Deceitful Game

Chapter 56, The Mysterious School, cleared!

"This isn't my phone..."

Zhang Leyao said timidly.

Her hand instinctively pressed down on the exam paper, but the blood seeped out and stained one of the answers.

The proctor, his eyes bloodshot with rage, shouted in a shrill voice, "How come your phone is here if it's not yours? Are you trying to cheat?"

She suddenly reached out, trying to snatch Zhang Leyao's test paper.

Zhang Leyao instinctively tried to protect her test paper, but in the struggle, she tore it to shreds.

stab-

With a piercing tearing sound, she felt as if her heart had been ripped apart.

The test paper was crumpled into a ball and thrown at her face.

"Zhang Leyao!"

The voice rang out angrily: "You're still lying!"

At this moment, Zhang Leyao felt that the whole world had become unfamiliar and detached.

"This isn't my phone, this isn't my phone, this isn't my phone..."

She covered her ears and murmured repeatedly, as if the whole world had fallen into darkness.

Just then, a clear, childlike laugh rang out behind her.

Like an illusion.

Upon seeing this, Chen Bingwen and Gao Fan both clenched their fists.

That sense of grievance and indignation seeped through it, like black ink soaking into white paper.

Only Mingpo's narration continued—

"After that, the collective cheating incident in Class 13 of Grade 11 caused a great uproar."

"All the teachers know about this, and all the students claim that you instructed them to do it."

"Because before this, there had never been a cheater in Class 13. This incident did indeed occur after Zhang Leyao transferred here. If the incident is characterized as 'all students have been engaging in tacit and long-term collective cheating and slandering the transfer student,' then this matter will blow up. It might even alarm the province... no, it will definitely alarm them."

Even knowing that Zhang Leyao might be innocent...

As Mingper narrates, the world shatters once again.

The camera then pans to a middle-aged man inside the office.

"Yes, yes, I am (censored)..."

As he spoke, he asked the person on the other end of the phone, "I want to ask... about Zhang Leyao, the one who transferred schools a year ago. Did she have any bad records at school?"

"Oh...oh, you cheated before, that's good. Oh, no...no, it's okay. No. We were just checking..."

Seeing this, Mingpo smiled sarcastically.

"And it's quite obvious..."

He casually remarked, "He checked with your previous school and found you had a history of cheating. So it's perfect to make you take the blame."

Then, the scene shifted again.

They returned to their familiar office.

But here, the four of them are no longer sitting around the table.

Instead, it was a teacher, Zhang Leyao, and three students.

The four of them stood on the four outer sides, behind each other.

"Tell me," the middle-aged man on the phone said, "who is the mastermind?"

"No, I'm not..."

Just as Zhang Leyao was about to deny it, the teacher suddenly received a phone call and left.

Before leaving, he covered his phone and warned them:

"I heard that the person who organized this group cheating is one of the four of you."

"I'll call your parents right now, so you should think it over carefully."

"You can only leave when you admit it!"

"If no one admits it, then none of you are leaving!"

"No one is allowed to lie!"

Just like the words they used at the start of their game.

Zhang Leyao wanted to explain that she was innocent.

The other two remained silent.

"Yaoyao," someone suddenly said softly, "I'm sorry."

"I didn't do it!"

Zhang Leyao realized something and was immediately horrified.

"But you were the one who found out when you checked your phone."

Another person said seriously, "Without you, no one will be in any danger."

"If this gets out of hand, everyone will be expelled!"

"But I..."

Zhang Leyao's face was pale.

"Please, Yao Yao..."

"—Someone has to take responsibility, Zhang Leyao?"

"I don't want to drop out of school, I still want to go to university..."

"—Didn't you kill us?"

"We can still be friends, Yao Yao. Please, you can transfer schools and then leave. No one will know you then. We can't help you..."

"—I've heard about it. You've cheated before, haven't you? The teachers definitely won't let you off the hook, and it's no use denying it. They already believe you."

The alternating sounds were like incantations.

The words, though spoken by someone their own age, were so vicious they sounded like a ghostly curse.

"I...I..."

Zhang Leyao's eyes were red and she was at a loss.

Mingpo patted her shoulder, letting the girl turn around and throw herself into his arms, crying.

He sighed softly: "And you obviously didn't understand back then..."

"—Some things cannot be admitted."

Zhang Leyao quickly admitted to being the initiator of the group cheating and was subsequently expelled.

This matter is now closed.

But it was different from what Zhang Leyao had expected—

She did not receive everyone's gratitude and love as the one who "bears all the sins".

Instead, it was as if they had truly become unforgivable.

The most ironic thing is...

After she was expelled, the students in her class really stopped cheating.

As a result, people became increasingly convinced that Zhang Leyao was utterly wicked and had corrupted a group of top students.

As the rumors spread, Zhang Leyao's illness worsened.

She could no longer attend school and could only stay at home online. Even then, she still considered herself a hero.

Until she saw her classmate's account on the school's online forum, where they were saying bad things about her.

They were as if they had believed their own lies, and many people described the details of the event from different perspectives.

In that instant, Zhang Leyao felt that they were so ugly.

She was deceived and then abandoned.

And yet, they are the ones who are guilty, able to live openly in the sunlight...

"Are you really willing to accept this?"

A little girl's voice whispered in her ear.

Zhang Leyao stared at the bottom of the screen, and gradually a dim yellow glow ignited, transforming into a beast-like vertical pupil.

That day, she received a package.

Inside is a USB flash drive.

"And after that, you sneaked into the school at night."

Mingbo narrated softly: "You believe that it's not just your classmates who are guilty, but the entire school."

"You have etched the curse into almost every class in the second year of high school, from Class 1 on the first floor to Class 13 at the end of the second floor."

"And at that moment, you were spotted by the night patrol security guards."

"The security guard is chasing you, and you fight him but can't defeat a strong man."

"So you ran straight to the rooftop and left your shoes there. You pretended you jumped..."

As Mingpo recounted the story, a disheveled Zhang Leyao ran breathlessly to the rooftop.

It was raining on the rooftop, and she was panting heavily.

On a whim, she pushed a small box filled with heavy objects down the slope, leaving her shoes behind, and pretended to jump down.

"Feed—"

Meanwhile, security guards nervously arrived to check.

She suddenly rushed out from behind and knocked the security guard down!

"Hey, you—"

The security guard was startled and used his last bit of strength to push her back.

Then he fell heavily to the ground.

Fresh blood seeped into the rainwater.

Zhang Leyao knelt on the edge of the rooftop, trembling all over, realizing that she had really killed someone.

Just then...

A little girl appeared behind her.

"Jump!"

She whispered in Zhang Leyao's ear.

The next moment, Zhang Leyao's body began to fall forward uncontrollably.

It fell straight down.

—Thump.

A dull sound rang out, and the scene shifted.

"...From then on, a curse permeated the school. It became a deserted place."

Mingpo stood beside Zhang Leyao, who had fallen to the ground, and said softly, "This is your story."

"And in this game, everyone we meet... is an avatar of you."

Zhang Leyao, who was lying on the ground with her limbs twisted, suddenly moved her neck and raised her head.

"...Only one guess was wrong, everything else was correct."

She smiled and said, "You're really amazing, senior. You can guess everything."

"...If only you had been here from the very beginning."

Mingpo did not reply.

"But... there's no such thing as 'what if'."

Zhang Leyao sighed softly and said to herself, "There's only one thing I guessed wrong..."

"—That little girl, I didn't play her. She was already here when I transferred schools."

"I initially believed... that I was purifying the school, and I truly believed it. Although at that time... I was already trapped in a hallucination..."

"Because I feel that they might all be controlled by that ghost..."

Two lines of bloody tears slowly streamed down Zhang Leyao's face as she shook her head: "I didn't intentionally want to kill them... I didn't..."

"I didn't... from the very beginning, I never intended to kill anyone..."

"In the beginning... it was like this..."

She was crying.

The heavy rain washed everything away.

The four remained silent, staying by Zhang Leyao's side.

Mingpo squatted down, patted Zhang Leyao's head, and said softly, "I believe in you."

"Just as I believe you have never cheated."

A black cat stood quietly at a distance behind them, watching them.

A little girl dressed in red stood quietly on the rooftop, smiling as she looked down at everything.

As if sensing something, "Nameless" raised its head.

When she looked up, the little girl had already disappeared.

As Zhang Leyao became completely transparent and disappeared...

The next moment, the whole world melted like cream.

[The Mysterious School, Completed]

[Host: Mo (Heng-Baiyin)]

[Difficulty: 5 days]

[The mystery of the unique worldview has been solved: Phantom Ghost]

[Already logged into the "Phantom of the Opera" universe]

[Phantom's deviation from the material world: 65%]

[Reward: Chips of Time - Pseudo-Gold of the Sun (7 pieces)]

[Under evaluation...]

[Based on the current highest level of privilege, the title is: Detective]

【Detective (Intelligence - Fake Gold)】

[Effects of wearing: Increased thinking speed, and the ability to see simple item descriptions]

[Effect: Important clues are immediately highlighted; each use of this effect will significantly reduce stamina consumption]

[Title Acquisition Condition: Solving a long-standing mystery single-handedly]

[Title Branch Advancement Conditions: Solve three unsolved mysteries in a single-player game / Wear this title and personally kill the culprit in a multiplayer game themed around "murder" / Wear this title and solve the puzzles in three consecutive games without engaging in combat]

"There's only one truth."