"You mean... this is a 'non-existent principal's office'?"
"Chen Mo... your deduction is way too far-fetched." Lin Tianheng paused briefly. "But even if what you're saying is true, and the 'principal's office' is a spatial entrance, how are we supposed to know where that spatial entrance actually is?"
"Exactly." Dai Minghan quickly chimed in. "If everything you've deduced is correct, and this door is essentially something that doesn't exist in physical space, then even if we searched the entire school, we'd never find it. So what do we do?"
"A non-existent principal's office... To discover a spatial entrance, it's not about searching—it's about figuring out the trigger conditions for that entrance."
"Trigger conditions?"
"Right. Think back to how we got the student cards from the ghost students. Those four cards didn't originally exist in the school's physical space either. Only by triggering those four ghosts, unraveling their connections and the secrets of their deaths, did we obtain the cards from them."
That's right... it was exactly like that...
In this mission, the key to solving the first puzzle was understanding the intricate web of relationships among the four student ghosts. At its core, it was about a teacher named Chen Mingyuan, who, out of selfish concern for his daughter, tampered with the grades of the top student Xu Meiqian, sparking her hatred for Chen Jingyue. Then, discovering the secret of the underachiever Jiang Xiaohui's theft, he threatened and used Jiang Xiaohui to carry out the plan to kill Chen Jingyue. But it didn't end there. The murder of Chen Jingyue was witnessed by Sun Jingyan, who, instead of reporting it, cleverly used it as leverage to blackmail Xu Meiqian into helping him cheat long-term, ultimately enraging her. She teamed up with Jiang Xiaohui to set a fire in the storage room, disguising it as an accident to kill Sun Jingyan.
However, Sun Jingyan's death didn't escape Chen Mingyuan's suspicion. Eventually, on the rooftop, learning the whole truth and realizing Chen Jingyue's death wasn't an accident, Chen Mingyuan lost his mind and pushed Xu Meiqian off the roof, causing her to fall to her death. Additionally, after killing one classmate after another, the timid Jiang Xiaohui, unable to bear the inner torment, chose to commit suicide.
That was the relationship among the four student ghosts. As he recalled their connections, a thought suddenly flashed through Chen Mo's mind.
"If the relationships among the four student ghosts and their causes of death were the clue for passing the first stage of this mission, then could the clue for this second stage be related to the ghost teacher?"
Su Mu's elegant brow arched slightly. "You mean... Chen Mingyuan?"
"In this story, if there's anything still unclear, it's Chen Mingyuan. Only his death hasn't been explained yet."
"But," Su Mu frowned slightly, "that's an unsolvable ghost..."
Indeed, Chen Mingyuan was the flashlight ghost roaming the school, and also an unsolvable ghost—one that, once it targeted you, meant certain death!
Such vengeful spirits weren't unheard of, but they were quite rare in missions. An unsolvable ghost meant participants couldn't use items to drive it away or fight it; once marked and locked on, it was essentially a 100% death sentence.
In this mission, every participant marked by the flashlight ghost had been killed without exception.
"Yes, that flashlight ghost." Chen Mo nodded. "I believe the next clue lies with it."
"Chen Mo, you're not joking, are you!" After exchanging glances, Dai Minghan and Lin Tianheng spoke in unison.
"That ghost kills you the moment you encounter it! Looking for clues on it is just asking for death!"
"No, not entirely." Su Mu shook her head. "Precisely because this ghost gives us a terrifying impression of instant death, we avoid it at all costs, which makes us overlook the clues it might carry."
"Although the flashlight ghost is an unsolvable vengeful spirit, it still has to follow the mission's restrictions and can't kill indiscriminately."
"From what we've seen, the death trigger has two conditions. First, signing in—if a participant's name appears on the sign-in machine, they're marked as a target for death. Second, stealing someone else's student card—this act itself violates school rules and gets you marked by the ghost."
"If triggering the death condition leads to certain death, then conversely, could it be that if you don't trigger those two death traps, you might not die even if you get close?"
"That's... way too risky..."
"Yes, it's very risky, but it's worth a try."
As he spoke, Chen Mo silently clenched his fist. In the terrifying stories of the supernatural world, no mission was without risk, especially since this was a team-level mission.
"Have you noticed a trait? Before triggering the death condition, the ghost moves at a normal pace, about the speed of an ordinary person walking. It looks like someone patrolling the school at night with a flashlight. But every so often, the ghost disappears, only to reappear after a while. Have you ever wondered where the flashlight ghost goes during those disappearances?"
"How would we know..." Lin Tianheng shrugged, then suddenly his eyes lit up as if a thought struck him. "Bro Mo, do you know?!"
"I don't know either, but we could try following the ghost to see. Maybe the clue is there."
"If it existed solely as a vengeful spirit for execution, it could just appear to kill only when the death condition is triggered, like other ghosts in missions. But why does Chen Mingyuan's ghost repeatedly appear in a patrolling state before the participants, moving at a slow pace? This abnormal behavior strongly suggests a high probability of a clue!"
"However..."
Chen Mo paused. "In the end, this is just my speculation. I can't rule out the possibility of triggering the death condition."
Yes, I can't guarantee every guess of mine is right.
"Why are you so sure the clue will be on Chen Mingyuan?" This time, even Su Mu seemed a bit uncertain.
Chen Mo gave her one last look before answering. "Because he's a faculty member. If there's any clue left that could connect to the principal's office, it has to be through him, as a teacher."
-- PS, still two updates today. Posting the first one now, and I'll write the second this afternoon.