EIC 38

Chapter 38: Flowers In The River And The Moon’s Reflection In The Lake <2>

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The enclosed classroom is full of corpses, and all of them are sitting in their seats in various positions. There is also a corpse hanging on the podium. On the blackboard of the podium, there are some graffiti and a poem titled "Flowers In The River And The Moon’s Reflection In The Lake".

Under the dark eaves, white written words were seen in the black backdrop, broken pieces are scattered everywhere, and yin and yang are within your grasp.

One side is one side, one side is also one side, a left hand exchanged for a right hand, your face is my face.

In addition to the blackboard on the podium, there is also a big blackboard at the back of the classroom, which is usually used for posting newspapers. But, now, the blackboard displayed several big words written in red chalk, which reads: The one who telltales will be killed without amnesty! 

No, it is not written in red chalk. Luo Jian blinked and looked at it carefully. It seems to be written in red paint or a similar material……or perhaps, it seemed more like written with clotted blood?

Luo Jian counted and found that there were 35 desks in the classroom, which meant 35 seats and 35 students. In addition to the seat where Luo Jian had woken up in, there are 34 corpses sitting on the seats in this classroom, and including the corpse hanging on the podium, there are 35 corpses exactly. 

"No, there’s something that is not right." Luo Jian muttered to himself, but he had not been able to figure out what is not right. He took a glance at the seat he was sitting in. There is a shabby desk and a shabby chair, and right now, he is sitting on the shabby chair. He is in the first-row second seat, and his seat is placed against the wall on the right. 

There are a lot of footprints on the wall. It is not known who created the footprints by stepping on the wall, as well as small characters that are densely written on the wall with a pen. As soon as Luo Jian turned his head, he saw a piece of paper printed with purple patterns nailed by a tack on the wall to his right.

He pulled the note down, and what is written in the paper is as follows:

[Dear Mr Luo Jian:]

[It is very brave of you to take part in this singer-player secret chamber, but you might not be aware of how terrible a situation you are in now. This secret chamber reward is very rewarding. It allows your strength at this point to take a leap forward, but the same, the cost of it will always be shocking.]

[Note: you are in a special secret chamber. According to the regulations, we cannot give you any hints. ]

[Time Limit: Three Hours]

[Base Location: Sealed Classroom]

[Base Background: Flowers In The River And The Moon’s Reflection In The Lake]

[With that, good luck!]

"What a ton of shit? No hint?" After reading the note, Luo Jian felt his scalp turned numb. He flipped the note over and could not help but be relieved. Fortunately, a message was written on the back:

[It was not known why. Who started the dispute? It caused the classmates of three years to kill one another, but the real culprit that has caused all of this, has not woken up from a dreamscape from the opposite side.]

"Is this one of the top ten secrets on the campus?" (0) Luo Jian crumpled the note into a ball and stuffed it into his pocket. He was wearing the reward obtained from the secret chamber-a dark blue combat suit, which has many pockets and could hold many things. It was not known what the material was made of. The fabric felt very comfortable. The parts of the clothes were his joints are in were loose. The opening of his shirt and pants can be tightly buttoned up. A hat is also provided. The hat also has an interesting design. The hat is attached to something similar to a mask. As long as the buttons are buttoned up, Luo Jian’s whole face could be covered up, with the exception of his eyes.

The temperature of this classroom is a little low, but the combat suit had completely insulated him from the cold. Luo Jian thought about it and decided to button his hood and conveniently also wore his mask. This also made Luo Jian recall that lad, Thirteen, who also wore a mask. The feeling of being fully armed gave Luo Jian a sense of security and made him feel less afraid in a classroom full of corpses. 

"Now, in what way can I escape from here?" Luo Jian said to himself. He felt that the first thing that he should pay heed to in a secret chamber is the time. 

This time, the note did not give any hint to Luo Jian, but simply explained the time, place, and background of the classroom. It did not even tell Luo Jian where the clock is for him to check the time.

The tricky situation that the secret chamber placed Luo Jian in made his thoughts to be in a mess. He paid attention to his sitting position and environment, hoping to find some useful information from it. And amazingly, Luo Jian found a mobile phone on the desk where he was sitting in!

"There's actually a cellphone here?!" When he touched the cellphone in the drawer, Luo Jian was very surprised. The two secret rooms he had experienced had brought about a feeling that the chamber was located in a time long ago, and made Luo Jian feel a magical feeling as if he transmigrated. 

However, this mobile phone seems to be from an era long ago. It is the oldest Nokia, black style. Compared with the modern large-screen smartphone, the screen of this cell phone is incredibly small. The cellphone is the size of a palm-size. After a while, Luo Jian dabbled with it for a moment and was stunned to find that the cell phone could be powered on. After it was turned on, the time displayed on it is 12:07, but the phone signal bar does not even display one bar. 

"12:00 to 15:00 hours, three hours." Luo Jian said, "Would I have to stay here for the entire duration?”

He opened the phone's contact list and found that the contact list is blank. The call history is also empty. There is a short message in the message inbox. It is sent from a strange number. There are only three words in the message: please help me.

Luo Jian stared at the message for a long time, but he could not help but feel a sense of strangeness. He also cannot help but feel goosebumps surfacing up his body. 

This oldest of the old model of cellphone has no other function except to make phone calls and send messages. Oh, one can also use this to play a game, a game called ‘greedy snake’ or something akin to it. Luo Jian remembered that he once played the game a long time ago. The snake will keep eating and eating until the snake fills up the whole screen. 

Luo Jian could not help shaking the thought of the snake game off. There is a snake lying on his wrist. He rolled up his sleeve and saw that the black-and-white snake coiled on his wrist. It seemed that its posture had not changed.

It was not known why but when he saw this snake, his fear and tension brought about by this secret chamber subsided a little. It seemed that this snake could follow him to any secret chamber, and this is a good thing because he suddenly felt that he was no longer alone.

Luo Jian intuitively thought that the cellphone should be a key prop, so he stuffed the mobile phone into his pocket, and he continued to search his desk drawer. This time, he found two books, they were topics on mathematics and English. It seemed to be high school textbooks, and in which, lesson notes were messily scribbled on it. But after flipping about these books for quite a while, he did not find a name written on the books.

Shouldn't that not be the case in general? Once the teacher handed out the books, the students would write their names on it to distinguish who the book belonged to. But neither of the two books that Luo Jian had found had a name written. The handwriting in the book looked pretty good. 

In addition to these two books and a cellphone, Luo Jian did not manage to find anything else. The two books seemed to have little value. So, Luo Jian left them on the desk. He stood up from his seat. His position was in the first column second row, a seat that was more towards the front of the room. There was a female corpse sitting in the seat in front of him. The corpse had been rotten to the extent where only the bones were left, but since the corpse wore an old-fashioned dress, it meant that the corpse was a female. 

"I apologize for the offence." Luo Jian went up to the front of the female corpse and said this first.

Luo Jian still had lingering fears in regards to corpses. After experiencing the supernatural experience of being on a ghost ship and having a bunch of white bones standing up to snatch his key, this caused an irreparable psychological shadow on Luo Jian. It also made him respect every corpse that he saw. As expected, he will be condemned if he does something disrespectful.

"May I search your desk?" Luo Jian spoke in a serious manner to the female corpse.

The female corpse sat in her own position uprightly and did not respond to Luo Jian’s words. It is strange that she could keep such a posture even when she turned into a pile of bones.

"If you don't speak, I will deem it as you agreed to it." While talking to himself, Luo Jian reached into the desk of the female corpse with trembling hands. There are many books under her desk, there were topics on Chinese, mathematics, English, politics, physics, history and geography……Wait a minute, there are also a lot of test papers, and these are what Luo Jian had learnt in his unreliable curriculum in the past. 

The book is full of beautiful small Chinese characters, but the book had clearly been written with the name of the female corpse: Hu YanYa.

There seemed to be nothing special about it. Luo Jian scratched his head. The book and test papers are owned by every student. The three hours stipulated in this secret room obviously will not be sufficient if Luo Jian reads every book and test paper. So, for this secret room, the books and test papers are obviously unimportant.

Luo Jian put down these books, sighed and observed at the corpse in front of him.

The corpse sat in a very upright position, with hands clasped on her thighs, and there seemed to something reflective between her phalanges.

After a moment's hesitation, Luo Jian apologized to the corpse again and reached out to pry the phalanges of the corpse. He took out a piece of broken glass from the corpse's fingers-no, it is a piece of mirror fragment.

The corpse held on a piece of mirror fragment, which is obviously something abnormal. In general, this object is a very important thing. Luo Jian nodded his head lightly and placed the mirror fragment into his pocket.

"Well, it seems to be a difficult mission." After searching through the female corpse, Luo Jian straightened up and glanced around at the 30 over seats. He was ready to search through all the desks and corpses.

So, which one to start with? Luo Jian looked around the surroundings. The light illuminating the classroom is still considered to be bright. He shifted his line of sight to the corpse on the podium. Then, he suddenly found that the corpse does not belong to a student, because the clothes appeared very old-fashioned and it looked like the clothes were what a middle-aged person would wear. Also……the bones appear rather big. Compared to the bone rack of a minor, it appeared much bigger. Therefore, with a mere look, it can be determined that the skeleton is that of an adult. 

"This should be the corpse of the teacher." Luo Jian went to the platform and paid homage to the corpses. The teacher's body was hung on the podium and the students’ bodies were sitting under the podium. Seeing this situation, Luo Jian felt this was a thorny matter. He could not figure out what happened and how did these people died.

From Luo Jian’s previous secret chamber experience, what Luo Jian had to experience in the secret chamber was basically akin to solving certain unsolved cases. By searching for traces and clues that lead to the true murderer is akin to finding the exit. Without solving this mystery, he will never be able to get to the next secret chamber. 

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(0) Top ten secrets of a campus: According to some school-life genre literature, in most Asian schools, some schools would have some sort of secret that is not disclosed to the students. Often, those are related to do with murder, rape or some sort of crime that absolutely cannot be disclosed for the sake of the school's reputation. Otherwise, it may be to do with paranormal activities that even the school staff may know about but chose not to talk about it. They would instruct the students to not talk about it. However, it is obvious that students will still discuss it within themselves. A lot of times, these rumours would be exaggerated.  E.g. The toilet on the fourth floor third cubical transports you to another dimension or Student A has been raped and her spirit lingers in the school every night... etc. 

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Fleur's Corner: 

I'm still looking for an editor for EIC! Please contact me if anyone of you is interested! 

Next Update: 2/5. 

What do all of you think about this secret chamber? 

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