Global Collapse-Chapter 396 - 379: Is the Guitar More Important than Life?_1

Considering Gu Mian was acting alone and his capabilities were limited, the others thought for a moment, then tore off several files and handed them to him.

Pan Yue shoved several files into Gu Mian’s hands. "I think there are a few in this class who live near the school, and one whose family lives directly on school grounds. Let’s give you these simple ones."

After everyone’s tasks were allocated, they agreed to meet again in the classroom at six in the evening, as they had no other place to spend the night.

The seven of them quickly dispersed. Gu Mian watched them leave, then decided to first visit the student whose address was listed as being within the school.

As is commonly known, student information files include a home address, and this particular student’s name was Xiang Xingye. It sounds like an insignificant name.

The home address column was filled out as: "Songwen Academy, Teaching Building No.6, office on the far eastern end of the ground floor."

Songwen Academy was the school Gu Mian attended in this instance. He knew that many schools hired older individuals as custodians, providing them with a few rooms inside a teaching building to live in, and they sometimes doubled as security guards, though these elderly people couldn’t really perform as effectively as regular security guards...

Gu Mian didn’t step out until past eight o’clock, by which time there were hardly any people around. The floor he was on consisted entirely of storage rooms. Before leaving, he closed the door, hoping Yue Nu’s body inside would remain undisturbed and undiscovered.

Teaching Building No.6 was easy to find. Students had already started class by this time, so no one noticed Gu Mian as he slipped past the entrance.

Gu Mian reached the easternmost room without any obstruction. There was a long glass panel on the door, through which he could see the room was empty.

It appeared to be a regular office, not modified for residential use. Strange... I should be in the right place. Gu Mian frowned, standing there for a moment before deciding to go inside and take a look.

Unfortunately, the door was locked. This forced Gu Mian, who wanted to investigate, to abandon his plan. Although the lock looked quite flimsy, causing a commotion by breaking it in the school wasn’t a good idea.

He had no choice but to first check the addresses around the school. Pan Yue had given him information on three students; besides Xiang Xingye, there were two others with seemingly ordinary names.

Gu Mian was nimble, especially when it came to hopping fences. In no time at all, he vaulted over the school fence and began looking for the homes of the other two students, using the street signs for directions.

He didn’t have to look too hard. Both students lived in a residential complex just behind the school. Gu Mian quickly found the complex; now, he just needed to find their specific addresses within it.

"Liu Qiang, Building 32, Unit 2, 7th floor, west apartment..." Gu Mian muttered, twisting the paper in his hand. With the help of a helpful passerby, he quickly found Building 32.

He rushed into Unit 2 and took the elevator up to the 7th floor. The residential complex looked a few years old; its facilities weren’t new, but it was very clean and tidy.

The area in front of Liu Qiang’s apartment was also very tidy. A white shoe cabinet stood neatly by the door with no shoes outside. It was so neat that Gu Mian suspected a shoe thief had recently paid a visit.

Gu Mian adjusted his clothes and then began to knock on the door. After a good ten seconds of knocking, there was still no response.

Gu Mian patiently knocked for another two minutes, but still, no one answered; there wasn’t a single sound from inside. The office was empty earlier, and this place is too? he thought, crouching down to examine the lock, which looked quite fragile.

Just then, a CREAK reached his ears. It wasn’t from the door in front of him, but from one nearby.

It seemed his continuous knocking for two minutes had disturbed the neighbors. Indeed, a normal person wouldn’t knock on a door like that.

The neighbor first opened their door a crack, revealing half of a white-haired head, seemingly trying to see who was there. Seeing it was just a student, she breathed a sigh of relief.

The neighbor was an elderly woman, appearing to be nearly seventy. "Young man," she said, "didn’t you know the family in this apartment just held a funeral a few days ago?"

A funeral? Gu Mian raised his eyebrows; that would explain why the shoe cabinet by the door looked as if it had been looted. But theoretically, this Liu Qiang should be in the prime of his life. "How did he die?" he asked.

The old woman looked puzzled. "The old man was almost eighty. It’s not strange for him to pass on. What are you here for?"

Gu Mian was also puzzled. "I’m looking for my classmate. Do you know Liu Qiang?"

"Liu Qiang? What Liu Qiang? That old man lived here alone for decades. There’s never been anyone named Liu Qiang living here. No one in this entire building knows anyone by that name."

Strange.

Gu Mian furrowed his brow. The address on the student file seemed inconsistent with reality. Still doubtful, he then went to the home of another student, Zhang Liu.

The situation was the same: no one recognized the name Zhang Liu. In fact, no one in the entire building went by that name. This is so weird, Gu Mian thought, gazing at the papers in his hand. He decided to return to the office at the school for another look.

「Meanwhile, the others were encountering similar situations.」

Pan Yue and Guo Jimei were shocked to find that none of the addresses matched any actual residents. Even the phone numbers were completely wrong.

"Are these damn files fake?" Pan Yue exclaimed, sitting by a flowerbed and angrily tossing aside the papers in her hand.

Guo Jimei was equally anxious. "Impossible! How could files stolen from the office be fake? Unless everyone filled them out falsely back then, but if they did, they would’ve been caught. Could someone have secretly swapped the files?"

However, judging from the condition of the papers, they clearly weren’t recent forgeries.

"Wait..." Pan Yue suddenly turned to Guo Jimei. "If someone really did swap the files, I think it might be Meiren Chu. I agreed to split up this time precisely because I wanted to get away from him. And there’s something else I need to tell you..." As she spoke, she took out her shattered phone. "Actually, I watched a bit more of the video yesterday. I noticed... when Yue Nu put her phone down, Meiren Chu was right behind her, watching!"

Guo Jimei’s eyes widened. "So Meiren Chu knew Yue Nu would go back for her phone? Could he be the one who killed her?"

Pan Yue nodded. "It’s highly likely. Besides, I’ve always felt that he and Gu Mian are strange. Neither of them seems scared at all. And Gu Mian keeps carrying that guitar around. Do you really think a guitar is more important than his life right now?"

Guo Jimei nodded vigorously in agreement.

Pan Yue hesitated before continuing, "I don’t know why, but I have a bad feeling about all this. Ever since that first night, when we found out Li Wentao wasn’t a ghost, something has felt off...

"We were misled into voting out a civilian. When the ghost kills, it never mistakenly targets an accomplice. It’s as if the ghost knew everyone’s identity from the very beginning.

"And then there’s Lin Qi. She was voted out. Regardless of whether Li Yibai cast that vote, Lin Qi was doomed to be eliminated... It’s as if someone had predetermined her death long ago!"

"I’m really uneasy," Pan Yue said, shivering. "It feels like we’ve walked into some kind of trap, and the net is slowly closing in. With the way things are going... I feel like we’re all going to be caught very soon!"