Who Told You to Play Infinity Like This - Chapter 3

Chapter 3

I can’t go down?

Are you guys imprisoning your own roommate?

Chu Zhao decided to go with the flow. “Then bring me back some food.”

Lin Qiu’s tone remained incredibly cold, and her eyes were dark and murky. “What do you want to eat?”

Chu Zhao smiled. “Don’t you already know what I like?”

Lin Qiu stared at her for a moment before turning to walk out. “One hundred.”

Chu Zhao: “…”

…Why are you so expensive?

A hundred for one meal?!

Chu Zhao: “…I’ll transfer it to you.”

She was being fleeced by her roommate.

She found Lin Qiu in her contacts and sent over a hundred. Lin Qiu accepted it instantly.

Now, she had four hundred left in her bank account and five hundred on her meal card.

If every meal cost a hundred, she wouldn’t even make it through the weekend, let alone seven days.

She needed to find a way to get some money out of others.

As Li Qingyin and Lin Qiu stepped out, the dormitory door finally opened. Chu Zhao took the opportunity to look outside.

…The dilapidated state of the hallway was strangely reassuring.

It looked as if it had been abandoned for twenty years; cobwebs were everywhere, the wall plaster was peeling, and the dust was thick.

Out of the corner of her eye, Chu Zhao glanced at Lin Qiu and Li Qingyin’s feet.

The two of them stood weightlessly atop the thick dust, leaving no footprints behind.

Chu Zhao: “…”

You guys aren’t even trying to hide it anymore…

Just then, the door to the opposite room, 611, happened to open.

Four people filed out.

Judging by the footprints, Chu Zhao’s gaze immediately locked onto one of the women.

A living person. A player.

The young woman was wearing a white sun-protection jacket, her expression grim.

Chu Zhao mentally dubbed her Black Long Straight.

With a quick sweep, Chu Zhao took in the expressions of the other three from 611.

Their expressions were extremely cold, and they looked at Black Long Straight as if she were an object, devoid of any emotion. Compared to them, Chu Zhao’s roommates seemed positively expressive.

The three from 611 hovered closely around Black Long Straight, effectively surrounding her.

While Chu Zhao was observing the group opposite her, Black Long Straight also looked toward Room 612.

When she saw that only two people had walked out of Room 612, a flash of surprise crossed her eyes.

Lin Qiu didn’t give the people from 611 a single glance. She casually pulled the door shut behind her as she left.

They walked away, but only one set of footsteps could be heard.

In an instant, only Chu Zhao and Bed 1’s Zhu Qing’an were left in the room.

Chu Zhao withdrew her gaze and went back to scrolling through her phone.

There was no contact list on the phone. There was only one social media app.

Inside the app, she surprisingly only had one group chat-Room 612-and exactly four friends…

Three of the four friends were her roommates. The last one was noted as “Teacher Yun.”

Connecting this to the previous chat history, this should be the “Yun Shuang” mentioned in the “Edict.”

[You trust Yun Shuang immensely and believe her words without question.]

Without question… What would happen if she didn’t act “trusting” enough?

Chu Zhao clicked through each friend’s profile, searching for any possible information.

Lin Qiu: Female. Age not set. No bio, no photo, no posts… What kind of gloomy little mushroom was this?

Zhu Qing’an was even more of a blank slate than Lin Qiu; even the gender wasn’t set…

Li Qingyin: Female. Age: 3 years old. Location-

[Erti Edict Academy]

There was a photo on her profile wall. It was a headshot of Li Qingyin; she looked cheerful and very natural.

Chu Zhao wasn’t sure if it was an illusion, but as she looked at the photo, she felt as if she were being watched, as if Li Qingyin were looking back at her from within the picture.

Furthermore, as Chu Zhao studied her, the smile on Li Qingyin’s lips seemed to deepen.

Chu Zhao: “…”

…What kind of creepy thing is this?

She pulled her gaze away and looked further down.

Li Qingyin’s personal bio read:

[If the law cannot grant people fairness and justice, then from this moment on, private revenge is both rational and noble.]

Hm?

Chu Zhao made a mental note of the sentence but didn’t have any immediate thoughts on it.

She continued scrolling down and indeed found posts from Li Qingyin-at least a dozen or so at a glance.

This Li Qingyin was definitely a hardcore extrovert.

The top post read:

[His Blessed are nothing more than this.]

The attached photo showed black earth muddied by rainwater, with a blood-stained silver-white mask embedded in the ground.

The mask had an eerie pattern and was cracked from the center of the forehead.
The moment she saw the mask, Chu Zhao’s mind went blank.

[By the Edict, the glory of the Grand Tribunal shall not be profaned! Pariah, cease your prying!]

In that instant, Chu Zhao felt as though she were surrounded by an omnipresent light that sucked away all the air, leaving her on the verge of suffocation.

By the time she regained her senses, the photo was just a photo, and the post was just a post.

Nothing had changed.

Chu Zhao steadied herself and continued scrolling down. The next second, her breath hitched.

[You do not have permission to access this content. Please try again later.]

[Request access from her?]

[Yes/No]

Chu Zhao: “…”

Refusing to believe it, she refreshed the page, but the access remained locked.

Fine, fine. So she wasn’t even allowed to see the first post anymore?

So much for being a “Model Roommate.” You’re even locking your social feed?

Scrolling back to the personal information page, Chu Zhao stared at Li Qingyin’s photo.

The woman was still smiling, but for some reason, Chu Zhao felt her smile seemed a bit colder this time.

Chu Zhao frowned and pressed her finger over the eyes in the photo. Sure enough, she felt much more comfortable.

After scanning the page once more to commit all of Li Qingyin’s information to memory, she switched to the next person.

[Teacher Yun]

If nothing went wrong, this person was most likely Yun Shuang.

Learning from her previous mistake, Chu Zhao immediately clicked on the posts to prevent being locked out.

[Necklace from a student]

[Photo] x9

[Local specialties from a student]

[Photo] x9

[A little gift from my darling Qinghe]

[Image] x27

The other party had set her feed to be visible for only the past month.

Chu Zhao could only see these three posts.

The first photo of the third post was a group shot.

One person in professional attire was smiling and making a peace sign, while the other stood with her arms crossed, wearing a faint smile.

She looked to be in her early twenties, wearing a simple white student blouse, the corners of her eyes tilted upward with an air of composed confidence.

At that moment, Chu Zhao remembered something and turned on the front-facing camera to look at her own face.

But in the next second, her heart stopped as she saw the pale, ghastly face behind her in the phone screen.

A chill rose from the marrow of her bones, spreading through her entire body in the blink of an eye. Goosebumps broke out all over her skin, and cold sweat drenched her back.

She turned her head with stiff movements. “An’an, when did you come down?”

The girl’s face was deathly pale as she stared at her silently.

Chu Zhao: “…An’an?”

She was certain she hadn’t been looking at her phone for more than five minutes.

After a long silence, she finally heard Zhu Qing’an’s voice. “I want to take a shower. Will you accompany me?”

Her voice sounded stiff and cold. Feeling the atmosphere grow increasingly frigid, Chu Zhao’s intuition told her she couldn’t refuse this request. “Even though I’ve already bathed, since An’an asked, I’ll definitely help you.”

Zhu Qing’an watched her for a moment. “Come.”

Chu Zhao put her phone in her pocket and followed her to the bathroom door, waiting to see what she was up to.

With her back to her, Zhu Qing’an said, “Hold my clothes. Don’t let them get wet, and don’t leave.”

The girl’s white student blouse was washed until it had turned yellow, and the collar and cuffs were frayed, looking extremely worn out.

One by one, the clothes dropped into the basin. Though they were just ordinary clothes, at this moment, they felt as heavy as lead. Chu Zhao had to use both hands to hold the basin.

Good grief, these clothes weigh at least twenty or thirty pounds… What is she, some kind of power-lifting loli?

Chu Zhao frowned.

Even though the basin was dry and the clothes were dry, the moment they landed in the basin, they seemed to collapse. A piercing crimson instantly soaked through the yellowed blouse.

In just two seconds, all the clothes were drenched. A thick, nauseating stench of blood hit Chu Zhao’s nose.

The blouse turned an eerie, vivid red as murky blood continued to spread.

In the blink of an eye, the blood had already filled a third of the basin.

Chu Zhao kept her eyes on the clothes and didn’t look forward, but her peripheral vision uncontrollably took in the scene.

The girl’s body was like cracked porcelain, barely held together by blood acting as glue. Her pale skin was covered in a dense, endless web of blood-red cracks.

The mottled flesh looked like a patchwork garment made by a clumsy tailor, making one wonder if her skin would simply peel off in the next second.

…Had she been subjected to the death of a thousand cuts?

Almost as soon as the thought crossed Chu Zhao’s mind, Zhu Qing’an’s body became like a ruptured blood bag. Murky blood instantly burst through its defenses, surging out and splashing all over Chu Zhao’s head and face.
In a brief moment of daze, the sight caught in her peripheral vision was a bloody skeleton…

By now, the bloody water in the basin had risen to four-fifths full.

Chu Zhao knew she must have just gone OOC, and likely a very serious case of it, triggering Zhu Qing’an’s lethal attack.

What was it?

Chu Zhao didn’t make any reckless moves, instead frowning as she thought.

Zhu Qing’an hadn’t killed her directly, but it certainly wasn’t because she didn’t want to… Not being allowed to leave and not being allowed to touch the water were the conditions… She could bet that the bloody water in the basin was an illusion.

But waiting for death wasn’t Chu Zhao’s style. Who knew if she could truly hold out without moving or getting splashed?

She recalled everything she had just seen.

The information on Lin Qiu and Zhu Qing’an had been skimmed over because there wasn’t much information on them to begin with.

As for that ‘Teacher Yun’ later on, she had only glanced at her; there was nothing special about her at all.

Zhao Qinghe was supposed to have a good relationship with Yun Shuang, which was supported by the group chat conversation, and the roommates knew about it.

Then… the problem must lie with Li Qingyin.

It was only with Li Qingyin that she seemed to have stepped slightly out of line. Not only did she feel like she was being watched by the photo, but she had even pressed her fingers over the eyes in the picture.

Furthermore, the image in the other girl’s social space was very strange.

[His Kin is nothing more than this.]

Who was He?

Why did looking at the mask cause her to have hallucinations?

What was the Grand Tribunal?

‘Pariah, do not presume to peer.’

Me? A pariah?

Could it be that Zhu Qing’an had also heard those words and discovered her identity as an Impostor, which was why she launched the lethal attack?

What should she do then?

Even though the bloody water was already overflowing, Chu Zhao still held the basin steadily. She didn’t move or look ahead, but her hands gripping the basin felt as if they were being scorched by fire, making it quite an ordeal.

Wait, that image was posted by Li Qingyin. Could she find a breakthrough through her?

Struggling to hold the basin of surging blood with one hand, Chu Zhao quickly pulled out her phone with the other and started a video call-to Li Qingyin!

Though her hands felt like they were burning, her body grew increasingly stiff and cold, as if something were eroding her.

Li Qingyin declined the call.

Chu Zhao’s heart sank.

She glanced at the broom not far away, ready to act.

If a fishing boat could collide with an Evil God, it should be perfectly normal for her to use a broom to hit a Wraith, right?

At this point, she might as well try an attack first.

Just as Chu Zhao was preparing for a life-and-death struggle, her phone suddenly rang.

A call was coming back.

Chu Zhao answered instantly-

It was a call from Lin Qiu.

“What’s wrong?”

Li Qingyin’s voice came through the speaker. “How many times have I told you? Keep your phone on silent in the cafeteria. Don’t video call me…”

“Luckily we moved fast and have already stepped out the door.”

Chu Zhao could barely feel her body anymore. She was as cold as if she had been buried in a snowdrift-and a South Pole snowdrift at that.

At this moment, her tone was contemplative. “I just had a sudden whim to check your space, only to find you’ve locked my permissions. Do you have any idea why that is, Qingyin?”

Li Qingyin: “?”

Lin Qiu: “?”

Zhu Qing’an: “…”

It took Li Qingyin a long while before she managed a strained, “…An’an, wait for us obediently in the dorm.”

Beep-

She hung up as fast as if she were being chased by a dog, and she still hadn’t directly answered why she suddenly locked her space!

When Chu Zhao put down her phone, she found that Zhu Qing’an had already turned around.

The yellowed shirt was worn perfectly fine on her body; there was no sign of mangled flesh.

The basin that had felt as heavy as a thousand pounds just moments ago was now clean, with nothing inside-least of all any bloody water.

Zhu Qing’an’s gaze toward Chu Zhao remained misty and dark, her voice stiff and cold. “I don’t need you to keep me company anymore.”

Chu Zhao took the opportunity to leave the bathroom area and saw Zhu Qing’an enter the bathroom herself, holding the basin.

She let out a small sigh of relief and wiped her forehead; it was covered in cold sweat.

She had to live like this for seven more days. It was truly…

Interesting.

Chu Zhao felt her heart racing for the first time in a long while and couldn’t help but raise an eyebrow with a smile.

The reflection in the mirror was indeed not Chu Zhao’s own face, but that of an attractive young woman. She wore a student shirt identical to Zhu Qing’an and the others, the corners of her eyes tilted upward, her gaze filled with a shimmering smile.

It was Zhao Qinghe.