behind you."

The moment he saw that line, he understood everything.

Having immersed himself in supernatural fiction for years, Zi Liang could extrapolate countless possibilities from a single sentence and then pick out the most plausible and accurate one.

"What the hell?" Fatty panted, struggling to keep up. "They've been right behind us all this time but didn't do anything... until now..."

Why? Why didn't they attack before, when they had plenty of chances?

As he said this, a thought suddenly struck Fatty, and he asked with dread, "Could something have happened to the Doctor or Brother Chu?"