Help, I Made the Boss Cry

Chapter 2: I'm Not Here to Take Classes, I'm Here to Inspect

Su Nuo stared at the instance match result that popped up on her panel. She was silent for a full five seconds.

[Mandatory Match Notification]

[Detected abnormal performance by Player SN-0420 in C-Rank instance]

[System Determination: Current difficulty level insufficient to accurately assess player capability]

[Automatically reassigned to higher difficulty instance: B-Rank "The Mirror Academy"]

[Please enter the instance within 60 seconds. Countdown: 59, 58, 57...]

"Wait a second," Su Nuo raised her hand. "I didn't agree to play a B-Rank instance. I haven't even left the newbie zone—"

[45, 44...]

"And isn't this forced matchmaking? Did you consider the player's subjective preference? What about user experience?"

[38, 37...]

"What if I don't go in?"

[Forced teleportation. Failure to enter before countdown ends will be treated as instance failure.]

"..."

Su Nuo took a deep breath and started calculating rapidly in her head.

A B-Rank instance. One tier higher than C-Rank. Given how this system operated, the difficulty had probably more than doubled.

But what did she have right now?

5,000 points—hadn't spent them yet. Items? Zero. Weapons? Zero. Physical stamina? About equivalent to a tired cat.

The only things she had were her mouth and a brain that wasn't all that afraid to die.

"Alright, fine," Su Nuo patted her face. "A product manager's destiny is to go wherever there's a problem."

She stepped through the door that had suddenly appeared.

---

A flash of white light.

When Su Nuo opened her eyes again, she found herself standing at the entrance of an academy.

Not the creepy, rundown, haunted school type.

It was a legit, proper** academy.

European-style architecture. Marble steps. Neatly trimmed gardens. Pigeons bathing in the fountain.

If not for the purplish-gray sky and the faint metallic smell floating in the air, Su Nuo would have thought she'd time-traveled into some kind of** campus idol drama.

[Instance: The Mirror Academy]

[Rank: B]

[Description: The Mirror Academy is the most prestigious private school in the region. But behind this glamorous facade lies an unspeakable secret. Every three years, a student goes missing under mysterious circumstances. You are a newly transferred student. You have seven days to uncover the truth.]

[Rules:

1. Obey the school rules. Violations will result in punishment.

2. Do not leave the dormitory after 10 PM.

3. Do not look into mirrors.

4. If someone asks, "Have you seen my face?" answer "No."]

[Clear Condition: Uncover the truth behind the disappearances and survive seven days.]

Su Nuo read the rules again.

"Do not look into mirrors?" She raised an eyebrow. "In a place called 'The Mirror Academy'? Is this rule a joke?"

As she was pondering, footsteps came from behind.

Three players approached from different directions.

A young guy in a black hoodie, early twenties, expression cold, holding a dagger he'd bought from the system shop.

A middle-aged uncle in a plaid shirt and thick-framed glasses, clutching a notebook, looking like he was taking notes on everything.

And a girl with a ponytail, wearing athletic clothes, currently doing warm-up stretches.

The three of them looked at Su Nuo with varying expressions.

"Another new one," the black hoodie guy gave her a once-over, tone indifferent. "What's your build?"

"Su Nuo," she introduced herself. "Product manager."

"...I asked about your capability build. Combat stats? Items? Skills?"

"Oh," Su Nuo thought for a moment. "My mouth. Does that count?"

The three fell silent.

"You're a newbie?" The ponytail girl frowned. "Came up from C-Rank?"

"Yep. Just finished a bus instance."

"By yourself?"

"Yep."

The three exchanged a look.

The middle-aged uncle pushed up his glasses and said in a low voice, "B-Rank instances are nothing like C-Rank. The NPCs here have independent consciousness. The rules are more complex. And..." He paused. "The 'teachers' here will actually kill you."

Su Nuo blinked. She didn't seem to react much.

"You're not scared?" The black hoodie guy asked.

"I am scared," Su Nuo said honestly. "But being scared isn't going to help me survive two more days. I'm better off figuring out the situation first."

The ponytail girl looked at her, hesitated for a moment, then reached out her hand. "My name's Lin Shuang. I've done some sanda sparring. I guess I'm the combat type."

Middle-aged uncle: "Zhao Mingyuan. I specialize in information gathering and analysis. Used to be a journalist."

The black hoodie guy spoke last. "Jiang Cheng. Offensive role."

Su Nuo shook hands with each of them, then asked, "How many instances have you all done?"

"This is my fourth," Lin Shuang said. "Brother Zhao's on his fifth. Jiang Cheng... his eighth."

"Eight times?" Su Nuo looked at Jiang Cheng with a bit of surprise. "You're practically a veteran."

Jiang Cheng didn't respond. He just stared at the academy gates.

"This instance, 'The Mirror Academy'," he finally spoke, his voice very low. "I've heard about it. The last team that went in—five people. Only one survived. And the one who survived... went crazy."

The atmosphere instantly turned cold.

Su Nuo was silent for two seconds, then said, "Then let's set a small goal first—don't go crazy."

Jiang Cheng glanced at her. The corner of his mouth twitched slightly—whether in mockery or something else, it was hard to tell.

"Let's go," he said. "We'll find out once we're inside."

---

The academy gates opened automatically.

Beyond the gates was a massive auditorium. The benches were filled with "students."

But just like in the bus instance, not all of these students were real people.

About two-thirds were paper effigies. One-third were NPCs—they looked like real people, but their eyes were hollow and their movements mechanical.

At the very front of the auditorium stood a tall woman in a black business suit. Her hair was pinned up immaculately. A standard professional smile was fixed on her face.

"Welcome, new students." Her voice was very gentle—but it was the kind of gentle that felt fake, like it had been repeatedly recorded in a sound studio. "I am your academic dean. You may call me Dean Wang. At the Mirror Academy, our most important principle is—follow the school rules."

As she finished speaking, huge golden letters appeared on the walls on either side of the auditorium:

[Mirror Academy School Rules]

1. Respect your teachers and get along with your classmates.

2. Do not be late, leave early, or skip class.

3. After lights out at 10 PM, do not leave the dormitory.

4. Do not enter the teacher's office building without permission.

5. If you encounter any problem, you may seek help from a teacher.

It was basically the same as the rules in the instance description, except for one additional line: "If you encounter any problem, you may seek help from a teacher."

Su Nuo stared at this rule for a long time.

"This rule," she whispered to Zhao Mingyuan beside her, "don't you think it's strange?"

"What's strange about it?"

"In this kind of instance, 'teachers' are usually the ones who want you dead. And yet the rule says 'you may seek help from a teacher'—isn't that obviously a trap?"

Zhao Mingyuan nodded. "I noticed that too. It might be a trap."

"Or," Su Nuo lowered her voice even further, "the reverse interpretation—'seeking help from a teacher' is itself a death flag."

Before they could finish their discussion, Dean Wang had started calling roll.

"Su Nuo."

"Here."

"You're a newly transferred student. You'll be in Girls' Dormitory, Room 302. Your roommate is Lin Shuang."

"Got it."

"Jiang Cheng, Boys' Dormitory 401. Zhao Mingyuan, 402. The three of you arrived together as transfer students. Look out for each other."

Dean Wang finished speaking. Her smile deepened slightly.

"Today's classes are over. Tomorrow morning at 8 AM sharp, class begins. For now, please return to your dormitories and rest. Remember—after 10 PM, do not leave the dormitory."

Su Nuo followed Lin Shuang toward the dormitory building, carefully observing her surroundings along the way.

The academy was huge. Teaching buildings, dormitories, a cafeteria, a library, a teacher's office building. The layout was so neat it looked like it had been drawn with a ruler.

But there was one problem.

"Why are there mirrors everywhere?" Su Nuo asked.

Indeed. On both sides of the hallways, at stairwells, even on the ceilings—mirrors of all sizes were embedded everywhere. Every few steps, you could see your own reflection.

"That's why the instance is named what it is," Lin Shuang said. "The Mirror Academy. I suspect the core mechanism of this instance has something to do with mirrors."

"Rule 3 explicitly says 'do not look into mirrors'," Su Nuo rubbed her chin. "That means mirrors are definitely a key item. Normally, the more something is forbidden, the more you shouldn't do it—but in this system, rules often have two layers."

"What do you mean?"

"The surface rule is 'do not look into mirrors'. But the hidden rule might be 'you must look into a mirror under specific conditions' or 'it's not the mirror itself you can't look at, but something inside it'."

Lin Shuang felt a bit dizzy. "How can you be so sure?"

"I'm not sure," Su Nuo grinned. "So I'm going to run an experiment."

Lin Shuang had a bad feeling about this.

---

Girls' Dormitory, Room 302.

The room wasn't big. Two single beds, one desk, one wardrobe.

Just like the hallway, there was also a mirror in the room—hung directly above the desk, facing both beds.

Meaning, whether you sat at the desk or lay on the bed, you could see yourself in the mirror.

The first thing Su Nuo did upon entering the room was pull off the bedsheet and cover the mirror.

"What are you doing?!" Lin Shuang's eyes went wide.

"It says don't look into mirrors, doesn't it?" Su Nuo said righteously. "If I cover the mirror, I can't look into it."

"But the rule says 'do not look into mirrors', not 'do not see mirrors'—"

"Word games," Su Nuo dusted off her hands. "Looking into a mirror is an active action. Passively seeing a mirror doesn't count as 'looking'. But if I don't even want to passively see it, then I cover it up. That's not a violation."

Lin Shuang opened her mouth, then closed it. She realized she couldn't argue with that.

"Besides," Su Nuo sat on the bed, swinging her legs, "covering the mirror has another advantage. If something crawls out of the mirror, the cloth will get pushed aside, and I'll know it's coming."

Lin Shuang's back went cold. "Something crawls out of the mirror?!"

"I'm guessing," Su Nuo blinked innocently. "But in this kind of instance, that's probably the setup. Otherwise, the 'do not look into mirrors' rule would be a complete waste."

Lin Shuang was silent for a long time.

"...Are you really a newbie?"

"Really. I've been dead for less than a day."

Lin Shuang didn't know whether to be impressed or scared.

9:50 PM.

Su Nuo and Lin Shuang were getting ready to turn off the lights and sleep.

Just then, footsteps sounded from the hallway.

Very light. Very slow. Like someone pacing back and forth.

Su Nuo listened for a moment.

"Not a player's footsteps," she whispered. "Players wouldn't walk that slowly."

"Then what is it?"

"I don't know. But the rule says you can't leave the dorm after ten. Which means in ten minutes, whatever's out there can 'legally' show up."

Lin Shuang's fists clenched nervously.

10:00 PM sharp.

The lights went out.

The footsteps in the hallway suddenly stopped.

Then, a soft sound came from the next room.

It wasn't anything scary. Just a very, very soft laugh.

"Heh."

Su Nuo and Lin Shuang looked at each other.

"Who's next door?" Su Nuo asked.

"Logically, we should be the only girls on this floor," Lin Shuang's voice was tight. "All the other rooms are locked. No students assigned."

"Then whose laugh was that?"

Lin Shuang didn't answer.

Su Nuo thought for a moment, then suddenly sat up in bed.

"What are you doing?" Lin Shuang grabbed her arm.

"Going next door to check it out."

"Are you crazy? You can't leave the dorm after ten—"

"The rule says 'do not leave the dormitory', not 'do not leave your room'," Su Nuo corrected. "The dormitory is a broad concept. Room 302 is part of the dormitory. The hallway is also part of the dormitory. As long as I don't leave the dormitory building, it's not a violation."

"You—"

"Wait here. I'll be right back."

Su Nuo put on her shoes, tiptoed to the door, and stepped into the hallway.

The hallway was pitch black.

But the mirrors embedded in the walls were faintly glowing in the darkness—a dim blue light, like reflections on the surface of water.

Su Nuo didn't look at the mirrors. She walked straight to the next door.

Room 301.

The door was ajar.

She reached out and pushed it open.

The room was empty.

But on the bed was a slip of paper with words written in red:

"Have you seen my face?"

Su Nuo stared at the note for two seconds, then picked up a pen and wrote a line underneath:

"I saw it. Pretty ugly."

She put the note down and turned to leave.

When she returned to Room 302, Lin Shuang was huddled under the covers, trembling.

"What happened?"

"Someone's playing games with us," Su Nuo closed the door. "But not now. Tomorrow."

"How do you know?"

"Because the note said 'Have you seen my face?'—Rule 4 says if someone asks that question, you answer 'No.' But that person didn't ask. They just left a note. So it's not a violation. It's just a warning."

Su Nuo lay back on the bed and stared at the ceiling.

"Tomorrow," she said, "something big is going to happen."

Lin Shuang didn't sleep a wink all night.

Su Nuo slept like a baby.

---

The next morning at 7:30, Su Nuo and Lin Shuang arrived at the teaching building.

Jiang Cheng and Zhao Mingyuan were already there, waiting in the hallway.

"Did you guys hear anything last night?" Zhao Mingyuan asked.

"Laughing from the next room," Lin Shuang said. "Su Nuo even went out to check."

Jiang Cheng frowned at Su Nuo. "Went out after ten?"

"Didn't leave the dorm building. Not a violation."

Jiang Cheng was quiet for a moment, then said, "We had something too. On the door of 401, someone wrote four words in blood—'Welcome Back.'"

"Looks like the NPCs in this instance are pretty hospitable," Su Nuo said. "Alright, let's go to class. I want to see how these lessons are taught."

The classroom was huge—could seat fifty people, but fewer than twenty "students" were sitting in it.

Most of them were paper effigies. Only five were living players—Su Nuo, Lin Shuang, Jiang Cheng, Zhao Mingyuan, and one other player they hadn't seen before, sitting in the corner, head down the entire time, not speaking.

"Who's that?" Su Nuo whispered.

Zhao Mingyuan shook his head. "No idea. He was already here this morning. I tried to talk to him. He ignored me."

Su Nuo looked at the person.

He was wearing a faded jacket. His hair was long, covering his face. He gave off a vibe that—Su Nuo couldn't quite put her finger on it—was just off.

Not the kind of off that NPCs gave off.

A different kind.

But the bell rang, and she didn't have time to dwell on it.

A middle-aged male teacher walked onto the podium. He wore gold-rimmed glasses and had a serious expression.

"Good morning, class," he said. "I am your homeroom teacher, Mr. Li. Today's lesson—we will be discussing the history of mirrors."

Su Nuo nearly laughed out loud.

A lesson about the history of mirrors in a place where you're not allowed to look into mirrors?

This teacher was basically fishing for violations, wasn't he?

Mr. Li started writing on the blackboard, speaking as he wrote.

"Mirrors, since ancient times, have been regarded as a medium connecting the worlds of the living and the dead. In many cultures, mirrors are seen as a passage for souls..."

As Su Nuo listened, her expression slowly changed.

Not because she was scared.

Because she noticed a problem.

When Mr. Li wrote on the blackboard—his reflection did not appear on the blackboard.

He stood in front of the blackboard, but on its dark surface, there were only the traces of his chalk writing. No image of him.

Su Nuo nudged Lin Shuang beside her without changing her expression, tilting her chin toward the blackboard.

Lin Shuang glanced at it. Her pupils constricted sharply.

She looked back at Mr. Li. Mr. Li was smiling at them.

The smile was perfect. The teeth were even. The eyes were hollow.

"What's wrong?" Mr. Li asked. "Do you have a question, classmate?"

The entire classroom went silent.

All the paper effigies turned their heads toward Su Nuo and Lin Shuang.

All the NPC students stared at them.

The player in the corner, who had been keeping his head down, lifted it slightly, revealing his chin.

Su Nuo felt over a dozen gazes pinned on her.

She slowly stood up, putting a sincere smile on her face.

"Mr. Li," she said, "I was wondering—did you forget to write the third point on the board? I noticed you stopped after 'passage for souls.' Is there more?"

Mr. Li paused.

He looked at the blackboard. Then back at Su Nuo.

"You're very observant," he said slowly. "The third point does exist, but I haven't gotten to it yet."

"Oh, then please continue," Su Nuo sat back down. "Sorry for the interruption."

When she sat down, the palms of her hands were drenched in sweat.

Not because she was scared.

Because she had noticed—in the entire classroom, none of the mirrors reflected Mr. Li's image.

Not just the blackboard.

The mirrors in the hallway, the mirrors on the walls, the glass of the windows—every reflective surface showed no sign of Mr. Li.

What did that mean?

Either Mr. Li wasn't human.

Or he wasn't a "physical entity."

Neither possibility was good.

After class, Su Nuo called the four of them to a corner of the hallway.

"That Mr. Li is suspicious," she said without preamble. "None of the mirrors reflect him."

"I noticed that too," Zhao Mingyuan pushed up his glasses. "And it's not just him. I observed carefully. None of the 'teachers' in this school have mirror reflections."

"That means," Jiang Cheng said, "the teachers aren't human?"

"Or the mirror world is the problem," Su Nuo said. "Either way, we need to verify something first."

"What?"

Su Nuo pulled something out of her pocket—her compact mirror.

"Find a mirror and see what's actually reflected in it."

"No way!" Lin Shuang panicked. "The rules say you can't look into mirrors—"

"The rules say 'do not look into mirrors'," Su Nuo corrected. "They don't say 'do not use mirrors for experiments.' And I didn't say I was going to look at myself. I'm going to look at someone else."

She turned to Jiang Cheng.

"You. Stand still. Don't move. I'll hold the mirror and point it at your back. I won't look into it. You look. Tell me what you see."

Jiang Cheng hesitated for a moment, then nodded.

Su Nuo stood behind Jiang Cheng, raised the compact mirror, and aimed it at his back. She turned her head away, not looking at the mirror.

"What do you see?" she asked.

Jiang Cheng stared at the mirror's surface. His pupils slowly dilated.

"...Not you."

"What?"

"The reflection in the mirror. It's not you holding the mirror. In the mirror... there's an empty hallway. And at the end of the hallway, there's a person with no face."

Su Nuo's hand paused for a fraction of a second.

But she quickly steadied herself.

"Got it. Noted," she put the mirror away. "Experiment over."

"Aren't you scared?" Lin Shuang asked.

"I'm scared," Su Nuo said. "But does being scared help?"

She pulled out her sticky notes and pen from her bag and wrote a line on the back of the compact mirror:

[Non-mirror object. Cannot reflect people. Please behave yourself.]

Then she stuck it onto the mirror's surface.

The four of them stared at her with complicated expressions.

"Are you... reasoning with the mirror?"

"I'm not reasoning," Su Nuo said. "I'm establishing rules. In this instance, rules go both ways. Players have to follow rules, but NPCs have to follow rules too. If I write 'cannot reflect people' on the mirror, then theoretically, it shouldn't be able to reflect people. Because it didn't contradict me."

"...Isn't that logic a bit too wild?" Zhao Mingyuan said.

"Wild or not," Su Nuo said, "the system hasn't deducted any points from me yet."

A soft laugh suddenly came from the corner.

Su Nuo turned her head.

It was the player who'd been keeping his head down.

He'd lifted his face at some point, revealing a pale, gaunt face.

He was looking at Su Nuo. The corner of his mouth curved upward slightly.

"Interesting."

Su Nuo frowned. "Who are you?"

That player didn't answer. He stood up, turned, and walked away.

The way he walked was strange—not so much walking as... floating.

But he was definitely walking.

Su Nuo stared at his back for a few seconds, then asked Zhao Mingyuan, "Are you sure he's a player?"

"The system panel shows him as a player," Zhao Mingyuan pulled up the list. "ID: ???-???. Name... not displayed."

"A player with hidden information?"

"There are people like that," Jiang Cheng said. "Either they're in the top ten on the leaderboard, or they have special privileges. Either way, you don't mess with them."

Su Nuo made an "oh" sound and didn't ask further.

But she remembered those eyes.

They weren't a player's eyes.

They were a hunter's eyes.

Or rather—a chess player's eyes.

---

That night, Su Nuo heard the laugh from the next room again.

This time, it wasn't just one laugh. It was a continuous laugh.

Laughing very happily.

Like someone watching a comedy.

Su Nuo turned over in bed and said toward the wall, "What are you laughing at in the middle of the night? Some of us have class tomorrow."

The laughter stopped.

After a moment, a slip of paper was pushed under the door gap.

Su Nuo picked it up. On it was written: "Have you seen my face?"

Su Nuo took out her pen and wrote underneath: "Yeah, I saw it. You looked like Village i***t Number Two laughing like that."

She pushed the note back under the door.

There was a long silence on the other side.

Then another note came back.

Only two words on it:

"...Hmph."

Su Nuo smiled.

"She's got personality," she whispered. "I like her."

Lin Shuang shivered under her covers, thinking: Is this roommate of mine here to clear the instance or to make friends?

---

Late that night, Su Nuo suddenly woke up.

The room was silent.

Too silent.

Then she noticed something.

The bedsheet covering the mirror had slipped halfway down.

Very slowly—

Su Nuo lifted her eyes.

Inside the mirror, another "Su Nuo" sat quietly on the opposite bed.

Smiling at her.

But in reality—

That bed was empty.

（End of Chapter 2）