Chapter 1 Divergence

Feng Bujue and Si Yu parted ways on the playground. The former went around the main building, heading into the depths of the campus, while the latter entered the teaching building directly opposite the school gate.

If the two could act together, this script wouldn't be too difficult. They could discuss puzzles, share the burden of combat, and it would feel much better to have someone by your side when terrifying scenes occurred. But now, they were confined to acting alone and had to complete that call setup, which reeked of conspiracy… It could be said that the script's danger and difficulty had at least doubled.

In that earlier rhyme, they could already find many clues about locations and specific things, such as a well, stairs, a mirror, a piano, and so on…

Putting aside everything else, that well… It probably wouldn't be in the building, nor near places like the sports field. So, it was most likely in some corner near the wall.

Following this line of thought, Feng Bujue bypassed the main building and continued forward. The moonlight was bright at the moment, like silver frost spilling onto the ground, and he could see the road ahead clearly without turning on his flashlight. He didn't walk fast, occasionally checking the script time displayed on his phone. He was supposed to make the call at the tenth minute.

In the five elements, water is in the north, and Feng Bujue happened to find a well on the north side of the campus. The well railing wasn't high, made of stacked white stones, with a rough and uneven surface. The well opening wasn't sealed, but there was no rope or bucket set up.

More than ten meters away from the well, there was an L-shaped bungalow. Peering through the window, he could see a long sink and a row of faucets. Feng Bujue walked to the door and found some iron buckets, mops, and other items, indicating that this was a place to store cleaning supplies.

Feng Bujue first went into the bungalow and searched carefully, even counting the number of faucets and mops, but he didn't find any useful clues. Walking out of the house, he saw that the time had reached nine minutes and twenty-seven seconds, so he picked up his phone and pressed the speed dial button.

As a result, the phone didn't automatically dial, but a line of text appeared on the screen: 【Time not yet reached, your next dialing time should be 10:00-10:45】

"So that's how it is. You must dial within forty-five seconds after reaching the specified time..." Feng Bujue muttered. He waited half a minute, and when the time on his phone turned exactly ten minutes, he pressed the speed dial button again. A string of numbers quickly and automatically appeared on the screen, and the first call began.

The *dū* sound only lasted once before Si Yu answered the call.

After all, they were friends in the game, and the two hadn't exchanged a single word since entering the script. Feng Bujue wanted to be polite and say something like "What a coincidence" as a greeting, but he didn't even have time to say that nonsense. As soon as the other party answered the phone, she went straight to the point: "The area of this main building is larger than I imagined. None of the lights inside turn on. After entering, there are several rows of shoe cabinets, and after passing through them, there is a horizontal corridor. There's a schematic diagram of the floor on the wall. I'm temporarily on the first floor and plan to search each floor, from 1F all the way to the rooftop, going into every door to take a look. I haven't encountered anything unusual yet. What's the situation on your side?"

It was the first time Feng Bujue had heard her say so much in one breath, and he was a little unaccustomed to it. However, he also understood that the one-minute call time was precious, and Si Yu was likely holding the phone to her ear with one hand while carrying the lantern with the other. It would be dangerous if she were attacked at such a moment; there wouldn't even be time to grab a weapon.

So, Feng Bujue followed her lead and replied quickly, "I found a well, which should be the place referred to in the first sentence. I'm just about to study it." He paused for a second. "I'll briefly explain the earlier rhyme. The second sentence refers to the 'Thirteenth Step' ghost story. I've looked at it. There are three relatively tall buildings on campus, with the main building being the tallest, having seven floors plus a rooftop. I estimate there's a high probability you'll trigger this plot when you go upstairs. Remember to count the number of steps. If you find thirteen steps when going up to a certain floor, it means you've entered a space filled with ghosts.

"The third sentence should refer to the toilet. If you hear a constant dripping sound coming from a certain toilet, then it's very likely..."

*Dū—dū—dū—*

Short, rapid busy signals sounded continuously. The one-minute call time had passed, and their first call had ended just like that. The next time would be fifteen minutes later, when Si Yu would call Feng Bujue's phone.

Although Feng Bujue hadn't finished speaking, he could only go that far. Actually, his reminders were a bit superfluous because Si Yu had heard about the story of the thirteenth step, and she also remembered the content of the earlier rhyme pretty well. In terms of combat ability, Feng Bujue was a little too worried about her. He should be worried about himself.

Taking the phone away from his ear, he looked at the screen and tried dialing again. This time, the text that refreshed on the screen was: 【Time not yet reached, your next dialing time should be 40:00-40:45】

"Hmm… I seem to understand the meaning of this kind of call a bit." Feng Bujue thought to himself, "A one-minute call time isn't enough to say much at all. The main purpose of this contact isn't to let players help each other, but to drag each other down…"

He was indeed right… The system generated this kind of setting because it was facing two players with very strong individual abilities. With the strength of these two, even separating them wouldn't create unbearable pressure.

However… the emotions of worrying about their teammates could become their burden.

First, they were clearly told that they couldn't travel together, and even if they encountered each other, they couldn't communicate. And they had to call each other every once in a while; the person who failed to dial the other party's number, or the person who didn't answer in time, would be chased by a ghost.

One could imagine that after the time arrived, if one of them didn't receive the call that the other should have made, or if they dialed the number but the other party didn't answer, the person would inevitably feel worried and would definitely think about why the other party hadn't made the call. Did they miss the dialing time? Or did they encounter some misfortune? Also… could their teammate handle the ghost chasing that was about to happen?

Although the team menu in the game showed whether a teammate was alive, it wouldn't change anything because survival was the only information the menu could provide. As for other things, such as whether they were injured, where they were, what their fear value was, and so on, nothing was known. Even if one person had their leg sawn off by a ghost and was locked in a locker bleeding, the other person couldn't provide assistance. The person who wasn't being chased could only let their imagination run wild, feeling uneasy, and eventually make mistakes due to the influence of this kind of emotion.

So… this kind of setting was actually worse than nothing. It would be better to simply stipulate that they couldn't call or meet at all. It would be more worry-free for the two of them to solo.

…………

Because the phone couldn't be put into the knapsack, and the pockets on the newbie outfit were deliberately designed to be too shallow to hold anything, Feng Bujue could only helplessly hold the phone in his hand all the time.

Although he didn't know if it would be useful, he took out the pipe wrench and held it in his other hand, slowly approaching the well. He walked steadily, his nerves tense. If he triggered some flag, he would definitely be able to react in the first instant.

The surrounding air suddenly became cold. Just as Feng Bujue approached within two or three meters of the well opening, a groaning voice came intermittently from below: "Save… save… me…"

After the voice sounded, the scene before Feng Bujue's eyes actually changed. In an instant, the night turned into dusk.

And next to him, there was a short, thin boy wearing a school uniform and glasses. Three guys who looked like delinquents surrounded him, chattering and saying something, occasionally knocking the boy's head or shoving him.

"A re-enactment of a death scene?" Feng Bujue said, walking over and reaching out to try. Sure enough, his arm was like air, passing through the bodies of the people in front of him completely; he couldn't touch them at all.

So, he patiently watched to see what happened next.

Actually, there wasn't anything special. It was just a simple case of extortion, but the boy said that he didn't have any money anymore, saying a few words meekly. The delinquents were naturally very dissatisfied, and the boy quickly took a punch to the stomach, squatting down in pain, and then being kicked and beaten again.

After beating him like this for a while, the three seemed to have a new idea, dragging him to the well. One of them grabbed the back of the boy's collar, suspending his upper body over the well, while the other two grabbed one of his legs each, holding them at almost the same height as the well railing.

The boy was naturally very scared, grabbing wildly with both hands and shouting for them to stop, but the three seemed to not care, instead laughing loudly. This continued for less than a minute before the tragedy happened. The boy fell down, his life or death unknown.

The three delinquents were a little scared at this time, saying a few self-deceiving lines: "I… I didn't want to let go… He… He moved around himself and… and fell, right… right?"

"Ah… Yes… Yes, it's this guy who wasn't careful himself…"

Just like that, they left the boy behind without calling for help, and left directly.

The next second, all these illusions disappeared.

It was still the cold night, and Feng Bujue was still standing two or three meters away from that dry well, without having moved a single step. He specifically looked at his phone again; the time hadn't even passed when those things happened.

"Save me…" That voice sounded again.

Feng Bujue took a deep breath and leaned closer to the well opening.

…………

At the same time, in the main building.

In a certain faculty office, Si Yu found a clipped newspaper article on a desk. This piece of paper was very conspicuous, and the content had been marked with a pen, highlighting several keywords, one of which was the name of the school—Ye Jie High School. And the main content of the article was about a dry well in the school:

In Heisei 6 (1994), a high school student named Tanaka Satoshi was found dead in the dry well of Ye Jie High School. At the time, the police investigation result was "accident," but there was also a rumor in the school that Tanaka might have committed suicide by jumping into the well due to being bullied.

A week later, the three boys who often bullied Tanaka left home one after another on the same night and were subsequently declared missing. In the end, their bodies were all found in the dry well.

This time, although the police paid great attention to the case, they were ultimately unable to find any "culprit," and the case could only be closed without a resolution.

"Tanaka's vengeful spirit has returned to take revenge," such a saying quickly spread among the students.

In Heisei 7 (1995), another boy, Sakagami Yuichi, fell into the well and died. When examining the body, it was discovered that in addition to the injuries caused by the fall, there were also many strange bite marks on the deceased's body. Those tooth marks came from at least four different people.

Sakagami was a well-known bully in the school during his lifetime. His friends provided the police with statements saying that they were smoking nearby that day, and Sakagami said he seemed to hear a cry of "Save me," but his friends didn't hear anything and thought Sakagami was joking, so they went home alone.

In the winter of the same year, two local bōsōzoku (Japanese biker gang) members were found dead in the well. Their bodies also had more bite marks, and all the fingers on both hands of the two deceased were bitten off and could not be found.

In Heisei 8 (1996), the school sealed the well opening with cement, and the following two years passed peacefully.

In Heisei 10 (1998), the cement cover of the well opening developed cracks for unknown reasons.

In the summer of the same year, three students in the school went missing one after another. On the tenth day after the first student went missing, a severe stench emanated from the cracks in the school's well opening. The school was forced to break open the cement and found three more corpses in the well. The bodies were all severely damaged to varying degrees. Except for the head, the other parts were all fragmented.

Rumors spread among the teachers and students once again: "If you hear the cries for help from the vengeful spirit in the well, do not look inside, or you will be dragged down."