Global Collapse.

Chapter 950 The Great Detective Thurholms

"Who are you?" Jing stared sharply at the uninvited guest.

The remaining people also looked wary, making defensive movements and staring at the person in the upper bunk.

The man remained composed, seemingly oblivious to the wary expressions and movements of the five men below. He spoke calmly, "Chu..."

He paused after saying the first word, and continued after half a second: "Beauty Chu, just came in."

Curly took two steps forward and tried to open his player panel. The panel opened successfully, and the nickname matched the person's description.

Curly breathed a sigh of relief and turned to the other four, saying, "There's a player panel; it's a human."

Chu Changge tilted his head and glanced at the five people below.

Hearing Curly's words, the others relaxed.

The person who just came in... was most likely pulled down at the same time as the one downstairs. Jing thought for a moment and said, "Hello, my name is Jing, and these four are my companions."

As she spoke, she kept her eyes on Chu Changge, observing him. She saw that he was not flustered and was looking at all of them. After scanning everyone, he nodded and looked away.

This person is very calm. When entering an unfamiliar environment, he didn't make a sound but observed from the side. Now that he has been exposed, he didn't immediately ask questions. He is a smart person. That's how I would describe him in my heart.

"You used the phrase 'just came in' when you introduced yourself, so you must know that there's an order in which players enter here, right? Did you find that out from our conversation?" Jing pondered Chu Changge's self-introduction.

In a normal instance, all players are pulled into the instance at the same time, and the introduction would not use the phrase "just entered". This person's statement clearly indicates that they knew they entered after them.

Chu Changge did not deny it: "I learned some things from your conversation. Besides the conversation itself, your expressions, actions, and behavior also show that you didn't just enter the dungeon."

This person is not only intelligent, but also quick to learn. During our conversation, someone mentioned spending a year in this instance—an astounding amount of time—but this person immediately accepted it. Jing thought to herself, recalling the carefree person who had just walked past downstairs with a flashlight.

She frowned slightly and asked, "Did you enter the dungeon with other people?"

Players brought in at the same time are very likely to know each other, but Jing thinks that someone as smart as Chu Meiren probably wouldn't choose a reckless guy as a teammate.

“There are at least three of us, including me, and I’m not sure if there are more.” Chu Changge pushed up his glasses. “One of my teammates just passed by downstairs, you saw him.”

what?
Curly's gaze darted incredulously between Chu Changge and the window.

This seemingly clever person, who sneaks around the dungeon, hiding and observing the situation silently in the corner, is actually teammates with that brainless person below who swaggers around with a bright flashlight, practically wanting to tell all the ghosts, "I'm here, come and catch me!"
And you knew your teammate was passing by below, didn't you plan to call him back?

"You know your teammates passed by below without making a sound. You also heard our conversation just now. It's very dangerous to wander around outside the dormitory at night." Jing was unsure what Chu Meiren meant.

Does he not care about his teammates? Is this teammate just cannon fodder used for scouting? Or did he already think this teammate was a burden and wanted to get rid of him now?
But the other party gave an unexpected answer: "He doesn't need my help."

Curly-haired guy had a very strange expression: "You sound like you're quite confident in your reckless teammate?"

Chu Changge didn't reply, but instead focused her gaze on Curly's wrist: "If I'm not mistaken, it's not entirely safe even in the dorm at night. Do you need me to tell you some precautions?"

"How did you know?" Curly asked, puzzled.

This person is right, the dormitory building is also dangerous at night, but he has only been in this instance for a few minutes, how can he immediately draw this conclusion?
At this moment, Curly noticed that Chu Changge was staring at his wrist. He paused for a moment and looked down as well, where he saw the mechanical watch on his wrist.

The calm voice continued from above: "Your watch is a spring-loaded type. You need to wind it up every now and then to make it run properly. You have to pay attention to this every day. In just a few minutes, you have been staring at your watch several times. You have gone to great lengths to ensure that your watch is accurate. You are also paying attention to the time at night. I suppose the time at night is important information to you."

"If it's really safe now, you should be completely relaxed. There's no need to be so tense and focused on other things. So I guess you'll still be killed by a ghost in your dorm tonight, and the conditions and timing of the ghost killing you are related, right?"

Curly was dumbfounded. He never expected that just by seeing him check his watch a few times, this person could deduce the ghost's killing pattern. It was truly terrifying.

“You guessed right,” Jing had already seen that Chu Changge had strong reasoning abilities from the beginning, so she was not too surprised to hear his deduction. She turned to look at Curly Hair and asked, “What time is it now?”

Curly waved his wrist at her.

Everyone present saw the time on the clock face.

The clock hand is between "1" and "2", it's a little past 1 a.m.

"It's still within the safe time." After checking the time, Jing took a thin notebook out of her pocket and tossed it to Chu Changge on the upper bunk. "All the information we know about this copy is written in here. Take a look for yourself."

"Are we just going to give it to him like that?" Curly-haired guy was taken aback.

“He’s with us now, and if he breaks the rules, we could all be implicated.” Jing knew Chu Changge wasn’t someone to be easily fooled, so she decided to be frank.

Chu Changge caught the notebook and opened it.

The first page contains three times.

【23：00熄灯，全楼层查寝】    【0：00第二次查寝，巡查1、3、5层】

[3:00 Third dormitory check, patrolling floors 2 and 4]

"As you can probably guess, the people checking the dorms aren't human, they're ghosts. During these three check periods, players must stay in bed obediently, or they'll be killed," Jing explained.

Chu Changge continued flipping through the pages: "Which floor are we on?"

"Fourth floor, the next room check will begin in a little over an hour."

So, Chu Changge had enough time to finish learning everything he needed to know in just over an hour. He flipped through the thin notebook in his hand.

The sheets of paper on the back contained other school rules, such as class and meal times, and other school regulations that had to be followed. Among this group, the person who stayed in this copy for the longest time did so for a year, so some rules were recorded in great detail, and some rules even had supplementary notes next to them, indicating that they were not written at the same time.

Chu Changge finished reading the booklet filled with writing in his hand in no time. He closed the cover, pushed up his glasses, and said, "I see. The rules are similar to those in high school before the global game started."

It's so cold! They actually said that the school with ghosts is almost the same as the real school. Curly's expression twisted for a moment. Although he had some complaints about his high school, compared to this, the real school was simply heaven!

At this point, Chu Changge asked them again, "Have you ever tried to leave this school?"

Jing nodded: "I came to this instance a year ago, one of the earliest people. Back then, some people tried to leave the school, but..."

As she spoke, she suddenly looked out the window.

Chu Changge followed her gaze and looked outside.

The dormitory building is located on the edge of the school. From here, you can see the fence that separates the school from the outside world. Beyond that fence is the outside of the school.

But Chu Changge couldn't see anything outside the school. The environment outside the fence was as black as ink, as if there was a thick black wall built outside. He couldn't see anything, not even the light from the school streetlights.

“It’s the same during the day,” Jing said. “It’s pitch black outside, you can’t see your hand in front of your face. Someone tried to go out then, and he told us he would only go out to explore for half an hour, and would be back in half an hour at most. We waited for him at the school gate, but he didn’t come back after half an hour. We kept waiting, an hour, two hours, until it got dark, but we still didn’t see him.”

"No one suspects he left the instance?" Chu Changge asked.

“We had that suspicion, but three days later we saw him, not at school… he was outside.”

Jing recalled: "On the way back to the dormitory from the teaching building at night, we saw him hanging outside the railing near the dormitory building. When we ran over, we found that he was dead. When he died, he was still in the posture of climbing the railing, as if he wanted to climb in from the outside. Later, a few more people went out, and without exception, they all died outside."

"They all died near the school?" Chu Changge asked.

If he died far away, these people at the school probably wouldn't know.

“Yes,” Jing nodded with difficulty, “They all died around the school. Before they died, everyone seemed to want to go back to the school. Some died on the way here, and some died on the railing. If you go to the fence over there now and look out, you can still see a few corpses. They are all players who left the school before.”

"They left the school but were killed outside, desperately trying to come back before they died. It seems they encountered something even more terrifying outside than the school," Chu Changge pondered. "From this perspective, this school seems like a safe zone."

Jing continued, "Later, almost no one tried to leave. Occasionally, a few newcomers who didn't believe in the superstition would go out, but without exception, they only ended up adding a few fresh corpses to the area around the school."

"Can we use special items?" Chu Changge suddenly asked.

One second they were talking about leaving school, the next they were talking about special items. The topic jumped a bit, but it did hit the nail on the head.

Jing looked at Chu Changge and asked, "Have you tried using special items?"

Otherwise, this question wouldn't have been asked.

Chu Changge did not answer.

"Since you're asking this, it must be because you've discovered that the special item has malfunctioned;"
"Shortly after we came in, someone discovered that the special items were malfunctioning. But we soon found that not all the special items were malfunctioning, only some of them. We couldn't deduce the pattern as to which ones could be used and which ones couldn't. We also tried to find out why this was happening, but we couldn't find anything."

Jing wondered to herself what special item Chu Changge had used.

Judging from the situation, this person used a special item the moment they were pulled into the instance and met them. No ghosts appeared during this time. Could it be that they used a special item to target them?

This person is somewhat dangerous.

The person on the upper bunk who called herself Chu Meiren nodded after hearing her words: "I understand, so that's how it is."

He looked like he understood something.

"What do you understand?" Jing looked at him with a hint of confusion, wanting to know what he had figured out.

But Chu Changge didn't give her an answer. Instead, Curly Hair, who was not far behind her, suddenly shouted, "Look outside!"

Happy second day of the Winter Solstice everyone! (I hope I'm not late this time (feeling guilty))