Wu Qing’s thoughts were obviously different from those of Su Zimo. He said in an inexplicably furious tone: “Sure enough, I was fooled by that bastard again. From the first time I met that guy, I knew we weren’t compatible!”
Then Wu Qing raised his voice again and spoke to Jiang Wei who was walking far behind him. “It seems that the goodwill between him and you means nothing. If we continue moving forward like this, we’ll be back at the playground!”
Jiang Wei’s voice was faint: “The place where the seventh supernatural event happened… is it really not possible that it’s the playground? Why does Mr. Wu believe that supernatural events are possible everywhere else in the school, but the playground is impossible?”
“…” Wu Qing was at a loss for words after hearing what Jiang Wei said.
“Just because we appeared on the playground when we first arrived in the nightmare world, does that mean it’s impossible for the playground to be a place where a supernatural event occurred?” Jiang Wei’s tone gradually calmed down. “Mr. Wu, our purpose to clear tasks is the same, so I want to remind you not to be blinded by a leaf. <sup>1</sup> The playground is also part of this school.”
“Boom!”
As soon as Jiang Wei stopped speaking, the playground suddenly lit up!
The almost dazzling light made Su Zimo wonder if he was hallucinating for a moment. After all, other than outside An Yu Yi Yu, he hadn’t seen any lights in the nightmare world.
When he looked carefully, he found that the light came from eight gigantic spotlights placed around the playground. The spotlights simultaneously lit up and illuminated the entire playground, letting Su Zimo see clearly. Wu Qing and the others were next to the wire fence beside the playground.
The playground area on the university campus was large and there were large bleachers that could accommodate nearly a thousand people, so eight gigantic spotlights couldn’t illuminate all of the corners. Even so, the greenery in the middle had been lit up.
Perhaps it was to prevent people from entering the playground by mistake, but there was a large enclosure of barbed wire around the periphery. Wu Qing and the others walked to an open gate.
After entering the playground, Wu Qing and the others looked back at Jiang Wei and Lin Xiao who hadn’t had time to enter. Unexpectedly, they tightly shut the barbed wire gate and took something out of Miss Gan Yuan’s backpack… a lock. It was a round combination lock, the kind with a long iron chain that was usually used to lock bicycles left outside.
Wu Qing randomly spun the code lock and trapped Jiang Wei and Lin Xiao outside of the barbed wire.
“You can stay there.” Wu Qing waved his hand at the fence. “You’re right. I also thought of it. This is the only place we haven’t investigated.”
Jiang Wei looked at the lock in front of him with an odd expression. “I didn’t expect you would carry such a heavy lock around with you.”
Wu Qing shrugged. “In some nightmare world situations, this thing has had unexpected effects.”
As we all know, a lock can’t trap ghosts. It can only trap people.
So Wu Qing’s purpose could be understood just by thinking for a while.
Su Zimo was also outside the playground, watching Wu Qing and the others walk to the center where the spotlights converged, still holding the lit cigarette in his hand.
Only, at that moment, the cigarette smoke didn’t float in any direction. Instead, it rose straight up.
The wind near the playground had stopped at some point.
The smoke from the cigarette that Wu Qing lit seemed to be directed by the wind blowing through the school, guiding them to the last supernatural event location.
So the cigarette itself didn’t have any special ability.
“Interesting.” Watching the rising smoke, Wu Qing muttered to himself.
The entire playground looked empty, without even a trace of breath from other people. Simply put, not even a ghost could be seen.
The glow from the spotlights and the faint smoke rising up made Wu Qing feel that he had found the correct location of the supernatural event.
It’s precisely because of that certainty that he directly trapped Jiang Wei and Lin Xiao outside of the playground’s barbed wire fence.
But after 10 minutes, even 20 minutes later, other than the few lights on the playground, nothing else appeared. It was as quiet as a campus playground during winter and summer vacations…
No. It could be said it was as quiet as the quietest place in the world!
Since the sound of the wind disappeared, everyone noticed that there was no birdsong, nor any other sound that should appear in nature.
This kind of situation wasn’t uncommon in the nightmare world, but every time they thought about it, they felt chills running down their backs.
“What else should we do?” Wu Qing tugged his hair impatiently. “I thought the lights in the playground turned on because we met the requirements, eliminating the six ghosts and making task progress… But now there’s no sound. What’s going on?
Wu Qing subconsciously turned around to look at Gan Yuan and the others, apparently hoping that his three nominal companions would share their opinions.
But then he just turned his head away with a sneer, knowing that his hope of asking for help was just a whimsical idea.
He was the one who caused them to become slaves!
How could they help him think of countermeasures? It may be true that deep down in their hearts they wished he would die with them.
“Don’t think I don’t know what to do if you won’t talk.” Wu Qing said with his back facing them. “You have to admit that you’re weak compared to me. Even if no one is on my side, I’ll think of ways myself.”
“Since there are some clues among the supernatural events, then maybe I can think of some ways by guessing.”
“For example: what impressed me most was the ghost in the wall. He hid himself in the wall and bound a protective barrier to the outside of the wall… But if we have weapons that can pierce the protective barrier or even the wall, the ghost in the wall could easily be killed by us!”
“If you think about it this way, maybe the seventh ghost is similar in nature to that guy. He may be hiding somewhere in the playground, maybe within the green grass beneath our feet.”
As Wu Qing spoke, he directly unsheathed the cursed sword, kneeled down on one knee, and thrust it into the green field beneath his feet.”
The green field did not respond.
“No… where is it hidden? Is it in the goal?” Wu Qing walked to the goal with the sword, then cut the rope net hanging on it.
Still, nothing happened.
“Could it be on the track?” Wu Qing thrust another backhanded stab.
Standing on the other side of the barbed wire and watching all of that, Su Zimo had to admit that Wu Qing’s mind was really very active. After all, that guy wanted to snatch the ghost umbrella away from him the first time he saw him.
If Wu Wing was simply bullied by the eldest miss of his family and wanted to rely on hard work to make himself stronger, then maybe Su Zimo would take him seriously.
But the fact is, Wu Qing was enjoying the wealthy lifestyle granted to him by the Gan family. He didn’t to make progress. He wanted to get something for nothing, and thought that his half-family by his mother looked down on him.
After gaining power beyond that of ordinary people, he began to torture those who looked down on him using something that appeared innocent.
In addition, he seemed to have killed people and trapped his stepfather who treated him well.
This may be an effect of the cursed sword, but it’s more likely because of Wu Qing’s own problems.
Su Zimo didn’t know why Wu Qing would bring along those three slaves who were of no use to him.
He didn’t use beautiful lies to deceive them like Gao Yang, who Su Zimo knew from the beginning, nor did he directly use the slave medallion to take everything, including their souls, like a truly cruel trainer.
He just took along three slaves who didn’t play any roles in the task process and looked like the walking dead. Although Gan Yuan and the others looked depressed, they didn’t have any injuries. Obviously Wu Qing didn’t use them as shields or other risky things.
His purpose… was it to torture them? Or was there still some fear of loneliness in Wu Qing’s heart from his tiny conscience?
Su Zimo couldn’t guess.
He only knew that the complexity of the human heart definitely wasn’t black and white. Good and evil or right and wrong can’t be described, so Su Zimo handed the ghost tool over to Uncle Jiang Wei who seemed to be on the side of justice, hoping that the trainer could solve the problems of the other trainers.
Wu Qing stabbed the sword into the nearby track, then…
Blood spurted out onto the reddish-brown plastic on the track that had begun to mottle and fall off from age!
The red liquid rushing out of the ground splashed directly into Wu Qing’s face. The old and dilapidated track full of potholes suddenly spasmed like it was alive, then a human figure bulged out without warning from the ground where Wu Qing’s sword pierced!
The human figure appeared swiftly. Even the three enslaved trainers who thought of themselves as puppets and dissociated were shocked.
Wu Qing tried to maintain his immobile posture while holding the sword, but Su Zimo used his enhanced vision to watch him and could see that hid hands and body were violently tremblingfor a long time.
After calming down, the risen figure quickly disappeared.
One strange thing occurred after another. Su Zimo could smell the scent of burnt plastic rising into the sky, causing everyone to cover their mouths and noses.
Because of the distance, Su Zimo didn’t notice what happened on the track. He only noticed that Wu Qing pulled up the sword that was still stabbing it in an instant, then sped up and rushed back to the green playground illuminated by the spotlights.
Wu Qing raised his voice with some surprise. “Why are there so many footprints on the track? There’s no one here but us, so why are there so many black footprints? It’s like there’s something invisible running on the track with ink on their soles!”
When Wu Qing spoke, his eyes fell on Jiang Wei and Lin Xiao who were a fair bit away from him. This surprise Jiang Wei and Lin Xiao who hadn’t planned to continue communicating with Wu Qing.
Looking at Wu Qing standing on the playground, Su Zimo had a strange feeling that although he controlled the lives of the slaves, when he was on the green field, it made it feel like he was alone there.
But it didn’t make him feel pity.
It just made him think that what he did was a little funny.
Footnotes
<ol>Don’t lose sight of what’s important because of a small matter.</ol>