Chapter 36: Slaughter

Yin Luo hadn’t expected to hear that name again in this way.

Lin Yujing.

In his mind surfaced the image of that gray-haired man from the last instance. He thought of those strangely functional gems, the small knife named Elegant Water, and the gold frog named Golden Toad that loved to devour gold. He had to admit, he was indeed a deeply memorable man. From his outward appearance to his perpetually cynical, do-as-he-pleased attitude, and a strength that was completely out of place in a Novice instance.

So they really had known each other before that instance.

His probing hadn’t been wrong.

But a high school intern P.E. teacher…

Wasn’t this answer a bit too absurd?

A man like Lin Yujing, a teacher?

Was he worthy?

Ah, no, was he suitable for it?

Thus, Yin Luo tried to confirm one last time. “Was that Lin Yujing someone who spoke sarcastically, dressed flamboyantly with lots of jewelry and accessories, liked to dye his hair, and generally seemed a bit… off?”

“Huh?” Lin Rudong was stunned. “No, right? Although I couldn’t remember his name, I remember Teacher Lin wasn’t that kind of person.”

Lei Jue, waking up in a daze, hadn’t grasped anything but smoothly joined the conversation. “Are you mistaking him for someone else? I remember Teacher Lin Yujing never dyed his hair, never wore any accessories, and dressed quite plainly and low-key.”

“You liked him a lot?” The white-haired youth raised an eyebrow.

“How can you say ‘liked’? That sounds a bit weird.” Lei Jue rubbed his head. “He was in top physical condition. Shot put, archery, swimming – he could do it all. Back then, many of us sports students saw him as an idol.”

“But you even got his name wrong.” Lin Rudong muttered under her breath.

Perhaps it was a victory for those biased towards good looks, as she finally fished out a bit of an impression from her memory. “I remember now. Lin Yujing was the cool, aloof type. His personality was polite but quite cold. Many girls in our class wanted his contact info and were politely refused.”

“It’s a pity it’s been so long. I don’t have any photos of him either, otherwise I could show you.”

Lin Yujing: polite? Cold? Not ostentatious?

Yin Luo almost doubted if he had the wrong person.

But there weren’t that many coincidences in the world, and the name Lin Yujing wasn’t common.

Ultimately, Yin Luo fundamentally didn’t believe that gray-haired man could be a good person. A leopard can’t change its spots. A man with his personality becoming a high school intern teacher was definitely not for the purpose of teaching and educating, but for some ulterior motive.

“Right, right, besides talking to you more, Teacher Lin Yujing was the same towards everyone.” Lei Jue seemed to be a fanboy, his mind actually clear at this moment. “And after you dropped out of school, Teacher Lin also resigned.”

“Me?” The white-haired youth’s eyes widened, his expression mirroring the rabbit doll in his arms.

This gray-haired man had designs on him too?

The mysteries kept piling up. What he thought was an opportunity to probe that gray-haired man’s secrets ended up dragging Yin Luo himself into the confusion.

“Did something happen to him?” Lin Rudong stopped the constant spinning of her butterfly knife.

Earlier, when Jing Song was mentioned, the white-haired youth hadn’t shown any noticeable expression.

“Mm, nothing. But if you ever get the chance to meet him in the future, it will certainly be interesting,” Yin Luo said.

Lei Jue and Lin Rudong exchanged glances. “He’s also become a Player?!”

“Yes.”

But wasn’t the concentration of Players around him a bit too high?

Yin Luo fell into thought.

Then the bigger question arose. If he and Lin Yujing really had nearly a year of teacher-student relationship, why hadn’t the man recognized him in the last instance?

Was it because his personality drastically changed after losing his memory due to illness? Because his instance identity made him look younger? Because of his Fierce Ghost true form?

Or was it some other, more specific reason that made Lin Yujing’s first reaction one of probing?

— Probing caused by an inability to confirm something.

Not even probing like one might towards a former specially-treated student, but more like probing upon encountering something novel and incomprehensible.

And why had Lin Yujing’s personality also undergone earth-shattering changes, completely unlike the person Lei Jue and Lin Rudong described?

It seemed there were still many secrets about Lin Yujing.

The white-haired youth lowered his head slightly, his eyelids veiling the intrigued light in his red pupils.

Perhaps this time when he returned, he needed to look up not only Jing Song but also add the name Lin Yujing.

“What are you talking about so seriously?”

A voice interrupted his thoughts.

The group looked closely and saw it was actually Zhang Hengheng and Ying Zixin.

Lin Rudong was puzzled. “Why are you back again?”

“No choice, we couldn’t find anything.” The speaker was Zhang Hengheng, fanning himself with his baseball cap, seeming somewhat agitated. “The layout outside changed. We didn’t get far before ending up back here. Tried switching paths several times, but it didn’t work.”

Ying Zixin, holding his peach wood sword, nodded. “And many Plastic Mannequin monsters chased after us. Some had even taken on our appearances.”

“Plastic Mannequin monsters, turning into your forms?” Lei Jue finally remembered his lost memories and panicked. “Was there also a white shadow monster, with incredibly monstrous strength?!”

Yin Luo looked down at the white rabbit doll in his arms.

Little Bear looked up innocently.

“Shut up, you!” Lin Rudong felt utterly embarrassed.

She sensed something was off and hadn’t let down her guard. She was about to ask Yin Luo to look at his Unity Badge. “You…”

“Don’t believe their lies!”

Suddenly, a loud shout came from outside.

Zhang Hengheng and Ying Zixin, their clothes tattered and clearly having gone through a tough battle, rushed in, staring with hostility and resentment at the two “people” who had entered first.

“Wh-what the hell is going on?” Lei Jue was stupefied, feeling like fainting again.

The later-arriving Zhang Hengheng didn’t waste any words. Two throwing knives shot out, swift as the wind, piercing through the chests of the two “people” who had entered first.

Thud—

The fake “Ying Zixin” and “Zhang Hengheng” collapsed without any resistance.

“Tryin’ to be your little granddaddy? You’re nowhere near good enough.” Zhang Hengheng spat and even kicked the corpses.

Ying Zixin didn’t speak, his gaze fixed on the darkness outside, as if guarding against something.

“Awesome, bro.” Lei Jue, supporting himself against the wall, stood up but edged closer to Lin Rudong, seeking a sense of security.

“Decisive, right?” Zhang Hengheng scoffed. “The monsters in this instance are getting craftier, but that’s about their limit.”

Ying Zixin, who had been keeping watch at the back, seemed to sense no danger and finally turned around. “We’ve gathered some information.”

“What is it?”

“This world is actually…”

He didn’t finish the sentence.

Because a long blade formed from frost gracefully sliced across his neck.

The head, bearing “Ying Zixin’s” face, fell to the ground as blood gushed out like a fountain.

“Actually what?” The perpetrator held the ash-gray frost long blade, unstained by any blood, his red eyes brimming with curiosity.

“Y-y-y-you…” Lei Jue didn’t know about the changes in Yin Luo, feeling the world had turned upside down since he woke up.

The severed head didn’t die, and neither did the headless body.

The head with Ying Zixin’s face opened and closed its mouth, its expression instantly becoming venomously spiteful, but it couldn’t make a sound due to its lost vocal cords.

The headless body did charge towards Yin Luo, only to have its heart easily pierced by the long blade, finally falling silent.

“Another fake?” Lin Rudong also rushed forward with her butterfly knife, chasing after the other Plastic Mannequin.

“Yes.” Yin Luo flexed his hand, feeling the long blade was somewhat unwieldy in this situation. With a light tap of his fingers, the blade shattered and re-condensed, transforming into two short swords.

He tested their feel, deeming them suitable.

The tracksuit girl returned, her butterfly knife stained with blood. “I’m really curious what you’ve been up to these past few years to have changed so drastically.”

“Honestly, I don’t know either.” Yin Luo himself didn’t understand.

Fighting and killing monsters was as natural to him as eating and drinking. The thought ‘kill it’ would arise in his mind, his hand would stretch out, and the blade would naturally pierce through, without any pause or hesitation in his heart, without a single error in his hand.

He was like a battle-hardened warrior, for whom combat had become pure instinct.

It was strange, and full of danger.

But he liked this feeling—the sensation of this power truly and solidly in his own hands.

If it had been him from the first year of high school, as Lin Rudong described, entering this game, that would truly have been despair.

The scent of blood made him feel restless, yet also excited.

The white-haired youth placed the rabbit doll onto his shoulder and said to Lin Rudong, “I suggest you stay further away from me in a moment.”

“Eh?” The tracksuit girl didn’t react yet.

“Are you guys alright?!” The voices of Zhang Hengheng and Ying Zixin sounded from the doorway for the third time.

“Again?” Even Lei Jue had put aside the fear in his heart, clenching his fists, ready to fight.

“What ‘again’?”

This time, the entering Ying Zixin and Zhang Hengheng were in fairly good condition, just a few bloodstains on their clothes. Each was dragging a “corpse” split open at the chest. A closer look revealed they were Plastic Mannequins that had taken on their own appearances.

Ying Zixin glanced at the scene on the ground and immediately stopped, not coming any closer, his expression understanding. “You encountered them too.”

“Don’t come any closer!” Lin Rudong no longer knew whom to believe. “How can you prove yourselves?”

“So that was the monster’s goal. It’s a pity though…” Zhang Hengheng shook his head. “We have the Unity Badge.”

The moment the words ‘Unity Badge’ were spoken, Lin Rudong believed them somewhat. “You’re the real ones?!”

The baseball-cap-wearing Zhang Hengheng spread his hands. “Otherwise…”

Again, he didn’t get to finish.

A flash of cold light flickered, the last thing in his vision was the white-haired youth closing in instantly, sticking right to his face like a phantom.

This time, the youth stabbed down from the top of its head with his short sword and then ruthlessly slashed downwards. The skull split in two down the middle, revealing the flesh and blood piled and squeezed inside.

Ugh, a bit disgusting.

“Ying Zixin” looked completely incredulous, involuntarily stepping back. “Are you crazy?! Why did you kill him? Aren’t we friends?”

The terror on its face was so lifelike, it was almost convincing.

Even the most iron-hearted person, having killed monsters wearing their teammates’ faces so many times, would have their thoughts in chaos, their emotions violently fluctuating.

But Yin Luo was different. Blood didn’t make him hesitate; it only made the sword in his hand more exhilarated.

He once again killed the “Ying Zixin” before him and whispered, “Too bad. No matter how similar you look on the outside, your heads are just filled with a mass of useless flesh and blood with no thoughts of your own.”

Flesh and Blood Force allowed him to distinctly perceive every living being composed of flesh and blood.

In his senses, whether it was Lin Rudong or Lei Jue, besides flowing blood and beating hearts, there was a faint glow inside their skulls, as if the soul resided there.

But the heads of these monsters contained nothing. They were simply shoddy products of a careless creator.

The monster behind this probably finally realized that such means couldn’t deceive Yin Luo anymore and abandoned this clumsy trick.

From outside came the dense sound of footsteps. Countless Plastic Mannequin monsters, bearing the faces of Zhang Hengheng, Ying Zixin, even Lin Rudong, Lei Jue, and even Yin Luo’s own face, swarmed in.

Some walked upright like humans, some crawled in a twisted manner, and some heads were on bodies shared with another Plastic Mannequin.

They squeezed into this limited space, wearing the same expression on different faces. Facing the Players, they chorused, “Guess Where I Am?”

Their voices sounded like someone just learning human speech: stiff, slow, with bizarre intonation.

“Wh-what is going on?”

Lin Rudong felt a chill run down her spine and couldn’t help stepping back.

Batch after batch of these monsters was like falling into layer after layer of dreams in sleep. Every time she thought she’d woken up, she was still dreaming, until in the end she couldn’t distinguish dream from reality at all.

“Oh my, so many.” The white-haired youth, however, seemed to have seen some interesting toys. Holding the two short swords in his hands, he tapped them lightly together, his mood brightening.

“Guess where you are? I’m not guessing. If I just kill every single thing standing here, then you’ll definitely be among the fallen corpses~”

The clear, ethereal voice had barely landed when his figure vanished. The next moment, he reappeared behind a Plastic Mannequin with Yin Luo’s own face.

A flick of his wrist, and he easily crushed its newly formed heart.

The frost swords in his hands seemed like extensions born from his body, moving with incredible dexterity.

Every swing severed a head bearing a familiar face or pierced a heart.

Blood splattered onto his fair face, yet it couldn’t compare to the vividness of those scarlet pupils.

“Is this you? Guess not.”

“What about this one?”

“Oh, seems like not this one either.”

“This one, this one, or this one?”

“Forget it, seems like none of them are.”

“Then I’ll just kill them all~”

“One of them is bound to be you~”

Naive, mischievous, sinister, crazed—these contradictory traits appeared on him simultaneously, each displayed to its fullest extent.

He was so focused, so earnest, as if doing his favorite thing, immersed in his own world, dancing a slaughtering dance dedicated to himself, pleasing himself.

In this world of monsters disguised with others’ faces, he was the most powerful monster of all.