Chapter 73
Guo Guo bit on her fingers. She felt that she could not allow these two naughty men to win so easily, she had to think of a more complicated game…
As she was racking her brains for an idea, the Fringed Girl staggered to her feet and barrelled into her, pushing and shoving her to the ground.
Even if Guo Guo was a NPC in the game, the reality was that she only had the height of a little girl. Hence, all that was required to knock her to the ground was a gentle push.
Since the Fringed Girl was burying her boyfriend just now, her body was caked with mud and blood, and she was cutting a sorry figure. She howled at Guo Guo: "You were the one who killed him, it's you!"
Guo Guo promptly decided to sit on the ground, blinking her big and round eyes that were filled with ridicule as she stared at the Fringed Girl.
The Fringed Girl's state of mind had been unstable to begin with; now that she was being provoked, she became even more demented. "I'll kill you, I'm going to kill you—"
The children who would cry and kick up a fuss once something did not go their way, did not have any intention to cry when they were confronted with this terrifying scene. They ceased whatever they were doing and stood up, watching the raving Fringed Girl.
They were still wearing smiles on their faces, like they were waiting for Fringed Girl to do something to Guo Guo.
However, before the Fringed Girl had the chance to attempt anything, she was knocked unconscious by Shen Dongqing.
Body swaying, the Fringed Girl collapsed to the ground softly, and her tightly clenched right hand relaxed, allowing a red hair clip to fall out of her hand.
The hair clip was incredibly cute: there were two haw fruits sewn on top, but it had been dirtied since it was stained with browning blood.
This was what Fringed Girl had found in her boyfriend's hand when he was burying him.
Shen Dongqing's gaze shifted upwards and away from the red hair clip and landed on Guo Guo's hair.
Guo Guo had her hair combed into pigtails, and she was using a red hair clip to tidy the fine and scattered strands of her bangs. However, the loose hair on the left side were not fixed in place, so they had dropped down.
And that red hair clip formed a pair with the one in Fringed Girl's hand.
Which was why Fringed Girl thought that Guo Guo had killed Blonde-haired Boy.
Noticing Shen Dongqing's gaze, Guo Guo tilted her head and smiled, which made her pigtails sway as well.
Zhou Wenyan's gaze was full of meaning. "Is it yours?"
Guo Guo nodded, "It's mine, it was taken away by a bad uncle last night." She climbed to feet, "Sadly, it got dirty, I can't want it anymore, or else Mother Dean will get angry."
It seems like Blonde-haired Boy encountered this group of children last night.
It was unknown what had occurred between the two parties, such that it had ended with the Blonde-haired Boy's death.
Zhou Wenyan had no interest in avenging the Blonde-haired Boy. He nodded his head and said: "Let's play the game."
Guo Guo clapped her hands. "Let's play— Hide and Seek!" She elongated the syllable, "Both of you close your eyes, I'll count three two one, and the game will only end when you find all of us oh."
Zhou Wenyan and Shen Dongqing exchanged glances before they closed their eyes.
Guo Guo's tender and soft voice rang out beside their ears: "Three— Two— One—"
When the intonation for the last word landed, Shen Dongqing opened his eyes first.
A dead leaf slowly fluttered to the ground as it made circles in the air.
All the children who had been playing on the field disappeared. It was like they had disappeared into thin air in an instant, leaving only deadly stillness.
When Fang Qi saw this scene as he was running downstairs after he had finished cleaning the second floor, he became stunned.
"No, no way…" Fang Qi said with much difficulty, "What did the two of you do to those little children?"
Did they annihilate them all?
Fang Qi thought in his mind, I've only been gone for ten minutes, give or take a few, isn't this too fast?!
Shen Dongqing: "We're playing a game."
Fang Qi: "… What kind of game?" A game where all the NPCs were eviscerated?
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Apart from the collapsed Fringed Girl, there were currently six players alive.
After Fang Qi sprinted to find the others, he did not need much time to find them and he proceeded to explain the Hide and Seek game that they were playing with the NPCs.
The Uncle's first reaction was: "I'm not the one who's playing the game with a bunch of children, whoever agreed to it should go." He even took the pains to glance at Zhou Wenyan and Shen Dongqing as he spoke cynically: "There's no reason for us to take the risk. The clues will be taken by the others while you will become the cannon fodder for nothing."
The Male Student agreed with his words but he did not vocalise it directly. Instead, he said tactfully, "I still need to prepare lunch."
In the end, the only people who agreed to look for the children were only Fang Qi and Blonde Lady.
* * *
The square footage of the kindergarten was not huge. With the four people splitting up to look for them, they managed to flip through the entire kindergarten in ten minutes.
But when Fang Qi searched through the entire premise once, let alone people, he did not even see a shadow of a ghost.
The Blonde Lady happened to be walking down to the second floor. "Have you found them?"
Fang Qi showed a bitter expression. "I even checked the female toilets, I didn't catch a shadow of them."
Blonde Lady said: "Me too, it's like all of the students vanished from the face of the earth."
There were clearly a dozen children, and the kindergarten was only so big in totality. Where could they have hidden, how did they manage to disappear all of a sudden?
Fang Qi: "It's too bizarre, let's wait for the Big Bosses to come back first."
Zhou Wenyan and Shen Dongqing walked over from the two separate ends of the small flower garden.
Under the pair's expectant gazes, Shen Dongqing shook his head: "I didn't find them."
Zhou Wenyan: "Same here."
Fang Qi said pensively, "It can't be that evil right?"
Was this not considered a dead end?
Shen Dongqing sat on the swing, rocking it back and forth. "All of the children have disappeared."
In response, Fang Qi looked at them with pitiful eyes. "What should we do now?"
Twisting his head, Shen Dongqing glanced at Zhou Wenyan in a request for help.
Zhou Wenyan coughed lightly, saying, "Maybe…"
A human figure suddenly rushed over from the first floor.
There was an apron around the Male Student's waist, he was holding dirt in his hands and his complexion was ghastly pale as he was trying to puke but he was failing to.
Fang Qi was frightened by the suddenness of his appearance. "You went to play with dirt?"
The Male Student threw the dirt on the ground. "This is what we were eating!"
Although the students had disappeared, it did not deter the Male Student from preparing the food, since he was deathly afraid that he would not make it in time.
However, he was halfway through his prep work when he realised that there was something wrong with the ingredients. All of it had turned into dirt.
Blonde Lady stiffened momentarily before she started spitting.
Surprisingly, Fang Qi adapted to his circumstances readily enough, and he even consoled them, "You won't die from eating it. It's been digested either way, I think we'll be fine."
Zhou Wenyan half-knelt on the ground to pinch up some of the soil. "This is clay."
Shen Dongqing squatted beside him. "What's different about it?"
He looked like he was a little tempted to try what clay tasted like.
Zhou Wenyan stopped him immediately. "It's used to make porcelain, it can't be eaten."
Shen Dongqing blinked his eyes. "But all of them ate it." Which meant that it was edible, and he wanted to try everything that could be eaten.
Helpless, Zhou Wenyan said: "You can't eat it."
Shen Dongqing felt some regret. "Fine…"
As Zhou Wenyan was standing up, he pulled Shen Dongqing up as well. "I know where the students went."
* * *
Thus, the group of people went to the first floor of the classroom building.
The first floor had four classrooms and one resting room.
Fang Qi murmured: "This door seems to be locked."
When he passed by the door just now, he wanted to go in and have a look, but the door was locked. And when he looked inside from outside the window later , he saw that there were only toys and small beds inside. He did not see the students' figures after he took everything in at a glance.
Shen Dongqing: "I'll do it!"
Stepping forward, he pulled at the door handle forcefully, and the sound of something cracking immediately answered him. Thus, the locked door was open.
He was a professional when it came to breaking down doors violently.
Haiduo Kindergarten was a lodging type of kindergarten, and resting rooms were provided to the students to let them sleep at night.
But there was a small quantity of beds inside, merely twelve, and the head of every bed had the students' signature. Furthermore, there was a folded blanket on top of the bed as well.
Zhou Wenyan strode towards the bed closest to the door. The two characters "Guo Guo" were written on top, and there was a simple flower drawn with a water-coloured brush at the side.
Shen Dongqing made an abrupt comment: "There are too little beds, no?"
There were only twelve beds.
But there were more than twelve students in Haiduo Kindergarten.
Fang Qi: "Aren't there only twelve students?"
Shen Dongqing: "What about the little ones at night?"
As Fang Qi recalled those unlucky children who only haunted them at night, he shuddered. "Those count as well…?"
Zhou Wenyan tapped on the fencing of the small bed with his index finger. His voice echoed in the otherwise silent room as he spoke: "They're from the same class."
Having realised something, Fang Qi said: "I saw the name list for the students. Guo Guo's class is the only class that stays in school, the other classes are regular students who attend day school."
Therefore, only one class of students could appear during daytime to attend their classes, whereas the other classes can only move freely at night as unlucky children and paste themselves on the edge of their windows?
But that was illogical.
Zhou Wenyan: "They're not humans."
Nonsense! Since when were the NPCs in this game humans?
Fang Qi almost blurted that out, but he managed to shut his mouth at the critical moment.
Shen Dongqing finally understood what he was trying to imply. With one hand clenched into a fist, he smashed it into the palm of his other lightly: "I was wondering why they were so weird, so this is the reason why…"
Fang Qi and Blonde Lady were confused. "What's the reason?"
Instead of answering, Zhou Wenyan pulled away the small blanket on the bed directly.
Under the blanket was but a repose porcelain doll. The porcelain doll's pigtails stood up vertically and her mouth split open to form a smile. Her pupils moved as if she was meeting the other person face-to-face.
Fang Qi: "Guo Guo?"
After being their teachers for two days, they recognised all the students for the most part. Hence, it took him less than a second to realise that the porcelain doll was wearing clothes identical to Guo Guo's outfit.
The porcelain doll's expression did not change, but it seemed to be saying: "You have found me."
Zhou Wenyan walked down and lifted their blankets one by one.
There were a total of twelve beds, and each bed had a porcelain doll. When they were gathered together, they happened to be one class.
Fang Qi: "Are they all porcelain dolls?"
Shen Dongqing nodded. "It's no wonder why I sensed that the yin energy on their bodies was incredibly weak, and it was even mingled with a hint of vitality. So this is the reason why, they're all living souls inside."
Fang Qi originally wanted to touch the porcelain dolls, but he was scared into retracting his hands once he heard Shen Dongqing's remark. "All, all of them are still alive?"
Shen Dongqing made an "eh" in response. "It's hard to say."
Fang Qi: ?
Shen Dongqing continued, "I've never encountered something like this, I'm not very clear about this."
The state of these dolls were hard to describe; they were not considered dead, but they were not truly living.
Zhou Wenyan then carried all the porcelain dolls and placed them in the centre of the classroom. He said: "Found all of you."
"Hehe…"
It was like a gust of wind blew over and carried the sound of the children's laughter. Subsequently, the porcelain dolls swayed like they were tumblers as they turned their body to stare at the back of the classroom pointedly.
Shen Dongqing sauntered over to take a look. There were numerous picture books placed at the back of the classroom.
The books were all piled together without any sense or order, probably because none of the teachers had tidied and arranged it. As he took out one book, he brought all the books on the bookshelf with him, and they landed on the ground with a crash.
Shen Dongqing withdrew his hand silently, pretending like it had nothing to do with him.
Stooping over, Zhou Wenyan picked up a piece of paper from the side of his foot before he lowered his eyes to read it. "Kindergarten being suspended…"
It wrote that, due to Haiduo Kindergarten's unacceptable management, it had resulted in the injuries and deaths of the students, and that the Kindergarten was permanently suspended.
The number of light casualties were unknown, but there were 12 heavily wounded children, which happened to form a class of students.
Zhou Wenyan pondered over the out-of-date newspaper. "Unacceptable management?"
The phrase was too vague.
What happened in this Kindergarten exactly?
Zhou Wenyan hazarded a guess: "Is it related to Shun Shun?"
Shen Dongqing picked up a picture book and shoved all of it back into the shelf. He brushed off the dust on his hands: "Certainly, that child is shrouded with ominous energy, he has probably harmed a great deal of people."
But apart from Shun Shun, the unlucky children who appeared and disappeared with the night were quite clean.
Shen Dongqing mused, "Should we catch him tonight and ask him questions?"
* * *
The other players all felt that the pile of porcelain dolls looked frightening, and they could wait to leave the resting room.
The Male Student, who was the designated chef, said: "What should we do about dinner…"
All the ingredients in the kitchen had turned into dirt and they still needed to stay in the kindergarten for five more days. Furthermore, the players were human, if they went without food and water for five days, they did not need to wait for the ghosts and monsters to come, they would starve themselves to death first.
Fang Qi looked at Shen Dongqing pleadingly.
After remaining silent for a long moment, Shen Dongqing took out his card in a reluctant and unwilling manner, and made the kitchen prepare a sumptuous dinner.
After eating two days of dirt, the players ate until their mouths were glistening with grease.
Fang Qi touched his rounded stomach as he sighed with emotion: "Worth it, it's truly worth it…"
Zhou Wenyan put down his chopsticks and started delegating the tasks: "Go and look for the news pertaining to the kindergarten and the teacher's files."
It was highly possible that he had been infected by Shen Dongqing because Zhou Wenyan was not very keen on searching for clues. With how he had carelessly browsed through them, he probably missed out on a lot of things.
Perhaps they could find the secrets about the kindergarten from the files.
They could leave these trifling matters to their little brother, Zhou Wenyan was preparing to do some uh… things that were unsuitable for children with Shen Dongqing.