Depressed Chapter 10

〔I heard them lift the coffin
Heavy footsteps, swaying and stumbling
My soul creaks and groans
All around, the funeral bell tolls〕

The curtain rose, and the entire auditorium was plunged into a deathly silence.

There was a person on stage—a corpse.

The body was dressed in wrinkled clothes, the head smashed to a pulp, the face utterly unrecognizable.

At this moment, even the red curtain seemed dyed with dark, congealed blood.

On the splendid stage, the ugly corpse lay beneath the spotlight, like a disgusting maggot accidentally crushed underfoot.

The whole auditorium became a silent drama of stark contrasts.

Then, at last, people reacted—screams erupted.

Everyone shot up from their seats, surging and shoving toward the exits, some even crawling and tumbling in their panic.

Some girls kept screaming, swept along by the crowd, then falling to the floor with no one to help them up, watching pair after pair of frantic, selfish shoes rush past their eyes.

There were teachers trying to maintain order, but now the flowers of the nation were scattered like headless flies.

Everything was chaos.

Shen Lian did not leave his seat. He drew in his feet to make room for his classmates to escape this dangerous place as quickly as possible, his eyes fixed on the corpse on stage.

The face was unrecognizable, but the body was very fat.

Suddenly, Shen Lian remembered the almond chocolate in his pocket.

“Beep—”

“System-generated program: Random Mission One. Find the serial killer before he kills his fifth victim. If you fail, the system will determine the player has died.”

Shen Lian received his first mission.

Had the doctor received one as well?

He searched the crowd for the doctor’s figure, and found him by the blood-red curtain.

He hadn’t left either.

Their eyes met, currents of suspicion and calculation flowing between them.

“Hello, let’s introduce ourselves again. I’m Zheng Qing.”

“Shen Lian.”

“Did you receive a mission?”

“Why don’t you tell me yours first?”

Zheng Qing gave a slightly helpless smile, as if he hadn’t expected the person before him to be so guarded.

“Find the killer before he kills the fifth person.”

“Seems we have the same mission. Looking forward to working together.”

“Looking forward to it.”

The two shook hands in a perfunctory manner and began exchanging clues.

“The first victim’s body was covered in footprints. The second appears to have been struck repeatedly with a heavy object.”

“Doctor, could you say something useful?”

Zheng Qing adjusted his glasses and retorted, “This isn’t the ‘beautiful’ newbie village. The scene’s already been sealed off. If we try to sneak in, the police will be watching us.”

Shen Lian shrugged indifferently and pulled out his phone. “Doctor, do you recognize the person in this photo?”

Zheng Qing felt a jolt of confusion.

“He looks familiar, like I’ve seen him somewhere.”

The two suddenly exchanged glances.

Their first meeting had been in the hospital’s newbie village. The only people who could have left a shared impression were those from the newbie village.

“Doctor, do you remember there were three survivors in our newbie village?”

Which meant there was another participant.

They had no idea who the last survivor was.

“Excluding those confirmed dead, I have no memory at all of the remaining players.”

Something was off.

They exchanged phone numbers.

“If you ever can’t reach me, it means I’ve heroically sacrificed myself for the cause of the Lord God. Remember to put up a hero’s monument for me,” Shen Lian joked.

Zheng Qing only felt that this guy liked to toss out jokes that weren’t funny at all, from Jin Ping Mei to hero monuments.

He pulled his suit jacket tighter.

It was freezing.

*

“382, 27, 117, 86.” The man in the basement shadows muttered to himself.

“117…”

He had once used a hammer to bash a student’s head over and over in this basement, pounding that chubby head until it became nothing but a smashed watermelon.

And now, he was hacking off a girl’s feet—feet still in ballet shoes—tying iron weights to her bloody calves.

“Heavy footsteps, swaying and stumbling…”

“Heavy footsteps, swaying and stumbling…”

He placed the girl into the coffin.

“My soul creaks and groans.”

The girl in the coffin was beautiful, just as she had been dancing the death of the swan.

Death is always a grand affair.

The funeral bell tolled.