Feng Bujue, with both hands, grabbed the female ghost under the armpits and pulled her down with all his might.

The female ghost was clearly stunned as she hit the ground. Before she could react, a foot stomped onto her shoulder, and a beam of flashlight light quickly shone on her face.

"Gah—" The monster's first reaction was still to make a hideous face and screech.

But Feng Bujue clearly didn't buy it: "Scream!" His voice was even louder than the ghost's. "If screaming worked, what would we need hands and feet for?"

He was right. Even the monster realized that "scaring" didn't seem to work, so she suddenly flipped over, pushed away Jue-ge's foot, and crawled backward close to the ground, quickly disappearing into the darkness.

Whether in terms of strength or agility, this ghost was much stronger than the previous Noguchi, so Feng Bujue was unable to stop her.

When Jue-ge raised the flashlight and shone it into the dark music room, the female ghost from just now was already gone without a trace.

"This is really a demon..." Seeing this, Feng Bujue couldn't help but mutter, "The ghosts in this script are all 'physical monsters' that can be touched directly, but..." He paused, his eyes shifting, "They also possess the ability to enter different dimensions and quickly become 'intangible'..."

"Did you think of something?" Ruoyu noticed some clues from the subtle changes in Jue-ge's expression, so she asked.

"I'm thinking... could there be such a setting..." Feng Bujue said, "That we... are actually ghosts too."

As soon as these words came out, everyone was stunned.

"Hmm..." An Yueqin was the first to respond, "Now that you mention it, it doesn't seem impossible..."

"Indeed, the narration implanted a preconceived notion in us, which created a blind spot in our thinking," Xiao Ling added. "If the team leader's conjecture is true, then it can explain why we can physically touch those ghosts."

"Eh? That's not right!" At this point, Gui Xiao, who had been scared out of his wits earlier, had recovered a little. Although that earlier scare almost knocked him offline, he was still closely following everyone's train of thought, and he came over and said, "Then why..." He swept the flashlight over everyone's bodies and then asked, "Aren't any of us affected by the light?"

"Regarding this..." Feng Bujue stroked his chin and muttered, "This is what I think..." He looked around at his teammates and continued, "The six of us... are people who have only recently become ghosts, and we haven't fully integrated into the world of the dead yet, so we're not very afraid of light; while the ghosts we've encountered have been dead for many years and are already part of the dark world, so..."

"As expected of a novelist, you can make it sound so plausible even when there's basically no evidence," Ruoyu said immediately after hearing this, giving a very pertinent comment.

"Hey~ I already said it was a conjecture," Feng Bujue spread his hands. "I'm just bringing it up to give everyone a new line of thought, in case I get hit by some instant-death flag later, then my wisdom will still protect you..."

"I feel like... your wisdom is always tricking me, not protecting me," Gui Xiao muttered with feeling after hearing this.

This sentence basically summed up his various encounters after meeting Jue-ge in the Peak of Glory S2 competition...

"Hehe... thank you for the compliment," Feng Bujue responded with a smile after hearing this.

"Is that a compliment! Can you tell good from bad?" Gui Xiao was once again shocked by Jue-ge's lack of principles. That kind of attitude of not feeling ashamed but rather honored when faced with sarcasm was really speechless.

There's a saying that goes—you can't wake a person who is pretending to be asleep. By the same token, you can't insult a truly shameless person.

"Alright, everyone, anyway, that ghost is gone, let's search first," Feng Bujue said, stepping through the door and preparing to start the search work that he was best at.

The others followed closely behind, turning on their respective flashlights and starting their investigation separately...

The music room wasn't very big either. The four walls were covered with old, yellowed wallpaper. In the corner of the room was a piano and a matching piano bench, with a simple standing music stand next to it. In the middle of the room were some square, colored block stools with numbers printed on them. Just looking at the size and style, you could tell they were for children to sit on. And on the wall opposite the door, there was also a relatively large cabinet. Although it was also made of wood, given the nature of this type of puzzle-solving script... even if it was made of paper, you wouldn't be able to open it unless you met the opening conditions.

The players' search unfolded in such an environment. Because the space was limited, after five minutes, they had investigated everything they could, and the results were as follows—

One, there was nothing hidden inside the piano and it could be played normally.

Two, the piano bench was normal.

Three, there was a yellowed, tattered musical score on the music stand, but there were still a few bars that could be identified completely.

Four, there were exactly nine block stools, each with an Arabic numeral from 1 to 9 written on it. After inspection, these block stools were all solid and fixed to the ground.

Five, no obvious anomalies, patterns, or clues were found on the wallpaper (the wallpaper section was confirmed by Feng Bujue).

Six, when touching the cabinet door, the prompt received was "being sealed by some dark force."

After confirming the above six items, the players gathered together for a brief exchange and reduced the number of flashlights turned on to two again.

"Okay..." At this time, Feng Bujue said, "We've investigated everything that needs to be investigated, so next... we can only use 'this', right?" As he spoke, he had already taken out [Suzuki's Recorder] from his pocket. "The item clearly states that only male players can play it, so..." He looked at Xiao Tan and Gui Xiao again, "Who's going to do it?"

"Uh... I don't know how to play stringed or wind instruments," Xiao Tan said quite professionally.

Here, it should be mentioned... before the third grade of elementary school, Xiao Tan did learn music.

Of course, a child as rich as him would naturally not learn those things for the sake of extra points on exams.

Xiao Tan learned music simply because his parents thought he had talent...

So where did this so-called "talent" manifest itself? The thing is—when Xiao Tan was in kindergarten, he liked to knock on things randomly for a while, so his parents used this as evidence and sent a child who wasn't even seven years old to learn percussion.

After studying for two and a half years, Xiao Tan didn't say anything, but the teacher couldn't stand it anymore. The teacher admitted frankly—this child is tone-deaf, has a terrible sense of rhythm, and it would be good if he could find the right key when singing karaoke in the future. You should find someone else.

Just like that... Wang Tan Zhi ended his twenty-nine-month career as a child drummer; and his final learning achievement was... learning to play a few basic drum beats, making the flexibility of his left hand about the same as his right, and... curing his habit of randomly knocking on things.

"I can play a little harmonica..." Following Xiao Tan, Gui Xiao gave this answer.

"Is that so? Then I'll do it," Feng Bujue said casually when he saw that neither of them knew how to play, and he raised the recorder to his mouth.

"So you can play! Then why ask?" Gui Xiao immediately retorted.

"Eh?" An Yueqin also raised her eyebrows in surprise when she saw this, "So you can play an instrument?"

"That's not right..." However, Ruoyu showed a suspicious look at this moment, turned her head to An Yueqin and said, "I've lived at his place for so long, but I've never seen any music instruments at his..."

Whoosh—

Before they could finish their words, Jue-ge had already started playing.

Whoosh—Whoosh—Squeak—Fufufu... Whoosh—Squeak—

He played completely out of tune, sometimes running out of breath, and sometimes making very sharp sounds. His fingers just pressed randomly on the various holes of the recorder with inexplicable fingering, messing around.

"Hey! So you can't play!" Gui Xiao exclaimed, "Not only can't you play, but you're playing super badly even for a layman! Where did you get your confidence!"

"Stop talking nonsense, anyway, none of you can play, so isn't it the same no matter who does it?" Feng Bujue also immediately retorted, and after speaking, continued to play blindly as if no one else was there.

Although Gui Xiao really wanted to complain a few more times, he had to admit... Jue-ge's words made sense; right now, none of the three boys could play, so it really was the same no matter who went up.

So, everyone endured Jue-ge's playing, which was similar to mental pollution, for about a minute.

It was unknown what principle was at work, but after a minute, suddenly...

A sharp "Chi—" sound was heard, and then, the sliding door of the music room closed automatically.

Then, a woman's voice floated and echoed in this space: [Everyone, sit in your own seats. The teacher is about to start playing.]

"What's the situation? Did a monster respawn?" Gui Xiao swept around with his flashlight, but he didn't see anything; and the source of the voice was also erratic and difficult to determine.

"This should be a prompt," Feng Bujue said calmly. "Do what the voice said, and we'll trigger the next part of the plot."

"Then... should we go sit down?" Xiao Tan said, turning his head to look at the block stools.

"It's not that simple..." Xiao Ling said with a slightly serious expression, "The numbers written on these chairs obviously have meaning... and the voice just now also said that we should sit in 'our own seats'."

"In other words..." Ruoyu took over her words, "If someone sits in the wrong seat, it may trigger something bad."

"Hey, hey... it's one thing for Feng Bujue to scare people, but why are you all spouting such terrible words!" Gui Xiao started to panic again when he heard the words "something bad."

"Heh... this is a practical problem that is right in front of us. No matter how terrible it is, we have to face it and solve it," Jue-ge smiled and continued, "But don't worry too much, everyone. I realized the problem with the seats... shortly after I entered this classroom."

"What? You've already cracked the puzzle again?" Gui Xiao said, thinking for a few seconds himself, and then exclaimed, "Oh! I know, it's based on the seat order in the classroom, right? That is... the first person in the first row is 1, the second person is 2, and so on..."

"That's not right." The next second, before Jue-ge could speak, Xiao Ling had already denied Gui Xiao's answer. "How do you know that we should use the order from left to right and from top to bottom?"

An Yueqin also added, "Yes... you also saw Noguchi Eiji's diary, right? It was written from top to bottom and from right to left. What if the seats are also arranged according to that way of thinking?"

"Furthermore..." Ruoyu also supplemented, "Even if we follow the 'top left first' order, there may be a pattern like 'the first person in the first row is 1, and the first person in the second row is 2'."

"This..." After hearing them, Gui Xiao instantly lost confidence in his answer. He could only look at Jue-ge with questioning eyes, "Alright... I'll listen to your answer."

"I think... the order here should refer to the magic square," Feng Bujue responded. "Before, in the classroom of Year 2 Class A, I was a little concerned about the arrangement of those desks and chairs... that 3x3 seating corresponds one-to-one with the nine boxes in the storage cabinet, which seems to be hinting at this. But until we left the classroom, no puzzle related to the magic square appeared." He paused for half a second, and turned his gaze to the nine block stools not far away, "But after coming here and seeing these nine numbers, it reminded me of that again."

"Wait a minute..." Gui Xiao interjected at this time, "The magic square you're talking about is the number game where the sum of each horizontal, vertical, and diagonal axis is fifteen, right? The positions of the numbers in that kind of diagram aren't fixed, right?"

"Nine on the top, one on the bottom, three on the left, seven on the right, two and four on the shoulders, eight and six on the feet, five in the center." A second later, Xiao Ling immediately answered Gui Xiao's question with a twenty-character formula.

"Did you hear that... there is still a so-called 'standard form'," Feng Bujue continued. "In short... if we arrange it according to the magic square, I am 5, you are 7; Siyu, Huajian, and Beiling (Jue-ge still used his partners' game nicknames in front of Gui Xiao) are 4, 9, and 2, respectively, and Xiao Tan (but Jue-ge has always called Xiao Tan that) is 1."

"Hmm..." Gui Xiao thought again, "Are you confident in this arrangement...?"

"At least more confident than arranging it from left to right and from top to bottom," Feng Bujue replied. "However, I understand your concerns, because this answer... is indeed lacking in evidence." He muttered thoughtfully, "I think... we must have 'missed some clues', because based on the information we have now, even I can't find any clear evidence to point out which six seats we six correspond to."

Jue-ge could say this, naturally, with a basis; the situations he had deduced in his mind... far exceeded everyone here.

Just take the names of those nine people in Year 2 Class A, for example. Their romanization, kana, strokes, radicals, relationship with the five elements of metal, wood, water, fire, and earth, and even the famous people with the same surname... Jue-ge had all thought about and screened them. He also deduced other related information to this extent... On this basis, Feng Bujue said the words "based on the information currently available."

However, the current situation no longer allowed the players to look for any clues.

[Didn't you hear me? I told you to sit down!]

Just as everyone hesitated, that voice rang out again, and its tone became more violent and sinister than before.