The red rope tightened around his wrist, suppressing his surging anger, which was about to break free of its seal. But when he saw his reflection in the computer screen, he suddenly calmed down.
"Whatever the plans of the Desolate Corner, let's just hope they fail."
Ren Yifei tossed aside the deformed clay he had been holding and picked up his phone, which was in recording mode, wanting to see what he looked like when he was lost.
He opened the video, which began with the sculpting of clay. In the video, he was looking down, playing with a block of clay in his hands. He carefully shaped it into a rough form and then began to sculpt it in more detail.
Time passed second by second, and suddenly, after one tick of the second hand, Ren Yifei in the picture stopped moving.
Ren Yifei saw that his eyes began to unfocus and become unfocused in the image. Then, the inner corners of his eyebrows rose, his upper eyelids lifted, and the corners of his mouth turned down.
sad.
But this wasn't the end; the expression on his face began to fade. This didn't mean he was no longer sad; rather, he was so sad that he became numb.
What he felt in that gray area seemed to be fed back to his true self, and he felt an uncontrollable sense of despair, even wanting to commit suicide.
Recalling the expressions on those shadowy figures at that time, Ren Yifei believes that everyone was evoked with different emotions. Some felt despair, some anger, some fanaticism, and some fear.
Saman was especially different; he was a priest and also the most special sacrifice.
The original owner had inscribed the mark of 'God' on themselves. However, whether due to the low quality of their soul or insufficient sensitivity, they failed.
And this unsuccessful mark has now been inherited by Saman, who has taken on the role.
Why was Ren Yifei so certain? Because that damned mark carried the scent of Saman's soul, not someone else's.
This would never happen with any other normal instance. However, this instance is too special; its most special feature is that 'it' actually exists.
It's not just 'it'; the desolate corner is secretly trying to devour more power, and there might be other such life forms in this instance.
But Ren Yifei didn't care about any of that. He only knew one thing: Saman was in danger this time.
The monsters have an extraordinary possessiveness towards everything they mark, and even if the dungeon is finally cleared, the soul of Saman, stained with the mark, cannot return to the desolate corner.
He will become that damned priest's scapegoat, though that priest is probably eager to return to the embrace of his true god.
Once his soul falls into the hands of another evil being, it will be extremely difficult to retrieve it.
There's only one way to stop this: use the priest's true soul to bring Saman back. The original owner of this body is also looking forward to it.
So where are the real priests?
Ren Yifei unconsciously bit his fingers; he had a crazy idea.
After calming himself down, Ren Yifei opened the video on his phone again, wanting to look for any other clues. In the video, his expression changed from calm to sadness, and from sadness to numbness.
At first, all his attention was on that face, but later, during the second and third replays, he suddenly noticed something strange.
Why is there only his breathing sound in the picture?
He turned the volume up to the maximum, loud enough to hear the faintest breeze in the dormitory. Yet, he couldn't hear the theoretically expected sounds of keyboard typing or human breathing.
For some unknown reason, Ren Yifei paused the video and zoomed in. The camera was focused on his face, with a cabinet and bookshelf in the background; he was zooming in on the background.
Why is the bookshelf so empty?
'Tap tap.' His roommate walked on the floor in slippers behind him. Ren Yifei had already turned off his phone. He turned around and smiled: "Do you need me to bring you something for lunch?"
My roommate turned his head away, puzzled. "No need."
At lunchtime, Ren Yifei left his dormitory with his backpack. He didn't know what his roommate was, nor did he know if revealing his identity would immediately reveal murderous intent.
Judging by Zhang Zhengyuan's fighting skills, he's probably doomed to be chopped up.
Ren Yifei, who shares a dormitory with a monster, and Saman, who is sacrificed as a priest, are both part of a nightmare. It turns out that Saman wasn't the only one who started the nightmare.
Around 3 p.m., the person checking the rooms arrived. It was the same middle-aged man he had encountered before, the one checking for prohibited electrical appliances.
The students all craned their necks to see what was going on.
Because of the regulations, they could not leave their dorm rooms until the rooms were thoroughly disinfected, so these students discussed it online, some in their class groups and some on the school forum.
Ren Yifei was also sitting in his seat, watching the class group and club group chat, where messages would pop up from time to time.
The group of people checking the rooms went from one dormitory to another, and soon it was the fifth floor's turn.
There was a knock on the door twice. Ren Yifei went to open it.
"Disinfect." The middle-aged man said succinctly, with two fully armed men carrying disinfectant tanks behind him.
As part of the 'disinfection' process, Ren Yifei's room was sprayed with a transparent mist. However, the middle-aged man didn't look like he was there for disinfection at all.
However, he didn't come in. He just stood at the door for a while, and when the room was filled with steam, they left.
Does this person represent the unscientific forces within this instance?
But he came twice and still found nothing. Perhaps the two sides were never really in the same system; they might be good at dealing with the evil created by people, but not so good at dealing with disorder and madness.
"Is that all?" came a somewhat indifferent voice from my roommate.
"That's it." Ren Yifei saw the group off. A thin layer of fog enveloped his dormitory room. His roommate stood in the fog, and also on the balcony, so his eyes were not visible.
One of them stood in the room, and the other stood on the balcony. For some reason, the atmosphere was heavy and awkward.
Suddenly, Ren Yifei chuckled, bent down to pick up a trash bag, and said, "Now that the dorm has been disinfected, we can go out. I'm going to throw out the trash." He turned around, his face expressionless.
When the middle-aged man was looking at the rooms outside, his gaze briefly fell on Ren Yifei, but he didn't look at where his roommate was at all.
The two people who were spraying disinfectant didn't even say "make way" when they walked past my roommate.
If this is a stray monster, when did it appear?
Ren Yifei thought of the unopened earphone box.
He had a hunch that his 'roommate' wouldn't be around for very long, perhaps even around the same time the original owner started to sense something was wrong.
"Zhao Rui, besides the occasional hallucinations you've had these past few days, have you had any other symptoms? Like seeing people who aren't there?" he texted Zhao Rui.
The other party replied quickly: "No. Did you encounter it?"
"I just have some doubts."
Ren Yifei went downstairs to take out the trash, and other students from dormitories that had already been disinfected also came out one after another. They were all discussing the school-wide disinfection: "We haven't heard of any infectious diseases recently."
"Hey, let's just listen to what the school says. It's a good opportunity to get disinfection done for free, and it saves me the trouble of drying things every day."
"Please, disinfection is disinfection, and air drying is air drying. They can't be confused."
The boy who was talking walked away, his voice fading into the distance. Ren Yifei walked into the dormitory, but he hadn't taken more than a few steps when he heard a loud 'bang' as something hit the wall behind him.
Then he saw a car with its front end completely twisted and smoking, and a person slumped over the steering wheel with wide-open eyes.
What's shocking, however, is that in the spot where the wheels had run over, the shadows of two people can be vaguely seen. Not long ago, these two people were talking and laughing together.
The entire dormitory building fell silent for a few seconds, then screams began, along with frantic calls to call the police.
"Isn't that Teacher Xia's car?" someone recognized the car.
"Which Teacher Xia?"
"You don't know? It's Professor Xia Jiehao from the History Department."
Before Ren Yifei could even find out about this Teacher Xia, the group chat was already in an uproar: "Our club's teacher in charge is dead!"
Alright, no need to check anymore.
Shortly after, the police arrived, the body was removed, and the car was towed away.
After a while, they forgot about Teacher Xia and his car. The students walked over the traces left by the car accident and said in a regretful tone that not long ago, two boys seemed to have been in a car accident.
The once bustling group chat has quieted down. The messages are still there, but no one mentions Teacher Xia anymore.
Players die so decisively; I thought high-end dungeons would be different.
Ren Yifei returned to his dormitory with mixed feelings. Strangely, his roommates were nowhere to be found. They weren't in the washroom, on the balcony, or even in the tent.
But instead of looking for it, he simply sat down, turned on his phone, and slowly rotated the camera using the selfie camera...
Are you looking for me?
His roommate appeared silently once again, placing his hands on his shoulders; his hands were as cold as if they had just been taken out of the refrigerator.
However, Ren Yifei's selfie only features him.
Time ticked by, and Ren Yifei's breathing followed the rhythm of time.
Ren Yifei suddenly moved. He grabbed his roommate's arm, pulled him back forcefully, and then slammed him onto the table with a crash, smashing the computer to the side.
What are you?
His roommate looked at him and suddenly laughed: "Want to know? I'll tell you."
He struggled for a moment, and Ren Yifei let go.
Ren Yifei's roommate straightened up, smiled at him, and reached for his computer. As his roommate's fingers touched the keyboard, Ren Yifei felt the same sensation on his own fingertips.
He looked at his hands in surprise.
"You're scared by this?" His roommate reappeared behind him at some point, and he didn't even know when he had sat back down in his chair, one hand on the mouse.
"I sat back down? When?!" An inexplicable chill swept over Ren Yifei's will.
"Look at the screen." Cold fingers pressed on his shoulder, and his roommate's breath brushed against his face like the cold tongue of a snake.
A screen appeared on the computer, showing their dormitory room, which was captured by the computer's front-facing webcam.
However, there was no yurt tent in this scene, no strange roommate across the way, only a lost and distraught original owner dressed in winter clothes.
"It's been half a year since he left. Without that jarring game noise, I haven't been able to get a good night's sleep in a long time."
The computer screen flickered twice, and a second image appeared. It was still the original owner of the body, looking lost and dejected. He was wearing long sleeves for spring and had a smile on his face, but all his micro-expressions screamed 'sadness': "I'm happy today, and I'll be happy tomorrow too."
Ren Yifei vaguely understood something, and he continued reading.
Then the screen on the computer changed again. He was wearing long sleeves, but with the sleeves rolled up, and a smile on his face, but there was no smile in his eyes: "The club is holding a ceremony tomorrow. I heard it's a blessing ritual that can grant any wish. I hope it's true."
As he finished speaking, the computer screen flickered on and off, revealing a frowning, worried-looking boy's face: "I've been having nightmares lately, almost tripping several times. Luckily, my new roommate reminded me, though he seemed quite impatient. Sometimes I feel like I've forgotten something. Hmm? What could it be?"
Ren Yifei was somewhat surprised. He noticed that the original owner's expression... no longer showed that pain and sorrow.
The screen flashed again, and the boy appeared on the screen: "I got kicked out of the group chat, and an annoying person transferred to the dorm. The game sounds louder than thunder."
He glanced cautiously at the empty bed frame behind him, as if someone were sleeping there, and spoke even more softly: "How can I get him to be quieter? He seems to have a bad temper."
A new roommate whom no one else can 'see', not even through videos. And a mysterious life form with an energy field that can trigger negative emotions in a person.
The extreme grief caused by the loss fueled the original owner's delusions.
Ren Yifei's lips trembled slightly;
he seemed to understand.