Chapter 43: The Rules of the Terrifying Game

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The change came far too quickly.

At first, everyone thought Cheng Yu was only putting on a show by catching a mouse.

By the time they realized what was happening, she had already swallowed the entire mouse.

The sight left everyone frozen in shock.

Even Xia Li and the others, who had been arguing heatedly just moments earlier, stopped at once and covered their mouths with cries of alarm.

It took them a while to process the terrifying image their eyes had witnessed.

Only then did they dare believe that Cheng Yu had truly bitten a live mouse to death and eaten it.

...

Every gaze fixed on Cheng Yu, whose mouth was smeared with blood. Alongside their astonishment, a deeper, instinctive fear crept into their eyes.

They looked at her as though she were someone possessed by an evil spirit.

Ji Yun was equally shocked.

But what filled his heart even more was an indescribable sense of suffocation.

He was different from the others.

He had genuinely experienced supernatural incidents before.

Even during the previous round, he had sensed that something was wrong with this game.

Now, as he watched the punishment from the second round being carried out by force, he immediately realized that events might be developing toward a possibility he had encountered before—but had never dared to consider.

That possibility was supernatural rules.

He clearly remembered the three rules of the game:

1. Anyone who participated had to complete two rounds of the game.
2. The challenge drawn had to be completed.
3. If you chose Truth once, you had to choose Dare the next time.

Now it seemed that everyone had to obey the rules throughout the entire game.

...

No normal person would swallow a live mouse.

This was the work of supernatural power.

Ji Yun thought of the only possible explanation.

In other words, there was a ghost in this room.

The moment the thought arose, Ji Yun hurriedly swept his eyes across the room, taking in everyone's expressions from the corners of his eyes.

Zhao Kai, Xia Li, Jiang Tian, and the others—including Liao Feifei—were all wearing expressions of shock and terror.

Only Wu Feng and Zhang Xiaonan, the two senior students, were different.

Although their expressions were equally solemn, they seemed not at all surprised that things had developed this way.

After one sweep of the room, Ji Yun had already confirmed something.

There was definitely something wrong with those two.

...

The bloodshed had dispelled the melodramatic atmosphere of the earlier quarrel.

Someone murmured, “Could this really be a haunting?”

Only then did everyone remember that T4 Dormitory was none other than the former haunted site known as 426 Hospital.

Could they have encountered the real thing?

Ji Yun also felt that this was the only explanation that made sense.

Thinking of the “series of falls to their deaths” recorded in the detective files, he began to suspect that T4 Dormitory might truly be a place where Yin energy gathered.

The people from the livestream group were still struggling to digest the shocking scene before them.

Then the mechanical voice sounded again from inside the lucky cat:

“Player Two, please continue the game.”

Player Two was Song Wei.

Everyone turned to look at him.

In the first round, he had chosen Dare and gone to the bathroom.

This time, he had drawn Truth.

“Please state the most vicious curse you can think of.”

After hearing the challenge, Song Wei let out a long breath of relief.

The others did the same.

No matter how humiliating the truth might be, surely it could not be more terrifying than swallowing a mouse.

But his next words made the hair on everyone present stand on end.

Song Wei looked as though he had been possessed by an evil spirit. His expression suddenly turned sinister, and in a low, gloomy voice, he said:

“Tonight, every one of us will die.”

Every one of us?

Would all of them die?

Those few words seemed to weigh a thousand pounds, pressing down on the room until no one dared even breathe too loudly.

Several of the girls, including Xia Li, were trembling violently with fear, as though they had forgotten how to think.

They had no idea what to do.

The pace of the game suddenly quickened.

The robotic cat spoke again.

“Player Three, please continue the game.”

Player Three was Zhao Kai.

He had looked forward to the game in the first round. Now he feared it just as intensely.

The fat man had no intention of continuing, but his body seemed no longer under his control. His hand reached out and pulled free a red tag.

Ji Yun tried to stop him.

But when he attempted to grab Zhao Kai, he discovered that the man's strength had become so great that he could not restrain him at all.

The fat man read the punishment aloud:

“Use a steel needle to pierce any organ in your body.”

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A steel needle as long as an index finger was concealed inside the tag.

The moment the words left his mouth, Zhao Kai seemed to imagine some horrifying scene. His eyes widened.

He wanted to refuse the punishment.

But his hand, completely beyond his control, gripped the steel needle and raised it toward his left eye.

Zhao Kai hurriedly used his left hand to hold down his right hand, the one holding the needle.

It was as though he were wrestling against himself.

Yet even with the veins bulging across his forehead, he could not stop it.

Ji Yun tried to help, but to no avail.

At this point, he was certain.

These were supernatural rules.

The rules could not be defied.

At that critical moment, an idea flashed through his mind. He immediately shouted, “Fatty, stab your mouth!”

The shout seemed to jolt Zhao Kai awake. His hand tilted, and the steel needle plunged into his cheek.

Blood still flowed down his face, but the needle had merely pierced through the flesh of his cheek and into the mouth. It had caused no serious injury.

Watching this, Ji Yun seemed to understand another part of the game's rules.

Whatever you feared was what you would do.

When a normal person heard the word “organ” and saw a steel needle, their instinctive fear would make them think of their eyes.

That was why Zhao Kai had immediately tried to stab his eye.

But skin was also an organ.

As long as he obeyed the rules of the game, the challenge could be completed.

Ji Yun felt that he had grasped an important point.

The occult forums claimed that, if one wanted to break supernatural rules, then unless one could destroy the evil spirit itself, the only option was to find a loophole in the rules.

No one knew where the ghost was. For now, they could only play the game and see what happened.

Zhao Kai seemed to have escaped death by a hair. He gasped heavily and dropped the steel needle from his hand as though it had burned him.

He turned to look at his best friend, his eyes filled with lingering fear and relief.

If Ji Yun had not warned him just now, he would probably have become one-eyed.

But in the next moment, concern appeared in the fat man's eyes.

“Brother Yun...”

He had been lucky enough to escape disaster, but now it was Ji Yun's turn.

...

One person had eaten a mouse, and another had been forced to pierce an organ with a needle.

For some unknown reason, the livestream signal had cut out earlier.

Only now did the terrified people come back to their senses.

Everyone had to complete two rounds of the game.

Their own turns would arrive soon. Jiang Tian anxiously demanded, “Xia Li, what exactly is going on?”

Everyone turned toward her.

Since Xia Li had organized the livestream, she ought to know everything.

Xia Li had been scared nearly senseless herself. Only after hearing the accusation did she recover, stammering, “I... I don't know either. ‘Liao Feifei’ found the old newspaper, and she arranged this game too! Yes, it must be Liao Feifei's doing!”

Everyone turned their eyes toward Liao Feifei.

They had all witnessed her schemes earlier.

Even Ji Yun felt that this woman was the most suspicious of them all.

There had to be something wrong with her.

Yet Liao Feifei's reaction made everyone realize that the situation was more complicated than they had expected.

Confronted by their fury, Liao Feifei was frightened out of her wits.

After all, she was only a twenty-year-old girl.

Scheming against female classmates was one thing, but she had never faced anything like this.

Her entire body shook like a sieve. In her panic, she stammered, “I don't know why this is happening either. I... I really don't know!”

Xia Li seemed to have found an outlet for her fear and anger. She shouted, “You brought that lucky cat here! How could you not know?”

Liao Feifei's face had gone deathly pale.

“This... this was sent to me by a fan. I don't know why this is happening either.”

Looking at her panic-stricken appearance, Ji Yun felt that she truly might be ignorant of what was going on.

Could the problem lie with the robotic cat?

The situation was so uncanny that no one dared touch the cat again.

At last, unable to endure the terrifying atmosphere any longer, Cheng Yu—who had been scared senseless after eating the mouse—seemed to regain her reason.

She screamed, “I'm calling the police!”

“Yes! Call the police!”

Only then did the others react.

What had happened that night had long since gone beyond the realm of a prank.

With trembling hands, Cheng Yu pulled out her phone and dialed the emergency number.

But the moment the call connected, the already eerie atmosphere was once again covered by a layer of terrifying gloom.

...

The call went through.

Yet there was no operator's voice.

Instead, a children's nursery rhyme came through the receiver.

“Two little children, hand in hand,
The moon slices off their ears,
Up and down the stairs they go,
The third floor's surgical light—
Do not look back, do not turn around,
Two red leather shoes wait in the morgue...”

...

“Ah!”

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Cheng Yu was frightened once again. She screamed and threw the phone away.

It was the same terrifying nursery rhyme they had heard while climbing the stairs earlier.

At first, they had assumed it was merely someone's prank.

But now, the more they thought about it, the more horrifying it became.

Everyone in the room exchanged uneasy glances.

They had initially assumed the problem lay with the phone.

But after trying for themselves, they discovered that no matter who called or what number they dialed, the receiver always played that terrifying nursery rhyme.

They could not get through to any other number either.

This inexplicable development caused enormous psychological terror.

Yet at that moment, Ji Yun confirmed something.

...

Although Ji Yun's heart was pounding so hard it seemed ready to leap into his throat, he had noticed a problem.

Once again, he observed everyone from the corner of his eye.

The fear on everyone's faces was genuine.

Only Wu Feng and Zhang Xiaonan still looked solemn, without the slightest trace of fear.

At this point, Ji Yun was completely certain.

This really was a haunting.

But Cheng Yu, already pushed far beyond the limits of her fear, had completely lost her reason. Screaming hysterically, she rushed into the dark corridor outside the room.

No one had time to stop her before she vanished into the darkness beyond the door.

Seeing this, the others instinctively wondered whether they should leave this haunted building as well.

But those who had not yet completed the second round of the game discovered that they were seized by an overwhelming fear of the darkness outside the door. They did not dare run.

Only Zhao Kai was different.

Ji Yun glanced from the corner of his eye at Wu Feng and Zhang Xiaonan, who remained completely composed, then immediately tugged at the fat man beside him.

There was a certain understanding between close friends.

Zhao Kai understood what Ji Yun's grave expression meant.

Do not run recklessly.

He said nothing more and chose to trust his best friend without hesitation.

Before the others could worry over the matter any further, the lucky cat spoke again:

“Player Four, please participate in the game.”

...

Ji Yun knew that the rules of the game could not be avoided.

He also wanted to experience for himself what had happened to the fat man and the others when they had been forced to play.

He deliberately kept his thoughts still, refusing to participate.

Sure enough.

In the next moment, his body reached out of its own accord and tore off one of the cat's whiskers.

“So that's how it is.”

Ji Yun carefully sensed the condition of his body being controlled against his will, then thought of a certain legend.

“If you refuse to participate in the game, it forcibly activates a mechanism similar to spirit possession.”

Without changing expression, he read out the punishment:

“The truth of this game is hidden in the fourth stall of the bathroom at the end of the corridor. You must go there and find it. But you must keep it secret. You alone may know the truth.”

In the previous round, he had chosen Truth.

This round was Dare.

Now that he had confirmed this was a supernatural incident, Ji Yun instead calmed down.

There were certainly countless mysteries surrounding the situation, but he always felt that the danger was far less severe than it had been at the Liu Family Manor.

At the very least, the ghost bride there had killed people with supernatural rules—wiping out entire groups with a single attack.

This ghost, on the other hand, still needed to draw lots and play a game.

Ji Yun reread the challenge and caught several useful clues.

The game was sending him to the bathroom again.

Had something happened there in the past?

He guessed that the bathroom might be where the evil spirit's strongest attachment had remained from its lifetime.

There was no harm in taking a look.

Under the present circumstances, going out alone to complete the task was far more frightening than eating a mouse or anything of the sort.

Who knew what might be waiting outside?

Everyone else was already trembling with terror.

Only Zhao Kai stepped forward.

Although the fat man was trembling just as badly, he still summoned his courage and said firmly, “Brother Yun, I'll go with you!”

Ji Yun shook his head.

“No need.”

Then he added a hint, “The rules say only one person can go.”

The rules stated that only he could know the truth, so the rules had to be obeyed.

For now, it seemed that obeying the rules would keep them safe.

Zhao Kai appeared to understand the seriousness in Ji Yun's expression and silently began pondering something.

Ji Yun focused his thoughts, deliberately stepped forward, and prepared to leave the room.

Sure enough, control of his body returned to him.

As long as he willingly obeyed the rules of the game, the forced possession would not be triggered.

This also explained why everyone had inexplicably told the truth during the first round.

...

Now that it was his turn to play, Ji Yun also wanted to prove some of his theories.

The reason he had stopped the fat man from leaving earlier was that, if his guess was correct, they might not be in the real world at all.

They were in the Ruin Realm.