Nightmare Strikes

Translator: Cinder Translations

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At this moment, the Fatty suddenly noticed that Jiang Cheng had turned around, holding something resembling a spear.

He squinted his eyes, realizing it looked very much like Su Yu's cane.

"Doctor, what is this?"

"When I came out, this thing was sticking into Brother Zhen Jianren," Jiang Cheng raised the cane, gesturing to Zhen Jianren's body as if trying to recreate the scene for the Fatty.

"Look," he poked the corpse and then looked up at the Fatty, signaling, "It was stabbed right here."

Ignoring Jiang Cheng's inhumane actions, the Fatty raised his eyebrows, pondering, "You mean he wasn't killed by a ghost, but by Su Yu waiting outside the door?"

"Su Yu stabbed Zhen Jianren to death with the cane?" The Fatty's tone grew strange.

Jiang Cheng stroked his chin, then suddenly jabbed the Fatty with the cane at lightning speed.

The Fatty was completely unprepared and felt a solid poke in his rear.

"Doctor!" The Fatty covered his backside, "Why did you poke me?"

Unexpectedly, Jiang Cheng acted as if nothing had happened, tilted his head at him, and slowly asked, "Does it hurt?"

"Um…" After a moment, the Fatty rubbed his backside and honestly replied, "It's okay, not too painful."

At this point, he also realized that the sharp end of the cane had become dull over the years from rubbing against the ground, so it wasn't very lethal.

"Doctor," as if he had figured something out, the Fatty excitedly exclaimed, "I understand what you mean now. This was a deliberately staged fake scene. A dull-headed cane cannot kill someone!"

Jiang Cheng looked at him skeptically and paused before saying, "You figured this out just because you're so excited?"

"What else could it be?" the Fatty asked.

"If the murderer can use a dull-headed cane to stab someone to death, then the required strength and technique are definitely not something an ordinary person can match," he pointed at the corpse on the ground. "Look, there's only one fatal wound, right at the back, a single fatal strike. I suspect the murderer hid behind the wall and then suddenly attacked."

"The murderer doesn't seem like Su Yu, the dance teacher," Jiang Cheng shook his head, "but rather like a professional killer."

The Fatty thought for a moment, then looked up and said, "Doctor, now that you mention it, I remembered that I saw people who were killed by Chen Yao in the mirror before."

"There were security guards, students, teachers, and… our people. There were about more than ten of them," he recalled.

Jiang Cheng turned to look deeper into the room, which had unknowingly fallen back into darkness, "Excluding Chen Yao, there were a total of 15 people," he said with a firm tone, as if he had verified it.

Clearly, aside from the nine who died ten years ago, the rest were people from this mission.

The Fatty seemed to understand Jiang Cheng's implication, his face slightly changing, "So, besides us, there's another teammate still alive?"

They had already seen the corpses of Cheongsam Woman, Long Tao, Luo Yi, and Zhen Jianren, so they were excluded from the count.

Calculating like this, only Yu Wen, Zhou Taifu, and Zhang Yinyin remained, whose bodies they hadn't seen.

"Doctor," the Fatty suddenly said, "Zhou Taifu should be dead; I just saw him in the mirror because he had a flashlight at his feet, so I saw him clearly."

Actually, when Jiang Cheng mentioned the word professional killer, the first person the Fatty thought of was the mysterious Yu Wen, as her aura was strikingly similar.

Although they hadn't seen Yu Wen's corpse, the two had discovered one of her severed arms in Building C.

Based on the gruesome scars on the severed arm, it was undoubtedly done by a ghost, so Yu Wen was likely dead as well.

This left only Zhang Yinyin.

"Doctor," the Fatty hesitated for a moment and said, "What if Zhang Yinyin wasn't killed but is hiding?"

Jiang Cheng stared at the cane in his hand, lost in thought.

By now, time had completely lost its meaning during this mission. Jiang Cheng had predicted that the sun would no longer rise, and it seemed that this had indeed become a prophecy.

The Fatty gazed into the pitch-black night, his fear growing stronger.

"What should we do next?" The Fatty swallowed hard and lowered his voice to ask, "I think the music classroom definitely has problems; we…"

"Let's go to the music classroom," Jiang Cheng didn't waste any time.

The Fatty followed behind him, realizing that he was struggling to keep up with Jiang Cheng's pace, "Aren't we bringing Su Yu?" he caught up and asked in confusion, "He must be related to cracking the mission."

"He's already in the music classroom," Jiang Cheng replied casually.

The Fatty paused, and then his eyes gradually cleared up as he explained to himself, "I understand now, Doctor. Since Zhang Yinyin could find the cane to stab Zhen Jianren, she could naturally find Su Yu, and as an important clue, she must have taken him away."

"Now the only place they can go is the music classroom, as that's where Chen Yao hanged herself, and it's also the venue for the third rehearsal."

Unclear if it was disdain for the Fatty's chattiness or something else, Jiang Cheng stopped speaking.

As they passed through the courtyard, the Fatty noticed that Su Yu, who had been tied to a chair, was indeed missing.

The rope had been cut; one end lay over the chair while the other end was slack on the ground.

Leaving the equipment center and walking toward the music classroom, the Fatty's steps felt much lighter.

The mission plot had become clearer, starting with lust and ending with lies.

And the ultimate result was the end of more than a dozen lives.

"Doctor," the Fatty's voice came, "There's one thing I don't understand: why did Chen Yao kill so many people but never went after Su Yu? He's the one who deserves to die the most!"

"Could it really be those talismans that are effective?" His voice grew increasingly doubtful.

Jiang Cheng slowly spoke, "It's the rules."

The Fatty had heard this term many times before; whenever he encountered an unsolvable problem, Jiang Cheng would bring up this enigmatic concept.

It had almost become a way to brush him off.

"I don't understand," the Fatty said honestly, "I only know that if it were me, I would kill Su Yu without hesitation, to the best of my ability."

"In nightmares, there are no absolute dead ends; the rules leave a way out for everyone," Jiang Cheng glanced at the Fatty beside him, his tone becoming unfamiliar, "When I say everyone, I don't just mean participants like us, but also people in this world, even… ghosts."

The Fatty suddenly looked up, exclaiming, "Ghosts?"

"If we must use the term mission to describe it, then not only do we have a mission, but key figures like Su Yu and Chen Yao, who has become a ghost, also have missions."

"Our missions intertwine, full of intricate connections, but there's one thing that's unified," Jiang Cheng suddenly stopped walking, looking up at a dark, massive building before them.

"We are all bound by the rules."

 (End of the Chapter)

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