Chapter 19
It was the first time Shen Wu had heard such a decisive “no” from Meng Huaizhi. He didn’t know why he was so serious about the game, but he always felt that there was a hidden meaning in his refusal to break up.
So he was stunned for a long while.
“I mean, breaking up is useless,” Meng Huaizhi explained methodically. “Puppy love is what gets you caught by the ghost. What’s in the past is set in stone and can’t be changed.”
Shen Wu didn’t suspect him and came back to his senses. “That’s true.”
This little interlude was thus over.
They couldn’t break up. They were now a community of shared destiny, comrades on the same front line.
The broadcast calling for Nan Dengwei stopped for a few minutes, then started again, eerily, clinging to their ears like a shadow and raising goosebumps all over their bodies.
Considering that Nan Dengwei was the main character shou and Meng Huaizhi’s official partner, Shen Wu thought for a moment and said, “Xiao Nan might be being chased by the ghost. Should we go help him?”
Meng Huaizhi’s answer was off-topic. “Let’s look for more clues here. It’s safe for us now.”
Shen Wu complained in his heart, ‘If you keep this up, you’re going to end up in a ‘chasing your wife to the crematorium’ scenario,’ but he also felt that it made sense. They were filming a live show. Compared to being lovey-dovey, the viewing experience of the thousands of viewers in the live broadcast room was more important.
Shen Wu moved between the desks. As if he had discovered something, he suddenly exclaimed, “I found it!”
Meng Huaizhi immediately walked over.
The desk in front of them was in another corner of the last row, by the window, but behind it was a huge trash can. It was far and at an angle from the blackboard, so the learning environment was really not good.
And the condition of this desk was also quite worrying, covered in graffiti, carved and chiseled with knives and pens, uneven.
Shen Wu looked down and couldn’t help but frown deeply.
Among the colorful and messy graffiti, a few vicious curses could be vaguely seen.
“The owner of this desk seems to have been bullied?”
Seeing this, Meng Huaizhi walked out a few steps and went to the front door to confirm the student list. He said, “The owner of that desk is named Li Xianzhen. It should be a girl.”
As his voice fell, after a few crackles, the broadcast sounded again, eerie and terrifying, with a hint of mournful desolation. “Help me… help me…”
Shen Wu suddenly realized, “Before, at the main entrance of the school building, before the ‘ghost’ appeared, there was a male voice on the broadcast, also saying ‘help me’.”
And this time, the female voice was probably the owner of this desk.
“They might be lovers who were punished for breaking the school rules,” Meng Huaizhi analyzed. “But the punishment for puppy love shouldn’t be enough to make them die and turn into ghosts. And that fire, there might be some connection.”
Listening to Meng Huaizhi’s analysis, Shen Wu rummaged through the unsightly desk in front of him.
Besides the textbooks for various subjects, there was a stack of old test papers in the desk. Shen Wu flipped through a few of them and confirmed the clue, “These are math test papers from different students. She seems to be the math class representative, and her math grades are also very good.”
Meng Huaizhi immediately gave the next hint, “There are a few mathematical formulas on the blackboard. They’re all very complex, not the difficulty level of high school.”
Shen Wu looked up in surprise, marveling at Meng Huaizhi’s attention to detail. They had only been here for a little over ten minutes, yet Meng Huaizhi had noticed even such a detail.
The two of them walked to the blackboard covered in dense formulas. Faced with the numerical gibberish, they fell into a tacit silence.
After a while, Shen Wu suddenly spoke, “Besides us, it’s also possible that someone else will come to solve the puzzle. They probably won’t really make us do math problems. If it were Xia Fanxing, he definitely wouldn’t be able to solve it.”
[Hahahahaha, Xiao Xia’s dumb nature is exposed so quickly.]
[Sorry for the embarrassment, everyone. Sorry, Xingxing, even Mom can’t refute it, wuwuwuwu.]
“Mm,” Meng Huaizhi took over, paused, and then said, “Found it. Some numbers have half a space after them. First left to right, then top to bottom. The sequence is 4153117474.”
[Holy crap, solving the puzzle at the speed of light…]
[They have such good chemistry! Amazing!]
[I’m afraid it won’t be long before they successfully escape. It’s not even ten o’clock yet, and there are still more than two hours left. Director Fang must be sweating buckets.]
[Director Fang, it’s okay if there’s not enough content. Just cut more of their behind-the-scenes footage. We love to see it.]
Fang Ci: “…”
However, the well-prepared show team would never let the guests get happy too early. Shen Wu was pleasantly surprised for a moment, then said dejectedly, “But this string of numbers doesn’t look like a password or a clue. It should be a cipher, so we still need to continue decrypting it…”
Shen Wu had no clue. As he thought, he unconsciously sat down on a nearby desk, his hands propped on the corners of the desk between his legs, at ease.
The classroom at night was unusually quiet. The cold, white light shone on the young man’s face, giving it a moon-like clarity and softness.
It was as if he was seeing Shen Wu in the classroom during his high school days, Meng Huaizhi thought. This was the first time.
His jacket was open, the black T-shirt setting off his fair neck, with a thin silver necklace.
He often didn’t wear his school uniform in high school, unable to be well-behaved, and was always adorned with various accessories. His daily routine was a battle of wits with the dean of students.
Meng Huaizhi’s gaze froze.
There was no pendant on the necklace.
Right, he’s participating in a live variety show. Of course, he can’t be walking around with a wedding ring.
Shen Wu thought of something and suddenly got off the desk. He said as he walked, “There are no other clues about the password in Li Xianzhen’s own desk. She was being bullied, so she probably wouldn’t hide the clue with other students…”
“Then it can only be the teacher.”
Shen Wu stopped behind the teacher’s desk, propped one hand on the surface, and bent down low.
“Found it!”
In just two minutes, he had found something.
He stood up straight again, bringing out an open paper box and placing it on the desk.
“It’s actually a feature phone,” Shen Wu took out the small black square from the box and murmured to himself, “This is the first time I’ve seen one.”
Meng Huaizhi was a few years older than Shen Wu. When he first started using mobile phones as a child, he had used a feature phone. He picked up the feature phone that was unfamiliar to Shen Wu and said, “I get it.”
The two of them were separated by a teacher’s desk. Shen Wu leaned on the desk and curiously craned his neck over. “What do you mean?”
“41, 53, 11, 74, 74,” Meng Huaizhi repeated the cipher he had found on the blackboard, pausing after every two numbers. “Press the four key once, the five key three times, the one key once…”
He operated the keys as he spoke, and from a string of irregular numbers and nine keys, he got a few English letters.
glass.
The letters formed a word: glass.
“Glass?” Shen Wu murmured, subconsciously looking at the row of windows on the side of the classroom.
He walked over and checked the windows one by one, but found nothing unusual.
He pushed open a window, and the cold, biting winter wind rushed into the room, lifting the fringe on his forehead.
He turned back and made a wild guess, “It’s not going to ask us to jump out of the window, is it?”
Hearing this, Meng Huaizhi walked over and joked with a straight face, “At least not from the fourth floor.”
Shen Wu chuckled, turned around, and rested his elbows on the windowsill, observing the empty classroom as he thought.
When the two of them were together, because Meng Huaizhi’s personality was too cold, they often went for a long time without saying much, just like this.
Time flowed silently in the silence, but this quietness never felt awkward. A rebellious and flamboyant person also needed time to rest quietly, and Meng Huaizhi was naturally like that.
The puzzle-solving had reached a stalemate, but the bullet screen was constantly shipping the CP. Their looks and auras were too well-matched, a natural and irresistible attraction.
[What’s with this feeling of a young couple secretly staying in the classroom after school to date…]
[Have you guys forgotten that you’re here to solve a puzzle??]
[Everyone, don’t worry, let me take two more screenshots.]
[Ahhhhhh, even though they’re not wearing school uniforms, what’s with this youthful and innocent feeling?]
Shen Wu’s aimless gaze suddenly paused, landing on the glass fish tank at the back of the classroom.
“A fish tank is also glass, right?”
The glass fish tank he pointed at also had a sense of age. Green algae clung to the inner walls, and the murky half-tank of water was completely opaque, even serving as a mirror, clearly reflecting the two figures.
“If this fish tank has been here for many years, how can there still be water in it?” Shen Wu rested his hand on the edge of the fish tank and sniffed, but didn’t smell any strange odor.
This fish tank was obviously a prop specially made by the show’s team. They had put a lot of effort into making it look like something many people would avoid at first sight.
For example, Meng Huaizhi.
But Shen Wu wasn’t one to fuss over such details. Without hesitation, he rolled up his sleeves and plunged his hand into the murky, unknown fish tank.
A rare look of surprise appeared on Meng Huaizhi’s cold face, but before he could stop him, Shen Wu in front of him smiled, “Found it.”
The young man’s forearm was pulled out of the dirty water, still looking spotlessly clean and white. Because it was wet, it had a bit of a moist texture.
In his open palm was an irregularly shaped piece of glass.
Meng Huaizhi frowned slightly, but not because of the dirty water on Shen Wu’s hand. He looked closely at the piece of glass. “Why are you holding broken glass with your bare hands? This might not be a prop.”
“It definitely is,” Shen Wu said with great certainty. He closed his fingers and clenched the glass shard. Before Meng Huaizhi could speak again, he said with a calm expression, “This piece of glass has been polished smooth. It’s not sharp at all.”
Meng Huaizhi’s expression relaxed slightly, his brow smoothing out.
“Puppy love doesn’t lead to death,” Shen Wu said. “This piece of glass is the reason that girl died. We just don’t know how she died yet. Maybe it was suicide.”
“Mm,” Meng Huaizhi nodded. “The clues about that boy might be in other classrooms. We can go and meet up with them now to exchange clues.”
Just as the two of them left the classroom, they saw Liang Shu and Lin Yanran rushing down from upstairs.
Lin Yanran ran over and pulled the two of them back into the classroom they had just left. Only after confirming that the door was closed did she dare to relax, taking several deep breaths.
Seeing Lin Yanran and Liang Shu, Shen Wu realized that he hadn’t heard the haunting broadcast calling for Nan Dengwei for a while.
And Nan Dengwei himself was not here.
“Phew, that scared me to death,” Lin Yanran said with lingering fear. “We were hiding well on the second floor. After that ‘ghost’ caught Xiao Xia, it seemed to know Xiao Nan’s location and directly broke down the door of the classroom we were hiding in. But it seemed to only be after Xiao Nan…”
“The three of us were terrified the whole way. In the end, Xiao Nan suggested that he should go to the dean’s office on the fifth floor on his own. According to the broadcast’s request, if he went to the dean’s office to admit his mistake, the result might be different from being caught by the ‘ghost’.”
Shen Wu frowned. “So he’s already gone to the dean’s office?” No wonder the broadcast stopped.
Lin Yanran: “Yes.”
Shen Wu secretly sighed. As expected of the main character shou.
Meng Huaizhi thought of the previous broadcast criticizing Xia Fanxing and said, “The broadcast has stopped, which means he has already gone to the dean’s office. But it seems that there has been no broadcast criticizing him yet.”
“That’s right,” the taciturn Liang Shu rarely spoke, but he was concise. “It seems that going to the dean’s office to admit a mistake is indeed different from being caught by the ‘ghost’. If the criticism is elimination, then there might still be some time before he’s eliminated. Either he needs to escape on his own, or we need to go and save him.”
Lin Yanran nodded in agreement. “I think we need to go and save him. Because everyone is in a relationship, if one person is caught, the other will also be in trouble. We must help each other now.”
Hearing this, Shen Wu glanced at Meng Huaizhi. Isn’t this the intersection of the male lead and the main character shou? It’s finally the male lead’s turn to be the hero and save the damsel in distress.
But Meng Huaizhi was more concerned with solving the puzzle. “Have you found any clues?”
“Yes,” Lin Yanran nodded and pointed to Liang Shu beside her. “He and I are in a relationship.”
The bullet screen became lively again.
[Who would have thought that Lin Yanran’s first public admission of a relationship would be on Wonderful Adventure?]
[Trending topic tonight: #Lin Yanran’s First Public Admission of a Relationship#]
[Make way, make way, our #Who Can Resist a Pure and Cool Younger Racer# is one step ahead.]
[The older one’s party will never admit defeat, let’s get it trending!!]
[All you screenwriters, hurry up and write a script for them. Don’t make me beg you.]
Lin Yanran and Liang Shu took turns to share their findings. Besides the fact that they had once studied at this high school and had a puppy love, there was also information about a male student.
“We found a male student’s desk in that classroom. He seems to have been a victim of school violence,” Lin Yanran’s expression grew heavier as she spoke. “He left a diary, which recorded some of the bullying he suffered. Verbal abuse and beatings were the least of it. He was even frequently burned with cigarette butts…”
Shen Wu: “We also found a girl who was being bullied.”
Lin Yanran thought of the movie she had been in before. “Then are they a couple? Because they violated the school rule against puppy love, so they turned into ghosts…”
Lin Yanran was quite frightened by the wailing broadcast. The broadcast came so suddenly, like a haunting spirit, making the NPC “ghost” with a physical body seem kinder in comparison.
“But they only cried on the broadcast and didn’t come out to harm us,” Shen Wu disagreed. “And they’ve been apologizing and asking for help. Their deaths must have a hidden story. They may have suffered an injustice and need our help.”
Lin Yanran was quickly convinced. “Hey! That’s right, that’s right.”
“I want to go to the dean’s office to take a look now. There might be clues there, and maybe we can save Xiao Nan,” Shen Wu said.
Lin Yanran looked troubled. “I might need to take a break.”
The “ghost” who was chasing people was played by a male staff member with excellent physical strength. Lin Yanran was a girl and couldn’t outrun him. She had also consumed a lot of energy just now and was both physically and mentally exhausted.
“I’ll stay and accompany Yanran,” Liang Shu said. “Can you two go to the dean’s office?”
Going to the dean’s office with the two of them would definitely get him more screen time, but Liang Shu was not at ease leaving Lin Yanran alone, even without considering their current shared destiny.
Shen Wu and Meng Huaizhi said goodbye to the two of them and went upstairs.
There was a staircase at each end of the corridor. Lin Yanran watched the two of them walk away. Just as she retracted her gaze, she inadvertently caught a glimpse of a head peeking out from the other staircase.
“Ah!” Lin Yanran quickly covered her mouth, but unfortunately, her reflexive scream had already escaped.
“Run!” Liang Shu quickly grabbed her arm. “Let’s go downstairs and lure the ghost away for Shen Wu and the others.”
The two of them went down from the fourth floor to the third, crossed the long corridor, went down to the second floor, crossed the long corridor on the second floor, and then went up to the third floor again. On the way, they passed countless rooms they could have hidden in, but they didn’t. They sacrificed themselves for others, diligently leading the “ghost” on a chase.
Lin Yanran was out of breath, her voice weak and intermittent. “Why do I feel like this is not how you play a puzzle-solving game?”
When the recorded version was broadcast, the peaceful and quiet upstairs and the life-and-death chase downstairs formed a sharp contrast. The unscrupulous show team even put the footage from both sides together to maximize the comedic effect.
The audience’s comments were brilliant.
[LMAO, although it’s a puzzle-solving variety show, Wuwu and Huai-ge are crushing it.]
[Is there a possibility that you and they are not on the same variety show?]
[One side is constantly being scared and chased by ghosts, while the other is sweetly sprinkling dog food, hahaha.]
