“Wow, amazing!” Rong Yi clapped enthusiastically, “Actually, I was thinking that maybe my other boyfriend could do something like format Teacher Zhang…”
As soon as she said that, she felt like a sea queen mentioning another “boyfriend” in the game while having a different boyfriend in reality.
“But it seems like Senior A is even more skilled!” She tried to imagine herself as the “School Tyrant’s Girlfriend” in the game, extending her arm to lean it on Senior A’s shoulder, “You’re so talented, can you change his code?”
Senior A’s dark eyes stared directly at her, almost making her hair stand on end, but then he nodded.
Rong Yi clapped her hands, “I have a hypothesis.”
“After Anna turned into a female ghost, she still wore a red dress. That dress is actually the girls’ uniform of this school.”
As they carefully recalled, despite the red dress being faint due to her being a ghost, with suspicious black stains on it, the apron-like shape was indeed a school uniform.
“Compared to when she was ‘alive,’ even her clothing didn’t change, indicating that in this game scenario, the NPCs as ‘humans’ or ‘ghosts’ may just be a change in certain attributes.”
“Moreover, someone told me that the game’s NPCs are more like data-generated AI creatures, so when the scenario needs new characters, it’s much quicker to transform existing redundant characters into new roles than creating them from scratch.”
“Therefore, this transformation is likely not complex. Otherwise, wouldn’t it be redundant for the scenario?”
Rong Yi looked at Raymond, “Send Teacher Zhang’s data to the team communication, let Senior A study and find out which attribute makes him be classified as ‘human’.”
“What an interesting experiment, turning those who can’t be human into human, giving the chance to be human to those who need it.”
“Are you saying… I can become human too?” Anna was ecstatic.
Despite enjoying the thrill of scaring others as a demon under Luna’s guidance, loneliness remained her unsolvable dilemma. When would she be able to communicate normally with others after Rong Yi and the others left the scenario?
“Just a hypothesis, let’s first experiment with a guinea pig. If successful, could you entrust us with your code?” Rong Yi proposed.
“Why not?” Anna happily traversed between the walls, her joy lasting until the horror game session, where a ghostly face with a creepy smile almost reset the players’ sanity values to zero tonight.
“Alright, alright, big sis, you’ve got superpowers!” After all the other players ran away in fear, Zhang Haiyang covered his eyes, afraid to look at the smiling face of the female ghost, emerging from his hiding spot.
Anna shyly covered her mouth.
Suddenly, Luo Huayue had a wild idea, “If Teacher Zhang can turn his code to escape the scenario, can’t Anna also turn herself into a code and leave with us?”
Anna was taken aback for a moment, before Rong Yi vetoed, “Think about it, after going through these scenarios, have any of us really brought anything from the scenario to the real world?”
The group looked at each other.
Apart from points and rewards from the mall, nothing from the scenario could follow the players into the real world.
Even Rong Yi herself could only bring the code from the scenario to reality. Just like Teacher Zhang, the nurse from the previous scenario had a complete NPC code, but in the real world, it was just a string of code, unable to ‘live’ as in the scenario world.
“Therefore, Teacher Zhang’s code can lead to reality, but in reality, he cannot transform into a ‘human’ like in the duplicate.”
Raymond thought for a moment and nodded, “Yes, he told me, ‘Take him on a journey to the vast world.’ This shows that he himself knows that he cannot restore his physical form in reality and must ‘live’ in the next duplicate.”
Rong Yi added, “Teacher Zhang cannot stay in this duplicate, so he must flee. But who knows where we will go in the next duplicate?”
“I may be a beginner who has experienced three duplicates, but out of those three, only this current duplicate is suitable for survival. Anna is a high school girl with not much combat power. If she were to go to the ogre duplicate or the mental hospital duplicate…”
Luo Huayue suddenly realized, “It’s better here. If Anna can return to being human, a relaxed campus life is better than anything.”
At this moment, Anna, with tears in her ghostly eyes, covered her mouth and expressed gratitude, “Thank you all for considering so much for me.”
Hearing the ghostly cries, Zhang Haiyang covered his ears with a cry of anguish.
Senior A timely approached and dragged the ghostly Teacher Zhang out of Raymond’s floating screen.
Teacher Zhang exclaimed, “Why am I flying? You—you all are a group—!” He glared at Anna beside him, enraged, and instinctively raised his hand, “You—obscene—”
However, Anna, unafraid, showed much more skill in being a ghost than Teacher Zhang. She agilely dodged and landed a punch on Teacher Zhang’s face!
Before a scream could escape, Senior A smacked Teacher Zhang back into Raymond’s system.
Rong Yi clapped, “Impressive, impressive!” She asked Anna, “Are you ready to transform back into a human?”
Anna, still looking at her fist, raised her head at the question and smiled slightly. This smile was not terrifying but complemented her delicate appearance, exuding a long-lost confidence:
“You still have three days before we exit the duplicate.”
“For the next three days, let me help you earn a fortune!”
In a game where frightening others is a criterion for scoring, with a local ghost who is wholeheartedly helpful, highly motivated, and possesses professional intimidation skills, all the others have to do is two words:
Win effortlessly.
Rong Yi, the mastermind of pranks, retired in glory. Anna, with Luna’s superb skills, arranged simple yet discreet support tasks for them. With her ghostly abilities, she scared the players to near-critical values each night, allowing them to reset the next day and repeating the cycle.
Through rounds of Anna making a profit, the insider team earned abundantly, enjoying a sinful life of skipping classes, submitting blank exam papers, and watching their points soar.
On the seventh day, as players cried and howled, fleeing from the girls’ bathroom, the insider team received the victory notice, bonus points for clearing the game, and a notification of escape in thirty minutes.
As it was a role-playing duplicate, to not disrupt its operation, all players would be automatically transported to the exit point when the time came, without needing to go there specifically.
Over these days, the duplicate had automatically corrected its rules, replacing the janitor with a gentle middle-aged man as the math teacher.
The campus lost a male god, yet no one seemed to care.
Because Teacher Zhang has turned into a ghost, naturally, all memories of him have been erased by the rules.
Just like when Anna left.
“I am ready.” Anna floated on the playground, the bright moon casting a faint glow all around her.
At that moment, she didn’t look like a ghost; instead, she seemed like a fairy who had secretly descended to earth.
With Senior A around, there was no need for her to specifically extract data points. With a simple reach, he sent her into the suspended screen of Rong Yi.
Rong Yi was slightly stunned and looked towards Senior A. Senior A summoned his NPC suspended screen, swiftly typing on the soft keyboard, sending a code to the undercover team’s communication channel.
Rong Yi found an identical character in Anna’s code and, following Senior A’s instructions, changed one parameter.
Once again pulled out of the suspended screen by Senior A, Anna now had a solid, opaque body, firmly standing on the ground.
She curiously raised her hand and looked at it repeatedly until realizing that moonlight couldn’t pass through, she excitedly jumped up, “I’m human!”
She hugged everyone present one by one, except for Raymond and Senior A. One was in a ghostly state at night, which she couldn’t hug; the other was someone she didn’t dare to hug.
“My identity has returned!” she joyfully exclaimed. “I can feel it!”
She returned to her original dormitory. In her roommates’ perception, classmate Yan Anna took a sick leave for a week and returned, welcomed warmly by everyone, who appeared familiar and friendly.
She looked at her friends, separated for three years, holding back excited tears, and took out her cherished Sailor Moon tin box from the cupboard.
Roommate A teased, “Isn’t this your ‘precious memories’? You never let us touch it normally, how come you finally dare to take it out today?”
Yan Anna tapped the dust on the box, saying, “I was naive back then. What treasure? Just a bunch of junk taking up space.”
As there was no need to specifically extract data points, the undercover team had some free time, waiting for her on the playground. Yan Anna dragged the incinerator bin from the trash sorting point near the playground, opened the tin box.
Inside were a dried rose, a bracelet woven with colorful strings, a cheap plastic necklace, and some other worthless trinkets.
Anna poured all these cherished items into the incinerator bin, which already contained some flammable trash, struck a match, and tossed it in.
“Phew!”
The fire rose with the wind, burning brightly, illuminating everyone’s faces.
Anna watched her memories of love go up in flames, her gaze distant, lost in thought. The earlier joyful expression of becoming human had disappeared, replaced by a hint of sadness.
Approaching her, Rong Yi hooked her shoulder, the last lollipop stick in her mouth, tossing the wrapper into the fire.
“Let’s take a picture,” she said to Anna.
“Here?” Anna hadn’t snapped out of her thoughts.
Rong Yi framed a shot with her fingers, squinting one eye. “A beauty in the firelight, very emotional.”
Raymond had summoned the suspended screen already, and Ice, looking like a makeup artist, stepped forward to tidy Anna’s seaweed-like black hair.
“Smile! One, two—”
“Footsteps approached, Rong Yi’s heart skipped a beat. Without turning around, she heard the familiar roar of the headmaster:
“Class (Three) of Sophomore Year, Rong Yi!”
“Leading classmates to play with fire late at night on the playground?! Ah? You’re getting more and more capable!”
“You stop right there! Don’t run! Students in front, stop right there!”
Rong Yi: …She’s really experienced in this sort of thing.
She suddenly sprinted off, the undercover team catching up as they realized, running and laughing arrogantly, leaving the Headmaster panting behind as he chased after them.
Rong Yi rarely had mischievous thoughts, but this time, she turned back and made a funny face at the Headmaster, only to spot Senior A standing alone by the incinerator.
He didn’t follow.
Although Anna was an NPC in this scenario, she was currently in the role of a normal student, so running from the Headmaster was the obvious choice.
But Senior A, he was a special NPC.
He feared no one in this scenario, as if he held some kind of privilege.
Rong Yi thought, it must be the privilege of being a top student.
The outstanding student glowed white in the moonlight, appearing invisible to the Headmaster as he stormed past the incinerator, anger driving him to chase after them.
The system initiated the countdown to exit, and Rong Yi hurriedly had Raymond send the Headmaster’s data package to the group.
She looked back to see Senior A, who had already understood the situation and pulled the floating image of the Headmaster out.
The Headmaster floated in the air, bewildered, then panicked, and finally exhausted.
Not scary at all, somewhat pitiful even.
Male ghosts truly weren’t as scary as female ghosts. He not only had to endure prolonged loneliness but also would find it hard to earn points.
Rong Yi’s thoughts quickly shifted back to Senior A.
He was really a dependable “boyfriend.” She hoped the next player who took on the role of “girlfriend” would treat him better.
Suddenly, Senior A’s mouth curved up, his overly dark eyes fixed on her, smiling.
She saw his lips form the words: Goodbye.
The countdown hit zero. Anna watched her fleeing partners suddenly turn into white light and vanish.
She smiled, ran, and gradually stopped. Even when scolded harshly by the Headmaster after catching up, it couldn’t dampen her good mood.
Now, she not only returned to the real world, but also had so many “online friends” from other worlds to communicate with.
Three years of loneliness, three years of misplaced affection, felt like a nightmare burnt to ashes.
She looked at a photo sent by Raymond in the group chat: she smiled brightly, casually throwing a “yeah.”
In the background, the fire glowed brightly, as if illuminating the past.
Senior A walked past her, lightly taking out the photo from the system and gently placing it in her hand.
Anna admired it for a moment, carefully placing the photo in her Sailor Moon-themed tin box and closing the lid.
Author’s Note: Duck Head, don’t follow Rong Jie, absolutely do not play with fire!
This scenario is over!
There might be a second update tonight, as usual transitioning to the real world, where the facade of the virtual boyfriend will be partially revealed (luckily, he’s well-covered).
But if you haven’t finished your summer homework, don’t wait any longer and quickly catch up! The updated chapters won’t disappear~
Aww 🥺🫶