Global Collapse-Chapter 395 - 378: Clever, isn’t it?_1
"SIGH..." Just then, Gu Mian heard Guo Jimei make a sound behind him.
Guo Jimei had a strange expression as she reached out to touch the ground beside her hip, as if something had poked her.
"What’s wrong?" Keke, whose eyes had been closed, opened them to look at her.
But Guo Jimei’s expression quickly returned to normal. "Nothing, I just twisted myself a bit awkwardly."
"Oh." Keke nodded doubtfully, then leaned against the wall and closed her eyes again.
At that moment, Pan Yue, who was by the door, seemed drawn by Guo Jimei’s voice and turned her head in their direction. Then, as if suddenly remembering something, she walked over.
Gu Mian had no choice but to pause his conversation with Chu Changge.
"Right," Pan Yue reached them in a few steps and looked at Chu Changge. "Meiren Chu, you still haven’t explained why you voted for Yuan Qinghua earlier."
Chu Changge was direct. He took out a yellowed photograph and handed it to Pan Yue.
Gu Mian recognized it as the photo Chu Changge had found in the school’s basement: twelve people, six men and six women.
Chu Changge began calmly, "Look at this photo. Both the gender ratio and the number of people are very similar to our group, and there’s a woman without a face mixed in."
Pan Yue took the photograph. Old, moldy things always evoke a certain inexplicable sense of horror.
It was like a cupboard that had been stored in a basement for years; whenever one got close, the dust-covered glass doors seemed to reflect another person’s figure.
Just seeing the aged tones of this old photograph made Pan Yue feel a bit apprehensive.
Upon closer inspection, she saw six men and six women, all strangers.
One girl didn’t even have a face, as if she had melted into the darkness.
"What is this?" Pan Yue asked, her expression strange.
Chu Changge replied, "It’s the photo we found tonight. As I said earlier, both the number of people and the gender ratio are very similar to our current situation. The woman without a face is the most suspicious."
At this point, Chu Changge paused. "If you look closely at this faceless person, her build is completely different from Lin Qi’s, but it’s somewhat similar to Yuan Qinghua’s."
Hearing this, Gu Mian looked over at Yuan Qinghua, who was sitting on the ground nearby.
She had her eyes closed, seemingly unaware that she had become the target of their suspicions.
"Moreover, Gu Mian mentioned earlier that the ghost is either Yuan Qinghua or Guo Jimei, and this can be seen from their voting slips..."
"That’s correct," Gu Mian nodded slightly. "Yuan Qinghua and Guo Jimei are in the same dormitory. According to their account, during the first round of voting, they both saw a ballot paper appear beside them, but neither of them voted."
"But Guo Jimei’s ballot paper mysteriously disappeared. It was nowhere to be found, without a trace, as if it had never existed."
"So I suspect that, in Guo Jimei’s case, her ballot paper never actually existed. Remember how Li Wentao got an extra vote in the first round? I theorize that one of those two is the ghost. That ghost was with us during the voting and cast a verbal vote for Li Wentao. The other person was sleeping in the dormitory, and only she actually received a ballot paper."
Hearing this, Pan Yue frowned. "Are you implying..."
As she said this, she glanced nervously towards Guo Jimei and lowered her voice, "...that Guo Jimei is the ghost?"
After all, it was an undeniable fact that Guo Jimei couldn’t produce her ballot paper earlier today.
"Not necessarily," Gu Mian shook his head. "Only one true paper was issued between them—to the one who was actually in the dorm. That paper could have been stolen. That’s why I’m saying the ghost is one of those two."
Chu Changge adjusted his glasses. "Besides, Pan Yue, yesterday you also saw Li Wentao, whom you suspected of being the ghost. But it was proven that Li Wentao isn’t the ghost. Therefore, I don’t think the video footage you provided concerning Lin Qi is reliable."
"By the way," he raised his head to look at Pan Yue, "aside from the last segment, did you watch any other parts of the video?"
Hearing this, Pan Yue felt a chill down her spine.
She had. She’d even seen the face that flashed past the classroom door after Yue Nu had put down her phone.
That face was right in front of her now.
"N-no," Pan Yue stammered, backing away a few steps while still facing him. "I skipped straight to the end and saw Yue Nu being killed... then I rushed over here. Now that Guo Jimei smashed the phone, we can’t watch the earlier parts anymore."
"It’s alright." A voice suddenly interjected.
Gu Mian turned his head and saw Keke, who had come up beside them. "As long as the memory card is intact, it’ll be fine," Keke said. "Tomorrow, we can leave the school together and go to Mobile Phone Street to see if we can get the phone repaired. If not, we can try to read the memory card directly."
"Yes... right," Pan Yue nodded hastily. "Tomorrow, we’ll leave the school and check... We can also look for clues related to this photo. This faceless girl doesn’t look like Lin Qi. Maybe we can find some clues from the twelve people in this picture."
Because if they didn’t start with this photo, they wouldn’t have any other worthwhile leads to pursue.
Gu Mian took the photo, flipped it over, and showed the back to Pan Yue. "There’s a date: June 12th, 2013. It’s a six-year-old photo. I think it’ll be quite difficult to find clues from it."
Just then, Yuan Qinghua, who had been sitting to one side with her eyes closed, suddenly seemed to sense something and leaned in. "Let me see..." 𝑓𝘳𝘦𝑒𝑤𝑒𝘣𝘯ℴ𝘷𝘦𝓁.𝑐𝑜𝑚
As she spoke, she craned her neck to look at the photo, then let out a surprised sound, "HUH?"
"Do you recognize them?" Gu Mian looked at Yuan Qinghua.
Yuan Qinghua quickly shook her head. "I don’t recognize them, but I think I’ve seen this picture in the homeroom teacher’s office... He has an album full of group photos of former senior students, and I believe there’s an identical copy of this photo in it."
Hearing this, Pan Yue’s eyes widened. "Then do you know who any of the people in it are?"
Yuan Qinghua shook her head, looking troubled. "I don’t know... But since they were students taught by the homeroom teacher in 2013, his office might have records. Why don’t we go take a look now?"
"Can you even get in? The office will be locked at night," Pan Yue frowned.
"I’m our class president, you know," Yuan Qinghua said matter-of-factly. "I have keys."
As expected of the class president.
She was leading the entire group down a path of stealthy mischief.
If Yuan Qinghua’s homeroom teacher knew she’d do something like this in the middle of the night, he probably would have swallowed the keys rather than give them to her.
And this class president wasn’t just good at sneaking around; she was also impressively bold when it came to tearing up official records.
Her approach was like that of a primary school student who, after years of compulsory education, finally graduated and then ferociously tore up all their textbooks.
It didn’t take long for Gu Mian and the others to find the 2013 class records and sneak them back to the classroom. The class president then took the thick file, expertly tore off its spine, and divided the contents into three piles.
Regarding tearing up the homeroom teacher’s records, she reasoned quite convincingly, "We have less than twenty-four hours before we have to vote. There’s definitely not enough time to investigate all these people together. It’s better if we split up."
The others agreed.
Pan Yue nodded. "Tomorrow, we’ll use these students’ addresses to investigate. Anyway, the ghost can’t kill anyone before 8 PM..."
They had voted out one ghost today, and now they had new targets for tomorrow.
The atmosphere in the room finally lightened a bit, though Li Yibai remained squatting in the same spot, motionless.
Actually, Gu Mian quite admired Li Yibai.
Li Yibai maintained that posture until sunlight streamed into the classroom the next morning.
Even Gu Mian had slept for a few hours. When he opened his eyes, he still saw Li Yibai squatting there, completely still.
I definitely couldn’t manage that, Gu Mian thought. My lumbar discs would probably herniate.
Since they were splitting up to investigate, they naturally had to form groups. However, today’s groupings were rather strange...
Keke volunteered to team up with Li Yibai.
Chu Changge, for reasons he himself didn’t quite understand, ended up in a group with Yuan Qinghua.
The remaining two, Guo Jimei and Pan Yue, naturally formed a group together.
This left Gu Mian alone.
Gu Mian: "..."
Seeing this, Pan Yue said, "Just pick a group and join them."
So, Gu Mian chose to go solo.
