Despair Game

Chapter 17: Finding the Little Devil

I vividly remember that the dormitory supervisor ran out of the dorm last night. At that time, I thought he had something to attend to.

Could it be that the dormitory supervisor came back in the middle of the night and was then killed?

Being squeezed in the crowd, I felt uneasy. Was it possible that the dormitory supervisor's revelation about what happened seven years ago led to his tragic death?

And could the one responsible for killing the dormitory supervisor be the little devil again?

This reminded me of a few days ago when I went to the cafeteria to investigate. The middle-aged man mentioned that the only senior worker who had been at the school for seven years died after returning home. Could it be related to the events from seven years ago?

Recalling every detail from last night, I realized that the dormitory supervisor was initially reluctant to talk about Wanhu Village with me. It was only because of my persistence that he uttered those three words and lost his life.

Now, there was no other way. The entire school no longer had any staff members from seven years ago. This clue was nearly impossible to find within the school. The only hope was to find Wanhu Village.

Considering that the school had experienced consecutive homicides, it should have been a sensational event. However, what puzzled me was that apart from the police and doctors handling the bodies, the school seemed to have tightened its security, and the incident appeared to have happened without any exposure. There wasn't even a single news report.

Suppressing even a murder case implied that the school's higher-ups held significant power.

Of course, this wasn't something I could contemplate at the moment. The urgency was to investigate Wanhu Village before the little devil made any new moves.

After school on Friday, I bid farewell to Su and hurriedly went to the library.

Last time, I found news about a village in our county where everyone died except for one person. However, that news article didn't contain any bylines or specific location information. Now, with the clue of Wanhu Village, I felt that I should be able to gather more information.

But to my disappointment, searching for Wanhu Village yielded over a thousand results nationwide, and not a single one was in our county. I speculated that it was likely because the village was too remote and hadn't been recorded online.

Disappointed, I randomly clicked through the pages, hoping to find some traces.

As I continued scrolling, I unexpectedly clicked into our county's online forum. Suddenly, I had an idea.

I searched in the forum for "village with dead people."

The purpose of doing this was to narrow down the search range. Sure enough, I found over a hundred posts about villages in our county where people had died.

I carefully examined each post. They mostly described accidental deaths or individuals who had killed someone and were imprisoned. Just as I was about to give up, I suddenly came across one post.

"Mysterious Village Cursed by Ghosts and Gods for a Thousand Years."

I quickly clicked on it and the forum moderator wrote:

In our county, there exists a historically ancient village where its residents are cursed. They would die unexpectedly from generation to generation, yet new villagers would continue to move in, perpetuating this cycle. From a curse that occurred every seven hundred years to one that happened every seventy years, it eventually evolved into a curse every seven years. Now, this village has disappeared from our sight, but it continues to exist in a different way. This village is called Wanhu Village.

So there really is a Wanhu Village, and it has a thousand years of history!

I scrolled down to read the replies from other forum users, but they were mostly uninterested or skeptical.

"Another pointless post."

"OP, go to bed. Just another useless post."

"Trash. It's all made up."

There were only a few replies to this post, and it was posted last year. Due to the lack of responses, it quickly sank.

Reluctantly, I clicked on the information of the post's author, but they were a new user with a level one account and no available information or even a profile picture.

After thinking for a moment, I decided to follow the dormitory supervisor and sent him a private message:

"Hello friend, I would like to talk to you about Wanhu Village. Can you tell me more about it?"

After sending the message, I waited for half an hour, but the author didn't reply. I assumed they were offline. Fortunately, someone knew about Wanhu Village, and as long as the person who made the post was still alive, finding them was just a matter of time.

When I returned home, my parents had already prepared dinner. They looked at me reproachfully and asked, "Where did you go? Why are you coming back so late?"

I made up a random excuse to brush them off and sat down at the table to start eating. However, halfway through the meal, my dad suddenly turned serious and said, "Xiang Nan, a lot of things have been happening at your school recently. You have to be careful and, if necessary, take a few days off to stay at home. Don't go to school for now."

To be honest, if this had happened before, I would have gladly agreed to not go to school.

But things were different now. It seemed that the fate of our entire class had been tied to the little devil. Whenever he released a game, we had to find a way to complete it. I believed that no one would doubt the little devil's methods anymore.

In reality, there was another reason as well—Su. I had promised to protect her.

I put down my chopsticks and seriously said to my dad, "Dad, all the incidents at school have been accidents, nothing serious. Besides, it's almost the end of the term, and I need to focus on reviewing."

After saying that, even I blushed. My mom, however, was quite pleased and served me a piece of meat, saying, "Well done, son. You're being responsible."

At night, lying in bed, I constantly kept an eye on my phone. On one hand, I chatted with Su, and on the other hand, I awaited messages from the little devil. With the increasing frequency of deaths, I was genuinely worried about the upcoming game and how challenging it would be for us to proceed.

As expected, the little devil always came up with something. He started with a smiley face and said, "I hope everyone enjoys their day off on Saturday."

"Then, tomorrow, we will have a new game at school. Let's start by grabbing red envelopes."

After saying that, the little devil sent a red envelope worth 600 yuan.

I looked at the red envelope, but I couldn't bring myself to take it. I believed that my classmates felt the same way, staring at the red envelope but not daring to grab it.

After thinking for a moment, I spoke up in the group chat, "little devil, can you tell us what the game is first?"

"Yeah, is it going to be some twisted death game? Who would dare to grab it? We'll cry."

"We're all willing to play games with you, so why don't you tell us the game first?"

Since I took the lead, everyone else started to become enthusiastic, urging the little devil to reveal the game's details.

After a while, the little devil responded with a smiley face.

Everyone stopped talking, and I must admit that this expression was quite intimidating.

The little devil said, "Alright, the new game is for the 'Lucky King' to touch the little devil's hair in our class. If they manage to touch it, the game is considered a success."

What?

Touch the little devil's hair?

I instantly sat upright. Was this something the little devil accidentally revealed, or was it another trap?

His meaning was clear: the little devil was in our class, and as long as the Lucky King touched him, the game would end. Did this mean that the game was designed to find the little devil?

Others in the group chat had the same thoughts as me and started asking:

"Touch you?"

"So, the little devil is really in our class and couldn't resist offering himself up?"

"Hey, aren't you afraid that we'll find you and kill you?"

"Cut the crap!"

Many people were worried that the little devil might change his mind and tried to stop those classmates who were mocking him.

However, throughout the whole discussion, the little devil remained silent.

I didn't know who shouted in the group chat, "What are you waiting for? Hurry up and grab the red envelopes. Once you've taken them, the little devil won't be able to back out."

"Yes, yes, grab the red envelopes!"

"After all this time, I finally feel the urge to be the Lucky King. Haha!"

Everyone seemed to be excited about the little devil's new game. After all, if the little devil kept his word, Sunday would be the day he showed up. At this point, with the current state of my classmates, it wouldn't be too much if we beat him to death on the spot.

However, I still couldn't understand if the little devil was truly that foolish. Could it be another one of his traps or a way for him to be cunning, where he wasn't actually in the class and just wanted to punish the Lucky King?

I leaned more towards the latter option; I felt that the little devil just wanted to be cunning!

Everyone grabbed the red envelopes, and I had to grab one too. Fortunately, our four-person team didn't get the Lucky King this time, so at least we were safe.

"Ah, I didn't get the Lucky King. I missed the chance to find the little devil myself."

"I didn't get it either."

"Oh well, the Lucky King is Lu An'an."

Finally, the Lucky King was revealed, and it was Lu An'an.

In class, Lu An'an was an average student with an average appearance and an average figure. She was a very ordinary classmate, and if it weren't for her drawing the Lucky King this time, I might have forgotten about her after graduation.

But I did have an impression of her. I remembered at the beginning of the school year when I asked her to borrow a mystery novel. She told me she was a detective fan and wanted to become a police officer in the future.

I guessed that after witnessing the performance of Detective Xiao Hu Zi, she might have changed her career aspirations.

Lu An'an sent a cool emoji in the group chat and spoke up, saying, "Is it fate? Let me unravel this boring game!"