[Lin Zhe, even if this matter has something to do with Hua Xiaowan, do you think you can get rid of it? Youâve obviously been with Hua Xiaowan, but you still asked Zhang⌠to bring you breakfast everyday. If it wasnât for what you did to make her doubtful, she wouldnât have done it.] The other girlâs voice should be Wen Xiaoyu, the girl in glasses. [Anyway, this matter has nothing to do with me.]
[Nothing to do with you?] Maybe it was because Wen Xiaoyu was broken, but Lin Zhe, whose tone was broken before, said more grumpily, [Hua Xiaowan sent her a text message later on. That was your idea, right? You were the culprit!]
[Itâs because you, the central air conditioner, pretended to be a gentleman to everyone. <sup>1</sup> Xiaowan didnât want that girl near you! We thought she would be ashamed and not approach you anymore after giving up. How would we know she would actually jump! After that, itâs all your fault!] Wen Xiaoyu was still unwilling to take responsibility for the Zhang Xiaoqing incident. From analysis of the threeâs conversation, they all knew very what had happened between Hua Xiaowan and Zhang Xiaoqing.
[If you really did nothing wrong, then you shouldnât have eavesdropped on the two of them in the park before. You should have stopped!] Wen Xiaoyu once again told the truth about something.
When Hua Xiaowan and Zhang Xiaoqing were chatting by the lake in the park that night, Lin Zhe and Wen Xiaoyu were actually hiding in the dark and eavesdropping, so they participated in the whole incident. Not one of them could label themselves as âinnocent!â
[Stop talking about it!] Hu Xiaowan suddenly yelled. [What nonsense are you talking? What happened to that girl Zhang Xiaoqing has nothing to do with us. Her life or death has nothing to do with us. At most, as a classmate who is close to her in class, weâll be interviewed by some reporters with a crying face, and then go to the funeral to give a white envelope. <sup>2</sup> Other than that, itâs irrelevant!]
[Weâre just a group of ordinary students preparing for university entrance exams. Although itâs a pity that this happened, weâll go to university in other places in a few months. We will no longer be involved with this city, let alone one person whoâs already gone?!]
Hua Xiaowan spoke word by word, and almost every sentence was accented. From the beginning of the conversation to the present, Hua Xiaowan had kept the relationship between herself and Zhang Xiaoqingâs incident clean, as if she was trying to convince herself until even she believed it. It was actually quite admirable.
[Understood.] Maybe it was because of Hua Xiaowanâs intimidation, but Wen Xiaoyu and Lin Zhe, who had been arguing, went quiet.
[You can keep silent about everything. Whether itâs the reason we ran away from home, or the call that Lin Zhe made to Zhang Xiaoqing, Iâll take care of it.]
After Hua Xiaowan finished speaking that time, there was no sound from the room in front of Su Zimo.
With dislike for what the three âstudentsâ did, Su Zimo reached his hand out and pushed open the half hidden door before him.
âCreakââ
After the broken and mottled door opened, the red light from the hallway quickly lit the small space inside the door. Although the red light had always made the trainers uncomfortable, its brightness was adequate.
It was enough for Su Zimo to clearly see that behind the door was a dilapidated and abandoned classroom that look ed a lot like the abandoned teaching building mentioned in Zhang Xiaoqingâs story.
Maybe it was because they heard the sound of the door opening, or maybe they felt the red light enter the classroom, but the three people who were curled up in the classroom with their backs to Su Zimo slowly got up.
Then turned aroundâŚ
âAh!â The two female trainers, whose spirits had become more vulnerable after the red hallway, couldnât help screaming when they saw the three people turn around, and they immediately shut their eyes.
Because when the three people turned aroundâŚ
Su Zimo and the others saw three heads without faces!
Three faceless people!
[Who are you?!]
What made Su Zimo feel strange was that even though there were three faceless people in front of them, they seemed to be completely unaware of their current state. They even made a sound of surprise when they saw Su Zimo and the others.
Su Zimo couldnât see their expressions, but based on the sound, it must be true that the three faceless people were shocked.
He didnât know why, but Su Zimo suddenly remembered the story Du Lei had told before. The people in the village were âdead,â but for some reason they didnât realize that they were âdead.â They were still living like ordinary people!
Until someone exposed them and they would change back to their ghostly appearance.
âNobody.â Su Zimoâs tone was very calm. âWe only pass by here occasionally, sorry.â
With that said, Su Zimo planned to retreat directly to the dilapidated and mottled door and shut it again.
But what Su Zimo hadnât considered was that the three faceless people in front of him werenât the group of ordinary ghost villagers who hadnât done anything wrong or experienced any major event.
And even if Su Zimo could keep calm on his own, the other three people around him may not be able to.
[What are you looking at?] A person with a beautiful figure that looked particularly terrifying due to the lack of a face took a step forward. The voice sounded like âHua Xiaowan,â or at least the âHua Xiaowanâ in the dream created by Zhang Xiaoqing.
Su Zimo could feel Zhang Xiaoqingâs unending resentment, so he believed that although the previous room was part of the dream, the conversation that occurred just now probably occurred in reality.
[Why do you keep staring at my face?] Hua Xiaowan had been staring at Du Lei, who had poor facial expression management.
Du Lei, who was staring at her like that, could only close his eyes tightly when there was no other way to stop looking at the faceless girl who was getting closer and closer to him.
[Why wonât you look at me? Everyone around me looks at me subconsciously, and canât help but look at me more. I didnât think it was weird before, but now Iâm thinking⌠why wonât you look at me? What happened to my face?] It seemed that Hua Xiaowan was deliberately leading Du Lei to say the answer she wanted to hear. She kept getting closer and asking questions.
"
"
Donât answer!
Su Zimo tried to mouth the words to express his meaning, but he couldnât attract Du Leiâs attention.
âWhatâs so good about you? The ghost upstairs is much more beautiful, and the fish next to you is hundreds of times more beautiful than you!â <sup>3</sup> Du Lei was asked, and even anxiously blurted out a bunch of answers.
Bad!
After hearing Du Leiâs words, Su Zimo looked at Hua Xiaowan who had suddenly stopped. He knew that wasnât good, but could only spit out secretly â Du Xin and Du Lei, those two name brothers, werenât they both born as bad things?
[Did you hear that? Did you really hear that?]
AFter Hua Xiaowan finished speaking, Su Zimo watced as the three faceless people walked right in front of them, then a bloody rip suddenly tore onto their faces with nothing else, like a big, hideous, mouth, opening and closing.
[Now that you know, just stay!]
Su Zimo opened the black umbrella in his hands for the first time and blocked Lin Zhe, the faceless boy who rushed towards him for some reason. Then he raised the tip of the umbrella and watched as the faceless boy blocked him, then he stretched out his leg and kicked the faceless boy in the chest.
In Zhang Xiaoqingâs weird dream, Su Zimo discovered that he could actually use physical power to kick the faceless âpersonâ in front of him.
The main force in the battle looked like Su Zimo holding his black umbrella, and Du Lei who had greatly strengthened his body, but Xu Yingying was also a veteran trainer who had experienced the nightmare world several times. She held in her hand a nightmare brand standard dagger, and her actions were very sharp as she desperately slashed at Hua Xiaowanâs featureless face!
And Hua Xiaowan was indeed the one who paid the one who paid the most attention to her face among the three faceless people. When she discovered that Xu Yingyingâs dagger had been aiming for her face, she actually began to dodge.
Moreover, Xu Yingying seemed to have a foundation in karate or taekwondo. Although her leg movements werenât as powerful as Du Leiâs, they looked very refined. Even Du Lei looked at Xu Yingyingâs long legs as they raised to kick.
âIs it only you thatâs worthy of being the school flower?!â Xu Yingying seemed unhappy about Hua Xiaowanâs title.
Out of the corner of his eyes, Su Zimo noticed that Zhu Zhu, who was standing behind the door, was holding a strip of long white cloth in her hand. The strip seemed to be dripping with dark red blood, and based on the text boxes, was a ghost tool.
Su Zimo didnât have time to read the text boxes on the ghost tool, but it didnât seem to be suitable for the battle in front of him. It may have some mismatch of ability, so Zhu Zhu, who had no combat skills, chose to stand back and not hinder the other three in the fight.
Su Zimo and the others were fighting against three people, and the three faceless people they were dealing with were actually not very good at fighting. So, after a while, they forced the three faceless people into a corner.
Su Zimoâs closed umbrella pointed directly at Lin Zheâs faceless bodyâs chest. Due Leiâs fist beat Wen Xiaoyuâs faceless bodyâs head without mercy. Xu Yingying spun and kicked, and directly kicked at Hua Xiaowanâs faceless bodyâs neck.
At that moment, the three faceless bodies were like balloons pierced by a needle. They instantly turned into soot and exploded everywhere.
Thinking of the three faceless peopleâs appearances, Su Zimo couldnât help but laugh. He had felt that one of the reasons Zhang Xiaoqing had given those three that kind of appearance in her dream was to mock them for being âfaceless.â <sup>4</sup>
However, what they did was worse than being âfaceless.â
âSame as before. Does this mean that weâve cleared another room?â Although Xu Yingying had some foundation, she didnât use props like Su Zimo or strengthen herself like Du Lei, so she was panting after the fight.
The three trainers looked around the classroom and decided to leave after confirming the faceless bodies had disappeared.
But Su Zimo always paid more attention to small things that may exist in the classroom than them. After looking around the classroom for a while, Su Zimo thought he would have to leave empty-handed again. But then he actually found two cell phones that shouldnât exist where the three faceless people were curled up with their backs to them!
After a brief glance at the text boxes on the phones, Su Zimo directly tossed his harvest into the backpack behind him, then followed Xu Yingying and the others downstairs.
The red hallway was still the same. The three trainers walked and paused to take care of themselves, and didnât have any extra energy to discover Su Zimoâs ease. Su Zimo didnât walk in front of them this time, just slowly followed behind them, thinking about some issues related to Zhang Xiaoqingâs dream.
When the four people reached the next floor, they saw a completely different door appear there.
The door resembled the mottled door to the abandoned classroom upstairs, but the door itself was intact. There was even a metal sign saying âHigh School Class 3-1â next to it.
âIt looks like Zhang Xiaoqingâs classroom.â Su Zimo knew that what appeared in the dream must be related to Zhang Xiaoqing, so he made such a guess.
âThe lights in the classroom are so bright!â Xu Yingying was surprised when she looked into the classroom through the glass window on the door.
Compared to the strange morgue and the abandoned classroom with only candles, the ordinary classroom with bright spring daylight seemed to be âparadiseâ to them.
And when they looked inside, they found that there was no one in the classroom, just rows of neatly arranged tables and chairs.
âIt looks a bit like a refuge for newcomers.â Du Lei originally wanted to directly open the door and enter, but he didnât know if anything was wrong, so he turned around and consulted with Su Zimo. âYu, ah, do you think we should go in?â
Along the way, the three trainers found that many of the things they did were following Su Zimoâs directions.
Go downstairs, come inside, hush, hitâŚ
But thinking of the speed at which Su Zimo analyzed clues, even Du Lei had to admit that this guy was better than ordinary people.
âWe canât hear any conversations for the time being. If we donât enter the door, we may not be able to go to the next floor.â Su Zimo affirmed.
What they didnât expect was that after Su Zimo and the other three trainers entered the brightly lit classroom, all the light turned off instantly, leaving only the red light from outside to illuminate their sillhouettes.
âHold the door!â
Seeing the lights change, Su Zimo quickly made an announcement while rushing towards the classroom door that was still open.
But no matter how fast they reacted, the door to the classroom still closed with a âPa!â No matter how hard Du Lei hit it, it couldnât be opened.
Although there was a small glass window on the door, even if everyone stood by it, there was a depressing atmosphere throughout the entire dark classroom.
The atmosphere was so quiet that Su Zimo and the others could hear each other breathing. Strangely, there were no other sounds.
Without light or sounds, it would be difficult for Su Zimo to find new clues.
After standing still for a long time in the completely dark environment, Xu Yingying couldnât help but ask, âA-Yu, what should we do?â
ââŚ..â
Su Zimo was silent for a moment, then softly asked, âDo you still remember the story you told about the camera when we were at the ghost story assembly?â
In the dark space, the protagonist of the story thought that she was just lying on the bed alone and playing on her phone, but when she accidentally touched the beauty filter, the camera told her⌠There was another person lying beside her.
Footnotes
<ol>Central air conditioner is the type of guy who is very warm and gentle towards a lot of women, not just one. Not in the âdrinks respect women juiceâ kind of way, but in an ambiguous âhey girl I may or may not be interested in youâ kind of way, even if heâs in a relationship. White envelopes are the funeral equivalent to celebratory red envelopes, since white is for mourning. Contain money as recompense for the familyâs loss and to help them pay for funeral services. The amount depends on the relationship between the giver and the deceased, but itâll always be an odd amount (Round number + 1) because of luck. Yu (his fake name) means fish Faceless means shameless ?</ol>