Chapter 161: [Passing the Imperial Examination] Say It Yourself
A crowd of parents gathered at the base of the apartment building.
Wang Jiapeng’s mother went over to knock on the door of Apartment 101.
She knocked for a long while, but no one answered from inside.
“How strange… The Master is usually home. No matter what time you look for him, he’s always here…”
The parents began to murmur among themselves.
“Maybe it’s too late tonight. We should take the kids back to study first.”
“True. The college entrance exam is right around the corner, why bother crowding around for drama?”
With the drama interrupted, the parents naturally prepared to get back on track and supervise their children’s studies.
However, presented with this rare opportunity, the players had zero desire to go back.
Wang Jiapeng simply stepped forward and kicked the door hard.
Amidst his mother’s furious scolding, the door gave way under his kick.
With the lock broken, the door naturally swung open.
“You little brat! You’ve offended the Master—you’re going to kneel down and apologize to him in a moment!”
Though she scolded him, Wang Jiapeng’s mother still pushed the door open.
“Ahem, Master, are you in?”
The interior was pitch-black. Wang Jiapeng’s mother fumbled around the entryway until she located the switch and turned on the lights.
The next second, she let out a pig-slaughtering shriek.
“Someone help! Dead man!”
The parents who had been about to leave immediately crowded back over.
Bai Cha stood near the front, catching sight at a glance of the Master lying in the living room, blood pooling beneath the back of his head, unsure whether he was alive or dead.
Her brows knitted slightly.
It seemed something had occurred while she was unaware—most likely the handiwork of another player.
It wasn’t particularly surprising, though.
With so many players in this game, it was impossible for every single one of them to be tied down by so-called studying.
She just didn’t know whether the clues here were still intact.
Some people were already calling 120 for an ambulance, while others suggested going inside to check if the man was dead.
In short, the scene descended into immediate chaos.
Having cooled down from her anger, Mother Han pulled her daughter back, wanting to shield her from such a gruesome sight.
After a brief moment of thought, Bai Cha decided she couldn’t afford to drag things out any longer. Since another player had already interfered, she was going to drop all polite pretenses.
Otherwise, further delay would invite unforeseen variables.
“Mom, lend me your phone for a moment.”
Mother Han startled. After a moment’s hesitation, she handed her phone over. For some reason, her daughter felt exceptionally strange today.
Perhaps it was because she had suddenly grown up enough to take charge and stand on her own feet.
This left Mother Han feeling somewhat at a loss.
She was accustomed to protecting her daughter behind her back, shielding her from everything.
Now, she felt somewhat useless.
Bai Cha didn’t even bother hiding as she opened her interface panel directly. Although these NPCs couldn’t see it, her actions were somewhat peculiar nonetheless.
Watching this made several players draw in sharp, cold breaths in their hearts.
Soon enough, Bai Cha forwarded the recorded video to the email account on Mother Han’s phone.
She then opened it and handed the phone over to Mother Han.
Unsure of what was going on, Mother Han looked down at the video playing on the phone.
The audio was crystal clear. Hearing her own voice in the recording, Wang Jiapeng’s mother immediately peered over.
“What are you looking at? When was this video recorded?”
Bai Cha didn’t utter a word.
When the middle-aged man contacted the person surnamed Chen, uttering those strange words, and when that odd roster appeared in the frame later on, Mother Han instinctively sensed something was wrong.
She raised her head to look at Bai Cha, her voice trembling slightly.
“What does this mean?”
Without making a sound, Bai Cha walked straight into the inner room.
She pushed open the door to the room where the middle-aged man had been burning incense.
An altar table inside should have held a divine statue or something similar; however, the space sat completely bare.
Someone had taken it.
Evidently, the perpetrator had a clear objective, though she couldn’t tell what it was used for.
Regardless, the clues in this room were indeed plentiful.
Scanning the room at a glance, countless red threads were densely interwoven across two of the walls, so numerous they nearly turned the walls entirely red.
Looking closely, each thread was tied between two nails hammered into the wall, each holding a yellow talisman paper.
Bai Cha walked over, tore off a talisman paper, and flipped it over.
A name was written on the back.
“Qi Tong-jun.”
Tearing off another, every single talisman paper corresponded to a name—and every single one matched the roster from earlier perfectly.
The parents crowded in behind her. Hearing Bai Cha read out her child’s name, one parent instinctively charged inside.
“What does this mean?!”
The parents stood in utter disbelief.
Yet amidst the lists of names, they had already realized the insidious, evil intentions hidden behind it all.
Watching them swarm inside like a hive of bees, Bai Cha stepped onto the altar table, standing tall above the crowd.
Mother Han hadn’t stepped inside.
Standing at the doorway, she was pushed tightly against the wall behind her by the crowd.
She and Bai Cha exchanged glances across the sea of people.
To her eyes, Bai Cha still looked like Han Yingying, yet she was so calm, so powerful.
That wasn’t her daughter.
A tearless, tragic expression crossed Mother Han’s face.
Everything from her nightmare resurfaced vividly before her eyes.
The strange words the middle-aged man had uttered, alongside the names and red threads pinned across this room.
She wasn’t a fool. Lacking higher education, she was prone to superstition, which made her understand these things all the better instead.
Someone had murdered her daughter.
They had stolen her daughter’s exam scores.
So someone really could steal exam scores.
No—what they stole wasn’t just test scores.
They stole her child.
Mother Han opened her mouth wanting to wail, but the crushing agony suffocating her chest prevented her from making even a sound.
She pounded frantically against her own chest, as if doing so could alleviate a fraction of the pain.
Yet in her dreams, repeated over and over, the vision of her daughter lying in a pool of blood, unrecognizable, remained terrifyingly clear.
Standing atop the high altar, Bai Cha fell silent for a brief moment.
She suddenly leaped down with light, nimble grace, pushing through the crowded, clamorous throng until she stood before Mother Han, gently taking her hand.
She led her out of the room.
Outside, at the unit entrance, a crowd of ghosts stood in neat, orderly rows.
Most of them had died by leaping from buildings.
Others had drowned.
Some had slit their wrists.
And others had taken lethal doses of medicine.
Every single one of them appeared hideous and horrifying.
The players stood before them as if facing a formidable enemy.
Truth be told, the moment the parents swarmed inside, this horde of ghosts had materialized all at once.
Many players hadn’t encountered a single ghost until now, so this scene scared them out of their wits.
Bai Cha pulled Mother Han along as they walked out, receiving the collective gaze of everyone present—whether human or ghost.
Some held malice, some held unreadable motives, but most were simply evaluating her.
“Han Yingying,” Bai Cha called out toward the very back row of the ghosts, targeting that similarly frail, small figure.
Han Yingying shrank her neck back, keeping her head buried low the entire time, pretending she hadn’t heard a thing.
“Han Yingying, didn’t you say you wanted to tell your mother that you love her? Come over and say it yourself.”
Bai Cha’s voice was clear and cold, carrying an undeniable weight of pressure.
Yet Han Yingying buried her head even lower, desperately wishing she could act like a quail or an ostrich—digging a hole right on the spot to shove her head inside.
Mother Han had snapped back to her senses by now. Faced with these terrifying, gruesome ghosts, she felt no fear at all.
Her gaze was fixed blankly upon that familiar figure among the horde of ghosts.
That was her child.
So… her Yingying really was dead…
