After the Evil God Pretends to Be a Player [Infinite] - Chapter 13

Throughout the entire day leading up to the masquerade ball, the players were permitted to explore the campus freely.

The Keeper required them to gather at the school auditorium by seven o’clock in the evening. There, they would undergo a unified assessment. Players who passed would be granted formal admission to “Pretty Middle School.”

The players scoured the campus once more, but this time, they found no other suspicious locations aside from the art room and the School History Museum. Even the student NPCs, who had previously exhibited strange behavior, seemed to have returned to normal.

Everything felt like the calm before the storm.

The players revisited the art room, but the door was now firmly locked. They also went as a group to the School History Museum.

The Punk’s face had appeared on the second floor, positioned right next to the female streamer’s.

Unlike the streamer, whose lips curled in a faint, eerie smile, the Punk’s expression was one of absolute, terminal terror. His lips were white, blue veins and blood vessels bulged beneath the skin of his face, and the whites of his eyes were webbed with thick, crimson blood vessels.

Lalai gazed at the two masks in silence. Suddenly, she felt a figure approach from behind. She glanced sideways; it was Li Zhu.

Since their late-night conversation, this man seemed to have completely forgotten her warning not to bother her. Instead, as if he had received some sort of secret permission, he had become omnipresent once again. She could always feel a gaze following her—steady, curious, and searching.

Lalai let out a soft sigh. Then, she heard Li Zhu’s voice whisper behind her, “Do you think they’ll ever come back?”

Lalai gave him a long, deep look. After scrutinizing the expression on his face for a while, she spoke slowly:

“Under normal circumstances, it’s impossible. They have already become the dependents of this instance’s Evil God.”

Li Zhu was quick to grasp the implication. “Are you saying they aren’t dead?”

Lalai countered, “Did you see where the streamer’s body went?”

The answer was no. When Zhou Wen had returned to the room she shared with the streamer, the corpse had vanished. Only the bloodstains on the floor remained to prove that what had happened was not an illusion.

Lalai explained flatly, “Under the influence of the Evil God’s power, they were driven toward madness and gradually lost themselves. Though they are low-quality, are they not a form of ‘believer’ nonetheless?”

Li Zhu fell into deep thought.

The School History Museum had three floors. They had previously toured the first and second but were forced to leave due to time constraints. This time, they found that the large doors leading from the second floor to the third were tightly shut, secured by a rusted bronze lock.

In short, a full day of investigation yielded very little. It seemed as though all unresolved puzzles were destined to be decided tonight.

At seven o’clock in the evening, all the players arrived at the auditorium entrance.

The Keeper, whom they hadn’t seen all day, counted their numbers and said with satisfaction, “Hold onto your masks. I wish you all an unforgettable night.”

A man and a woman stood at the auditorium doors, both dressed in white shirts and black trousers. Lalai noticed they were wearing armbands identifying them as the Student Council.

The group was stopped by the pair. The girl said expressionlessly, “All students participating in the ball must wear their masks before entering.”

Wang Kai tried to resist. “Is it mandatory? We haven’t even received formal admission yet, have we?”

The girl remained deaf to his words. Her mouth opened and closed mechanically, repeating: “All students participating in the ball must wear their masks before entering.”

The boy on the other side was more direct. He shoved his sleeves up to his forearms and grabbed Wang Kai by the collar, looking ready to “help” him put the mask on.

Wang Kai turned ashen and stammered, “I’ll wear it! I’ll wear it!”

The others followed suit. Although they didn’t know what dangers awaited once the masks were on, it was clear that without them, they couldn’t enter the masquerade, get closer to the truth, or escape the instance. They had no choice at all.

The center of the auditorium was a massive dance floor surrounded by fresh flowers. In the four corners, there were towers of cake, fine wine, and a rich assortment of desserts.

Classical music flowed quietly. Every person in the auditorium wore a painted mask. Some were dancing gracefully in the center of the floor, while others sat quietly in the lounge areas.

If one didn’t know they were in a death-trap instance harboring a sinister assessment, anyone would be fooled by the facade of this masquerade and assume it was just an ordinary social event.

Lalai scanned the auditorium for a long time but saw nothing out of the ordinary. In fact, she couldn’t even sense the aura of any of her “kind” here.

She frowned slightly, and just as she was about to use a skill to observe more closely, she felt a tap on her shoulder. She turned around to see a mask painted with dice.

The owner of the mask extended a hand toward her. Then, a magnetic male voice sounded from behind the mask: “Miss Lalai, may I have this dance?”

Lalai did not reach out. Instead, she asked coldly, “Why?”

Li Zhu seemed taken aback for a moment, then laughed. His muffled laughter drifted from behind the mask. “I’ve realized that you truly do not wish to establish any connection with me outside of game discussion.”

Lalai remained silent. He continued, “I still want to know why you dislike me. Can you tell me now?”

The dice mask hid Li Zhu’s face, and the ocean mask hid Lalai’s. Neither could see the other’s expression.

Lalai’s mind flashed back to that morning, to Li Zhu gazing at the masks of the Punk and the streamer, and his soft question: “Do you think they’ll ever come back?”

In that moment, his expression had been solemn, carrying an obvious trace of sorrow and grief. There was no sign of acting.

She opened her mouth, seemingly about to say something, but the suspicion she had cultivated over many years forced her to stop. She said flatly, “I still need to confirm a few things.”

A flicker of disappointment flashed in Li Zhu’s eyes, but the upbringing he had received over the years allowed him to quickly compose himself. A second later, he nodded, his face returning to a calm state. He withdrew his hand naturally and said with a smile, “Then let’s walk over there.”

Lalai nodded, her face showing nothing, but no one knew that a trace of hesitation had also flashed through her heart.

As a “cold” species, she instinctively desired to be near warmth. But when she saw the mask on Li Zhu’s face and the seemingly tender, affectionate look in his eyes, she only felt suffocated.

Was he truly just an ordinary human?

Or was he still ‘Him,’ a beautiful trap tailor-made for her?

She knew in her heart that if it were “Him,” He wouldn’t harbor an ounce of pity or kindness for humanity. After all, all existence in the world combined was nothing more than ants to Him.

But what if He were playing the part with perfection?

Whenever she looked at Li Zhu, the nightmares she had once endured felt as though they were returning. Thus, she abruptly cut off her words.

Whether he was real or fake, she would not be fooled again.

They entered the dance floor as a famous tango piece, Por una Cabeza, began to play over the speakers. Many people were dancing.

Out of the corner of her eye, Lalai even spotted Wang Kai and Zhou Wen. They were wearing a pair of “couples’ masks” painted with a puppy and a kitten, dancing clumsily. Either the puppy stepped on the kitten’s foot, or the kitten kicked the puppy’s leg.

Meng Luo, sporting a mask that read “Demons and Monsters, Stay Away,” stood before the cake tower, seemingly contemplating which piece looked the most delicious.

“Stay focused.”

Li Zhu gently rested a large hand on Lalai’s waist, helping her navigate away from a crowd that was about to collide with her. She could feel the constant warmth emanating from the man’s arm. She wanted to move away, but after a moment’s hesitation, she stayed.

On the other side, Wang Kai and Zhou Wen sat in the lounge area.

Wang Kai scratched his head and said, “It looks like Meng Luo and Lalai went to dance. Should we go too?”

Zhou Wen thought she had misheard. “Who?”

Wang Kai: “Meng Luo and Lalai. I just saw their masks… eh, where’d they go?”

Zhou Wen waved her hand dismissively. “If they want to dance, let them. That dance floor is clearly the heart of this party, and those are the places where things are most likely to go wrong. If they want to go court death, let them. Why should we join the chaos?”

Though Zhou Wen had a delicate and fragile personality and was emotionally unstable, her analysis was quite sound when she calmed down. Wang Kai always listened to his girlfriend and immediately agreed.

Zhou Wen seemed to remember something and said hesitantly, “Since they aren’t here right now, let me ask you something. Don’t you think the name ‘Li Zhu’ sounds a bit familiar?”

Three question marks practically sprouted above Wang Kai’s head. “Huh???”

Disappointed by her boyfriend’s lack of wit, Zhou Wen complained, “I shouldn’t even have asked you. I figured you wouldn’t know.”

Wang Kai felt a bit wronged, but curiosity got the better of him. He pleaded, “What did you remember?”

Zhou Wen’s gaze lingered on the man at the edge of the dance floor for a moment, then she asked, “What was your boss’s last name again?”

Wang Kai: “Zhao?”

He was promptly rewarded with a flick to the forehead from his girlfriend.

Zhou Wen: “I’m not asking about your department manager. I’m talking about the person at the very top of your parent company! The big boss of your corporation!”

Wang Kai thought for two seconds. “You know, now that you mention it, his surname is Li.”

But then, he hissed, “Wait, that’s not right! He isn’t called Li Zhu. He’s Li Mingchen.”

Wang Kai was a straight-laced STEM guy average looks, middle-of-the-road grades back in school. The greatest stroke of luck in his life was overperforming during the written tests and interviews of the autumn recruitment cycle, successfully landing a job at a top-tier, industry-benchmark internet company. The company’s founder had become the richest man in the country, and Wang Kai had become a “code monkey” working the endless 996/007 schedule.

Zhou Wen propped her chin on her hand. “Hmm, is that so? Have you ever heard of your big boss having any relatives? A son? A nephew, maybe…?”

Wang Kai shook his head. “That, I wouldn’t know.”

He found it a bit far-fetched. “I mean, even though ‘Li’ isn’t the most common surname, you can’t just think that any random person is related to our company’s CEO, right?”

Zhou Wen nodded. “I suppose you’re right. I just felt…”

She looked back toward “Li Zhu” and paused for two seconds before continuing, “I just felt that the aura he carries makes it seem as though he was born to be in a place like this.”

Wang Kai said hurriedly, “It couldn’t be such a coincidence. Otherwise…”

He recalled how he had cursed his “idiot boss” and acted so timid and cowering in front of Li Zhu.

He said miserably, “I’d be finished.”