PSP Chapter 14: Shredded Corpse

That afternoon two days ago, Zhou An'an and others had understood the meaning of Lu Qi's words after spending their lunch considering them. Still, Zhou An'an felt that waiting was just too passive. In the world they now inhabited, where a ghost could appear at any moment, anything could happen. The longer they were left alone, the more dangerous they became.

She didn't want to remain still when she already knew the right direction to go in, so she immediately decided to go to Liu Wangyu again. Meng Tianhai’s thought process was similar to hers, but he knew that Liu Wangyu was unlikely to cooperate, so he only hoped that he might succeed by a fluke.

The result was just as he had expected: Liu Wangyu rejected them. Not only that, but he dug his heels in and asked the master to pray for blessings.

Zhou An'an was anxious. "If you don't believe me, you can go to Room 607 and check in person whether what we said is true." She was referring to the blood in the keyhole.

However, Liu Wangyu said: "Teachers, the school invited you to teach the children. Although there is still some time until school begins, you shouldn’t forget what your job is."

As he turned away, Liu Wangyu's expression turned ugly. He touched his neck stiffly and walked away in a hurry.

During those two days, Zhou An'an refused to give up on the idea of ​​persuading Liu Wangyu, but she was unable to track him down again.

It wasn’t until the morning of the third day, when the players headed to the cafeteria one after another to eat breakfast, when they discovered that someone had died in the kitchen.

The one who died was Tong Yixue, the player who had chosen the alternate way to clear the game.

Because of the differing customs clearance methods, Tong Yixue had not explored with the others. He usually stayed in his room and had a very low sense of presence. They only really met occasionally during meals.

Such a person had died in the kitchen in an extremely tragic manner.

Shen Qingcheng had always been active when it came to eating, so he was the first to arrive. He knew something was wrong as soon as he stepped through the door of the dining hall. Why was the cafeteria, which normally emitted all kinds of food fragrances from far away, so deserted today?

He walked in and took a look. Not only was there no auntie¹ cooking food in front of the window, but there was no food at all. He caught the cleaner, who was cleaning nearby, and asked, "How come there’s no meal today?"

The cleaner auntie glanced at him and said in a numb tone: "What else could’ve happened? That person has come back to make a fuss. She couldn’t survive, so now she won’t let anyone else live either."

Shen Qingcheng asked, "Do you mean Qi Mei? Did you know her?"

"I knew her, how couldn’t I have known her? I helped her take care of her child more than just a few times back then." After speaking, the auntie shook her head and walked away with her mop.

Shen Qingcheng didn't go after her, but instead turned to look at the back of the cafeteria, where there was a lot of yin and resentment. He frowned, and intuitively found the place with the heaviest yin, which was the kitchen area.

The kitchen door was closed, the air was filled with a strong smell of blood, and a few ominously messy bloodstains on the door panel.

He pushed the door open. The smell of blood that had been trapped in the closed space of the kitchen in the middle of the night immediately rushed towards Shen Qingcheng as if it had finally found an exit. Blood was splattered across the ground, the walls and even the ceiling.

Tong Yixue had been violently torn apart. His bloody limbs were stuffed in the open refrigerator, his body had been carelessly dumped onto the ground, his chest and stomach were cut open, and his internal organs were strewn all over the floor. Tong Yixue's head was placed upright on the cutting board, his bloodless face facing the door, and his eyes were staring straight at Shen Qingcheng.

Shen Qingcheng’s expression didn’t change, he just waved away the disgusting smell in disgust. He glanced at the blood that was puddled all over the ground and had almost reached the door, and he hesitated.

"What's the matter, is there no food today?" Chen Ge's puzzled voice came from outside. Hadn’t Shen-ge come to the cafeteria before them? Where was he?

Suddenly--

"Lu-dage, save me~"

Just as Chen Ge wanted to tell Lu Qi that it sounded like Shen-ge’s voice, he saw two shadows flashing past him². Lu Qi and Meng Tianhai had already rushed to the place where the voice came from. Zhou An'an, Xue Tong, and Liu Zimei weren’t as fast, but they also ran towards it.

No, he was Shen-ge's number one xiaodi, how could he be beaten by outsiders? He hurriedly shouted, "Shen-ge, don't be afraid, I'm here!"

Two minutes later, Chen Ge hid and hugged a trash can to his chest, vomiting miserably.

"Ugh!"

The two women, Zhou An'an and Liu Zimei, didn't vomit at all, but their expressions didn't look much better. Xue Tong and Meng Tianhai suppressed their nausea, their expressions disgusted.

The current state Tong Yixue seemed to be their fate in the future. No one could say how long they would live.

Lu Qi looked at the silent Shen Qingcheng. "Are you okay?"

Shen Qingcheng was stunned for a moment, then replied, "I’m fine."

Lu Qi looked at him again, then pulled a sturdy bristle from the broom in the corner, going into the kitchen holding it.

Tong Yixue's clothes had been torn apart, and pieces of meat and rags were scattered on the ground. Lu Qi used the bristle to poke around, and opened Tong Yixue's bare, limbless body. His intestines poured further out of his abdominal cavity, and an unpleasant smell arose, making the entire space even more unbearable.

"What's this?" Lu Qi said, as a blood-soaked puppet emerged under the stick.

Shen Qingcheng squinted at the special appearance of the puppet, which he was familiar with. "Are there any words on it?"

Lu Qi found an oven mitt in the corner of a cupboard, put it on, and leaned over to pick up the puppet.

"I can't see clearly, but it seems to have a paper stuck on it." The paper had congealed into a lump due to the blood soaking it.

This puppet was very small, at most the length of a thumb, with four limbs but no facial features. Lu Qi exited the room and handed the puppet to Shen Qingcheng.

Xue Tong couldn't help but ask: "Shen Meiren, do you know what this is?"

Shen Qingcheng took a look at it. With just one glance, he was sure that he recognized it. He said, "This thing has no clear name. It can be a puppet or a scarecrow, and it’s used as a stand-in."

Zhou An'an: "What do you mean?"

Shen Qingcheng glanced at her, "It means that Tong Yixue died in place of someone else."

Zhou An'an's first reaction was that one of the players had used the prop, but then she realized that she had seen all the props in the mall, and none of them had that function.

Her lips twitched a few times, and she whispered, "It was Liu Wangyu."

Zhou An'an's mood was very complicated. She had told Liu Wangyu about the bleeding in the keyhole in order to use it as a bargaining chip to convince him, but she hadn’t expected it to have been a sign for Liu Wangyu.

Tong Yixue had died. Qi Mei found that she had been fooled, and cruelly tore Tong Yixue's body into pieces.

She wasn’t a new player, but this was the first time that an innocent person had died because of her.

Xue Tong: "Where did Liu Wangyu get such a strange thing?" But he was more curious about Shen Meiren's identity than his question. Would an ordinary civil servant know this kind of thing?

"I just read a lot of obscure books." Shen Qingcheng met his eyes without any guilt.

By this time they had all already lost their appetites. After everyone left the cafeteria, some went back to the apartment, and some chose to continue collecting clues. Zhou Anan went to the swimming pool with a cold face, without instructing anyone else what to do.

Shen Qingcheng rubbed his gurgling stomach and said to the man beside him, "By the way, I have something to tell you. Before you came, I met an cleaner auntie in the cafeteria. She said she knew Qi Mei, and had also watched her child many times.”

More than just a few times--that meant many times, right?

Lu Qi paused, "A cleaner?"

Shen Qingcheng: "En."

It was normal for a cleaner to help Qi Mei take care of her child occasionally, but often? It wasn’t occupational discrimination, it was just that there was too little intersection between teachers and cleaners, unless they were neighbors or close colleagues.

Lu Qi: "Qi Mei used to work in the cafeteria." Maybe she was a kitchen helper, maybe a cleaner. In short, she must have been in the cafeteria for a long time, which was how she got to know the cleaner auntie.

Chen Ge tried hard to keep up with their rhythm, putting forward an inquiry, "Then how did she become a teacher?"

Both Shen Qingcheng and Lu Qi had guesses about this, but there was too little evidence to prove them.

Lu Qi: "Go find Liu Wangyu."

Chen Ge was startled by his cold and solemn tone, "Lu, Lu-ge, don't mess around."

Shen Qingcheng glanced at the man's condensed expression and said, "I have a way to make the things on him fail."

Lu Qi turned to look at him.

Shen Qingcheng: "On the premise that you can get the things."

Lu Qi raised his eyebrows. "Easy."

What? What were Shen-ge and Lu-ge talking about? Chen Ge couldn’t understand anything.

Shen Qingcheng patted Chen Ge, who looked bewildered as if he was taking a CET-4 or CET-6³ listening test, "Think about it yourself."

It was actually quite simple. Liu Wangyu was one of the four men who had been entangled with Qi Mei. How come everyone else died, even Zhou Xiaohui, but he remained alive and well?

The first day that they had come to the game dungeon, the first time they saw Liu Wangyu, he had only been in a bad state of mind, as if he hadn't slept well for a long time, and his situation improved the next day.

Shen Qingcheng had guessed at that time that he might have something like a safety talisman on him, and he had immediately confirmed this guess after seeing the puppet today.

Lu Qi wasn’t stupid. He didn’t have the same evidence or understanding, but after considering all the information after the stand-in incident, he could guess that there was something on Liu Wangyu that protected him.

That was why Qi Mei was unable to kill him.

Oh~ so that’s how it was! Chen Ge suddenly realized that Liu Wangyu must have a treasure that protected him. When the players had attracted Qi Mei's attention, Liu Wangyu had invited a master to destroy Qi Mei completely.

But he hadn’t expected the master to lose.

After being informed by Zhou An'an and others, Liu Wangyu knew that inviting the master had angered Qi Mei. He was worried that his life would be in danger because of Qi Mei's rage, so he prepared a stand-in doll in advance to trick Qi Mei into taking Tong Yixue and killing him instead.

Hiss, what a poisonous person!

Chen Ge said happily: "I get it now!"

They had already almost reached the teaching building. Not far away, Liu Wangyu had just come out of the office. This time, he didn't avoid them, passing by as usual, and even nodding to greet them.

Shen Qingcheng turned around, a jade Buddha⁴ prominently displayed in his hand. "Liu-fuban, you dropped something."

He hadn’t even see how Lu Qi had taken it, he had acted so quickly.

TLN:

¹ Auntie (阿姨) is how people refer to older female workers, especially in domestic jobs.

² As in they moved so fast all he could see was their afterimage.

³ The CETs (College English Tests) are exactly what they sound like.

⁴ Jade Buddhas (玉佛) are believed to bring luck and ward off evil spirits. They depict a seated Buddha and are often used as pendants.

Source

Happy New Year! I thought about putting a gore warning, but honestly I figured that anyone reading a horror novel would already be prepared to read some bloody stuff, especially considering the chapter title. Let me know if you want me to put a TW or something.