The Fading Scent and the New Game

Ye Shengge was awakened by the sound of a door opening.

Upon waking, he was momentarily stunned. He realized that the place he had woken up was not the entrance to Zhou Yue’s dormitory, but his own small upper bunk in the dorm.

Not only that, but after this sleep, he felt completely refreshed, without a single trace of discomfort.

Was the dungeon boss truly so kind? He had actually sent him back safe and sound?

He wondered what had happened to Zhou Yue and that female ghost.

Ye Shengge lay on the bed, staring blankly at the ceiling.

“You’re finally awake. You slept so soundly last night; no matter how we called, you wouldn’t wake up,” Jiang Yan said with a smile, walking in with breakfast in hand.

Hearing Jiang Yan’s words, Ye Shengge stopped worrying about the dungeon boss and looked at him in surprise: “Wouldn’t wake up?”

While he was a heavy sleeper, it shouldn’t have been to the point where he couldn’t be woken at all, right?

“Don’t listen to his nonsense.” Mu Jinran, carrying soy milk, followed into the dorm with a calm tone: “When we came back yesterday, it was already very late. How could we have woken you up?”

Ye Shengge realized Jiang Yan was just joking.

But more than being angry, there was something else weighing on his mind.

“What exactly did the principal want you for? Why did you come back so late?” Ye Shengge couldn’t figure it out. With such major incidents happening at the school, the principal still dared to call students over at night without fearing another accident.

Mu Jinran placed the soy milk on the table and said indifferently: “It wasn’t anything important. He just called us over to ask a few questions. We were delayed by some private matters on the way back.”

Since he said they were delayed by private matters, Ye Shengge didn’t feel right asking more. However, he was still curious; Jiang Yan had also returned very late last night. Surely that private matter couldn’t be related to Jiang Yan too?

And this morning, Mu Jinran and Jiang Yan had gone out together to buy breakfast…

When did their relationship become so good? They were practically inseparable.

Ye Shengge kept thinking about this while washing up, but even by the time he started breakfast, he couldn’t come up with a logical explanation.

Because of this, he couldn’t help but steal glances at Mu Jinran and Jiang Yan.

But seeing the two of them—who specifically sat a long distance apart—he felt that they didn’t look like they had a good relationship at all. In fact, they seemed to loathe one another.

Ye Shengge suddenly felt it was a bit of a pity. Mu Jinran and Jiang Yan had opposite personalities, but in many ways, they gave him a similar feeling. If they could complement each other, they would surely seem more like normal high school students instead of being excessively steady and mature, or excessively violent and childish.

But seeing how they detested each other, the chance of them complementing one another was zero.

Ye Shengge’s observing gaze was far too obvious; what he was thinking could be seen right through his eyes.

“I have nothing to do with him, stop looking at me like that,” Jiang Yan said stiffly, feeling uncomfortable under the gaze as he put down his breakfast.

If possible, he truly wished to be as he said—completely unrelated to Mu Jinran.

Mu Jinran’s habitually cold and distant eyes were also filled with disdain. Clearly, he shared Jiang Yan’s sentiment, both of them viewing the other as useless trash.

“Sorry, I was just a bit curious.” Ye Shengge took a sip of soy milk and pursed his lips sheepishly: “If your two personalities could be fused together, you would definitely be incredible.”

Though he knew it was unlikely, those words were his true thoughts.

To his surprise, upon hearing this praise, the expressions of Jiang Yan and Mu Jinran didn’t improve; instead, they turned very, very sour.

“How could I ever fuse with a hypocrite who only knows how to put on an act? Just eat.” Jiang Yan urged gruffly, his face full of rejection for Mu Jinran.

Mu Jinran didn’t say anything insulting about Jiang Yan. Instead, he looked deeply at Ye Shengge, his lips pressed into a thin line: “Why did you suddenly think of saying that?”

Ye Shengge lowered his head without a word, concentrating on gnawing the sauce-flavored pancake in his hand, refusing to open his mouth.

It wasn’t that he didn’t want to speak; it was that he didn’t know how to explain.

Before falling into that deep sleep last night, he felt that the tone the dungeon boss used in that final sentence was extremely familiar, but he couldn’t place it at the time.

It wasn’t until he woke up today and heard Mu Jinran and Jiang Yan speak that he remembered why it felt familiar.

How could it not be? The intonation of that sentence was very much like Mu Jinran’s, but the voice itself sounded like Jiang Yan’s.

If he had to use a metaphor, it was like a combination of the two of them.

If Ye Shengge didn’t trust Mu Jinran and Jiang Yan so much, he would have even suspected if they had used some method to specifically fuse into one person just to scare him.

Or even… that Mu Jinran and Jiang Yan were the same person.

But suspicion was just suspicion. How could a single person be split into two halves in this world? Especially when these two halves had completely opposite personalities and mutually repelled and loathed each other.

At this thought, Ye Shengge felt his imagination was getting a bit out of hand.

Even if the dungeon boss were hiding in the class, he wouldn’t take the risk of disguising himself as such prominent students like Jiang Yan or Mu Jinran. Wouldn’t that be inviting people to notice something was wrong?

“What are you thinking about so intently? I’ve been talking for ages and haven’t heard a peep from you.”

Jiang Yan’s voice suddenly rang in his ear.

Ye Shengge turned around, coming face-to-face with an enlarged version of Jiang Yan’s face.

If he hadn’t been scared for so long last night and built up some resistance, he would have thrown the sauce pancake at Jiang Yan’s head by now.

But even so, Ye Shengge was a bit annoyed. He glared fiercely at Jiang Yan: “If you have something to say, just say it properly. Don’t suddenly lean in; it’s very startling.”

Jiang Yan wasn’t angry at being glared at. Instead, because of a strange sense of achievement, his face flushed red with excitement.

He felt the youth was very cute even when angry, and such a vivid, lovely side could only be brought out by him alone.

“I got it.” Jiang Yan nodded vigorously, though he had absolutely no intention of changing.

Like a pervert, he took a heavy sniff as the youth turned away with satisfaction. Upon smelling the sweet scent on the youth, he narrowed his eyes happily and shot a provocative smile at Mu Jinran.

To him, making the youth angry didn’t matter—he could lower himself to coax him back slowly. But the chance to get close to the youth was something he would never give up, even if it killed him.

Ye Shengge didn’t notice Jiang Yan’s small gesture, but Mu Jinran caught the whole scene, and his mood soured instantly.

To stop Jiang Yan from continuing his antics, Mu Jinran intentionally spoke to divert Ye Shengge’s attention: “Another person died last night.”

Ye Shengge lost his appetite for breakfast and asked hurriedly: “The person who died… was it Zhou Yue?”

Mu Jinran: “Yes. One hand was severed, and he died jumping from the building.”

Though he had expected this, the color still drained from Ye Shengge’s face when he heard the news. He looked pitiable.

Mu Jinran’s tone, however, was incredibly calm, devoid of fear or dread. He finished the story as if it were a common, everyday occurrence.

“The police arrived at the school in the middle of the night to investigate. They found a video on the open computer. It was recorded by Zhou Yue himself, recounting how he had committed multiple acts of cyberbullying that led to deaths. Finally, he severed his own right hand and jumped from the top floor.”

Having finished, Mu Jinran opened his phone and clicked on a video.

Ye Shengge quickly leaned in to watch.

Just as Mu Jinran said, Zhou Yue in the video was confessing his wrongdoings. However, his eyes were as dull and lifeless as a string-pulled puppet. It wasn’t until the moment he jumped that a look of extreme terror surfaced in his eyes.

The bloody parts of the video were pixelated, so Ye Shengge didn’t feel physically ill, just deeply shocked.

From what Zhou Yue said, the reason he attacked and insulted others online and incited cyberbullying was simply because no one cared about him in reality. He enjoyed the thrill of guiding ignorant netizens on the internet.

Such a simple reason had killed several innocent people.

“The police also investigated what the Luck King and Zhang Ming had done. They all sensed there were supernatural elements involved. After negotiations between the parents and the school, these cases won’t be investigated further. They’ve been closed as accidents,” Mu Jinran added.

The dead were all people who deserved to die. Continuing the investigation might only stir up more trouble. This was indeed the best outcome.

Unfortunately, while the cases were closed, this death red packet game was not yet over.

At this thought, Ye Shengge let out a soft sigh, his heart feeling complicated.

But when the familiar notification sound suddenly rang out, he stopped overthinking and instinctively tapped on the old class group to check the messages.

When he saw that all-too-familiar anonymous red packet, he reacted immediately.

A new round of the death game had begun.