PSP Chapter 15: Abnormal

Liu Wangyu touched his neck, suddenly realizing it was empty of his jade Buddha.
Startled, he turned around, and immediately saw the item that he had been constantly taking out to look at in Shen Meiren’s hands.

 

Liu Wangyu's face twitched slightly, an extremely nervous reaction for him.
“How could I have dropped it?” After he spoke, he walked towards Shen Qingcheng, ready to reach out and take the jade back.

 

Shen Qingcheng moved back and to the right, the white jade Buddha he held appearing as crystal clear as water.
“Where did you buy this jade Buddha from, Liu-fuban? It looks pretty good, I want to get one too.”

 

Liu Wangyu continued to reach out, “I’m not too sure, it was passed down through my family.” This time Shen Qingcheng didn't avoid his hand again, and Liu Wangyu took back the Buddha easily.

 

He checked it over several times, and after confirming that it was not damaged, he put it back on hastily.
Then he smiled with relief, “Thank you, Shen-laoshi, this is a relic from my family elders, and it is very important to me.”

 

Shen Qingcheng smiled and said nothing.
After saying goodbye to Liu Wangyu, he returned to the apartment and began discussing what their next step was in the hall.

 

Chen Ge: “Shen-ge, is the jade Buddha really broken now?” How come he only saw Shen-ge fold his palms and press them casually together?

 

Shen Qingcheng replied, “You'll find out in the evening.”

 

Either that night or the next, when Qi Mei found out that the jade Buddha on Liu Wangyu had failed, she would definitely take action.
They would have to rush to figure out what happened before Qi Mei killed Liu Wangyu.

 

After sitting in the hall for a long time, they saw Meng Tianhai and Liu Zimei come downstairs.
Of course, Tong Yixue's death had impacted the two of them badly, but if they wanted to live and successfully pass the game, it was impossible for them to just stay depressed.

 

The other two players nodded to the group seated on the sofa.
Meng Tianhai asked if they wanted to act together, but Shen Qingcheng refused with a smile.
He was hungry, and it was impossible to expect the horse to run without letting it graze¹.

 

Lu Qi said: “Call for me if you need to.” He had a good impression of Meng Tianhai, and his behavior seemed familiar somehow.

 

Meng Tianhai thanked him and pulled Liu Zimei away.
Although Liu Zimei seemed to be timid and indecisive, she still stood strong after the unexpected incidents that had happened.

 

Lu Qi wanted to get back to what they were doing, but Shen Qingcheng touched his chin and looked at him with a thoughtful look.
Lu Qi, who had experience with his personality now, chose to ignore him.

 

Shen Qingcheng: “You never told me ‘call for me if you need to’.”

 

Lu Qi: “Do you think you don’t already call out too much?”

 

“Hey, that's true,” Shen Qingcheng was not ashamed at all, even proud, “so I can call for you when I need to, right?”

 

Lu Qi was pretty fit, and his awareness was also quite good.
If he cultivated their tacit understanding, maybe he wouldn’t have to make a move personally when he encountered a ghost in the future.

 

At the moment, Shen Qingcheng was thinking of binding Lu Qi closer to him during this copy so that he could take a more leisurely vacation in the future.
In exchange, he could transfer all the survival points to the other party.

 

Lu Qi turned his head to look at him, “Can’t.” After saying that, he got up and left.

 

Shen Qingcheng chased after him to continue wearing him down, “Hey, don't refuse so quickly, I'm very useful.” It must be that Lu Qi hadn't realized his value yet!

 

He said he couldn't call for him, but when Shen-ge shouted for help he would come running up faster than anyone else, Chen Ge muttered in his heart as he brought up the rear.

 

There weren’t many places they haven't searched in the kindergarten.
They stood by the playground and considered whether to go to the teacher offices or the cafeteria first.

 

Their original plan was to go to the teacher offices, but halfway through, Shen Qingcheng had proposed going to the cafeteria because he wanted to ask the cleaner auntie about the situation.

 

Lu Qi: “Sure.” He didn’t care about it, it made no difference whether they went first or second.

 

Chen Ge, who had no right to speak, still wanted to get Lu-ge to support him, but on hearing this, he had no choice but to tamp down his internal resistance to returning to the murder scene.

 

After arriving at the cafeteria, Shen Qingcheng went straight to the back kitchen.
Chen Ge looked at his back, and then looked at the cleaner auntie who was cleaning the table on the right, dumbfounded.

 

Didn’t he want to ask the auntie about the situation?

 

Chen Ge: “Lu-ge?” He turned his head as he asked.

 

Lu Qi apparently also saw the person cleaning on the right, and said, “You follow him.”

 

Chen Ge: “What about you, Lu-ge?”

 

Lu Qi: “I'll go ask about the situation.”

 

Chen Ge hesitated: “Brother Lu, can we switch?” He hadn’t eaten breakfast, and he really didn't want to vomit again.
There really wasn’t anything left in his stomach!

 

In the back kitchen of the cafeteria, the blood in the room was gone already, and so was Tong Yixue's body.
Only some food supplies were piled up in the corners.
It looked like a messy kitchen, nothing out of the ordinary.

 

Shen Qingcheng, who had already understood the player death system, figured that that the game had refreshed the kitchen.
This sort of thing usually happened half an hour after a player's body was discovered by other players.

 

He looked at the inside of the kitchen.
The floor was clean.
Treading on the clean floor, he walked to the window to look out of it.

 

Outside was an alley that wasn't too wide, probably just big enough for a small truck to drive through it.
In the innermost part of the alley were a few large blue plastic buckets, and a strong stench wafted faintly from there.

 

Lu Qi walked up behind him and asked, “What did you find?”

 

Shen Qingcheng wrinkled his nose, “It stinks.”

 

Lu Qi followed his line of sight.
“Kitchen waste.”

 

Frowning and looking in that direction, Shen Qingcheng didn't continue the topic.
He turned around and, not seeing Chen Ge, asked, “Where's Chen Ge?”

 

Lu Qi looked down at him, “He went to the cleaner to ask about the situation.”

 

Shen Qingcheng, whose excuse of asking the cleaner auntie was exposed, was not at all embarrassed.
He walked out of the kitchen with Lu Qi and said, “Then let's go and ask.”

 

When the two went outside, the auntie had already left.
Only Chen Ge was sitting there with his chin propped on the table, bored.
Seeing them come out, Chen Ge got up quickly, “Is there something wrong?”

 

Shen Qingcheng: “No.
What did you get from her?”

 

Chen Ge: “Oh, it’s just as we expected.
Qi Mei did work as a cleaner in the beginning.
In addition, when she wasn’t busy, she would also help with the kitchen.
At that time, she was accompanied by a two-year-old boy.
It should have been Qi Anle, who that auntie helped take care of.”

 

Chen Ge: “I asked her why Qi Mei became a teacher later, and whether she knew that Qi Mei had only graduated from high school and couldn’t get a teacher's qualification certificate.
The auntie said she didn't know, and Qi Mei didn't talk about her personal matters often.
Qi Mei even turned against her when she asked who the father of the child was.”

 

Chen Ge: “The auntie guessed that Qi Mei might be divorced.
She felt that it was very hard for such a young woman to raise a child by herself, so she never asked again, and often helped Qi Mei when she couldn't take care of him.”

 

Chen Ge: “But she did give me a new piece of information.
She said that Qi Mei got close to a man some time ago, when she resigned.
She thought that the two wanted to get together and live together, and that the man was the one who found her a new job.
She didn’t expect that…”

 

Shen Qingcheng raised his eyebrows, “She didn't expect what?”

 

Chen Ge's expression was conflicted, “She met Qi Mei and the man in the cafeteria half a year later and asked her when she would get married.
Qi Mei was stunned, and then said with evasive eyes that she was single.
And the man next to her also had a weird expression, like he was mocking her.”

 

After Chen Ge finished speaking, Shen Qingcheng and Lu Qi were silent for a while.

 

Shen Qingcheng didn't think that a friendly relationship between a man and a woman could make the auntie assume that the two would get married.
It definitely couldn’t have been anything as simple as walking side by side–she must have seen something else to be so sure.

 

It was obvious now that Qi Mei gave birth to Qi Anle at the age of 20.
At that time, she should have still been in college, so she must have dropped out of school because of him.

 

Why she had dropped out…one possibility was that she didn't have the energy to take both study and take care of Qi Anle.
Another possibility was that another accident might have happened, but that needed to be verified.

 

She didn't finish college, and with a child, she couldn't find a good job.
At first she just helped cook and clean in the kindergarten, but then someone gave her a second option, a better option.

 

She agreed.

 

At present, there were several important people that had not yet appeared: one was the father of her child, and the other was her parents.

 

Shen Qingcheng: “Who was that man?”

 

Chen Ge: “The auntie didn’t know who he was, just that his surname was Liu.”

 

Heh, among the four men who had been entangled with Qi Mei, only Liu Wangyu's surname was Liu.
Liu-fuban’s role was quite large, huh.

 

In the afternoon, the cafeteria opened on time.

 

After the kitchen had been cleaned up, the cafeteria staff had returned to the kitchen as if nothing had happened to prepare lunch, but the players who had witnessed the tragic situation inside couldn’t pretend.

 

The broccoli had been soaked in blood, and the potatoes had had intestines wrapped around it.

 

Some players came and left with ugly faces, while some players didn't even bother coming.
Shen Qingcheng shook his head in disappointment.
It was already good enough to have anything at all to eat, why be so picky? It was just a bunch of data, and it would be gone after being refreshed.
As a tianshi, he guaranteed it.

 

In the end, only Shen Qingcheng and Lu Qi had lunch, the two of them eating without any change in their expressions.
Chen Ge was disgusted at first, but watching them eat made him hungry, so he went to grab a meal as well.

 

After lunch, they went to the teacher offices.
The vice-principal and the dean of education had been dead for a while, and their replacements had left personal items in the desks that belonged to them.
They only found a single clue of value in Liu Wangyu's desk.

 

Liu Wangyu had a wife, and upside down under the files in his drawers was a framed wedding photo of him and a woman.

 

Did Qi Mei know about this?

 

Soon the sun was going down, and night was approaching.

 

Shen Qingcheng, Lu Qi and Chen Ge didn't sleep that night, instead staying in Shen Qingcheng's room.
When the moon rose to the highest point, Shen Qingcheng said, “Let's go.”

 

They were going to Liu Wangyu's residence.

 

That afternoon, they had specifically confirmed where Liu Wangyu lived.
Liu Wangyu wasn’t a local and lived in the kindergarten during his tenure.
He was in the same building as Qi Mei, on the fourth floor.

 

It was easy to understand after some consideration.
The two of them had an improper relationship, so living in the same building was convenient when they met up privately.
It wouldn’t attract the attention of others.

 

Surprisingly, Liu Wangyu hadn’t been living in his own apartment recently, instead borrowing someone else's.

 

Taking advantage of the moonlight, they could see a figure coming from downstairs with heavy and stiff steps, as if they were sleepwalking.
It didn't take long for the figure to walk into the stairwell.

 

That was who they were waiting for.

 

They looked at each other and followed behind Liu Wangyu.
Chen Ge quietly took out the defensive props he had exchanged for and Lu Qi pulled out his usual long knife.
Shen Qingcheng looked left and right, then took out Mama Rong's Silver Needle.

 

Fourth floor.

 

Sixth floor.

 

Liu Wangyu didn't stop, going all the way to the roof.

 

They followed closely behind him, and through the half-closed iron door, they heard a bunch of small sounds from outside, including the coquettish laughter of women and the sound of a man gasping for breath.

 

 

 

TLN:

¹ In the most literal sense he won’t work without first eating, but on a general level 不给马儿吃草还想马儿跑 means you need to create the right environment before you can expect something to happen.
It might also mean that he is scoffing at how those two didn’t put enough work in, but still expect him to help.

 

It’s been raining nonstop where I am.
How annoying…