The dim yellow streetlamp cast a faint glow, illuminating the library’s open doors and the ground in front of them.

The three corpses that had been lying at the entrance… were gone.

Inside the library, everything had fallen into absolute silence. The stillness was so heavy it felt as if the drop of a pin could be heard. Everyone’s heart tightened, cold sweat continuously forming on their backs. No one even dared to breathe loudly.

Why had the door opened?

And where had those three bodies gone?

Han Yi stood at the very front without moving an inch. His sharp gaze swept across the surroundings, while his right hand instinctively rested against the item at his waist.

Ready for any sudden movement.

Su Xiao’s face had turned deathly pale. Sweat had formed on her forehead. She stared at the opened door, her voice trembling with barely concealed suspicion and fear.

"Just now the door clearly wouldn’t open, but now it suddenly did. Could it be… a trap?"

As soon as Su Xiao said this, the others also felt it made sense. The players who had originally intended to approach the door immediately stopped.

A wide open door.

Disappeared corpses.

It really did look like bait meant to lure them to their deaths.

"Staying trapped here forever isn’t a solution."

Lin Zhou was the first to break the silence. "We’ve already checked the surveillance. Instead of wasting time here waiting to die, we might as well gamble and go outside."

Even though he said that, no one dared to take the first step.

The shadow of death hung above their heads. No one knew what would happen the moment they stepped out. There was no one who wasn’t afraid of dying.

Han Yi was not surprised by this reaction at all. A trace of ridicule flashed through his eyes, almost impossible to detect. Without hesitation, he lifted his foot and walked toward the library entrance.

There was clearly something strange about this library. Staying here was no different from courting death.

Going outside might offer a sliver of hope.

Lin Zhou and Su Xiao exchanged a glance and immediately followed him. In a dungeon, players did not necessarily need to stick together. Whether someone survived had always depended on luck and strength.

Besides Lin Zhou and Su Xiao, another player with very little presence also quickly followed.

But that player’s movements were strangely stiff. Each step revealed an indescribable lack of coordination in his limbs. If one looked closely, the movement would even seem somewhat eerie.

Unfortunately, the library lights were off. Only the weak glow from the streetlamp outside barely reached inside, far from enough to illuminate the player clearly.

Moreover, everyone present was currently focused on Han Yi walking in front.

No one noticed anything strange.

Very soon Han Yi stepped out of the library. He walked all the way to the streetlamp.

Nothing happened.

Nothing at all.

"Nothing happened?" someone whispered.

Seeing this, the players’ eyes lit up. The tension in their hearts eased slightly, and they hurried forward.

The moment they stepped out of the library entrance, the fear that had been weighing on their hearts instantly lessened.

Everyone let out a breath of relief. Their backs were already soaked with cold sweat. They looked at each other, each seeing fear and lingering dread in the others’ eyes.

Han Yi glanced at the players who had followed behind him. A trace of impatience flashed through his eyes, but in the end he said nothing.

Because of the recent suicide incident, there were no students left in the library study room. The entire campus was extremely quiet.

So quiet it felt as though no one existed there at all.

Su Xiao looked toward Han Yi and Lin Zhou, clearly treating the two of them as the leaders.

"What do we do now?"

"We only know that the person who stole the photos is the key," she said. "But we don’t even know who that person is. Where are we supposed to find them?"

Third University was enormous. And it was already the middle of the night. Searching blindly was simply impossible.

Lin Zhou thought for a moment before speaking slowly.

"Everyone check the forum again. Since the post about Yang Ruiqing dating multiple people is still pinned on the front page, there must be plenty of students discussing it. Someone is bound to know the truth."

The others felt that made sense. They immediately took out their phones and began scrolling.

No one noticed that the player standing at the very back of the group had tilted his head at a strange angle.

His empty eyes lacked any focus.

Yet they stared fixedly in a certain direction.

That direction…

was Yang Ruiqing’s dormitory.

A stiff, eerie smile hung on the player’s lips. He slowly lifted his foot and began moving silently toward that direction.

His footsteps were so light they made no sound at all.

But after only a few steps, Han Yi suddenly raised his head. His sharp gaze landed on him.

Han Yi frowned.

"Where are you going?"

The player froze abruptly.

The stiffness in his body became even more obvious. His limbs remained in the awkward position of mid step.

The sight was so strange it made one’s scalp crawl.

Han Yi was not particularly close, and because of the angle he had not seen the exact posture. Still, he instinctively felt something about the man was wrong.

Just as he was about to speak again, Su Xiao’s cry of surprise interrupted him.

The excitement in her voice was impossible to hide.

"I found it! I think I found Yang Ruiqing’s dormitory information! It’s in the Finance Department dorm building. It even lists the exact room number!"

"There must be clues in his dorm!"

Lin Zhou immediately made a decision.

"Let’s go. We’ll check Yang Ruiqing’s dorm first."

Han Yi said nothing further. Finding clues was the most important thing right now.

The group immediately changed direction and headed toward the Finance Department dormitory building.

The stiff player slowly lowered his raised foot and returned to the group, walking along with them toward Yang Ruiqing’s dorm.

Still no one noticed anything strange.

At the same time.

Wen Ruyu was currently sitting inside Yang Ruiqing’s dormitory.

He was holding that book in his arms. His delicate face looked somewhat pale. His long eyelashes hung low, and his entire figure appeared slightly dazed.

A faint aura of sorrow seemed to linger around him.

As if Yang Ruiqing’s death had dealt him a heavy blow.

Wei Jiayu stood nearby, watching him like this. A complicated emotion rose in his heart.

Naturally, he could understand it.

This person liked Yang Ruiqing so much. Of course he could not accept Yang Ruiqing’s death.

As Yang Ruiqing’s friend, he should feel the same.

But while he felt sorrow…

a strange hint of delight also appeared in the depths of his heart.

Yang Ruiqing was dead.

The person Wen Ruyu loved was gone.

Did that mean…

he now had a chance?

Wei Jiayu was startled by his own dark thoughts. He felt as if something inside him had turned rotten.

Yet that faint sense of delight refused to disappear.

Neither could he suppress the dark thoughts growing in his mind.

They spread wildly like weeds.

Growing so fast they were almost driving him mad.

Wei Jiayu forced himself not to think about it. He turned around, poured a cup of warm water, and gently placed it on the table in front of Wen Ruyu.

His voice was hoarse as he spoke in a soothing tone.

"Drink some water first."

Wen Ruyu merely lowered his eyes and glanced at it.

His long eyelashes trembled slightly.

He continued hugging the book without moving.

He said nothing.

It was not that he was immersed in grief.

He was checking the dungeon information inside his mind.

The dungeon had already formed.

His identity as a Special Player was now invalid.

At this moment, he was no different from an ordinary player.

The only difference was that he was still using the original host’s identity.

And he knew more than the others.

Although Wen Ruyu held little hope, his gaze still immediately fell on the dungeon level.

Yang Ruiqing had indeed died, but that did not necessarily mean Wen Ruyu’s mission had failed.

As long as the dungeon level had decreased, it would still count as success.

However, the moment he saw the dungeon level, his entire body froze.

Even his eyelashes stopped mid blink.

Dungeon Level: S Rank.

S Rank?

Wasn’t this dungeon originally A Rank?

Wen Ruyu felt uncertain. He hesitated before speaking in his mind.

"System, wasn’t this dungeon A Rank before?"

Had he remembered it wrong?

"Dear customer, yes it was."

System 099’s voice was as enthusiastic as ever.

So enthusiastic that it sounded slightly irritating.

"Previously it was indeed an A Rank dungeon. But thanks to your tireless efforts, it has successfully upgraded to S Rank."

Wen Ruyu: "…?"

"Wonderful job!"

System 099’s praise sounded extremely sincere.

But in Wen Ruyu’s ears, it was unbearably grating.

It sounded like mockery.

As if all his efforts had become a joke.

In reality, System 099 was not mocking him this time.

Ever since the Special Player mechanism had been introduced into the game, not a single person had successfully lowered a dungeon’s difficulty.

And no one had ever managed to increase a dungeon’s difficulty either.

An A Rank dungeon upgrading to S Rank was almost impossible.

Such an upgrade usually required a world shaking change.

It was several times harder than lowering the difficulty.

But had anything actually changed in this dungeon?

Aside from Yang Ruiqing dying in a different location, nothing else seemed different.

Was it just coincidence?

Wen Ruyu had no idea what the system was thinking.

Since lowering the dungeon difficulty had failed, that path was no longer viable.

Only one option remained.

Breaking the dungeon’s zero percent clear rate.

He knew quite a few clues. If he told the players everything, perhaps they could survive and clear the dungeon.

But the next moment, when his gaze fell on the dungeon task progress, he realized how naive he had been.

Dungeon Task: Discover the truth behind Yang Ruiqing’s death
Current Progress: 14 / 100

Wen Ruyu’s eyes widened in disbelief.

Even breathing became difficult.

He knew so much… yet it only counted as fourteen percent?

That meant the information he possessed was not important at all.

Yang Ruiqing’s death might not even be closely related to the original host.

Wen Ruyu tightened his grip on the book. His pale fingertips turned white from the force, but he seemed not to notice.

A dungeon with a zero percent clear rate really was not that simple.

Wen Ruyu suddenly paused.

As if he had thought of something.

He asked hesitantly in his mind.

"System, I’m also a player now. If I clear the dungeon, does that count?"

"Dear customer, of course it counts."

System 099’s sweet and enthusiastic voice responded immediately.

"As long as even one player successfully leaves the dungeon alive, whether it is a normal player or a Special Player like you, it counts as breaking the zero percent clear rate."

Wen Ruyu said nothing more after hearing that.

He lowered his gaze to the clear conditions.

A Rank Clear: Resolve Yang Ruiqing’s resentment.

B Rank Clear: Find the mastermind who killed Yang Ruiqing.

C Rank Clear: Survive for seven days.

Even though Wen Ruyu had entered the dungeon earlier than everyone else, he had no clues for the first two methods.

He had not even found the slightest trace of the mastermind.

The third method seemed far more suitable.

As long as he found a safe place to hide, surviving for seven days might not be impossible.

Just as Wen Ruyu was thinking about which place might be safe—

a knock suddenly sounded on the dormitory door.

Urgent.

Abrupt.

"Knock knock knock."

"Knock knock knock."

Chapter 30

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