Welcome to the Nightmare Live - Ch 4.2

The person in charge of the meal was an old woman with rickets; her eyes were cloudy, her fingers were wrinkled like tree bark, and she held the rice spoon tremblingly. The white iron spoon made a harsh sound when it touched the bottom of the basin.

Dinner was some kind of porridge.

A layer of oil was floating on the turbid yellowish-white, and in the viscous semi-liquid, the white meat, the thin rice grains and the soft noodles were mixed at the bottom of the spoon, exuding an unappetizing smell.

She mechanically gave the students a spoonful of rice.

The moment anchors saw the food in their bowls, an indescribably complex expression appeared on their faces.

They held the bowl with a dishevelled look and chose a seat on the long table to sit down.

When all the students finished taking their meal, the old woman leaned down tremblingly, ready to pick up the big iron basin that was left in front of her.

Wen Jianyan stepped forward and took the basin from the other party’s hand involuntarily:

“I’ll do it, you can just rest.”

His gesture was gentle and courteous, and he looked at the old woman in front of him with great concern.

——Whether it was giving orders at the door or organising everyone to line up to enter the canteen, Wen Jianyan was preparing for this conversation from the beginning.

“In which direction?” he asked.

The old woman raised a bark-like finger and pointed to the back of the canteen.

Wen Jianyan slowed down and walked in that direction side by side with the other party.

The old woman raised her turbid eyes, turned her head to look at the young man beside her, and asked in an old voice,

“Young man, what’s your name?”

Wen Jianyan shyly pursed his lips: “I also just came here today. Just call me Xiao Zhao. I am Director Shen’s distant nephew. I just graduated some time ago, so I want to ask my uncle to help me find a job.”

“Oh…”

“My uncle asked me to come to Teacher Yang and ask her to show me around the school, but…”

“But?”

Wen Jianyan shook his head and quickly raised a disguised smile: “No, it’s nothing. Teacher Yang seems to be busy, so…she left me here to help organise the discipline, and then left in a hurry.”

He hesitated, pursed his lips, and asked uneasily:

“I… did I do something wrong?”

In the 789326qwk live broadcast room:

[…..]

[…The smell of tea is strong.]

[…Tea is overflowing.]

[He was an intern teacher just now, but now he was Director Shen’s nephew. I want to see if he can make up a few more identities.]

[…Simple, the way to be human is simpler.]

This covert way of answering obviously made the other party immediately understand something.

The old woman sighed, a trace of haze flashed across her face. She stretched out her hand and patted Wen Jianyan’s shoulder, and said kindly, “Don’t take it too seriously. Teacher Yang, she… ah, she’s always been like this, not deliberately targeting you.”

“It doesn’t matter, if you have any questions in the future, you can ask me.”

“Eh, really? Thank you.”

Wen Jianyan showed a flattered smile. The smile reached the bottom of his eyes.

Sure enough, when dealing with such elders, a favourable background combined with an appropriate display of weakness is the fastest way to obtain information.

The two chatted as they walked.

Wen Jianyan spoke calmly, keeping all the information that spit out from the other party’s mouth firmly in his mind.

Unconsciously, Wen Jianyan reached the back kitchen.

Compared with the canteen in front, the back kitchen is more narrow and dirty. The air is mixed with a foul smell of sour rot. The blue swill bucket placed on the side is half full; the inner edge of the outer wall is covered with thick residue dirt and there is garbage all over the place.

Under the command of the old woman, Wen Jianyan poured the remaining soup from the food bowl into the swill bucket, and then placed the empty container next to the chopping board.

Just as he was about to turn around to say goodbye, his eyes suddenly flickered.

Not far from the chopping board is a sink. The shallow layer of grey-yellow water couldn’t flow down, and accumulated in the sink. In the turbid water, there were several strands of long and black oily hair slowly floating, and entangled in the sewer mouth like a living creature.

Wen Jianyan subconsciously cast a glance at the top of the old woman’s head.

Short, grey and dry hairs.

At this moment, a shrill scream came from the direction of the canteen, cutting through the night like a sharp blade, which was frightening.

“!”

Wen Jianyan was taken aback.

In the next second, he reacted immediately, said goodbye to the other party in a hurry, and then turned around and walked in the direction of the sound.

However, before he could take a few steps out, the trembling old voice sounded from behind:

“That’s right… young man.”

Wen Jianyan paused and turned to look.

The old woman opened her turbid eyes, her wrinkled face like tree bark trembled slightly. She said in a very low voice:

“Stay away from the fourth floor of the dormitory.”

Wen Jianyan’s pupil shrank.

Before he could ask anything, the old woman turned around, took a few steps, and slowly disappeared into the depths of the canteen.

***

In the canteen, tables and chairs fell haphazardly to the ground; hurried footsteps and panicked screams mixed into a noisy sound, and there was chaos everywhere.

One of the anchors fell down beside the sink, with the overturned food bowl beside his feet, the yellow-white soup was spilled all over the ground; the long, dark hair mixed with saliva was pulled out from the mouth and the large slimy lump lay on the ground.

However, he was still vomiting frantically, scratching his throat with trembling fingers, as if something was stuck in his throat.

“Gret—” The anchor arched his back convulsively, making a terrible retching sound.

“What happened?”

“This… what’s going on?”

Several anchors gathered together and asked in confusion.

“He violated the rules.”

A cool voice came from not far away.

The novice anchors were startled and turned to look in the direction of the sound.

They remembered that the man who spoke up was a senior anchor named Kong Shixing.

There are two other senior anchors. They seem to be in the same team because the three stay together all the time.

Kong Shixing was standing by the side with his arms crossed, his expression was indifferent: “This kind of D-level instance is generally not too difficult, the point is just to be obedient; as long as you act under the premise of abiding by the rules, start live broadcasts, and do the main and side quests issued by the system, you can make up the necessary survival time — of course, provided that you do not violate the rules.”

A novice anchor felt a chill behind his back: “Violation, violation?”

“Instead of thinking about it here, you might as well go and ask around to see how this unlucky bastard violated the rules, so as to avoid risks.”

Su Cheng, who was standing on the sidelines, heard all their conversations.

He swallowed hard, his voice trembled slightly, and said, “I, I seem to know.”

Hearing this, the eyes of several others turned to him.

“He was just saying, who knows if there is any problem with the food here, and whether it will cause an accident if you eat it. So he wants to take advantage of the absence of the NPCs to secretly dump the contents of the bowl into the sink…”

This statement does sound a bit reasonable.

In addition, the soup and rice here looks so bad, almost like swill water. Even if it is poured out, it is not a pity. So he also got the approval of several anchors, and came to the pool with his food bowl.

However, the moment the leading man poured out the soup, a look of pain suddenly appeared on his face.

The rice bowl fell to the ground with a clang, and a mouthful of untouched soup and rice spilled on the ground.

The other anchors were frightened and could not help but back away, no one dared to approach the pool any more.

Then, the long pitch-black hair began to pour out of the anchor’s mouth.

As Su Cheng described, he squeezed the rice bowl in his hands with sweaty hands, and his voice became a little unstable.

Several people who listened carefully were stunned.

They suddenly realised something, and turned their heads abruptly to look aside—they saw eight mottled and faded characters written on one side of the wall in the canteen:

“Saving is glorious, waste is shameful.”

Kong Shixing narrowed his eyes and said: “So that’s the case, then this is one of the rules.”

“…..”

After his voice fell, several other anchors looked at the soup and rice in their own food bowl that was almost untouched, and their expressions could not help but change.

It seems… this meal, they must eat it. Not only had to eat, but also had to eat it clean, and not a grain of rice can be left behind.

Outside the door, Wen Jianyan stood with his arms crossed, with a thoughtful look on his face.

——”Rules.”

That seems to be the key word.

The overall game was not too different from his own guess, which made Wen Jianyan breathe a long sigh of relief.

After all, compared to ghosts who kill indiscriminately, rules are much easier to handle.

As long as there are rules, loopholes are bound to be found. As long as a loophole is found, the rules can be exploited in turn.

Moreover, perhaps due to the low level of the instance, the judgement of the rules here is obviously not strict.otherwise, Wen Jianyan wouldn’t have taken advantage of the loophole and successfully blended into the teacher team.

At this moment, the vomiting anchor bent down sharply, and finally let out a heart-piercing, violent retching—

“Yuck—!”

“Click.”

A crisp landing sound sounded.

Several white molars mixed with blood and saliva fell on the ground. The small, fingernail-sized teeth rolled on the ground, grumbling, until one of them rolled in front of Wen Jianyan, and then it slowly stopped. .

The pale and bloody teeth stayed on the edge of the line of sight, looking very strange.

Wen Jianyan stared at it and felt a chill rise on his back.

The little red cloth bag that had been forgotten in his pocket seemed to suddenly become heavy, fell heavily in his trouser pocket and stuck to his thigh, causing his skin to burn for no reason, almost unbearable.

……molar?

Could this have something to do with the “hidden object” he found earlier?

At this moment, a familiar mechanical voice suddenly sounded in Wen Jianyan’s ear:

【Ding! The condition is detected to be met, the hidden mission is being opened—】

Wait, wait?

Wen Jianyan panicked.

Before he could react, he saw strands of jet-black hair spread without warning, tightly wrapping around his wrists and ankles, cold and wet, and twisted like a living creature.

【The opening of the hidden mission is completed!】

The moment the words fell, Wen Jianyan suddenly felt a darkness in front of his eyes.

It feels so familiar.

The moment he entered the instance was… the same.

Before Wen Jianyan lost consciousness, there was only one sentence left in his mind — garbage live broadcast room, I am your uncle!