Chapter 1 Stepping into the School

After entering the school gate, there was a smallish playground on the left, and on the right… the teaching building.

The door of that teaching building looked very familiar. A few steps closer revealed that it was the “exit door” they had seen in the “night version” of the school.

At this moment, the door was open. From seven or eight meters away, Brother Jue and Ruoyu could already smell the stench of blood wafting out…

“Heh… looks like this part of the plot is a bit… much.” Before entering the teaching building, Brother Jue reminded her, “Although there aren’t many combat parts in limited scenarios, the margin for error is lower than in normal scenarios… be careful.”

“No worries.” Ruoyu calmly replied, “Anyway, I’ve already solved the ‘only Yuan can solve’ riddle. Even if I die, it won’t affect the final clearance.” She paused. “You should be more careful.”

As they were talking, they had already entered the teaching building.

The scene in the corridor was quite horrifying. If one were to grade the cruelty of a murder scene, the current situation would definitely be “river of blood” level.

Just inside the entrance, they could see two corpses… children’s corpses.

Without needing to get closer, it was obvious that many horrifying wounds had been left on those two young bodies, as if they had been attacked by some kind of wild beast in this corridor. Their extremely distorted faces also seemed to be telling eyewitnesses about the immense pain and fear they had experienced before their deaths.

Further inside, there were many bloodstains dragged across the floor, extending inwards…

Feng Bujue naturally did not hesitate because of these sights. He walked in casually, with large strides. Although Ruoyu frowned slightly after seeing this, she didn’t say anything, just followed Brother Jue closely.

They quickly reached the first corner. Here, Brother Jue stopped.

“Hmm…” Feng Bujue muttered, looking at the wall, “The shrine embedded in the wall is gone.”

“That’s normal, isn’t it?” Ruoyu replied, “In the real world, schools don’t have shrines.”

“That’s not about what’s normal or not…” Brother Jue continued, “I think this change implies two possibilities… First, the place we were in before was entirely a ‘ghost realm’, and this is the real school. Second, regardless of whether it’s true or false, just in terms of time… the place we’re in now might be Chongjiu Elementary School in the ‘past’… so at this point in time, the shrine hasn’t been placed yet.”

“Is there a third possibility…” Ruoyu thought for a moment, then said, “The ‘shrine’ we saw before was placed by the system, just like that Tower of Hanoi mechanism, simply to create a puzzle and advance the plot.”

“Heh…” Hearing this, Feng Bujue chuckled, “I hope the possibility you mentioned is true, that would be more convenient…”

“What do you mean?” Ruoyu heard something in his words and asked with a suspicious expression.

“Think about it… if this shrine was really placed by the system to advance the plot, like a ‘treasure chest’, then it’s just a prop and there’s nothing to study,” Feng Bujue replied. “But… if it’s not, then it means that this shrine, and the strange wooden doll inside… are related to some kind of plot.”

“I understand…” Ruoyu followed Brother Jue’s train of thought and immediately replied, “What you’re worried about is… the plot has reached this stage, and we still know nothing about the shrine and the wooden doll, which is likely to be a hidden danger.”

“That’s right.” Feng Bujue nodded, then turned around and continued walking inside, “So I sincerely hope that the plot we encounter next will explain this matter clearly.” He smiled. “It would be best if that wooden doll could jump out directly and shout, ‘I am the big boss, let’s fight to the death!’”

“Hmm.” Ruoyu replied expressionlessly, “Although I think the possibility of this happening is almost zero, I… wish you good luck.”

As they spoke, they walked a little further and came to the corridor between the biology lab and Class 2-B.

At this time, the doors of both classrooms were open, and there was a faint sound coming from the biology lab.

Therefore, Brother Jue and Ruoyu both glanced into the biology lab. As a result, they saw such a scene…

A man in a white coat… or rather… a male corpse, was lying face up on the operating table. His chest was open, several ribs blooming like petals, and his internal organs and bloodstains had flowed all over the table and floor.

There was also a little boy who looked seven or eight years old, kneeling on the corpse’s abdomen, holding a pair of pliers and a small knife, buried in some kind of woodworking-like work. Looking at the expression on his face… he seemed to be enjoying it.

“This… is Sawada, right?” Feng Bujue only took a second to recognize that the little boy on the operating table had appeared in “that group photo.”

However, Brother Jue did not say with certainty that the person in front of him was 100% Sawada, because the group photo did not have names written on it, and the adult versions of the Class 2-A students were loaded into the players, and looked like each other in the eyes of the players. So it was impossible to use the adult appearance and the childhood contrast as a reference. This led to… players being able to confirm that the four boys other than Suzuki and Noguchi were Togashi, Sawada, Yamada, and Watanabe, but they couldn’t distinguish who was who…

“This scene… is it a reality that once happened?” On the other hand, Ruoyu was quite surprised by the situation in the biology lab. She asked this question with an incredulous tone.

“Hmm… this is indeed a bit incomprehensible.” Feng Bujue, on the other hand, had already begun to consider the problem from a technical perspective, “Even if we can use ‘Sawada was a crazy perverted murderer at the age of eight’ to explain the motive, objectively speaking… it is very difficult for him to complete this crime. Even if he can successfully poison the biology teacher, how could an eight-year-old child move the body onto the operating table with his strength? Did the biology teacher actively lie down and let him dissect him?”

Regardless of the difference in the perspective of looking at the problem… the doubts of both of them were answered three seconds later.

At that moment, Brother Jue and Ruoyu simultaneously caught a glimpse of a moving shadow in the distance of the corridor, so the two of them turned their heads and looked over, and saw… a little girl of seven or eight years old, dragging an adult corpse with one hand, slowly walking out of the toilet.

“Sanchoin-san is quite strong.” Even at this moment, Feng Bujue could still joke in a relaxed tone, “This light-footed, one-handed corpse-dragging posture can’t help but remind me of the Pyramid Head (a monster in Silent Hill), of course… the difference in their body shapes is many times greater.”

Like the situation with the boys, it was also impossible to distinguish who exactly was who among the three girls in the group photo. The reason why Brother Jue speculated that this child was Sanchoin was because he recognized that the corpse being dragged was the music teacher…

“These children…” Ruoyu was still quite serious. She did not respond to Brother Jue’s joke, but said solemnly, “…are probably possessed by something, right?”

“It may also be controlled by some powerful evil,” Feng Bujue replied. “In short… let’s continue watching. If there are no accidents… after this plot, the guy who controls them will show up.”

Brother Jue was obviously very familiar with the routines of nightmare scenarios, and he gradually realized that these were bridges similar to “death fragment re-enactment”, except that this content was presented in a method of “immersive observation” rather than in the form of CG.

“Let’s go, let’s take a look at the situation in the other rooms.” After Sanchoin dragged the female corpse into the music room, Feng Bujue turned his head and glanced at Ruoyu, signaling her to follow him.

“We…” Ruoyu hesitated, and looked into the biology lab again, “…aren’t we going to do anything?”

“They are all ‘things that have already happened’, there’s nothing to do.” Feng Bujue replied, “This plot is meant for us to ‘see’, and we should also be glad… that we only need to ‘see’, because I don’t think we can win if we have to ‘fight’…”

Saying that, he had already walked forward.

Ruoyu pondered for two seconds, then didn’t say anything and silently followed Brother Jue.

In short…

In the next ten minutes, the two of them looked all over the school. Except for the warehouse door opposite the principal’s office and the entrance to the secret wine cellar being closed, the other doors were open, and the scenes in those open rooms were similar—simply put, a certain student from Class 2-A was happily disposing of a corpse in a very cruel manner.

Those corpses were adults and children… some were complete, some were incomplete…

In any case, after going around in a circle, it was basically certain that… the only living people in the school were the seven.

And those seven people were the six Class 2-A members played by the players, and the class monitor Watanabe.

“I understand…” Ten minutes later, Feng Bujue, who had finished exploring the second floor and returned to the corridor on the first floor, muttered thoughtfully, “Through this plot, we have grasped two very important pieces of information.”

“First, we matched the names and faces of the children in the group photo one by one.” Ruoyu took over his words and said, “Second, we learned that a massacre once happened in this school, and the murderers were the characters we are playing.”

“Correct.” Feng Bujue snapped his fingers, then said, “Then the question comes… how did these seven little devils escape legal sanctions back then? And… what is the thing that controls them?”

Just as Brother Jue said these words, suddenly…

“It is ‘It’.” A strange voice sounded, responding to Feng Bujue.

Brother Jue and Ruoyu looked in the direction of the voice, and saw… at the corner of the corridor, a figure had appeared at some point.

“You are…” Feng Bujue recognized the man, it was the one who was standing on the playground earlier.

“My name is Tsukamoto Shota, I am an Onmyoji,” Tsukamoto replied.

“Oh.” Feng Bujue casually replied, “I see… you’re the one who brought us here?”

“Yes.” Tsukamoto replied, “With my current strength… I can only do this much.”

“What do you mean by current strength?” Feng Bujue said, “What exactly is going on, can you explain it?”

“Maybe it will be difficult for you to accept, but… please believe me…” Tsukamoto replied, “All the scenes you just saw were all realities that once happened. I know you don’t remember… but…”

“We believe you.” Feng Bujue interrupted him, and said very calmly, “Continue.”

“Uh…” Tsukamoto was a little stunned, “The… the thing is like this… at this moment, your real bodies are actually in the Class 2-A classroom; but your souls have been brought into the illusion by ‘It’.”

“Are you saying…” Ruoyu replied, “The space we were in before was also an illusion?”

“That’s right!” Tsukamoto replied, “Both Chongjiu Elementary School where you were before and Chongjiu Elementary School where you are now… are illusions created by ‘It’; it wants to use your souls… to unlock its seal again.”

“Oh? How does it want to use our souls?” Feng Bujue said.

“When you were ‘over there’, did you see the shrine?” Tsukamoto asked.

“We saw it.” Brother Jue’s answer was concise.

“That shrine was the seal created by my master,” Tsukamoto continued.

“Seal what? It? Then what exactly is ‘It’? And who is your master?” Brother Jue asked several questions in a row.

“That’s a long story…” Tsukamoto replied.

“It’s okay, take your time, we’re not in a hurry,” Feng Bujue said.

Tsukamoto nodded, thought for a moment, and said, “The story… has to start from twenty-six years ago…”

His narration began. The initial description was the same as what the other "Tsukamoto" had said, except that he did not say that Brother Jue and the others were "ghosts."

After talking about "It" and the "520 massacre," this Tsukamoto continued: "After the massacre, the high-level officials of the Metropolitan Police Department secretly found my master--the Nara Dharma Master, and asked him to deal with the evil spirits in this school, which is... 'It'."

"Although... my master had very high cultivation, 'It' was too terrifying...

"On the night of the exorcism, as soon as the master entered this school, he discovered that 'It's' power was far beyond what he had imagined, and he couldn't eliminate it with his own power; but at that time, he couldn't escape even if he wanted to, so the master could only do his best to seal 'It' in place.

"After that night, my master, who was less than fifty years old, had white hair overnight. His inherited 'Seimei Kariginu' was also stained by evil power and was eventually burned by him...

"Since then, the master has been living in seclusion in the temple, wholeheartedly teaching us disciples, and has not gone out to exorcise demons. Until one night, twenty years later...

"That night, he suddenly summoned all of us and our senior brothers to the tatami, and said to us..."