Who Told You to Play Infinity Like This - Chapter 2

Chapter 2

A chat app was running in the background of the phone. Its interface was somewhat primitive, perhaps unsuited for modern humans, but it suited Chu Zhao perfectly.

Now wasn’t the time for deep investigation, so she skimmed through the messages.

The most recent chat history for [Room 612] was from this morning.

Zhu Qing’an: [Why was the shower so cold today? You guys didn’t mess with my water temperature, did you?]

Lin Qiu: [The water temperature really was low today. The pipes must be broken. Qingyin, contact the Dorm Supervisor.]

Li Qingyin: [I already called her. She said she’d be here at four in the afternoon.]

Even though she had only been standing there for a few seconds, Chu Zhao felt like she was sitting on pins and needles.

It felt as if someone was spying on her-and more than one person at that.

Yet, out of the corner of her eye, she could clearly see Lin Qiu drying her hair, while No. 3 still had her back turned. Their beds were on the same side of the room.

So, where was this sense of being watched coming from?

Setting the phone down casually, Chu Zhao turned her head naturally toward No. 3. “It’s almost four. Hasn’t the Dorm Supervisor arrived yet?”

No one answered.

Chu Zhao tried again. “Qingyin?”

Only after she called out did the woman with her back turned slowly rotate her head. Her tone was quite calm. “She should be here soon. The supervisor for Building 13 is the most punctual of them all.”

Chu Zhao smiled and picked up a broom and dustpan. “It’s my turn for duty.”

The room fell back into a dead silence, lacking the natural atmosphere of the chat group entirely.

Although she hadn’t had time to look closely, she had managed to distinguish her three roommates through those three lines of dialogue. She was 99% certain; the remaining 1% was reserved for the possibility of some socially anxious person who liked to wander into other dorms to shower and sleep.

She herself was Zhao Qinghe, Bed No. 2.

Lin Qiu was Bed No. 4.

Li Qingyin was Bed No. 3.

The last one was naturally the cold-sensitive Zhu Qing’an in Bed No. 1.

Zhu Qing’an and Zhao Qinghe were on one side, while Lin Qiu and Li Qingyin were on the other. Zhu Qing’an and Lin Qiu were the ones closest to the dorm door.

The water temperature before she adjusted it had been hot enough to make Chu Zhao’s hands sting. If she hadn’t adjusted it, she would have definitely been scalded. But according to Zhu Qing’an, that was still considered cold?

Were her roommates all reincarnated fire demons?

Chu Zhao thought of the thick quilts on Zhu Qing’an’s bed.

If she was that sensitive to the cold, why was the air conditioning on?

Since Lin Qiu could endure such high temperatures, Li Qingyin was likely the same, which meant Zhao Qinghe should be able to endure it as well.

She would have to find a chance to go back into the bathroom later and turn the temperature back up.

She was Zhao Qinghe, woman of iron skin and brass bones.

To Chu Zhao’s knowledge, ‘duty’ was nothing more than sweeping, mopping, and taking out the trash.

If there was any other work involved, it wouldn’t be called ‘duty’; it would be called ‘spring cleaning.’

She found the cleaning tools behind the door. She gave the broom and dustpan a simple swing; they felt quite solid.

If necessary, they could serve as weapons.

Currently, Li Qingyin and Lin Qiu were each sitting at their desks, and Zhu Qing’an was still leaning back on her bed, each busy with their own things.

But she couldn’t tell if it was just her imagination-even though none of the three were looking at her, she constantly felt as if she were being watched.

Could her roommates really be peeping at her?

Tsk, this batch of roommates was certainly clingy, always wanting to look at her.

Chu Zhao cleaned meticulously, and for a while, no problems arose.

Until she heard a knock at the door.

Even without checking her phone, Chu Zhao knew the Dorm Supervisor had likely arrived.

She had moved very quickly. Her shower had only lasted a few minutes, and she had glanced at the time while checking the phone earlier-it was 15:56. The conversation between Zhu Qing’an and the others had been around 11:00 AM, all within today.

Seeing that Lin Qiu, who was closest to the door, had no intention of getting up, Chu Zhao stepped forward. She opened the door just a crack and then feigned an accidental step backward.

A flat, dark shadow poked its way through the gap in the door. “Li Qingyin, I heard the pipes in Room 612 are broken?”

Li Qingyin turned her head. “Yes. The temperature dropped.”

After the dark shadow entered, it lay flat on the floor.

No-it was her shadow on the ground, but Chu Zhao saw nothing standing in front of her.

The shadow clung to the tiles Chu Zhao had just swept, flowing inward as if nothing were wrong. Chu Zhao urgently stepped aside to avoid any potential collision with the invisible entity. However, in the instant they brushed past each other, she caught a whiff of decay and stench-a cold, greasy smell mixed with a fishy odor that was nauseating.

The shadow flowed to the bathroom door. Like a piece of paper, it folded across several different planes as it moved over the threshold.
The Dorm Supervisor spoke, her tone sounding quite surprised. “The temperature is actually this low?”

With that, she flowed entirely into the bathroom, and the noise stopped.

Chu Zhao pretended to be focused on cleaning, but she was actually keeping her ears and eyes open to everything around her. Had the Dorm Supervisor crawled directly into the pipes to fix them? She’d probably have to adjust the water temperature carefully before showering tomorrow, or she might end up getting scalded by boiling water.

Soon, the Dorm Supervisor flowed back out.

Li Qingyin spoke in a flat voice. “Why were you a minute late today?”

Whether intentional or not, the Dorm Supervisor’s voice came to a stop right next to Chu Zhao. “Did you hear about Room 605?”

“They insisted their roommate had disappeared and that an Impostor had taken her place,” she said. “They kicked the Impostor out.”

“Hmph, a bunch of careless fools. They didn’t even think to call me to identify it before throwing it out. Now the hallway is a filthy mess.”

Chu Zhao’s expression remained calm as she continued to sweep the floor with meticulous, almost nitpicky care.

The next second, a blast of frigid air blew the stray hairs back from her forehead. The Dorm Supervisor’s voice sounded as if it were pressed right against her ear, her tone oily and greedy. “There aren’t any Impostors in your room, are there?”

“Do you want me to help you identify them?”

She was likely asking Chu Zhao’s roommates, but to everyone’s surprise, Chu Zhao took the initiative to answer. “There are naturally no Impostors in our room.”

The moment the Dorm Supervisor leaned into Chu Zhao’s face, Lin Qiu, Li Qingyin, and Zhu Qing’an all turned their gazes toward them simultaneously.

Three seconds later, Lin Qiu’s voice rang out, unhurried. “No.”

“Fine. You can leave now.”

Her words were clearly directed at the Dorm Supervisor.

The Dorm Supervisor remained pressed against Chu Zhao, the damp, cold, and decaying scent constantly invading Chu Zhao’s nostrils.

Zhao Qinghe had clear, bright eyes; at this moment, the corners of her eyes were upturned with a hint of a smile, appearing perfectly composed.

After an indeterminate amount of time, the shadow flowed out the door, seemingly disappointed.

Her voice drifted back from outside, refusing to give up. “Make sure you sleep well tonight. Turn off the lights when you go to bed. I, the Dorm Supervisor, will be coming to check. If I find out you aren’t sleeping properly… hehehe…”

A moment later, the supervisor’s voice rang out again.

“Open up! Room 611, I’m talking to you! Open the door!”

She pounded on the opposite door with a deafening thud. “Open up!”

The sound was so violent it felt as if some massive force was slamming into the walls and the door simultaneously.

The door across the hall opened almost instantly. The last thing they heard was the Dorm Supervisor saying, “Have you encountered any Impostors? Let me see, hurry…”

Chu Zhao had already closed their door, so she didn’t hear the rest.

Compared to what was happening across the hall, the Dorm Supervisor’s behavior in Room 612 could be considered polite.

Chu Zhao discreetly scanned her three roommates out of the corner of her eye. She felt that she shouldn’t be this calm; at the very least, she should complain a bit to her roommates.

Unfortunately, as soon as the supervisor left, the trio’s gazes snapped back to their original positions, and the air fell into a dead silence once more.

*Here we go again, they’re doing it again. They’re giving their roommate the cold shoulder!*

Even though they weren’t looking at Chu Zhao anymore, the sensation of being watched only intensified. Her roommates really were like the obsessive, twisted fans from the legends.

Chu Zhao kept her composure, meticulously cleaning every spot and mopping the floor three times, inside and out, before stopping. “Lin Qiu, what do you think of my sweeping?”

Lin Qiu glanced at the floor. “It’s okay.”

Chu Zhao: “?”

*This isn’t clean enough?*

Chu Zhao mopped everything three more times, including the bathroom.

She wasn’t doing this because she had too much time on her hands; she had her own concerns. Their dormitory was a bit too clean and tidy. Aside from the wet footprints she and Lin Qiu had left after showering and the floating blood on the sink… everywhere else was practically spotless.

Either one of her roommates was a neat freak, or… this was a regulation from a higher level.

After all, when Lin Qiu finished her shower and found her desk messy, she had appeared behind Chu Zhao in an instant, her voice exceptionally chilling.

The seven ‘Edicts’ only gave her general hints, and they weren’t necessarily all true. She had to figure out her roommates’ taboos bit by bit on her own. In the meantime, she didn’t dare to be careless.

What the Dorm Supervisor said only added to Chu Zhao’s already heavy sense of crisis.

‘Impostors.’ If there were no surprises, those should be players like her-all 360 of them.
If everyone had woken up at the same time, the game would have only been running for less than twenty minutes, right?

And players were already being ‘kicked out’?

What happened after they were kicked out?

How did the hallway get so filthy?

If her disguise wasn’t convincing enough, would her currently polite roommates immediately kick her out as well?

With these thoughts swirling, Chu Zhao asked again, “Lin Qiu, do you think I mopped well enough?”

Lin Qiu was clearly growing impatient, but she still glanced at the floor. “It’s fine.”

Chu Zhao knew that if she asked one more time, Lin Qiu would likely snap.

She finally stopped cleaning, ceasing her pursuit of perfection. She put the tools away and tied up the trash bags.

Perhaps moved by her performance, Li Qingyin took the initiative to speak. “Leave them behind the door. I’ll take them with me when I go down.”

Chu Zhao’s smile became much more genuine. “Thanks, Qingyin.”

Li Qingyin replied, “No problem. You can take them for me tomorrow.”

Chu Zhao nodded. “Deal.”

Finally, she was able to sit down and pick up her phone.

The game had been fraught with danger from the very beginning. Only now did she have a moment to pause, think, and organize the information she had gathered.

After Li Qingyin finished speaking, silence returned to the room. With her back to the others, Chu Zhao began to carefully scroll through her phone.

The first thing she saw was a notification for a bank transaction.

An expenditure of 500, with a remaining balance of 500. The recipient was Erti Edict Academy. Looking closer, she realized the money had been topped up onto her meal card.

The general common sense in this dungeon didn’t differ much from what Chu Zhao knew.

For example, today was Friday, but like every damn school, they loved to schedule classes on the weekends.

Recalling the timetable she had just seen, Chu Zhao frowned slightly.

There was a class at three o’clock the day after tomorrow. It seemed to be called “History of Nothingness.” She had no idea what it taught.

At that thought, Chu Zhao pulled up the schedule she had just seen and took a photo to save it to her album.

She tapped back into the messaging app and scrolled up through the chat history. She found she could only see the last three days of messages, including today.

And their conversations over these three days were few and far between.

Wednesday, August 10th-

Lin Qiu: [@Zhao Qinghe, where are you? Teacher Yun is looking for you.]

Zhao Qinghe: [I’m at the Diligence Building. I’ll bring back snacks for you guys.]

That was the message from the day before yesterday-only two lines.

Thursday, August 11th-

Lin Qiu: [God, Jin Xiao is the worst. I saw her cheating again. She really deserves to die… why isn’t she dead yet?]

Zhao Qinghe: [Wait for me to get back.]

Li Qingyin: […Control yourself.]

Lin Qiu: [If only everyone were like Qinghe. Then the teachers wouldn’t have to worry about our grades.]

Zhao Qinghe: [You have to forgive your classmates for their imperfections. By the way, are you short on money? I picked up a bit of cash recently.]

Lin Qiu: [Yes, very much so.]

Zhu Qing’an: [It’s cold. Bring me more snacks @Zhao Qinghe]

Zhao Qinghe: [Okay, wait for me.]

That was yesterday’s log.

And today, Friday, August 12th, consisted of the three messages Chu Zhao had seen earlier.

Judging by these messages, Zhao Qinghe seemed to have a very good relationship with her roommates. Which meant if her identity was exposed… *hiss*.

Chu Zhao’s brow furrowed deeply.

…Speaking of which, could Lin Qiu accept a “perfect roommate” whose grades took a slight dip?

Her gaze swept over the books on the side… Great. Not a single one overlapped with anything she had ever studied.

How was she supposed to naturally perform poorly without raising suspicion?

Furthermore, she had promised to bring money for Lin Qiu and snacks for Zhu Qing’an… So, did she bring them yesterday?

Chu Zhao’s expression grew solemn at the thought.

She found the duty roster for Room 612 in the group files and noted down her assigned days. Just as she was about to check other chat logs, she heard Lin Qiu’s voice.

“Let’s go down to eat.”

Li Qingyin also stood up. “I was just about to head down anyway.”

Chu Zhao said, “I’ll go too.”

She remembered the rule: *She never goes to the cafeteria alone.*

In the next second, Lin Qiu shot her a cold glare. “You’re not allowed to leave the room.”

Chu Zhao: “?”