After the Evil God Pretends to Be a Player [Infinite] - Chapter 6

Lalai lifted her eyes and looked toward Li Zhu.

As he spoke, the corners of the man’s mouth curled upward into a familiar arc. He appeared powerful and confident, exuding an air of complete composure even while sitting among the cramped, awkward tables and chairs of the cafeteria. To most people, a person like this would evoke thoughts of sunshine, reliability, and a sense of security.

To her, however, he only evoked resistance, disgust, and a desire to stay far away.

Just as she was about to withdraw her gaze, she heard him speak: “Miss Lalai, may I ask what you encountered yesterday?”

Lalai swept a cold glance over him. She truly could not understand, nor could she fathom, why this man insisted on approaching her when she had made her attempts to avoid him so obvious. Was it because as she had suspected he was approaching her with that kind of ulterior motive?

She sighed softly in her heart and glanced at Meng Luo.

Meng Luo understood the cue and began to answer, “Yesterday, we”

However, she stopped mid-sentence. Even though Meng Luo had started speaking, Li Zhu’s eyes remained fixed intently on Lalai’s face, without the slightest intention of granting Meng Luo even a passing glance.

Meng Luo: ? Am I just a prop in your “play”?

Left with no choice, Lalai spoke expressionlessly under Li Zhu’s oppressive gaze. “There was a moving mannequin in the room, and someone was knocking on the door outside.”

Li Zhu quickly caught the keyword: “Someone? Did you see the thing outside?”

Lalai: “No. It was scared away by the noise I made.”

The phrase “scared away” was quite expressive.

Lalai turned the question back to him: “You saw that thing? It knocked on your door too?”

There was a deep meaning in Li Zhu’s eyes. “More than that. After hearing the knocking last night, we accidentally made a bit of noise. As a result, that thing burst straight in…”

“I see.” Lalai did not ask for details on how they escaped the monster; the fact that they were sitting here was enough. She mused, “I think I know what’s going on now.”

Li Zhu smiled warmly. “I’ve guessed it as well.”

During their exchange, they didn’t deliberately lower their voices, yet this conversation of mutual understanding seemed to isolate everyone else from their circle—even if the two protagonists didn’t notice the subtle atmosphere themselves.

Wang Kai was utterly bewildered. “Brother Li, what riddles are you two talking in?”

Li Zhu explained, “I just said that the three different colored umbrellas correspond to the three types of crises we encountered last night.”

“The first crisis is the mannequin in the room. The second is the faceless monster knocking on the door. The third is having base makeup applied to a sleeping player’s face.”

Wang Kai said blankly, “Then why did we encounter both the mannequin and the faceless monster last night?”

As soon as the words left his mouth, he realized it himself. “Oh, oh! I took the red umbrella, and you took the black one! Wait, so these things stack?”

“Wait, that’s not right!” Wang Kai became confused again. “Then why did Miss Lalai and her friend encounter the mannequin and the faceless monster in their room? Didn’t they only use the black umbrella?”

Li Zhu smiled. “You missed a detail. Let me ask you: in our room, the moment you made a sound, did the door open automatically for the faceless monster to rush in?”

“Yeah!”

“But in Lalai’s room, even though they made a sound, the faceless monster couldn’t get in.”

“That means…”

“That means the knocking wasn’t supposed to be their crisis.”

“I suspect…” Li Zhu turned to Lalai and asked with a light laugh, “Last night, that faceless monster was originally knocking on the door next door, wasn’t it?”

Lalai remained silent for a moment, then nodded.

The female streamer also remembered something. “Yes, that’s exactly it! That thing was knocking on our door at first. I’ve read a lot of horror novels, so I knew not to make a sound… but later, for some reason, the knocking moved to the room next door.”

Li Zhu hit the nail on the head: “That’s because their room made a noise.”

He summarized: “So, the black umbrella corresponds to the mannequin in the room, the red umbrella corresponds to the faceless monster knocking, and the white umbrella corresponds to the midnight makeup.”

Meng Luo asked, “Will we encounter these crises again tonight?”

Li Zhu: “I don’t think so. This clue is very obvious; once you’ve been through it once, you’ll know how to deal with it next time.”

Just as he finished speaking, a “ring-ring-ring” alarm suddenly sounded. Everyone’s gaze converged on the source the watch on the Keeper’s left wrist.

The watch face was clear; a giant red exclamation mark occupied almost the entire screen, with white numbers below reading “00:00.”

The Keeper stood up. In that moment, the ground seemed to tremble slightly. He muttered, “Five minutes are up. Let’s go. We’re heading to the School History Museum.”

The teaching buildings, cafeteria, and other structures of Pretty Middle School looked no different from any ordinary school. Students hurried through the campus from time to time, most of them ignoring the group of outsiders.

However, occasionally, a few would stare directly at them with lingering, uncomfortable gazes.

Most of those greasy, lecherous stares were aimed at Lalai. Surrounded by gazes that felt almost physical, Lalai didn’t even grant them a look, remaining entirely indifferent.

The female streamer was the first to lose her nerve. She felt a chill everywhere, as if something were spying on her from the shadows with infinite malice. She asked the Keeper, seemingly nonchalantly, “What exactly does ‘Pretty Middle School’ mean?”

The Keeper squinted at her and suddenly lowered his head!

As his mask loomed larger and larger in her pupils, the female streamer began to tremble with fear. Only then did he smile with satisfaction.

“Why ask me? Go ask an NPC!”

The female streamer’s heart stirred. She happened to see a boy in a school uniform carrying a black backpack walking past her with his head down. She hurriedly called out, “Student!”

The boy slowly raised his head.

Seeing his face, the streamer breathed a sigh of relief. Fortunately, it was just a common, everyday face not the faceless monster they had discussed earlier. That means he should be a normal NPC, right?

“Student, do you know why this school is called ‘Pretty Middle School’?”

The boy acted as if he hadn’t heard her. He lowered his head again and continued walking.

“Wait!”

A thought flashed through her mind like lightning: This is a TRPG (Tabletop Role-Playing Game); player actions require a dice check!

However, her Persuasion and Eloquence skills were very low. In a moment of panic, her hand moved faster than her brain, and she rolled the dice.

The next second, the boy stopped.

His head turned inch by inch. With a look of obsession, he stared intently at the streamer and finally spoke: “You are so beautiful. I really like your face.”

In the next instant, his right hand shot out like a bolt of lightning, reaching out as if to touch the skin of her face!

The change was too sudden. The streamer’s feet felt rooted to the ground; she was paralyzed. Just as the boy’s sharp nails were about to graze her skin, the world spun, and she was pulled behind someone.

It was Lalai.

Lalai had seen the streamer talking to the NPC. She hadn’t intended to interfere, but she hadn’t expected things to escalate like this. She yanked the girl back.

Realizing once again how fragile and prone to trouble humans were, she frowned and asked the streamer, “What skill did you use?”

The boy was relentless, trying to reach around Lalai to get to the girl, but Lalai blocked him.

The streamer’s trembling voice reached Lalai’s ear: “It was… Charm.”

Charm… a skill that does exactly what it says on the tin… Lalai closed her eyes for a moment.

When she opened them, she gave the streamer a subtle, pointed look. “You know this dungeon is related to beauty and faces.”

“I…”

The boy suddenly burst into laughter. “You wanted to know what Pretty Middle School means? I’ll tell you!”

“Beauty is the most valuable thing in Pretty Middle School!”

“You must become the most beautiful people on campus!”

The boy waved his hands, looking manic. Laughing and jumping, he ran off into the distance. He disappeared behind a building.

The Keeper, who had been walking at the front, stopped before this very building and addressed the group:

“Welcome to the Pretty Middle School History Museum. This place records the storms and glorious years of this school. It is everything you need to know about this school before becoming a part of it. Are you impatient to begin? Come in!”

Everyone thought to themselves: No, I’m not impatient at all, and I don’t want to ‘become a part of it.’

Regardless of their true thoughts, they had no choice but to step inside.

From the outside, the museum looked like a small three-story building. Once inside, however, the space felt enormous. The players walked and stopped like tourists in a museum. Various items were displayed in glass cases: the first shovel used when the school was built, government documents approving the school’s establishment, banners gifted by parents, and even photocopies of admission notices for top students.

After walking for a while, the “Smart-cut” (the punk with the flashy hair) finally lost his patience. He tapped the glass with a finger and snapped, “What do these things have to do with the dungeon?”

Indeed, no matter how one looked at them, these items were ordinary and held nothing special.

Lalai thought for a moment. After gaining the Keeper’s permission, she rolled a die against the admission notice.

[Spot Hidden] Check / Result: 70/68   Success

Keeper: “You successfully spotted… No, this place is absolutely mediocre. You didn’t see anything at all.”

Lalai: “…”

At some point, Li Zhu leaned in from behind her. Though he maintained a disciplined social distance, his height meant that his low, amused voice drifted down from above her head:

“Find anything, hmm?”

Lalai ignored the strange tone and the rising lilt of his “hmm?” She didn’t want to speak, but to rid herself of him quickly, she said briefly, “The check was a success, but nothing was found.”

Li Zhu paused and repeated, “Nothing was found here.”

Here?

An idea struck Lalai like a spark. She took a deep breath and said to the Keeper, “Where is the second floor? We’re going to the second floor now!”

The Keeper stared down the long, seemingly endless corridor for a moment, then arched an eyebrow. “Are you sure you want to go now?”

The girl from the couple was confused. “We haven’t finished looking here yet. We don’t know if there are more clues further down…”

Lalai interrupted her. Her deep blue eyes locked onto the Keeper’s gaze, and she said coldly, “How much visiting time is left?”

“What?”

“You specifically set a time earlier to prevent us from discussing things for too long and delaying the museum visit. That’s because the museum visit also has a time limit, isn’t it?”

“Or rather, there are other arrangements after visiting the museum?”

The Keeper looked at Lalai intently for a moment, then smiled. “The School History Museum is open daily from 8:00 to 12:00.”

Meng Luo immediately opened her game panel and cried out, “But it’s already 11:52!”

The Keeper looked regretful, acting as if he were disappointed they had seen through him.

Opposite the glass display cases was a decorative wall. The Keeper gave it a push, and the group realized that a hidden door was embedded in the center of the wall. Behind the door was a winding staircase leading to the second floor.

“Damn, this second floor is well-hidden… I really didn’t know…”

No one paid attention to the Smart-cut’s grumbling. In fact, his words cut off mid-sentence.

As they rounded the corner of the stairs to the second floor, everyone’s eyes filled with shock and horror.

The second floor was also filled with glass display cases, but unlike the first floor, the items displayed inside were rows upon rows of human masks.