“You wouldn't call that a human after seeing that face, would you?” Gui Xiao retorted.

“I'm just saying, if the other party is something with a physical form, don't think of it as a ghost. Think of it as a regular monster, and it won't be so scary,” Feng Bujue replied in a light tone.

“Tch… if I weren't restricted, a hundred or two of those things wouldn't be scary,” Gui Xiao muttered, pouting.

That was the truth. If he had the support of "Data Vision," even in the dark, he could clearly know the exact location and strength of the monsters. Then there would be nothing to fear.

“Bullshit, if there were no restrictions, you'd be planning to carry the five of us through the script by yourself, wouldn't you?” Feng Bujue spread his hands and continued, “That kind of assumption is meaningless now… But in my personal opinion, 'adaptation' and 'overcoming' are what make this game interesting. The more restricted the script, the more interesting it is.”

As he spoke, he reached into the wooden bookcase and took out a second flashlight, showing it to his teammates.

“Alright, back to the main topic…” Two seconds later, Jue-Ge spoke again, “There are exactly six flashlights in the bookcase…” He paused, glanced up at the unlit fluorescent tube high above, “If nothing else, that light won't come on again, so… we'll all have to rely on these flashlights from now on.”

“Ah…” Xiao Tan drew out a sigh, “I hate this kind of visually restricted situation the most.”

That's what he said, but he was the first to step forward and take the flashlight from Jue-Ge.

*Click*

As soon as he got the flashlight, Xiao Tan turned it on and immediately swept it around the classroom to see if there was anything scary lurking in the dark.

“Finished checking?” Feng Bujue asked after he finished scanning.

“Yeah,” Xiao Tan nodded.

“Then turn it off,” Jue-Ge replied.

“Huh?” Xiao Tan was stunned.

“What 'huh huh'?” Feng Bujue said righteously, “Do you know how long a flashlight battery lasts? If six people turn them on together, what if they all die in twenty minutes?”

“Uh…” Xiao Tan thought for a moment and reluctantly turned off his flashlight.

While the two were talking, Ruo Yu and the other four also stepped forward to take the flashlights. Hearing Jue-Ge's words, everyone was very sensible… They only turned on the flashlights to see if they worked well, and then immediately turned them off.

“From now on, we'll take turns turning on the flashlight to provide light.” After everyone had taken the flashlights, Feng Bujue spoke again, “I'll go first. When my flashlight's power runs out and it goes out, then someone else will be responsible for lighting.”

“Wait a minute…” Hearing this, Xiao Ling interjected, “Wouldn't that mean everyone's line of sight has to move with the same person's flashlight beam?”

“Yes,” Feng Bujue replied, “So I'd like to add a few more restrictions…” He had naturally thought of the answer to Xiao Ling's question long ago, “Everyone can turn on the flashlight as needed when they sense something strange in the dark, when they leave the group alone under certain circumstances, or when conducting a separate search…” He paused, “As for now…” He raised the flashlight, shining it on his face from below, creating the lighting effect in horror movies, and smiled, “Everyone, please follow me and look over there…”

At this point, he changed the direction of the flashlight again, shining the beam on the window where that strange face had appeared earlier, and everyone's eyes followed.

“Look at the windowsill.” Feng Bujue added, afraid that someone might not see clearly.

On that very narrow windowsill, a flashing dot appeared at some point… Upon closer inspection, it was a key.

“It's a key!” Gui Xiao shouted excitedly the moment he recognized the item.

“Oh? You're pretty excited,” Jue-Ge took the opportunity to say, “Then please go over and get it.”

“Wh… why should I go?” In a split second, Gui Xiao chickened out.

“Because someone has to go,” Feng Bujue said, “Even if I said I'd carry you through a Nightmare script, I'm not exactly boosting you, am I? You can't just lie down and win from start to finish, can you?”

“Oh…” Gui Xiao responded and said the opposite of what he meant, “Then I should thank you for the training and guidance, right?”

“You're welcome,” Feng Bujue continued without any pressure, “I've already felt your endless gratitude in your sincere eyes. Now… hurry up and get the key. Don't waste my battery.”

“Hmph…” Gui Xiao snorted angrily, but he still went…

Although Jue-Ge's tone was very sarcastic, what he said made some sense—as a member of the team, Gui Xiao should make some contribution; since he didn't help with the "puzzle-solving" part, then in this "adventure" part… he definitely had to step up when he needed to.

One step… one step… Gui Xiao cautiously approached the window.

Outside the window, it was still pitch black. The flashlight's beam was swallowed by the heavy darkness in front of it after passing through the glass.

If a scary face suddenly popped out from behind the window glass at this time, Gui Xiao would most likely be frightened into jumping.

Fortunately… that didn't happen.

When Gui Xiao approached the window, he suddenly accelerated, reached out, grabbed the key with his eyes closed… turned around and ran back to the others quickly.

“Here!” When handing the key to Feng Bujue, Gui Xiao pronounced the word with particular emphasis, his smugness overflowing.

“What's there to be so smug about… how much effort did it take to get a key?” Feng Bujue narrowed his eyes and poured cold water on his teammate again.

After pouring the water, he didn't give the other party a chance to refute and immediately said, “Anyway… let's try the closer one first.”

According to the hints obtained earlier, there were only two places in this classroom that needed to be opened with a "key." The first was the storage space inside the podium, and the second was the nine storage cabinets on the side and back of the classroom.

The "closer one" that Jue-Ge was talking about at the moment was obviously the podium.

*Zzzzzz*

The key that Gui Xiao brought over was very smoothly inserted into the keyhole on the inner side panel of the podium.

The next second, Feng Bujue still didn't hesitate to turn the key and open the panel.

Then… a black blob appeared before everyone's eyes.

“Ah–” Even An Yueqin couldn't help but scream when she saw the blob inside the podium.

And her scream frightened the timid Xiao Tan and Gui Xiao, causing them to tremble.

“Wh… what's going on?” Xiao Tan asked immediately.

“Don't panic.” Feng Bujue seemed to always be saying similar things to his teammates, “It's just hair.” As he spoke, he took out a large clump of long black hair from inside the podium… and placed it on the podium.

“Holy crap?” Gui Xiao's scalp went numb, “What the hell is this…”

Hearing this, Jue-Ge revealed a strange smile and quipped, “It's not a ghost, it's a wig.”

“Pfft–” For some reason, Ruo Yu burst out laughing after he said this.

She looked very beautiful when she laughed, but at this moment… no one except Jue-Ge understood her joke. The others only felt a faint eeriness from her laughter…

“Judging from everyone's expressions, you all don't seem very willing to touch this thing.” After putting the wig down, Feng Bujue continued, “Then I'll be responsible for keeping and carrying this item without further ado.”

“Carry?” Gui Xiao was getting more and more shocked at this moment. Although he had fought against Jue-Ge before and watched his matches, he had never teamed up with Jue-Ge in a team script; today was the first time he had seen Feng Bujue's performance in a horror-themed decryption script at close range. "What are you going to do with this thing?"

“Isn't it obvious?” Feng Bujue said, pressing his hand on the clump of hair and showing the item information to his teammates on purpose.

[Name: Eerie Long Hair]

[Type: Story-Related]

[Quality: Common]

[Function: Unknown]

[Can be taken out of this script: Yes]

[Remarks: Human hair, placed here for unknown reasons.]

“Look, this is a 'story-related item that can be taken out of the script,' which means… it may trigger some hidden plot later.” Feng Bujue continued, “Even if it doesn't trigger it, you can take it out and turn it into a puzzle card.” He paused for half a second and added, “Also… hair is very tough. If we need to use a rope later, we can braid this hair and use it as a rope.”

“Someone who can't even tie their shoelaces properly is already thinking about braiding?” Just as Jue-Ge finished speaking, Ruo Yu suddenly retorted again.

It had to be said that this retort was really sharp…

“Can't I just say it! Can't I!” Jue-Ge immediately roared in embarrassment.

At the same time, Xiao Ling lowered her voice and whispered to Xiao Tan's ear, “I feel like… Older Sister's relationship with Jue-Ge is even better than before…”

“How did you see that…” Xiao Tan also whispered back, “I think these two are just getting deeper and deeper into some strange area…”

“Okay, okay… bring it or not, I don't care if you braid it and use it as a jump rope.” Gui Xiao, who didn't know much about Jue-Ge and the others, was talking about serious matters at this time, “Um… is there anything else in the podium?”

“Yes, there are two more items.” Feng Bujue replied and took out a key and a yellowed piece of paper from the podium.

The key looked very small. The first impression it gave was that it wasn't used to open doors. The players naturally thought… this was the key to one of the boxes in the storage cabinets.

As for the yellowed piece of paper…

“Vertical lines are drawn on both sides, but there are no page numbers. Combining the size and thickness of the paper, I can infer…” Feng Bujue held the piece of paper at an angle that everyone could see and focused the flashlight's light on it, “This paper should be torn from a notebook.”

“Looking at the handwriting… it's probably written by an elementary school student,” Xiao Ling added after staring at the words on the paper for a few seconds.

“Looking at the content… it seems to be a diary?” An Yueqin said, “By the way… are there any words on the back?”

“No,” Feng Bujue replied, turning the paper over for his teammates to see, and then turning it back to the side with the words.

“So… the clues are all concentrated on the front, right?” Gui Xiao said, starting to browse the content on the paper.

[May 13, Sunny.]

[During lunch break today, the warehouse opposite the principal's office suddenly caught fire.]

[The teacher immediately organized us to go to the playground like in the evacuation drill.]

[The firefighter uncles came quickly and put out the fire in the warehouse.]

[I saw them carrying a person out of the fire on a stretcher and sending them to the ambulance. Although I don't know who it was, I hope he's okay.]

[Because of the fire, afternoon classes were canceled. After we returned to the classroom, the teacher told us to pack our bags and go home.]

[Before going home, I realized that I haven't seen Suzuki since lunch break.]

[I asked the teacher where Suzuki went. The teacher said he had already gone home first.]

[I was relieved to hear the teacher say that. For a moment, I thought Suzuki had been burned in the fire.]

[But Suzuki has a really bad memory. He forgot to bring the key to his storage cabinet this morning, so he put his recorder in my storage cabinet. As a result, he forgot to take the recorder and went home after school.]

[Oh well, I'll return it to him tomorrow.]

[Second Grade A, Noguchi Eiji.]

The words of the diary were written from top to bottom and from right to left. Almost all of them were written in hiragana (a type of phonetic script used in Japanese), with very few kanji (but the system has built-in translation).

Whether from the wording, handwriting, or language organization, it did seem to be the work of an elementary school student.

“Noguchi-kun sits to the left of Togashi… which is me,” Feng Bujue waited for about a minute. After judging that his teammates had finished reading the content on the paper by looking at their expressions, he said, “He is the student I mentioned earlier who disappeared on May 14th; according to the report in the newspaper… no one has seen him since he left home for school on the morning of the 14th.”

“Um…” Xiao Tan said with a pale face, “The back of this paper has no words, which also shows… this article written on the 13th is Noguchi's last diary, right?”

“No need to say it…” Gui Xiao also said in a trembling voice, “According to the content of the diary… he was definitely tricked by Suzuki's ghost! In the end, he died without a trace.”

“Hehe…” At this moment, Feng Bujue suddenly sneered and used the flashlight to give his face a very terrifying light outline again, “Saying ‘died without a trace’ is too rash, isn't it?”

“You…” Gui Xiao stuttered, “… what are you going to say again?”

“Hehe…” Jue-Ge smiled maliciously and then shone the flashlight's beam on the row of storage cabinets at the back of the classroom, “Maybe… we'll be able to see his bones soon.”