"Let's help her down."
When Ye Delun arrived in the main hallway, everyone else had already gathered. And as expected for most of them, Duan Li was hanging from the ceiling.
"What a long ass rope..." Besides him, Kang Maixiu watched as her body swung back and forth. "Is it directly connected to the ceiling?"
"More than likely." Standing over a table, Xiang Tingfeng seemed way too calm. He reached his arms up as high as he could get and cut at the rope with the knife Shen Lin had given him. His abnormally stiff expression matched Kang Maixiu's perfectly, Ye Delun realized that maybe they weren't as different as he thought.
"Ye Delun? Are you alright, you look a little pale?" Yang Lan walked to his side and put her hand on his shoulder. "I am?" He asked. He lifted his hands and checked his completion. Yang Lan reassuringly rubbed his back as Ye Delun looked confusingly at her.
Yang Lan looked back down at the message from the system in front of her.
[The character 'Ye Delun' is heavily disturbed by the sight of the character 'Duan Li' and is seeking comfort!]
"Yeah, you looked a little freaked for a moment. I thought since we're both inexperienced with things like this, we could comfort each other." She sent him a goofy smile, to which Ye Delun only responded with a blank stare before he polity wiped off her hand. He turned back and looked at the hanging corpse, and felt himself grimace. "I'm alright, I just don't think I like this scene."
A hanging corpse that swayed on its own weight, with its neck cracked and bruised. The limp form lacked life as it relaxed too much for his liking. Briefly, someone else's voice entered his mind saying "Rabbit and the wolf, remember?"
And another voice would respond, "Yeah! The rabbit runs and burrows itself into its hole to run away from the bad wolf!"
"Right, right. Now shhh, or else the wolf will find you."
Ye Delun could almost feel the familiar feeling of hardwood and the smell of mothballs.
He heard Yang Lan talk again, "Scene?" She asked. Yet Kang Maixiu spoke ahead of her. "It's only natural for someone to not like seeing a dead body. It would be more suspicious if he didn't react at all."
"Alright, then what about you and Xiang Tingfeng? Seems pretty hypocritical to say that when you haven't flinched at anything since you came here." She responded in Ye Delun's defense.
"I'm a medical student, It's only logical if I get used to it at some point." Kang Maixiu bluntly responded, as if it was obvious.
Annoyed by his uncompliant behavior, Yang Lan's voice rose. "Being a medical student doesn't take away your feelings!"
"Well, maybe that's what it takes to make it out of here alive. And I'm willing to accept that exchanging that empathy would give me a better chance at survival. And if anything was hypocritical, it would be you. Seeing that you lost the sparkling dog that used to follow you around and you haven't reacted at all."
"Maixiu..." Xiang Tingfeng mumbled. Kang Maixiu twisted his head to look at him. Upon seeing his expression, Kang Maixiu cooled down and took a deep breath. "Apologies, I shouldn't have said something so low." He said. He gave one more look at the dazed Ye Delun before heading towards Xiang Tingfeng.
Yang Lan awkwardly glanced at Ye Delun thinking that he was judging her based on what Kang Maixiu had said but saw how the boy didn't seem to be paying any attention. "Ye Delun? Are you sure you're alright?" She said as she tapped his shoulder. "I'm sorry you needed to hear that, I didn't mean to get riled up."
Ye Delun stayed silent as he watched them move Duan Li's body to the ground. His mind, which was occupied with his thoughts, mindlessly followed along with everyone.
"Let's just not go to our rooms when this is over. We'll stay here together." Shen Lin said. Her resolute voice brought Ye Delun back to the present. Everyone was seated on the sofas with a dark cloud covering them.
"They probably want us to go back for some reason. I bet that in order to get sent back, we have to be in our rooms." Yin Meng silently twirled the knife he had finally revealed from his pocket. Ye Delun noted that he was using the arm on the side with his stab wound, which had no sign of being there anymore.
"Are you saying that you want to get stuck here? What if that monster comes out at night, wouldn't that endanger everyone?" Yang Lan said her concerns.
"No one's asking you to stay, I'm just saying that we should try this next." Shen Lin said, causing Yang Lan to be quiet.
They sat in silence for a moment, before Shen Lin enthusiastically sat up. "Well then, we might as well search for some supplies. We need to need someone to find blankets, another to search for some food, and another to sort through this furniture." She motioned to the sofas they were sitting on. "Xiang Tingfeng, you and someone else can stay here. You would have the easiest time moving the stuff. Everyone else, group together and head out."
As expected, a message appeared in front of Ye Delun.
[Choice! Choice!]
[Choose who you want to partner with and what you want to do!]
He waited for a moment for the rest of the delayed message to appear, but it didn't. His screen seemed to freeze and distort. And another familiar message appeared and a screeching sound went off.
[ErRoR eRrOr]
[ErRoR eRrOr]
[SYSTEM ERROR]
[A File System Error has occurred, please wait patiently as we work through this problem :)]
The sound stopped and Ye Delun slowly removed his hands from his ears. The group of people gave him strange looks and he awkwardly put his hands back at his side.
"Ye Delun?" Yang Lan said at his side.
"Um, yeah?" Ye Delun said, a little emmbaresed.
"Do you want to partner up with me? I was going to go see if there's a kitchen with food." She asked as she twisted the drawstring to her dress.
['Yang Lan' has chosen you as her partner, congratulations!]
[+20]
Ye Delun realized that's why the system ended up messing up. Yang Lan, who was the real female lead, also had a choice. And she ended up choosing him.
'But do they really need to blast my ears out?'