“I always thought I’d be a good teacher,” she said, crouching down in tears. “But in the end, I couldn’t even…”
She had never confessed any of this before. Now that she’d poured it all out, she felt strangely relieved—years of buried guilt and anguish pouring out all at once.
Lulu gently patted her back. “It’s not your fault at all.”
If blame was to be placed, it should fall squarely on those who did the bullying. Some of them hadn’t even been punished—they still roamed the school, doing as they pleased.
The only difference was that back then, they were first-years, bullying their classmates.
Now they were third-years—and their reach extended over the whole school.
Dong Zi asked quietly, “So how can we help you?”
There was no actual ghost story here. The haunting had been fabricated by the teacher herself. So what did resolving it even mean?
He and Lulu had been stuck in this section of the instance for a while now—especially with the time consumed by those loops. All of that still counted toward their total instance time.
As for Fu Changxun’s situation, the only update he had was that one ghost story had been resolved on the other side.
The teacher let Lulu help her back up. Wiping away her tears, she said stubbornly, “I… I want to save him. I want to bring him back!”
Dong Zi stared at her for a long moment, then shook his head regretfully. “We can’t reverse time.”
In this instance, they were just players. The instance was governed by the game itself. All they could do was try to survive and clear the stage. They couldn’t turn back time. They couldn’t bring a dead NPC back to life.
But the teacher shook her head. “No. You can. I know there’s a way to travel to other timelines from here. I can’t do it—but you… the ones sent here to unravel the truth—you can.”
She didn’t sound like an NPC at all. She had deduced their purpose—to resolve ghost stories—and even distinguished between players and NPCs.
Dong Zi couldn’t help but glance sideways at her.
An NPC this close to breaking the rules… what would the instance do to her?
But that wasn’t his concern.
“Then tell us,” he said. “What’s this method you’re talking about?”
The teacher led them to a familiar spot—the gap between floors.
“This is the loophole.”
She touched the leave-of-absence list on the blackboard and gestured for the two of them to write their names on it—then erase them.
Normally, the list would automatically update with each new name, requiring no manual changes. But if someone erased a name by hand, it would trigger a temporal disruption.
She had tried it herself, many times. All ended in failure.
Before now, a few other students had also tried to “solve the ghost story”—odd students with strange behavior. But they either didn’t trust her, or entered the loophole on their own after speaking with her. None of them ever came back.
She glanced at the two standing in front of her now. There were only two of them, but… they looked reliable.
At the very least, when they caught her following them earlier, that wrist lock had hurt.
At least… they could fight.
Dong Zi and Lulu followed her instructions, erasing their names.
A faint light shimmered across the blackboard.
The teacher staggered slightly, and when she found her footing again, the two of them were gone.
***
When Dong Zi opened his eyes again, the first thing he saw was a monster lunging at Fu Changxun with its jaws wide open. His expression changed instantly—he charged forward.
This was the moment when he and Lulu had teamed up to severely wound the dorm matron.
Then, without warning, he pulled Fu Changxun into his arms.
“So, you guys discovered a rift in the parallel dimension and ended up here by accident?”
Fu Changxun was finally released from the death grip. Dong Zi had held him so tightly, he’d nearly suffocated.
Dong Zi nodded, then shook his head. “Something like that. We were aiming for the ‘past’ timeline in this instance, but for some reason, we ended up in your timeline instead.”
A lucky accident, really.
The teacher had meant for them to go into the past, but Dong Zi—at this moment—had no intention of leaving Fu Changxun’s side. Even if there were blades and fire ahead, at least now… Ah Xun was with him. He had found him.
Fu Changxun finally let go of the tension in his chest. “I’m just glad you’re both okay.”
Lulu was still stepping on the dorm matron’s monster of a body, glancing around. “Where’s Xiaoxiao? Is she alright?”
“This is the boys’ dorm,” Fu Changxun replied. “Xiaoxiao is with another female player. She’s safe.” He glanced at the mangled body on the floor and winced. “That was the second ghost story boss in this timeline. We’ve done this much damage—how is the ghost story still not marked as resolved?”
He wasn’t just asking the others. He was asking the instance.
But there was no response.
Clearly, it still didn’t count as resolved.
“What the hell?” Qiu Yi was speechless. “Does it want us to kill the monster outright?”
Fu Changxun frowned, thinking for a long moment. “Drag it into the dorm room. Let’s compare notes between both groups.”
Dong Zi didn’t hesitate. He grabbed one of the dorm matron’s bloody legs and dragged the mangled body into the room, laying it in the narrow space between two beds.
Then he sat down right next to Fu Changxun—so close, not even a sheet of paper could slip between them.
Lulu: “…”
Qiu Yi: “…………”
I’m blind. Thanks for that.
Fu Changxun began, “I resolved one ghost story on my side. You’ll never guess who the boss was. No point in dragging it out—it was Xiaoxiao’s mother.”
Lulu’s jaw dropped. “What??”
“She only has a dad, doesn’t she? I thought her mom was—” she started to ask.
Fu Changxun shook his head. “It was her. But in the instance, she doesn’t really count as ‘alive.’ She’s essentially an NPC now.”
“So this infinite game syncs with real life and can turn dead people into NPCs?” Lulu kept piecing it together. “But then that means it has insane power…”
If that were true, wouldn’t humans be completely at the mercy of the higher-dimensional beings? Why bother with the game at all? They could just enslave everyone outright. Resistance would be futile.
Fu Changxun nodded. “Exactly. That’s why I think the game can only pull in certain kinds of dead people under specific conditions. Which is actually a good thing.”
Because if a boss happened to be someone’s family, there was still a chance of recognition.
It could reduce unnecessary deaths—and give living players a measure of comfort.
Their loved ones might be gone from the real world, but in these instance spaces, they could still exist.
Lulu sighed.
But Dong Zi wasn’t as optimistic. “But even if that’s true… how do we get them out of the instance? If we can’t, then it’s like gaining them only to lose them again.”
“Exactly,” Fu Changxun agreed. “We still haven’t found a way to bring Xiaoxiao’s mom out.”
But it didn’t matter. At least now they had hope.
“Anyway, back to your side. If that teacher asked for your help, then I assume the ghost story only counts as resolved if you help her. That’s the only way to finish the task, right?”
He paused, then suddenly realized something. “Wait… what about the other players on your side?”
Lulu slapped her forehead. “Oops. We forgot to tell them. But it’s fine—they’re all slackers.”
Dong Zi added, “There was a lone wolf player. He’s loosely connected to one of the resolved ghost stories. I broke his leg earlier—no idea if he’s still alive.”
Meanwhile, in the other timeline, the limping “senior” was struggling to crawl forward: “…”
“Well, okay then,” Fu Changxun sighed. “Besides Xiaoxiao, I’ve got one female player over here who’s probably hiding her true strength. And three guys: one with a buzz cut, one with glasses, and one who’s… not the brightest.”
The first male player to get injured in this instance: “…”
Dong Zi frowned. “Why are you telling me all this?”
“Obviously, to pick someone to go back to the past timeline with you and finish the mission,” Fu Changxun replied, raising an eyebrow. “What, you don’t want me to go with you?”
Dong Zi waved his hands. “No, no, it’s not that—I’m just worried about the danger…”
Fu Changxun didn’t give him a chance to finish. “Me staying behind is what’s dangerous. If I’m with you, at least we both have a better chance of coming back alive. That’s enough for me.”
“But—”
Dong Zi might not be the type to micromanage everything, but when it came to protecting Fu Changxun, he absolutely took the lead—always putting himself in harm’s way first. Fu Changxun gave him a resigned look.
“I’m not that fragile. You’ve only been gone a couple days, and my HP barely dropped. Or… are you saying you don’t think you’re strong enough to protect me?”
For a moment, Dong Zi didn’t know what to say—but he had to admit, Ah Xun was right.
He didn’t trust Ah Xun. And he didn’t trust himself either.
“Fine, we’ll go—just the two of us,” Fu Changxun said decisively. “Settled. Director Qiu, Lulu, we’ll leave Xiaoxiao in your care.”
As for the shredded mess of a dorm matron at their feet, and how that ghost story was supposed to be resolved…
Well, they’d leave that puzzle to the ever-capable Director Qiu.
When lunch break ended, Xiaoxiao and Huang Yueran stepped out of the girls’ dorm—and immediately noticed two extra people.
Huang Yueran didn’t recognize them, but Xiaoxiao shot forward like a cannonball, hugging them both in turn. “Ge! Lulu-jie!”
Still looking dazed, Huang Yueran was quickly introduced by Qiu Yi: “These are two more of our teammates—Dong-ge and Lulu. And this is another player we encountered in the instance, Huang Yueran.”
Fu Changxun briefly summarized what he and Dong Zi were about to do, and Huang Yueran caught on instantly. “You’re going to resolve the third ghost story?”
“That’s right.”
Before leaving, Qiu Yi locked the dorm matron inside the room—to prevent it from wandering off.
If everything went well, they could resolve two ghost stories at once—one step closer to clearing the instance.
“We’ll wait for the long break period. Once that starts, we’ll write our names, then find the right time node,” Fu Changxun explained. “The fewer attempts we make, the better—less dizziness.”
As the spatial merge began, Dong Zi suddenly experienced a high-pitched ringing in his ears.
Even with his strong constitution, he was affected—let alone someone like Fu Changxun, who clearly looked more delicate.
They entered the classroom and sat down on either side of Xiaoxiao in the back row, like two perfectly obedient “auditing students.”
When the long break arrived, they made their way downstairs to the hallway gap and wrote: “Dong Zi” and “Fu Changxun.”
“We just erase the names now?” Fu Changxun asked, picking up the eraser and gently wiping them off the board.
As the names disappeared, his vision spun, the world around him flickering in waves of shifting light.
