Chapter 11: The Terrifying Game

This doesn’t make sense—so why is that? Then it struck me: could it be that the two men who attacked me already knew you, and respected you? But why such respect? The only possibility is that you are their superior.

And Li Moran sought me out because of you, I suppose. He must have noticed a page missing from the personnel file, told you, and you sent him to retrieve it from me.

What you didn’t expect, though, was the depth of Li Moran’s hatred for me—he brought people to assault me. You observed all this and decided he could no longer accomplish your task, so you appeared in person.

“Do you remember your conversation with Li Moran this morning?” I asked Ye Xinran.

“I don’t think there was anything unusual about it,” she replied coolly.

I smiled faintly. “True, everyone knows Li Moran’s been pursuing you. There’s nothing odd about your exchange—except, from my perspective, there is. He said, ‘Why are you protecting him like this?’ That suggests you two are very familiar with each other. Sure, everyone knows he’s after you, but you’ve always ignored him, and everyone knows that too. So for him to say something so familiar makes me question your relationship with Li Moran.”

“Tying all these suspicions together, there’s something off about you. I can’t put my finger on it, but the only possibility I see is that you’re a police officer.”

“So all of this is just your conjecture?” she asked.

“Exactly, it’s all speculation. There have been consecutive deaths at school, and the police seem oddly unconcerned. Why? It’s simple: they’ve already been investigating from the shadows.

From Li Yizhong’s death to Liu Yan’s, I’ve acted strangely in each case—it’s not hard to guess you’ve had your eyes on me, maybe even investigated me. And the whole matter with the archives room—I suspect that was your arrangement, though I don’t know your purpose. But it’s not hard to guess you want me to help you solve these cases, right?”

Ye Xinran was no longer surprised. She nodded in acknowledgment at my analysis, even giving me a thumbs-up. “You really are clever. You got it all right.”

“Why involve me?” I pressed.

She smiled. “You said it yourself—there’s something strange about your behavior in each case. That tells us there’s something different about you. Before every incident, you tried to intervene, almost as if you knew someone was going to die, even who it would be. But each time, you failed—just like three years ago.”

What she said was known only to me. I almost wanted to confess everything, to tell her about the game we were playing, but I held my tongue. Instead, her mention of ‘three years ago’ caught my attention.

“You mean, there were similar mysterious deaths three years ago?” I asked.

She smiled. “Didn’t you look at the death records? In fact, every three years, such bizarre incidents happen, and the deaths are always similar.”

“In that case, why does the school keep taking in new students? Why not just close it down?” I asked, unable to suppress my agitation.

She shook her head. “That wouldn’t work—because it’s not just this school. Many schools have similar incidents. If we closed them all, where would the students go?”

A deafening roar echoed in my mind. Not just this school? What did she mean?

Ye Xinran seemed to know what I was thinking. “Shocking, isn’t it? We police have been investigating for years, but found nothing—no clues at all. So, in every school where these deaths occur, we’ve set up student councils and archives rooms to facilitate our investigation. We also embed officers among the students, hoping to discover something. I’m one of those officers.”

“That’s also why there’s no record of you in the student files,” I said with a bitter laugh.

She nodded.

Listening to her explanation, I suddenly felt I’d been drawn into a vast conspiracy—even the police couldn’t resolve it.

Ye Xinran ignored my moment of contemplation and continued, “Every school has someone like you. That’s why our department decided to let you people get involved, maybe even assist you.”

“Aren’t you curious why we act so strangely?” I asked.

She shook her head helplessly. “It’s useless. We’ve asked before. There was even a student who seemed ready to tell us, but the moment he opened his mouth, he never spoke another word.”

“Why?”

“He died—suffocated on the spot. We couldn’t find any cause.”

A chill ran down my spine, icy sweat breaking out all over me.

That text message had already warned me not to reveal the game. If I’d lost control and told her, I might have died on the spot, just as she described.

Ye Xinran must have noticed my pallor. She asked with concern, “What’s wrong? Are you frightened?”

I shook my head, trying to seem fine. Then, curiosity getting the better of me, I asked, “How come you look our age? Should I call you ‘sister’ or ‘aunt’?”

Her expression darkened. “That’s none of your business. Just treat me as your class president.”

“Alright!” Though my curiosity remained, there were more pressing issues—namely, the chemistry teacher.

“You have the chemistry teacher’s file, right?”

“I’ll have Li Moran bring it to you.”

The moment she said that, I refused. “No! Can’t you see my eyes are still swollen?”

She snorted with laughter. “Alright, I’ll bring it myself. I’ll also talk to Li Moran.”

I sneered, “It doesn’t matter whether you talk to him. He and I will never get along—probably because he cares too much about you.”

She sighed. “That’s just how he is. I’ve told him so many times.”

I shook my head with a wry smile. Now that Ye Xinran had laid her cards on the table, I was no longer fighting alone.

But I kept thinking about the student she’d mentioned. Unless I could find out who sent those texts, I might never be able to reveal the truth.

Maybe only by solving the riddle of this game could I finally speak. But how to do that? Beat the game? Maybe. I just hoped that wasn’t too far off.

I forced myself to focus on this round of the game.

Suffocating to death—that doesn’t fit the pattern, nor does dying of fright. It’s illogical.

Suffocated? Suddenly a thought flashed through my mind, cold sweat pouring down my face.

Wasn’t this just like the student who tried to tell the truth, as Ye Xinran described?

Add to that the fear of the unknown—the dead student must have been terrified and curious about the mysterious texter.

That fits!

Could it be me who dies this time?

No, that can’t be! I never revealed the game, so I won’t die. This possibility doesn’t hold.

I breathed a sigh of relief.

But there is another possibility: maybe there’s another student at this school, like me, playing this forbidden game—and perhaps he might die from suffocation, though the odds are low.

The bell rang, signaling the end of class time—and with it, nearly an hour had slipped away from the game. Yet I was still at a loss.

I sat in the classroom; the next lesson was with our homeroom teacher.

Her face looked even more haggard than before, her eyes bloodshot, her hair disheveled. Perhaps the string of incidents had left her under immense pressure, and she was close to collapse.

I shook my head—there was nothing I could do.

She took a long breath, then looked at us and began, “Everyone, a lot has happened lately. I’m sure you’re all anxious. But don’t worry, they were just accidents. So I want to remind you all to be careful.”

She finished her speech, took another deep breath, and added, “One more thing—some of you may be feeling exhausted from the pressures of senior year. Please remember to take care of yourselves and balance work and rest. That’s the key to good learning. For now, you may study on your own.”

With that, the homeroom teacher left the classroom. I guessed she couldn’t take much more.

Just then, my phone vibrated.

I checked—it was a reminder that another hour had passed.

As I was about to put my phone away, another message came in—this time from Ye Xinran on WeChat.

She had sent me the chemistry teacher’s file.

I opened it immediately.

There wasn’t much unusual—he was a university graduate and had been teaching here for six years.

One detail did catch my eye, though: last week, after a failed chemistry experiment, he’d been punished by the school to clean the library.

That made me wonder—could he be connected to Liu Jianzhou’s death?