CH 3
Chapter 3: Please Protect Your Roommates
"It's so dark outside, I'm so scared. Hurry up and open the door and let me in."
The voice outside the door was still ringing, the soft voice that should belong to a girl, but in the ears of the people in the dorm room at this moment, it had some unknown stickiness and coldness.
Who dared to open the door?
There was silence in the room, Tang Xinjue thought for a while, and said softly: "The dormitory door seems to be broken, and we can't open it. When Wanqing came back just now, the door opened automatically. You stand at the door and try it to see if it will work. Can you open it by yourself?"
Since this so-called game requires people to participate, there is no reason not to open the door to the students who return to the dormitory. It could be seen from the automatic opening and closing of the door when Zheng Wanqing returned.
Since there was no response from the dormitory door now, it could only mean that "Zhang You" outside the door was not of the same kind as them.
There was silence outside the door for two seconds, and the knock on the door suddenly became more urgent. It hit the door with one blow, causing the entire door frame to vibrate slightly.
"Don't you want to open the door for me?"
This time, "Zhang You"'s voice became very gloomy, much louder than before.
Tang Xinjue, who was standing in front of the door, could hear it clearly. The gloomy voice almost came in through the resonance of the door panel... It was as if the owner of the voice was lying on the door tightly, with her head buried in the crack of the door.
She could even feel that something sticky was flowing through the crack of the door. Fortunately, the dormitory was pitch black at this time, and nothing could be seen.
Tang Xinjue pretended not to feel anything, and returned to the two roommates, motioning them not to make a sound.
Zheng Wanqing had always listened to her words, and Guo Guo had no objection after being so frightened that her soul was out of her body, and the three of them began to pretend to be dead.
No matter how loud they called, there was no response from inside, and the things outside the door finally gave up their disguise, giggling and squeaking accompanied by the sound of squeaking the door. One after another, it sounded especially harsh in the silence and darkness.
The people in the room were tense, for fear that the door would be scratched open in the next second.
Time became extraordinarily long in the passing of seconds, and after an unknown amount of time, the sound of scratching the door finally disappeared. The three of them breathed a sigh of relief at the same time. Tang Xinjue touched her back, only to find that it was soaked in sweat.
She could only gamble, betting on guessing the "rules of the game", gambling that the dormitory was both a restraint and a protection, betting that things outside couldn’t get in.
Fortunately, the bet was won.
At this moment, in the corridor outside the door, a hoarse "squeak" sounded - this was the sound of opening the door!
Looking up suddenly, Tang Xinjue realized that this was the door of the opposite dormitory.
Sure enough, a cautious voice sounded: "Is that you, Tao Xin? Great, you're finally back..."
The voice came to an abrupt end as if seeing something extremely terrifying, and never sounded again. The door to the next dormitory could only be heard being slowly pushed open - and then slammed shut as the other roommates screamed in horror.
Everything was silent as before.
Guo Guo let out a whimper from behind and slid down uncontrollably. No one dared to discuss aloud, nor guess what was happening in the dormitory opposite their door.
They didn't know how long it took, and when the crisp children's voice caught them off guard, the three of them were shocked:
"Ding Ding Ding, Dang Dang Dang, did the classmates go back to the dormitory obediently~ Hey, there are a lot of people missing - oh, I seem to have forgotten to tell my classmates that it is dangerous outside the dormitory, so don't open the door lightly."
The child sounded regretful, but Tang Xinjue sensed a trace of schadenfreude and malice that could not be concealed:
"Anyway, you failed to protect your dormitory, resulting in the early elimination of your roommates. This is not a student that educators like.
“Educators believe that roommates in a dormitory must help each other, so as to achieve better results in daily assessments and competitions, and help your school to become a top university. When they find that the number of dormitories is not enough, they will be angry, reduce and cancel your reward..."
"Ding, the second rule has been unlocked: please protect your roommates!"
At the same time as this voice sounded, Tang Xinjue looked at the phone, and the time just turned to 9 o'clock.
It had just been half an hour since the last time the child's voice appeared. And last time, the sound rang for the first time at 8:00, so it was just another half an hour.
Could it be that this voice appeared every half an hour, announcing a rule every time?
Then, before the game officially starts at 0:00, the voice would appear again...
Tang Xinjue's thoughts were interrupted by the knock on the door, and a familiar voice came from outside the door: "Open the door, I'm Zhang You, let me in."
Without thinking, she said, "Zhang You, look at the top of the door frame. We have made an appointment to put the spare key. Do you have any spare keys?"
Outside the door: "Okay… you lied, there is no key. Come and open the door."
Tang Xinjue's face was expressionless, but the gentle tone was very indifferent at the moment: "You forgot, we never leave spare keys in our dormitory."
This was not Zhang You!
The next thing was exactly the same as before. No matter how horrifying and terrifying the voices were from outside, Tang Xinjue and the three of them resolutely pretended to be dead and never took a step closer to the door.
After a long thirty minutes, the sound outside the door disappeared again.
What followed was, "Ding Ding Ding, Dang Dang Dang, did the classmates go back to the dormitory obediently?"
"Ah!!" Zheng Wanqing finally couldn't take it anymore, she ran to the balcony window and shouted angrily: "Enough is enough. Come on! Let us out! I don't want to play your game!"
The child’s voice was still giggling maliciously, as if the protests of the students were very insignificant to it, and even worthless.
In the laughter, Guo Guo had already started crying and reciting the Great Compassion Mantra. Facing the messy environment, Tang Xinjue patted her head, which was starting to hurt again, sighed, picked up the long tool beside her, and slapped it hard on the table:
"Quiet!!"
The deafening impact of the made the bedroom instantly quiet. Not only that, the two roommates even felt their ears buzzing a bit.
Guo Guo was not surprised, but Zheng Wanqing was stunned. She wondered how Tang Xinjue, who had always been ill, could explode with such great power.
"Listen to what it says, and listen carefully."
Tang Xinjue raised her head and stared at the darkness outside the window.
The weird childish voice laughed for a while, and stopped pretending to say nothing, and simply announced the third rule:
"From the beginning of the game, the dormitory has been completely blocked, and the living can no longer leave the dormitory!"
This is something that had been known for a long time.
Guo Guo shivered: "What is [can't leave anymore]? It doesn't say when the game will end?"
- It doesn't even say if the game will end. This thought flashed through Tang Xinjue's mind, but she didn’t say it.
At this time, there was another mechanical knock on the door...
As time passed, the three of them finally got used to the law of "weird children's voices - announced the rules - ghost knocking on the door".
Fortunately, the IQ of things outside was not high, and they didn’t even know how to change their words. Until the next refresh, as if there is no memory of the previous failure, they knocked on the door again.
Repeated again and again, several people are no longer so afraid of "ghost knocking on the door". After all, practice has proved that as long as they don't open the door on their own initiative, nothing outside could come in.
Tang Xinjue recorded the rules brought by the child's voice one by one in her heart: Rule number 4: When reaching midnight, only if there were two people in one dormitory, they can survive to enter the game successfully, otherwise it will be regarded as a failure and all of them will be eliminated.
Rule number 5: Good students will be rewarded, bad students will not.
Rule number 6: Only the students who happened to be in the dormitory when the game first came are good students who meet the requirements of the [Educator].
Tang Xinjue frowned: Divide the rules that can be said in one sentence into two, so that they will get less information, this strange childish voice is quite a chicken thief.
In this way, this unidentified child voice seems to hold natural malice towards them. On the surface, the rules are reminded again and again, but in fact, it is like squeezing toothpaste intermittently, and every time it happens to be one step behind. If Tang Xinjue hadn't been here, Zheng Wanqing and Guo Guo would have been the first to suffer.
At this time, there were only 60 minutes left in the countdown on the mobile phone, and the hour hand reached 11:00.
The already numb people didn't hear the knock on the door, and even after getting used to the darkness, they began to try finding ways to communicate with the outside world. But whether it was knocking on the wall or yelling, there was no response from the dormitory on both sides of the next door.
The three of them had an inexplicable feeling that it was a familiar campus outside the window, but it seemed like they were on an isolated island. There is only boundless and empty sea water on all sides, and no one can come to save them.
This sense of helplessness reached its climax when the last rule was announced:
"Students who don’t stay in the campus before midnight and have not returned to the dormitory will be wiped out..." The child’s voice seemed to be careless. As if he said something wrong, he changed his words with a smile: "...will be eliminated and lose qualifications for the game."
"..."
Guo Zhi exclaimed in a low voice: "Look, the phone screen has changed again!"
They saw a scarlet countdown. Below, there are four more round frames, three of which are flashing with white light spots, and one of the round frames has no light and is still dimmed.
Tang Xinjue quickly realized that these light spots symbolized the four roommates in the dormitory. For those who were not in the dormitory, the light spots would not light up. There are three people in the dormitory now, so there are only three light spots on.
At the same time, there was a numbing and hurried knock on the door: "Let me in!"
Guo Guo shouted in desperation: "You knock, knock, knock until you break your throat and no one will open the door~"
There was silence outside the door for a moment, and then the other party shouted furiously: "Guo Guo, you xx! I'll chop you up after I go in! Open the door for me!"
"..."
Tang Xinjue raised her head instantly, Guo Guo and Zheng Wanqing were also stunned.
"Shit! Why does this monster have a new line?" Guo Guo jumped up and hid behind Tang Xinjue, then she tried Tang Xinjue's method: "Cough, Zhang You, you are not going to see your boyfriend. Why? Why did you come back so early?"
Tang Xinjue pulled her apart: "Have you ever thought about a possibility, maybe this time it's not a monster?"
Perhaps just in response to her voice, a voice from outside came in again:
"See what boyfriend! When did I ever have a boyfriend for 20 years when I was single? Instead I met a few ghosts who chased me all the way!" The voice outside was very irritable, and there was a bit of crying: "I ask you to hurry up, now it's all black fog outside, and if they catch up, I'll be dead!"
"...This is Zhang You, it's Zhang You right!"
Guo Guo was excited and nervous. Zheng Wanqing was even more impulsive. She wanted to roar and opened the door directly, but was blocked by Tang Xinjue with the long tool in her hand.
Zheng Wanqing was in a hurry this time, and she spoke loudly to Tang Xinjue for the first time: "You also said that it was Zhang You outside, why didn't you let the door open? What should we do if it's too late?"
Tang Xinjue deliberately ignored the pain in her temples. Her speed of speech was very fast: "You forgot what the law was just now? There will be a ghost knock on the door every half an hour, no exception. It means that it has been standing at our door."
"So, if the person standing outside the door this time really is Zhang You, then where is the original [ghost]?"
Tang Xinjue didn't lower her voice, it could be heard inside and outside the bedroom, the air was instantly filled with silence, and even the knocking on the door stopped.
After a long while, Zhang You's voice trembled: "Damn, don't scare me, people will die if they are scared—" The sound stopped abruptly as if she had discovered something.
After a few seconds, Zhang You said with difficulty: "I feel it, it seems like something... is lying on my back."
Guo Guo gasped for breath and softened silently. Zheng Wanqing pinched her collar to prevent her from moving, and hesitantly looked at Tang Xinjue: "Then do we still have to open the door?"
Guo Guo was about to collapse: "What do you think?"
Now if they opened the door, Zhang You was not the only one who would enter!
"Can we wait until the next time the rules are announced?" She suddenly had a flash of inspiration: "Xinjue, you said that every time that terrifying child's voice sounds, the ghost outside the door will be refreshed once." Is it safe to open the door for Zhang You then?
Tang Xinjue denied it without hesitation: "The next time the voice appears, it will be at 12:00."
At 12:00, the game starts, and all those who have not returned to the dormitory will be wiped out. Who can guarantee that at that moment, they will open the door faster, or Zhang You will be obliterated faster?
The atmosphere returned to the anxious starting point, and several people were silent. Guo Guo couldn't help but wipe away her tears: "Isn't there any way to do it… Ugh..."
Zheng Wanqing shouted at her: "Don't cry! What's the use of crying now!"
Zhang You patted the door more irritably: "Zheng Wanqing, Wanqing, you are not allowed to scold Guo Guo, I'm dying, what's the point of you shouting!!"
Guo Guo cried and smashed the jar*: "Open the door, I’m going to fight that ghost to the death! Let's all die together!"
After screaming and jumping, Tang Xinjue's unusually calm voice floated in the air, sounding particularly sober. "Who said you were going to die?"
"It's so dark outside, I'm so scared. Hurry up and open the door and let me in."
The voice outside the door was still ringing, the soft voice that should belong to a girl, but in the ears of the people in the dorm room at this moment, it had some unknown stickiness and coldness.
Who dared to open the door?
There was silence in the room, Tang Xinjue thought for a while, and said softly: "The dormitory door seems to be broken, and we can't open it. When Wanqing came back just now, the door opened automatically. You stand at the door and try it to see if it will work. Can you open it by yourself?"
Since this so-called game requires people to participate, there is no reason not to open the door to the students who return to the dormitory. It could be seen from the automatic opening and closing of the door when Zheng Wanqing returned.
Since there was no response from the dormitory door now, it could only mean that "Zhang You" outside the door was not of the same kind as them.
There was silence outside the door for two seconds, and the knock on the door suddenly became more urgent. It hit the door with one blow, causing the entire door frame to vibrate slightly.
"Don't you want to open the door for me?"
This time, "Zhang You"'s voice became very gloomy, much louder than before.
Tang Xinjue, who was standing in front of the door, could hear it clearly. The gloomy voice almost came in through the resonance of the door panel... It was as if the owner of the voice was lying on the door tightly, with her head buried in the crack of the door.
She could even feel that something sticky was flowing through the crack of the door. Fortunately, the dormitory was pitch black at this time, and nothing could be seen.
Tang Xinjue pretended not to feel anything, and returned to the two roommates, motioning them not to make a sound.
Zheng Wanqing had always listened to her words, and Guo Guo had no objection after being so frightened that her soul was out of her body, and the three of them began to pretend to be dead.
No matter how loud they called, there was no response from inside, and the things outside the door finally gave up their disguise, giggling and squeaking accompanied by the sound of squeaking the door. One after another, it sounded especially harsh in the silence and darkness.
The people in the room were tense, for fear that the door would be scratched open in the next second.
Time became extraordinarily long in the passing of seconds, and after an unknown amount of time, the sound of scratching the door finally disappeared. The three of them breathed a sigh of relief at the same time. Tang Xinjue touched her back, only to find that it was soaked in sweat.
She could only gamble, betting on guessing the "rules of the game", gambling that the dormitory was both a restraint and a protection, betting that things outside couldn’t get in.
Fortunately, the bet was won.
At this moment, in the corridor outside the door, a hoarse "squeak" sounded - this was the sound of opening the door!
Looking up suddenly, Tang Xinjue realized that this was the door of the opposite dormitory.
Sure enough, a cautious voice sounded: "Is that you, Tao Xin? Great, you're finally back..."
The voice came to an abrupt end as if seeing something extremely terrifying, and never sounded again. The door to the next dormitory could only be heard being slowly pushed open - and then slammed shut as the other roommates screamed in horror.
Everything was silent as before.
Guo Guo let out a whimper from behind and slid down uncontrollably. No one dared to discuss aloud, nor guess what was happening in the dormitory opposite their door.
They didn't know how long it took, and when the crisp children's voice caught them off guard, the three of them were shocked:
"Ding Ding Ding, Dang Dang Dang, did the classmates go back to the dormitory obediently~ Hey, there are a lot of people missing - oh, I seem to have forgotten to tell my classmates that it is dangerous outside the dormitory, so don't open the door lightly."
The child sounded regretful, but Tang Xinjue sensed a trace of schadenfreude and malice that could not be concealed:
"Anyway, you failed to protect your dormitory, resulting in the early elimination of your roommates. This is not a student that educators like.
“Educators believe that roommates in a dormitory must help each other, so as to achieve better results in daily assessments and competitions, and help your school to become a top university. When they find that the number of dormitories is not enough, they will be angry, reduce and cancel your reward..."
"Ding, the second rule has been unlocked: please protect your roommates!"
At the same time as this voice sounded, Tang Xinjue looked at the phone, and the time just turned to 9 o'clock.
It had just been half an hour since the last time the child's voice appeared. And last time, the sound rang for the first time at 8:00, so it was just another half an hour.
Could it be that this voice appeared every half an hour, announcing a rule every time?
Then, before the game officially starts at 0:00, the voice would appear again...
Tang Xinjue's thoughts were interrupted by the knock on the door, and a familiar voice came from outside the door: "Open the door, I'm Zhang You, let me in."
Without thinking, she said, "Zhang You, look at the top of the door frame. We have made an appointment to put the spare key. Do you have any spare keys?"
Outside the door: "Okay… you lied, there is no key. Come and open the door."
Tang Xinjue's face was expressionless, but the gentle tone was very indifferent at the moment: "You forgot, we never leave spare keys in our dormitory."
This was not Zhang You!
The next thing was exactly the same as before. No matter how horrifying and terrifying the voices were from outside, Tang Xinjue and the three of them resolutely pretended to be dead and never took a step closer to the door.
After a long thirty minutes, the sound outside the door disappeared again.
What followed was, "Ding Ding Ding, Dang Dang Dang, did the classmates go back to the dormitory obediently?"
"Ah!!" Zheng Wanqing finally couldn't take it anymore, she ran to the balcony window and shouted angrily: "Enough is enough. Come on! Let us out! I don't want to play your game!"
The child’s voice was still giggling maliciously, as if the protests of the students were very insignificant to it, and even worthless.
In the laughter, Guo Guo had already started crying and reciting the Great Compassion Mantra. Facing the messy environment, Tang Xinjue patted her head, which was starting to hurt again, sighed, picked up the long tool beside her, and slapped it hard on the table:
"Quiet!!"
The deafening impact of the made the bedroom instantly quiet. Not only that, the two roommates even felt their ears buzzing a bit.
Guo Guo was not surprised, but Zheng Wanqing was stunned. She wondered how Tang Xinjue, who had always been ill, could explode with such great power.
"Listen to what it says, and listen carefully."
Tang Xinjue raised her head and stared at the darkness outside the window.
The weird childish voice laughed for a while, and stopped pretending to say nothing, and simply announced the third rule:
"From the beginning of the game, the dormitory has been completely blocked, and the living can no longer leave the dormitory!"
This is something that had been known for a long time.
Guo Guo shivered: "What is [can't leave anymore]? It doesn't say when the game will end?"
- It doesn't even say if the game will end. This thought flashed through Tang Xinjue's mind, but she didn’t say it.
At this time, there was another mechanical knock on the door...
As time passed, the three of them finally got used to the law of "weird children's voices - announced the rules - ghost knocking on the door".
Fortunately, the IQ of things outside was not high, and they didn’t even know how to change their words. Until the next refresh, as if there is no memory of the previous failure, they knocked on the door again.
Repeated again and again, several people are no longer so afraid of "ghost knocking on the door". After all, practice has proved that as long as they don't open the door on their own initiative, nothing outside could come in.
Tang Xinjue recorded the rules brought by the child's voice one by one in her heart: Rule number 4: When reaching midnight, only if there were two people in one dormitory, they can survive to enter the game successfully, otherwise it will be regarded as a failure and all of them will be eliminated.
Rule number 5: Good students will be rewarded, bad students will not.
Rule number 6: Only the students who happened to be in the dormitory when the game first came are good students who meet the requirements of the [Educator].
Tang Xinjue frowned: Divide the rules that can be said in one sentence into two, so that they will get less information, this strange childish voice is quite a chicken thief.
In this way, this unidentified child voice seems to hold natural malice towards them. On the surface, the rules are reminded again and again, but in fact, it is like squeezing toothpaste intermittently, and every time it happens to be one step behind. If Tang Xinjue hadn't been here, Zheng Wanqing and Guo Guo would have been the first to suffer.
At this time, there were only 60 minutes left in the countdown on the mobile phone, and the hour hand reached 11:00.
The already numb people didn't hear the knock on the door, and even after getting used to the darkness, they began to try finding ways to communicate with the outside world. But whether it was knocking on the wall or yelling, there was no response from the dormitory on both sides of the next door.
The three of them had an inexplicable feeling that it was a familiar campus outside the window, but it seemed like they were on an isolated island. There is only boundless and empty sea water on all sides, and no one can come to save them.
This sense of helplessness reached its climax when the last rule was announced:
"Students who don’t stay in the campus before midnight and have not returned to the dormitory will be wiped out..." The child’s voice seemed to be careless. As if he said something wrong, he changed his words with a smile: "...will be eliminated and lose qualifications for the game."
"..."
Guo Zhi exclaimed in a low voice: "Look, the phone screen has changed again!"
They saw a scarlet countdown. Below, there are four more round frames, three of which are flashing with white light spots, and one of the round frames has no light and is still dimmed.
Tang Xinjue quickly realized that these light spots symbolized the four roommates in the dormitory. For those who were not in the dormitory, the light spots would not light up. There are three people in the dormitory now, so there are only three light spots on.
At the same time, there was a numbing and hurried knock on the door: "Let me in!"
Guo Guo shouted in desperation: "You knock, knock, knock until you break your throat and no one will open the door~"
There was silence outside the door for a moment, and then the other party shouted furiously: "Guo Guo, you xx! I'll chop you up after I go in! Open the door for me!"
"..."
Tang Xinjue raised her head instantly, Guo Guo and Zheng Wanqing were also stunned.
"Shit! Why does this monster have a new line?" Guo Guo jumped up and hid behind Tang Xinjue, then she tried Tang Xinjue's method: "Cough, Zhang You, you are not going to see your boyfriend. Why? Why did you come back so early?"
Tang Xinjue pulled her apart: "Have you ever thought about a possibility, maybe this time it's not a monster?"
Perhaps just in response to her voice, a voice from outside came in again:
"See what boyfriend! When did I ever have a boyfriend for 20 years when I was single? Instead I met a few ghosts who chased me all the way!" The voice outside was very irritable, and there was a bit of crying: "I ask you to hurry up, now it's all black fog outside, and if they catch up, I'll be dead!"
"...This is Zhang You, it's Zhang You right!"
Guo Guo was excited and nervous. Zheng Wanqing was even more impulsive. She wanted to roar and opened the door directly, but was blocked by Tang Xinjue with the long tool in her hand.
Zheng Wanqing was in a hurry this time, and she spoke loudly to Tang Xinjue for the first time: "You also said that it was Zhang You outside, why didn't you let the door open? What should we do if it's too late?"
Tang Xinjue deliberately ignored the pain in her temples. Her speed of speech was very fast: "You forgot what the law was just now? There will be a ghost knock on the door every half an hour, no exception. It means that it has been standing at our door."
"So, if the person standing outside the door this time really is Zhang You, then where is the original [ghost]?"
Tang Xinjue didn't lower her voice, it could be heard inside and outside the bedroom, the air was instantly filled with silence, and even the knocking on the door stopped.
After a long while, Zhang You's voice trembled: "Damn, don't scare me, people will die if they are scared—" The sound stopped abruptly as if she had discovered something.
After a few seconds, Zhang You said with difficulty: "I feel it, it seems like something... is lying on my back."
Guo Guo gasped for breath and softened silently. Zheng Wanqing pinched her collar to prevent her from moving, and hesitantly looked at Tang Xinjue: "Then do we still have to open the door?"
Guo Guo was about to collapse: "What do you think?"
Now if they opened the door, Zhang You was not the only one who would enter!
"Can we wait until the next time the rules are announced?" She suddenly had a flash of inspiration: "Xinjue, you said that every time that terrifying child's voice sounds, the ghost outside the door will be refreshed once." Is it safe to open the door for Zhang You then?
Tang Xinjue denied it without hesitation: "The next time the voice appears, it will be at 12:00."
At 12:00, the game starts, and all those who have not returned to the dormitory will be wiped out. Who can guarantee that at that moment, they will open the door faster, or Zhang You will be obliterated faster?
The atmosphere returned to the anxious starting point, and several people were silent. Guo Guo couldn't help but wipe away her tears: "Isn't there any way to do it… Ugh..."
Zheng Wanqing shouted at her: "Don't cry! What's the use of crying now!"
Zhang You patted the door more irritably: "Zheng Wanqing, Wanqing, you are not allowed to scold Guo Guo, I'm dying, what's the point of you shouting!!"
Guo Guo cried and smashed the jar*: "Open the door, I’m going to fight that ghost to the death! Let's all die together!"
After screaming and jumping, Tang Xinjue's unusually calm voice floated in the air, sounding particularly sober. "Who said you were going to die?"
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