Global Collapse-Chapter 488 - 460: Gu Mian and His Beloved Doll_1
Gu Mian already had the answer to his second multiple-choice question.
While he was having a ’friendly exchange’ with those three students, the exam paper had filled itself in. Apparently, they had found the mixed meat soup quite tasty.
But after the answer to the second multiple-choice question appeared, no further choices presented themselves. Currently, Gu Mian was heading to the location for the fill-in-the-blank question—female dormitory building No.4.
Based on his gender, he should be able to enter.
And Fatty was still babbling on.
[Pan]: I just ran into a group of patrolling examiners. They looked almost identical to the exam proctor. I, Fatty, cleverly resolved the danger and, by the way, eliminated three players who had malicious designs on you, Doctor.
Gu Mian highly doubted Fatty’s claim. He thought it was more likely that those three players had accidentally run into a wall and died than been ’eliminated’ by Fatty.
[Pan]: But I’ve hit a ghost wall and can’t find this building’s main entrance... Is it because my fill-in-the-blank question is in Building No.9? I probably can only leave this place after finishing that question.
[Gu Mian]: Do you want me to come and get you?
[Pan]: No, don’t worry about it. It’s strange, though. There are so many players, but I’m the only one in this building. I guess the instance is playing tricks. Even if you come to Building No.9, you might not be able to find me, Doctor.
[Pan]: Oh, right, Miss Xiao Qiao and I got separated near the cafeteria, and I can’t contact her now. Doctor, if it’s convenient, could you look for her while you’re doing your questions?
Gu Mian acknowledged and closed the chat, continuing towards female dormitory building No.4.
Female dormitory building No.4 was just opposite his exam hall, so Gu Mian was very familiar with the route.
On his way to female dormitory building No.4, he occasionally encountered a few panicked-looking players. They hid in the shadows like frightened stray cats, tensing up and nearly jumping out of their skins at the slightest disturbance.
So scared? Gu Mian found it odd. They all came from the Dragon Boat event; they shouldn’t be this terrified.
The streetlights overhead were dim. Though they cast light over the main road, hardly any players walked beneath them. Almost everyone he saw was hugging the walls as they moved.
Consequently, he was the only one whose head was bathed in the streetlight’s glow.
However, Gu Mian had no interest in probing into the reasons for their terror. He took out the three school emblems from his white coat.
These three school emblems, which he had forcibly acquired, were special items. They were similar to Meiren Chu’s item, but these three could only change one’s in-game nickname.
And those three ghosts possessed nicknames precisely because they wore these emblems.
Logically speaking, special items capable of changing nicknames were extremely rare. The chance of a player obtaining three at once was virtually zero.
Furthermore, these school emblems were clearly not rewards intended for players by the event, as they were on the ghosts. Under normal circumstances, it would be impossible for a person to rip these things off a ghost. Doing so would be a death sentence.
But Gu Mian had ripped them off. Of course, ’death’ had not been avoided either.
Gu Mian had previously used the Mind Amplifier on Xiao Hong and knew that ghosts could use special items, though only certain ones.
He had also tested Meiren Chu’s school ID on Xiao Hong, but it had no effect when she wore it.
Yet, in this event, the ghosts could use these school emblems to acquire nicknames. This reminded Gu Mian of the ghosts from yesterday’s Dragon Boat event who could impersonate players. It seemed that starting from the Dragon Boat event, or perhaps even earlier, the ghosts in the game had undergone some kind of transformation.
Although the game was explicitly stated at its launch to be for human evolution, humans had yet to evolve anything noteworthy. In contrast, the ghosts in the game could already impersonate players. Truly a ’great’ evolution.
It was basically certain that the game had two sponsors. It now appeared that the sponsor wanting human evolution was being thoroughly thrashed by the sponsor wanting instance evolution.
Who was thrashing whom was of no concern to Gu Mian. What he was currently focused on was the school name on the emblem: ’Songcheng College.’ Not Lianhua University.
Those three ghosts in the cafeteria had been students of ’Songcheng College.’
This event seemed to have brought all the ghosts from an entire school within an instance into the event grounds, which was quite different from the previous two events.
The ghosts in the previous two events were drawn from various instances. But this time, not only were the exam proctors identical, but even the patrolling examiners were all the same. It wasn’t a hodgepodge.
Clutching his exam paper, Gu Mian navigated the school. At exactly 8:30 PM, he reached the base of female dormitory building No.4. He first needed to check out the fish tank in dormitory room 4244.
Strange, why does it feel like there are so few people in the school? Luo Tianqing mused, wandering down the fourth-floor corridor of the No.1 Female Dormitory Building, flashlight in hand. She had just completed a multiple-choice question here and was preparing to leave.
She and 007 were teammates in the Dragon Boat event, and they had come here together this time. Besides her and 007, their remaining teammates were Xie Bi’an, Shiba, and Xue Ning.
When they had participated in the college entrance examination event together, Luo Tianqing, Shiba, and Xue Ning had decided to tackle the questions as a group, while Xie Bi’an and 007 had wanted to act independently.
The three women had agreed to rendezvous at the statue in the school’s center if they could move about freely. It turned out that examinees could indeed move freely within the school, but Luo Tianqing hadn’t managed to meet them because she had encountered a patrolling examiner en route.
When she reached the agreed meeting point, there was nobody there.
Left with no alternative, she could only explore the school grounds on her own.
As Luo Tianqing walked through the dark corridor, she glanced at the walkie-talkie hanging on her chest—a reward she had received from the Dragon Boat event.
