Forces of Temptation

In the school, almost all the teaching buildings are about five floors, and most of the student apartments are no more than four floors, row after row, connected in sequence.

Neither is the height at which an elevator needs to be installed.

In the huge campus, there are not many places to install elevators.

There are dormitories for foreign students.

There are medical and chemical laboratory buildings with a slightly higher level that require a large number of equipment to be moved.

There is an administrative office building with a height of about 24 floors.

There are also two newly built high-rise dormitory buildings that have been completed for less than three years.

One is the teachers' dormitory building.

... The other building is the dormitory building of the Department of Mathematics.

The reason why the Department of Mathematics can exclusively enjoy the benefits of the elevator dormitory is because the Department of Mathematics used to live in one of the oldest and most dilapidated dormitories in the school.

The second reason is that the president of Jinjing University was originally a professor in the Department of Mathematics.

And among the seven existing people, there happened to be one from the Department of Mathematics.

... Xie Xiangyu.

The originally broken relationship chain vaguely led to a weak connection.

But this connection is not enough to prove anything.

Li Yinhang raised a question: "There is an elevator in the dormitory building of the mathematics department. Does that prove that the person who left the recording is from the mathematics department? The medical department, the chemical engineering department, and even the administrative teachers in the office building cannot be completely excluded. "

When she asked this question, Nan Zhou and the others were in the stairwell on the top floor of the dormitory of the Department of Mathematics.

The stairwell is sunny.

Even so, when the autumn sun shines on the body, it is always cold.

Nan Zhou took a step down from the stairs.

He went back to the dormitory this morning, and even thought about matching a new suit for himself.

The soles of his lace-up Martin boots tapped on the ground, creating a crisp echo up and down the stairwell.

Nan Zhou looked up at the still dim light tubes in the corridor, and said, "There is still a clue in the recording."

"what?"

"When he was running away." Nan Zhou said, "There was a voice in the background."

Li Yinhang tried hard to recall, but to no avail.

She had just been immersed in the darkness at that time, and her spirit was highly tense.

The echoing, hasty footsteps could be said to have taken all of her attention, leaving her with no time to care about him.

Nan Zhou looked at Jiang Fang.

Jiang Fang nodded, affirming Nanzhou's judgment: "Yes. The sound of 'buzzing'."

Li Yinhang: "..." So the boss has his own tape recorder in his head, right?

She thought deeply about this clue.

buzzing sound...

"Buzz"...

The action of Nanzhou raising his head to look at the lamp just now...

Li Yinhang was suddenly enlightened: "Light-sensing and voice-activated lights!"

Whenever walking in a quiet corridor late at night, when the light bulb captures the sound of footsteps, it will emit such a low hum.

Immediately, the surroundings suddenly brightened.

...it was the faint sound of burning tungsten filaments.

The bulbs in the corridors and corridors of the school are all provided by the same company, and the surfaces are coated with light-sensitive materials.

In other words, the time when the person who left the message fled was most likely in the middle of the night.

late at night.

There is an elevator.

And the person who left the message is obviously very familiar with the layout of the rooms here.

Familiar enough to use elevators and unlocked rooms skillfully to avoid the "rustling" sound.

It's like living here.

Putting these elements together, it is not difficult to draw a conclusion——

The place where the messager disappeared is most likely in the dormitory of the Department of Mathematics.

Just in this space where they are.

This stairway.

Li Yinhang immediately stood up to pay tribute.

She bit the bullet and asked: "It's also possible...the person who left the message stayed in the laboratory building, the office building, etc. in the middle of the night... Also, why didn't anyone come out to help him when he ran like this in the dormitory building at night? What? Why didn't he ask someone for help? Since he is from the Department of Mathematics, there must be people he knows and knows in the whole building, right?"

Nan Zhou: "Then prove it."

Li Yinhang: "Why..."

Nan Zhou: "Find that room."

If the person who left the message last appeared in the dormitory of the mathematics department, there must be an empty, unlocked room in a corner of the dormitory near the elevator.

And there is a metal cabinet in the room that can hide a person.

Soon.

The three stood in front of a certain room on the fifth floor.

During the daytime on Friday, the mathematics students all went to class or to the library.

The seniors who don't plan to study hard are also nestling on the bed at this time, happily entangled with the quilt.

Therefore, there are few people walking around in the dormitory corridors during the day.

There was a suffocating stillness.

Nan Zhou closed the doorknob, imitating the person that night, and slowly pressed the handle down.

As if afraid of alarming the ghosts in the dark.

The lock spring made a hoarse and jerky snapping sound, so small that it could be ignored.

But if the person who left the message tried to escape from the death situation that night, the sound might be like thunder.

As they had imagined, the door was not locked.

After a gust of cold wind passed, the door opened inward.

In front of the three of them, it slowly unfolded the whole picture inside.

No one has been here for a long time.

The evidence is a thin layer of ash accumulated on the light-colored floor tiles.

Just as Li Yinhang was about to go in, he saw from the corner of his eye that the Nanjiang gang didn't intend to go in, so he immediately shrank back to the back.

Nan Zhou said softly, "No."

Then he looked at Li Yinhang again.

Li Yinhang felt that he was simply a mediocre student who was selected in the high school class and just wanted to get away with it.

As a last resort, she bit the bullet and looked at the ground in front of her like the two of them.

Probably because she was flustered, she looked at it several times, but she couldn't see anything special.

It's a total utility room.

There were three or four cabinets standing in the room.

One of them is a transparent office bookcase with a glass sliding door. Through the dusty light gray glass, you can vaguely see several empty dark blue file boxes inside.

The specifications of the other cabinets are exactly the same as the standard lead gray iron wardrobes in the school dormitory.

Broken and redundant wardrobes will probably be moved to this abandoned place.

Several brooms, split or missing parts, stood in the corner.

Stacks of express cartons.

Six or seven chairs with the logo of "Jinjing University".

A pot of dead succulents stood on the windowsill.

The curtains were drawn tightly, not letting in a little light.

The potted plant was forgotten in the curtain, thirsty and lightless, and died quietly.

...it's a dingy dump here.

After watching for a long time, a faint coolness crawled up Li Yinhang's ankle like a snake, making her very uncomfortable.

Li Yinhang probed: "...Well, this should be the last hiding place of that person?"

Nan Zhou nodded, looking at her eyes, waiting for her next words.

Li Yinhang: "..."

Just staring at each other for a long time, Li Yinhang himself felt a little embarrassed.

She rubbed her head: "I was late, I really didn't find anything, or Mr. Nan, you can just talk about it..."

Nan Zhou said indifferently, "Look carefully."

Li Yinhang's back muscles tensed subconsciously.

There is no other reason, this kind of overwhelming aura unique to teachers, even for Li Yinhang, who left campus long ago and stepped into society, there is also an indelible, muscle-memory fear.

Until now, Li Yinhang was convinced of Nanzhou's teacher identity.

Nan Zhou said: "This copy is very difficult."

Nan Zhou said: "You must have the awareness and ability to protect yourself."

Nan Zhou said, "It's a good look."

Li Yinhang couldn't help but shuddered, not daring to put his hopes on Nanzhou any more, so he concentrated all his energy and looked towards the room.

After she regained her composure, a sense of disobedience quickly rushed to her heart.

...where exactly...

Her face turned pale, and she lost her voice: "Footprints!"

After hearing the answer, Nan Zhou turned his gaze back to the room.

Yes.

No footprints.

No one has been in this room for a long time.

The party was held a week ago.

Well, if someone really fled here, the footprints on the dust would extend all the way to the tin cabinet.

...so, why are there no footprints?

Li Yinhang muttered: "Isn't that person hiding here? Have we found the wrong room?"

Nan Zhou stepped into the room at this time.

After walking a few steps, he stepped on the light-colored floor tiles and looked back.

The footprints are exceptionally clear.

Nan Zhou turned his head and walked towards the metal cabinet closest to the door step by step.

Standing in front of the cabinet, Nan Zhou lowered his head, thoughtful.

Since entering the dungeon, they have tried various methods.

They look for Hu Li, they look for clues from themselves, they try to live step by step, they go to classroom 403.

They haven't been able to find any valid leads.

But games shouldn't be like this.

This is a copy of the game, there will always be a solution, there will be clues.

Even if it was originally an unsolvable problem, the programmers and GM hiding behind will try to come up with a reasonable solution.

It's just like……

Nan Zhou closed his eyes, and the broken picture quickly flashed in front of his eyes.

A full moon in the sky.

Smiling, benign, or malicious faces.

The sharp, burning pain when the current flows through the body...

All puzzles are meaningless if there is no answer.

The so-called game is exactly that.

Nanzhou exerted his strength and opened the tattered iron wardrobe in front of him.

It was empty inside, save for a rotten rag curled up in the bottom corner of the cabinet, which gave off a foul, rotting milk smell.

He heard Li Yinhang's regretful sigh behind him.

But he didn't stop, and opened several cabinets one after another.

The same is true of the interior.

Nothing to gain.

Because there were no footprints, Li Yinhang was no longer so convinced that this was the room where the man hid before he disappeared.

She consciously looked at Jiang Fang.

If Jiang Fang said to leave, Nan Zhou would listen.

Jiang Fang leaned against the door, showing no intention of leaving.

He fixedly stared at Nan Zhou's back, with star-like trust and appreciation in his eyes.

Nan Zhou noticed the sight behind him and turned around.

Jiang Fang gave him an encouraging nod.

Find slowly, think slowly.

Nan Zhou stood up, thought for a while, and walked slowly back to the old wardrobe he opened first.

This is the cabinet closest to the door.

If he is the person who left the message, in the situation of hiding, he will inevitably and will only choose the cabinet closest to the door and the least likely to make a noise.

Opening the cabinet again, a rotten stench came over my face.

Nan Zhou's eyes told him that there was nothing here except that dirty rag.

But he squatted down, leaned half of his body into the cabinet, and used his hands as the only carrier of perception, groping around every corner.

... The key to solving the problem will always remain.

After a moment.

Nan Zhou's fingertips touched something.

Firm to the touch, not a rag.

Nan Zhou transferred the thing from his fingertips to his palm.

After repeatedly drawing and confirming its shape, he stood up, faced the two of them, and raised his palm forward flatly: "I found it."

Li Yinhang was confused for a moment.

... Nan Zhou clearly had nothing in his hand.

But Jiang Fang walked into the room and put his fingers on Nan Zhou's palm naturally.

The two looked at each other.

On the night when the "rustling" sound approached infinitely, the man who was hiding in Tibet was shaking like chaff in the metal cabinet, making too much noise.

So, he lost something.

The keys in his pocket.

This key can be touched but not seen.

Just like its owner.

Just like the recording said.

——"That place doesn't exist, so we can't exist either."

The existence of this key is obliterated from the visual level.

When something is invisible to everyone, it no longer exists in a social sense.

Here's the thing.

So do people.

Jiang Fang took the invisible key and walked out quickly.

His request was simple and clear: "Find Xie Xiangyu's dormitory."

The man disappeared in the dormitory of the mathematics department.

Xie Xiangyu was the only mathematics student among them.

The connection between them will not be tight.

Xie Xiangyu's dormitory is not hard to find.

On the eighth floor, 0814.

It's just that everyone is out now and the door is locked.

Jiang Fang took the key that did not exist in the sociological sense and tried to unlock it.

And Nanzhou looked up at the nameplate at the door.

Four people live in 0814.

They are Xie Xiangyu, Yu Min, and Liu Shuoqi.

No matter how much he concentrated, what was imprinted in his mind was such a concept.

There are four people here.

There are three names on the board.

Every time he sensed that there seemed to be a problem, the problem would be automatically filtered out of his mind, leaving only a faint shadow.

The shadow of a snake like a bow cast from a cup.

Nan Zhou closed his eyes again.

He remembered what had happened in the morning.

In the morning, he returned to his dormitory.

After a rough inspection, Nan Zhou sat back in his seat.

The other three in the dormitory were busy studying, so it was understandable that they didn't greet him.

But when Nan Zhou accidentally bumped into the roommate next to him, that person was really shocked.

Then, what did the roommate say?

——"Nan Zhou, are you a cat? Why are you walking so silently!"

At that moment, Nanzhou felt a little strange.

It's as if... His sense of existence has become indifferent, and it's beginning to be difficult for others to perceive.

What if this happened to both Hu Li and the disappearing messager?

Everyone has forgotten Hu Li, only the person who left the message remembers a little bit.

The forgetting of Hu Li is similar to their current situation.

These players didn't even know the name of the person who died and left a message.

...what a terrible echo and coincidence.

What's even more frightening is that the person who left the message gradually discovered that all the connections between himself and the world in front of him were cut off and severed bit by bit.

No one can see him, hear him, or feel him.

All this happened after he started to hear "rustle".

Even though he was running and crying in the corridors of the dormitory he was familiar with.

Even if he once shook his sleeping roommate.

Even though he knocked on the doors of other dormitories one by one for help.

Even if he runs in the stairwell and corridor in the middle of the night, making fierce footsteps...

No one answered him, no one rescued him.

Nan Zhou thought of the storage room they had just found.

Behind that door, the ground is covered with dust, which is likely to be printed with the messy footprints of the person who left the message.

...just they can't see it.

Nan Zhou closed his eyes, and reached out to the nameplate hanging at the door.

He needs to prove his conjecture.

The nameplate is removable and can be removed.

Once the previous boarders move out or are transferred to other dormitories, they can be removed and replaced with new nameplates.

Nan Zhou slid the nameplates out of place one by one and held them in his palm.

Embossed lettering on the nameplate.

Nan Zhou touched them one by one.

Xie Xiangyu, Yu Min, Liu Shuoqi...

Until he touched the name of a complete stranger.

He silently said the name in his heart.

"left……"

"Ka..."

"Bright."

Zuo Jiaming.

The person who left the recording finally has a name.

When Nan Zhou was about to speak...

"rustle."

"rustle."

"rustle."

The soft "rustle" that suddenly rang in the ear was too faint and ethereal.

...It sounded like a sneer mocking Nan Zhou's overreaching.