Chapter 29 Who Am I 28

The Cleaner looked at Lin Xiangjun with a somber expression. Lin Xiangjun let him appraise her without changing her expression or skipping a beat. After a long pause, he slowly turned around.

"Follow me." His voice sounded muffled.

Lin Xiangjun followed him readily.

There was no one on the path through the residential complex, only the Cleaner walking in front with a muffled, sullen air, and Lin Xiangjun walking slowly behind holding the Flashlight.

The Cleaner did not walk fast. He dragged his broom, and in this quiet residential complex, only the harsh scratching sound of the broom could be heard.

Lin Xiangjun stared at the Cleaner's back, lost in thought.

The clues obtained today mentioned that this Cleaner lived in 104. Now that Sun Tao was dead, the rules for 104 had not yet been acquired by anyone.

But looking at it now, the clues for 104 should be the most important among all the rules. Lin Xiangjun already had a deduction about the story of the entire instance, she just lacked the clues to support it.

Tsk, how could such an idiot be assigned to the most important 104?

Lin Xiangjun didn't regret tricking Sun Tao to his death at the start; she was purely worried about future instances. What if there were critical clues like this again, and they ended up in the hands of such an idiot right at the beginning?

Dying at the very beginning like this was actually a relatively ideal situation. At least he was gone as soon as he entered the instance, and the clues were still there, untouched. But what if next time, the critical clue was found, and the person holding it died early? What would happen then?

Wouldn't the clues be lost?

That wouldn't do!

A sense of crisis rose in Lin Xiangjun's heart.

She deeply realized the greatest crisis of multi-player instances—uncontrollable teammates.

A five-person instance like this was considered relatively small in terms of numbers. She remembered the female lead going to a large-scale multi-player instance in the middle stages, where a single instance recruited a full five hundred players.

Five hundred, wow.

How many idiots like Sun Tao were in there? How many clues must have fallen into their hands, only to be completely cut off after they were caught by the eerie entities?

Lin Xiangjun deeply felt that her own life was very likely to be lost in a multi-player instance.

She had to find a way to get herself into single-player instances as much as possible.

If she died because she was stupid, she would deserve it. But if she died because someone else was stupid and implicated her... she didn't dare to imagine how unavenged she would feel in death.

"We're here." The Cleaner stopped suddenly.

Lin Xiangjun snapped back to reality. She shone the Flashlight forward and saw a green recycling bin about half a person's height in front of her.

It looked no different from a trash can in the real world, with unidentified dark brown stains on the surface. Although she was still three or four meters away, she could already smell the sour stench.

"Then I'll be off. Call me if you need anything."

Lin Xiangjun was just about to open her mouth to thank him, but her mouth, halfway open, clamped shut again.

She took out her phone and glanced at it.

She happened to see the time jump from "10:59" to "11:00".

Eleven o'clock, curfew.

【2, There are many elderly people in the residential complex. To ensure their rest, please keep quiet from 11:00 PM to 7:00 AM the next day and do not make any noise.】

That was close.

She was almost tricked by this eerie entity.

He spoke right at the limit of 10:59, so he wouldn't be punished. But if Lin Xiangjun had answered, given that critical timing, even if she had just said "Thank you," it would have violated the rule about not making noise after 11:00.

The Cleaner had deliberately dragged his broom along the way just to lower Lin Xiangjun's guard, making her feel that making some sound didn't seem to matter.

But if she had really lowered her guard, she could close her eyes peacefully now.

Just that close.

How insidious.

Lin Xiangjun kept her mouth tightly shut and nodded slightly at the Cleaner, but she was determined not to make a single sound.

Seeing that he couldn't trick her, the Cleaner didn't dare to speak either. He simply held his broom and dustpan in his arms and walked quickly toward the residential building.

Unlike when he came, his movements were fast yet very light; he left without making a single sound the entire way.

Good lad, running really fast.

Lin Xiangjun only glanced at his departing back before turning her head to continue observing the trash can.

She hadn't noticed before, but upon closer inspection, this trash can was actually in the corner between the security booth at the residential complex entrance and the wall. The shadow area was less than two square meters, and it was completely blocked by the security booth; no wonder she and Wang Min hadn't seen this trash can.

Hidden so carefully.

Lin Xiangjun looked inside and outside the trash can, but couldn't see anything special about it.

Perhaps she had to throw trash in it to see?

She hesitated for a moment, then threw the fur ball and the toilet paper wrapping it inside, and then waited quietly.

One minute, two minutes, three minutes... ten minutes.

Lin Xiangjun shifted her weight from her left foot to her right, then back to her left. Her posture changed from standing to leaning against the wall to squatting, and finally, she had to admit that throwing the trash in was completely useless.

For the first time, she began to doubt her own guess.

Could it be that there really were no clues?

That shouldn't be right. In her plan, these clues should be interlinked, like a puzzle game where you can always get the key to the next room from the previous ones; otherwise, the game couldn't proceed.

Where exactly did the problem lie? Lin Xiangjun couldn't figure it out no matter how hard she thought.

She could only write this doubt into her notebook and leave first.

Her plan for tonight was originally to solve both lines, but this trash can that only ate and didn't spit out clues disrupted Lin Xiangjun's plan, and she had to urgently modify her schedule.

The Garden of the residential complex had been explored, the trash can clue had been explored, the stray cat clue had been explored...

Comparing the rules one by one, Lin Xiangjun's fingertip stopped at one rule.

【4, From 9:00 PM to 8:00 AM the next day, stairs can only be traversed in one direction; you cannot turn back.】

She had almost forgotten this rule over the past two days, perhaps because the children the players were impersonating were not very old, and their bedtime was generally quite early. Even if they weren't sleepy after eight o'clock, the Eerie Parents would urge them to go to bed.

This rule... why not go test it out tonight?

Anyway, she had gone to such great lengths to get out tonight; going back empty-handed felt like a disservice to the trouble she had gone through.

Having made up her mind, Lin Xiangjun headed toward the residential building.

There were only two rules regarding time: one was the curfew, so what did the other one represent? Did this time have any special meaning?

After entering the residential building, there was a small slope with five or six steps before reaching the first-floor door. Lin Xiangjun paused for a moment after entering the building and decided to use these few small steps for her experiment.

She first walked up to the first-floor platform with a normal expression, then turned around and walked down.

The moment she walked down, the Flashlight in her hand began to flicker without warning. The stairwell suddenly became cold and gloomy, and there was a rustling sound, slowly approaching from afar.