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Bonus chapter! Thank you to --- for the donation! ^^
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Ruan Qing didn’t seem to expect the male classmate to make such a request. His widened eyes held a trace of disbelief—even shock—as if he couldn’t process what was happening.
It wasn’t until the throbbing sensation in his palm snapped him back to reality. The moment he realized what it was, his pupils constricted, and he yanked his hand back violently.
But the male classmate’s grip was too strong. Despite Ruan Qing using all his strength, his hand didn’t budge an inch.
Ruan Qing’s face flushed red with anger. "You—you—you pervert!"
His hand remained trapped, forced to touch another man’s thing—a stranger he’d just met. No one could stay calm in this situation.
"Let go!!!"
The male classmate glanced at him, his already striking features made even more vivid by the blush. His gaze darkened, but he released Ruan Qing’s hand as requested.
Clutching his sore wrist, Ruan Qing immediately stood up and backed away, staring at him like he was some kind of deviant. His face cycled through shades of pale and flushed before he finally took a deep breath and turned to leave.
"I study here every night."
The male classmate’s calm voice came from behind him. Ruan Qing’s steps faltered slightly, but he didn’t look back as he walked away.
His exit was surprisingly smooth—so smooth it unsettled him. But he felt no relief.
Either the male classmate had given up… or he was certain Ruan Qing would come back to him.
And Ruan Qing was right. The male classmate watched him leave with a shadowed gaze, making no move to stop him.
A skilled hunter always had the patience to wait for prey to deliver itself. The rewards would far outweigh what force could achieve.
After tonight, Ruan Qing would beg for him.
Once the figure vanished into the darkness, the male classmate withdrew his gaze, satisfied, and returned to his book.
If not for the blatant erection between his legs, everything might have seemed perfectly ordinary.
***
Xiao Mingyu’s death was indeed linked to the "Death Call." This meant he might not have been the mastermind—the real ghost was someone else.
The Death Call was even more horrifying than imagined. Worse, it likely wasn’t limited to one call per night.
If it had been one call per night, Xiao Mingyu’s body wouldn’t have borne so many self-inflicted wounds.
After leaving the study room, Ruan Qing found a small knife. Self-harm was the first step toward death—but without it, the alternative was likely immediate demise.
Someone like Xiao Mingyu wouldn’t have chosen self-harm if there had been another way.
Ruan Qing didn’t waste time. Once he had the knife, he headed straight for Xiao Mingyu’s dorm.
Since Xiao Mingyu had died from the "death call," there had to be clues related to it on his body. Starting the investigation with him was the best option.
It was almost 1 AM now. The dormitory’s main entrance had long been locked, leaving only the dim glow from the ground-floor supervisor’s room—an eerie sight.
Ruan Qing checked the lock on the dormitory door. It was a special type; forcing it open would leave traces.
Instead of breaking in, he peered through the window into the supervisor’s room. The space was simple, furnished only with a bunk bed like those in student dorms. The lower bunk was draped with an ordinary mosquito net.
Under the faint light, the faint outline of a blanket was visible, slightly raised. The supervisor must have been asleep for a while.
The dormitory key hung on the wall inside.
Faced with the choice of waking the supervisor or taking the key himself, Ruan Qing chose the latter.
He pressed down on the brim of his cap, picked the lock with a wire, and slipped inside without a sound. Then, moving silently, he approached the white wall where the key hung. Not a single noise escaped him.
But just as Ruan Qing was about to grab the key, a calm, composed voice came from outside the window.
"Classmate, even if you can’t get into the dorm, breaking in isn’t the solution, is it?"
Ruan Qing froze. Instinctively, he turned toward the window, where a male student stood, watching him with an impassive gaze. There was no telling how long he’d been there.
When Ruan Qing looked over, the student tilted his chin slightly, gesturing at Ruan Qing’s outstretched hand.
"Taking without asking is called stealing, you know."
The student’s voice wasn’t hushed, and in the silence of the night, it rang out alarmingly loud. Ruan Qing immediately glanced at the supervisor’s bed, his delicate face tense with anxiety.
Only when he saw no movement from the bed did he relax slightly. He turned back to the student outside the window and whispered,
"If I get the key, we can both go in."
After speaking, he quickly snatched the key from the wall and moved to leave.
But just as Ruan Qing reached the door and was about to open it, someone pushed it open from the outside. The two stood face to face, and the air between them turned to ice.
It’s important to note that after Ruan Qing entered the room, he had closed the door behind him. Unless someone knew how to pick the lock like he did, the only way to open it was with a key.
Ruan Qing stared wide-eyed at the male student holding the key, freezing in place. His beautiful eyes filled with shock.
The male student held the key in one hand while extending the other toward Ruan Qing, his slender, elegant fingers splayed open in front of him.
“Classmate, can you return my key?”
The key in the male student’s hand, along with those words, revealed his true identity—he wasn’t a student at all. He was the dorm supervisor of this building.
Moreover, up close, it was obvious he wasn’t a student but a mature, refined man. His demeanor was nothing like a student’s—nor even that of an ordinary dorm supervisor.
Ruan Qing’s face flushed crimson with embarrassment as he awkwardly placed the key into the man’s hand.
Anyone caught red-handed doing something wrong would react the same way.
The man took the key from Ruan Qing without hesitation, slipping it into his pocket before sitting down at the desk. He picked up a pen and flipped open the register lying on the table.
“Classmate, which dorm are you from? I don’t recall seeing you before.”
As he spoke, the man glanced at the surveillance screen, which displayed facial recognition results: Unknown Visitor.
Ruan Qing saw it too. Even if he hadn’t, he wouldn’t dare randomly name a dorm number—after all, no one knew the dorm’s occupants better than the supervisor. A quick check would expose his lie.
Uncomfortable, Ruan Qing bit his lip and mumbled, “I… I’m not from this dorm.”
The man raised an eyebrow, tapping the desk with his pen. “Then… what are you doing here?”
Ruan Qing lowered his head slightly and whispered, “My… my boyfriend lives here. I wanted to see him.”
“Boyfriend?” The man’s hand paused. He narrowed his eyes, removed his glasses, and looked up at Ruan Qing with an indescribable hint of danger.
“Visiting your boyfriend’s dorm late at night… delivering yourself to his door?”
Ruan Qing looked up in shock, disbelief flashing across his face at the man’s crude phrasing.
But the man simply stared back at him calmly, making it clear he meant exactly that.
Ruan Qing opened his mouth, struggling for words before finally managing, “…No, my boyfriend… is already dead.”
The man seemed slightly surprised by this. He raised an eyebrow faintly. "Your boyfriend is Xiao Mingyu?"
Ruan Qing nodded slightly.
The man withdrew his gaze and uttered a perfunctory, "My condolences."
Then, he tapped the desk lightly with his fingertips. "But even if it’s for your boyfriend, you can’t break school rules. In strict terms, what you did counts as theft."
Ruan Qing’s face paled, his slender frame trembling slightly. He spoke with shame, "...I’m sorry, I know I was wrong. Could you… not tell anyone?"
The man pointed at the surveillance camera by the door. "Apologizing to me is useless. The cameras caught everything."
Ruan Qing’s face turned even whiter. He stammered, "I didn’t mean to steal anything. I just… I suspect Ah Yu didn’t kill himself. That’s why I wanted to investigate."
The man remained unmoved. "No excuse justifies a crime."
Tears welled up in Ruan Qing’s eyes, glistening under the light. He looked at the man pleadingly. "I really know I was wrong. Please… help me."
The man arched an eyebrow and swiveled his chair to face Ruan Qing directly. "How should I help you? By deleting the footage?"
Before Ruan Qing could answer, the man continued.
"The footage can be deleted. But you should know that violates school policy—it’d be aiding and abetting a crime."
Ruan Qing’s face drained of color. He opened his mouth but couldn’t speak for a long moment.
Then, the man’s tone shifted. "Still, helping you isn’t impossible."
Ruan Qing’s damp eyes brightened, hope flashing across his delicate features as he gazed at the man with gratitude.
But the next words froze that gratitude in place.
"You let me kiss you, and I’ll delete the footage. How about it?"
The man turned his chair fully toward Ruan Qing, crossing one leg over the other. An inexplicable pressure radiated from him.
Even seated—physically shorter than the standing Ruan Qing—he somehow dominated the space, his presence towering.
Folding his hands in his lap, the man looked up at Ruan Qing and spoke leisurely.
"You do realize your actions just now were illegal, don’t you? At the very least, a permanent disciplinary mark on your record."
“In serious cases, you could even be expelled from school directly.”
Ruan Qing’s face had already lost all color, his tears trembling on the verge of falling. He stood there helplessly, so fragile it seemed he might collapse at any moment.
The essence of brokenness was perfectly embodied in him. He was like a delicate flower blooming on a branch—the slightest wind or rain would cause him to wither and shatter.
Yet the man showed him no mercy, simply waiting quietly for his decision.
Anyone with sense would know what choice to make.
However, instead of Ruan Qing’s answer, the man heard another voice.
“Threatening someone is also illegal, isn’t it?”
The sudden voice from outside the window made both people in the room turn their heads at once.
When Ruan Qing saw who stood outside, his face showed no gratitude for being saved. Instead, his pupils contracted almost imperceptibly, his hands clenched unconsciously beneath his sleeves, and his entire body stiffened.
Because the person outside the window was one of the high-level players who had dragged him into this dungeon.
This was bad.
Ruan Qing tensed up completely. If they recognized him here, he was truly finished.
