Chapter 17

Help!

He couldn't understand a word of cat, but somehow Chao Musheng had no trouble following Little Tangerine's meaning perfectly.

He tucked her back into his arms and let her settle. "At zero thirty-four this morning, someone in this dormitory threw an object from the window and hit a cat. It was caught on camera."

The vegetable player, finding NPCs blocking the doorway, was already pale with alarm. He shook his head rapidly. "Not me. I didn't do anything."

Lao Jin was pinned by Zhao Shang and couldn't move. He glared at him with pure venom. So the quiet ones were the dangerous ones. Seemed so upright and reliable — and here he was stabbing a fellow player in the back the moment it helped his affinity score.

Silence settled over the dormitory, broken only by the sound of Lao Jin breathing through his fury.

The vegetable player folded himself into a corner with the expression of someone who very much didn't want to be involved. Zhang San tossed his textbook aside and, with the efficiency of a dedicated assistant, grabbed a chair and positioned it behind Chao Musheng. "Xiao Chao — sit down."

He then gathered the remaining chairs, set them out, and turned to the students in the doorway with helpful enthusiasm. "Come in, everyone — sit down, sit down."

"Thank you, we're fine." The young woman at the front wore a simple ponytail and wire-rimmed glasses on a clear, composed face. Her manner was entirely without aggression — toward Zhang San, at least, she was perfectly courteous — but her affinity toward him sat at only 19. The vegetable player was a dismal 5.

Possibly because Shang-bro had intervened to stop Lao Jin hurting the cat, her affinity toward him was the highest of all: a striking 40.

The other students with her showed the same pattern — Zhao Shang was highest across the board, ranging from 35 to 40.

Their affinity toward Lao Jin had dropped to 0. Except for the bespectacled student: her reading was a bold, alarming red. Minus 10.

When an NPC's affinity dropped below negative 10, they could enter a hostile state at any moment.

Zhang San swallowed. She was the most dangerous person in the room.

"It barely even hit it — it's not like I killed it!"

By the time Zhang San returned his full attention to the room, he wasn't sure when it had happened, but Lao Jin was already mid-argument.

Idiot.

Zhang San took several quiet steps backward and retreated to the corner alongside the vegetable player. In an instance that required building goodwill to progress, any player with functioning brain cells knew better than to antagonize the NPCs. He needed to stay well clear of this kind of stupidity.

"So you're admitting you threw something from the fourth floor and hit the cat?" Chao Musheng pinched Little Tangerine's chattering mouth shut to keep her quiet.

Lao Jin's usual hunting grounds were combat and war instances — the dense thud of an axe through an NPC's neck, the sight of them begging on their knees, were things that filled him with satisfaction. He was long accustomed to NPCs groveling at his feet. The idea of debasing himself before a group of students who looked like they couldn't lift a shopping bag was simply beyond him.

Curse the Main God for dragging him into a suffocating instance like this.

"So what if I did?!" Lao Jin opened his inventory and readied himself mentally to pull out his axe and take the whole group on. Kill these students, break out of the building, use his invisibility item to slip into the president's office and take the seal, and he could still get out of this instance.

"Throwing objects from a building violates national public security regulations. The Civil Code explicitly prohibits dropping or throwing objects from structures, and Article 84 of our school's code of conduct specifically bans this behavior." Chao Musheng turned to the bespectacled student. "Senior Xu, when a visiting student from another institution violates school rules and the law in this way — what's the procedure?"

"Their study placement is revoked, and they are required to pay for the cleaning of the flower bed and the cat's veterinary treatment." Senior Xu adjusted her glasses with one finger. "Little Tangerine is a registered school-adopted pet documented with the relevant authorities — she is legally recognized school property. Intentional damage to legally owned property can carry a penalty of five to ten days of administrative detention."

"This is a society governed by law. Everything proceeds according to legal statutes." The lenses of her glasses caught the light coldly. "I've already notified the school leadership and intend to file a formal police report on behalf of the Student Union."

"Out of my way!" Lao Jin shoved Zhao Shang off and activated an acceleration item, then bolted for the door.

If he could just get clear of these students, there was still a path through—

"Going somewhere?" Chao Musheng saw his intention immediately, reached out, and caught him by the back of the collar. The momentum threw Lao Jin backward. He went down, and in falling knocked over the vegetable player's uncapped inkwell on the desk beside him.

Black ink cascaded over Lao Jin's face, leaving him comprehensively covered.

Clang. Clang. Clang.

The inkwell bounced several times on the floor and came to rest neatly beside his ear.

"He walked into me!" Chao Musheng took two or three steps back, cradling Little Tangerine, and pointed at Lao Jin on the floor with an expression of wounded indignation. "I barely touched his collar — everyone saw, right?"

"Xiao Chao, I saw the whole thing — he fell on purpose." Zhang San materialized at Chao Musheng's side and leveled a fierce finger at Lao Jin. "This fellow Lao Jin has been throwing his weight around since yesterday — the size of him, using it to bully the rest of us. Just now he was in here cursing the senior who's given us so much of her time and knowledge. What kind of person does that? An ungrateful one, that's what kind."

Rising. The affinity ratings are rising.

Watching the NPC numbers tick up — +1, +1, +1 — Zhang San nearly wept with joy. From this moment forward, Chao Musheng was the closest thing he had to a father figure in this instance.

For his new father, he would walk through fire.

"Mrow!" Little Tangerine burst out of Chao Musheng's arms, her round body landing squarely on Lao Jin.

"AAGH!" Lao Jin grabbed at himself and let out a howl that rattled the window glass.

"Mrr~" Little Tangerine gave her tail a serene flick and padded, with great elegance, back up onto Chao Musheng.

Zhang San watched the cat settle smugly into Chao Musheng's arms and quietly pressed his knees together. "What's he shrieking about now — trying to claim our Little Tangerine assaulted him?"

The Student Union members looked studiously in various directions, as though no one had witnessed a thing.

"The school has responded." Senior Xu held out her phone for Chao Musheng to read. "We're filing the police report now. Campus security will be here shortly."

"A grown adult who takes out his frustrations on a helpless creature, no matter how much knowledge he has, cannot be called a truly civilized person." Chao Musheng didn't spare Lao Jin a glance, and turned to address his three roommates. "I'm sorry — we've made a mess of your room."

"Not at all, not at all." Zhang San was quick to reassure him. "A few drops of ink — it'll wipe clean in no time."

He was still looking for a cloth to mop up the floor when Zhao Shang had already picked up a mop and was working his way methodically across the tiles — carefully avoiding the area where Lao Jin lay groaning.

Who said his Shang-bro was a straightforward, simple-minded person? Look at that impeccable timing.

When campus security arrived, Lao Jin was still on the floor declining to get up, producing ear-splitting howls at the slightest touch, as though there was not a single functioning part left in him.

The police and doctor who came to assess him found no broken bones, no broken skin — not so much as a scratch.

The howling was giving the officer a splitting headache. He turned and saw, standing to one side, a young man holding a cat, looking a little downcast.

The young man was good-looking — clean and straight, like a freshly peeled bamboo shoot, with a quality about him that hadn't yet been worn down by the world.

One person shrieking and trying to play victim; one person who'd protected an animal and had multiple witnesses. Who was in the right? The officer had been doing this long enough to know.

"You don't need to worry." He put a hand on the young man's shoulder. "Your classmates have all given statements — you didn't touch him. And the doctor has confirmed there's no injury."

"Thank you, Officer." Chao Musheng looked up gratefully.

"Mrrrow~" Little Tangerine poked her head out from Chao Musheng's arms and fixed the officer with her round, earnest eyes, as though she too were expressing her thanks.

Two pairs of clear, guileless eyes looking up at him. The officer, with decades of service behind him, felt something in his chest go soft. He turned to his colleagues: "Get him out of here. Stop frightening the students."

He looked down at Lao Jin on the floor with undisguised contempt. Young, and already rotten — doing wrong and refusing to own it, trying to turn it around on a decent student. The worst kind of person.

On the floor, Lao Jin felt nothing but pain. Every bone in his body felt like it had been ground to powder and set on fire. Even his soul seemed to be writhing.

When the officer hauled him up from the floor, breathing had become an effort. Every step felt like dancing on needles.

This...

He forced his eyes open through the blurring agony. His gaze found Chao Musheng.

A clean, pleasant-looking young man, holding a cat, long white fingers moving through the fur. Two or three officers and security staff clustered around him, speaking quietly, as though he were the greatest casualty this room contained.

As if sensing Lao Jin's gaze, the young man raised his eyes and looked back at him — unhurried, weightless.

Demon.

He's the demon in this instance.

Lao Jin convulsed, the pain tearing through him, his soul fracturing—

[Ding! Player Lao Jin has failed the instance. Eliminated.]

Every player in the building heard the notification. A wave of shock went through them. Day two, and someone had already been eliminated?

The police, campus security, and Student Union members gradually filed out of Room 404. Chao Musheng turned to Zhao Shang: "Thanks for stepping in earlier. The dining hall won't have much left at this hour — let me take you both somewhere outside campus for lunch."

The vegetable player, having witnessed Lao Jin's fate, couldn't bring himself to go near Chao Musheng. He declined quickly.

Chao Musheng didn't push it. He took Zhang San and Zhao Shang downstairs. Two cats were nosing around the flower bed at the bottom — when they saw Chao Musheng, they both started meowing urgently.

"Your friends came to find you." Chao Musheng set Little Tangerine down. She rubbed her face against his ankle and trotted off toward the other two. All three disappeared into the bushes within moments.

Zhang San, fan in hand, was already diligently fanning Chao Musheng. "Xiao Chao — can we come and go freely through the main gate normally?"

"Of course." Chao Musheng went to wash his hands at a nearby sink. "Just remember to bring your temporary cards when you go out — you need to swipe to get back in."

So players without temporary cards would be stuck inside the campus.

The further they got into this instance, the clearer it became how difficult it would be to farm affinity with these NPCs. And the student registry and official seal — those felt almost unreachably remote. They didn't even know where the president's office was, let alone how to get anywhere near a seal.

The world outside the campus gates was more vivid and varied than either Zhang San or Zhao Shang had expected.

And they noticed something else: Chao Musheng appeared to be something of a social butterfly. People greeted him at every turn. When those people found out Zhang San and Zhao Shang were students in his charge, most of them extended a few points of affinity toward the pair as well.

So this was what "love me, love my dog" looked like in practice. What kind of particular existence was Chao Musheng in this instance?

"Hello again." A car pulled up alongside them. A middle-aged man leaned out of the window. "I recognized you — you gave us directions last time. Thank you for that."

Zhang San looked at the car that had appeared from nowhere and, on instinct, activated his identification item.

AAAAAAHHHHH.

WHAT IS IN THAT CAR.

A mass of glitching error codes and knotted question marks had coiled into the shape of a dragon above the vehicle's roof, shimmering in the bright afternoon sun.

HELP.

Help!!

SOS!!!