Chen Mo suddenly felt something in his hand. When he opened his palm, he saw that "Zhou Xiaomi" was actually holding a silver USB drive. At that moment, a voice seemed to echo in his mind, as if someone was calling him from far away.
"Chen Mo!" "Chen Mo!"
Chen Mo's eyes snapped open. The dust around him made him cough a few times, and then he saw the faces of Dai Minghan and Li Kai.
"Chen Mo, are you okay? Are you injured?"
Hearing the question, Chen Mo came back to his senses a bit, realizing he was still in that abandoned building. A sharp pain throbbed at his temple, and there were scratches on his arm. It was clear he had been attacked. Who was that person, and why had they attacked him? Was it to stop him from getting some information?
But still, a person was better than a ghost. Chen Mo felt his chest—luckily, the flashlight had been picked up by someone and returned to him, maybe Dai Minghan or maybe Lin Tianheng.
After steadying himself a bit, with help from the others, Chen Mo staggered to his feet. "We shouldn't stay here long. Let's go back first."
In his open palm, the USB drive gleamed with a silvery light under the sun.
On the way back to school, Chen Mo told the others about the "dream" he had seen during his brief unconsciousness: the abandoned old house, the story of a man killing his wife and child, a tale like a curse, three "adventurous" male students, and the little girl who suddenly appeared holding a red game console.
That house must be closely tied to this story. But relying only on the images from the "dream" to find the corresponding house in a city of a supernatural world was undoubtedly very difficult.
"Those three male students must have entered the house and taken that red game console, thus getting cursed. Zhou Xiaomi was the last one killed by the curse. And we, by entering the room where Zhou Xiaomi was cursed to death, triggered the main storyline."
"If that's the case, if we hadn't gone to 'visit' Zhou Xiaomi at all, could we have avoided this supernatural attack?" Ye Sheng suddenly speculated.
"Possibly, but don't forget, the task of this story is for us to investigate the strange tales circulating in this supernatural stage. If we cower and ignore the main plot, not only will we fail to earn points for completing the task, but when the one-month limit nears its end, the supernatural forces in this horror story will still come for us."
"So there's no choice." Dai Minghan's words made Ye Sheng a bit dejected, but he quickly thought of something else. "Teacher Chen, didn't you bring a USB drive from that place? Let me take a look."
"Even if I give you the USB drive, you don't have a computer," Li Kai chimed in. But when he saw Ye Sheng pull out a black tablet from behind, his mouth dropped open like he'd swallowed an egg.
"Damn, where did that come from?" He looked back. "...You didn't sneak it out of there, did you?"
"Hehe." Ye Sheng grinned mischievously as he wiped the dust off the tablet. It was an older model, but it could still work. Though it had been sitting for so long, who knew if it still functioned.
"Driver, does this bus have a USB port?"
After getting a yes, Ye Sheng immediately plugged the old tablet into the port to charge. After a moment, the screen lit up, and he excitedly inserted the silver USB drive into the tablet.
In an instant, everyone's eyes were fixed on the tablet screen!
That silver USB drive, appearing in Chen Mo's "dream," was no ordinary item. In other words, it was a clue given by the story. And judging by the attacker in the building, that abandoned company must have hidden something unknown.
With a beep, the tablet recognized the external connection. As the USB drive opened, a folder labeled "rinz" appeared before Ye Sheng. When he opened the file...
"This is... a programmer's log?"
"What?"
Dai Minghan looked at Ye Sheng, confused.
"It's like a development diary, where specific members of a project team record daily progress and various things to note."
Inside the folder, hundreds of files were neatly arranged. Going through them one by one would definitely take a while.
"This tablet is too slow. I'll take it back to the dorm and work on it slowly. To read all this, I'll probably need a day or two," Ye Sheng said as he copied all the files from the USB drive to the tablet.
"That long?" Dai Minghan seemed surprised.
"Bro, I just saw some folders have subfolders. You think this is simple? But who knows, since our goal isn't necessarily to read all these files—just to find clues related to that cursed game. Maybe it won't take that long. Once I have something, I'll call you right away."
Li Kai hesitated. "Then... will it be dangerous?"
He remembered the eerie music from the computer case when they ran the cursed game earlier, and the female ghost crawling out of the screen...
"How about this: for the next day or two, I'll move into Ye Sheng's dorm to stay and protect him. Ye Sheng, do you have room?"
"That's no problem." Ye Sheng nodded. Li Kai's reminder had made him a bit uneasy too, so having Lin Tianheng protect him was the best option. "I don't know if it's the story messing with things, but in my dorm, I'm the only one!"
"Ah! Me too!" Li Kai exclaimed simultaneously.
"Then Li Kai, Ye Sheng, and Lin Tianheng, you three students can stay together for these two days," Chen Mo nodded.
"Tomorrow's Saturday, so two days should be enough. Chen Mo, what about you?"
"Dai Minghan and I will go check on the other two students tomorrow and see if we can get more clues."
In the "dream," he vaguely remembered seeing one of the male students wearing something like a student ID around his neck. He hadn't caught the name, but the words "North City No. 3 High School, Class 5, Grade 2" were very clear.