"Yueyue, are you coming down for dinner?"
Nan Yue looked at Chi He as he poked his head out, raising an eyebrow. "You didn't go into the city?"
Chi He laughed. "What city? The bus is just a loop. I came back ages ago."
This was unexpected, but it aligned with Nan Yue's earlier suspicions about the mission map. "What about the others?"
Chi He shrugged. "They're probably still trying. They don't think the mission would just give them a useless bus route for no reason."
Nan Yue said nothing. Given the poor soundproofing of the building, Chi He must have overheard her conversation with Li Ge.
"It looks like your corresponding neighbor is Li Ge."
Sure enough, while waiting for the elevator, Chi He mentioned it as if in passing. "Then mine should be that old woman."
Nan Yue glanced at him. "You saw her today?"
Chi He nodded. "I did. She gave me a huge glare and ignored me."
One person corresponding to one neighbor...
Nan Yue felt it might not be that simple.
Except for Pu Kun and Lu Li, everyone else had returned for dinner.
"Why isn't Zhang Ping coming to eat again?"
Luo Feifei had also returned early that afternoon, though no one knew what she had been doing in her room. Hearing her speak, the others realized someone was missing.
Nan Yue put down her phone. "Let's go check on her after dinner. She hasn't replied to my messages."
Luo Feifei shook her head. "That woman is always causing trouble."
However, when they arrived at Zhang Ping's room and called out for a long time without an answer, they realized something might be wrong.
Gu Xiang Kai kicked the door open, and the scene inside silenced everyone.
The room was a mess, with rice scattered everywhere. At a glance, the white grains looked like a sea of insect eggs.
Zhang Ping was lying on the floor, her mouth wide open and her eyes bulging. She had clearly been dead for some time.
What was truly horrifying was that Zhang Ping's mouth was stuffed full of rice, making the corpse look incredibly grotesque.
"How could this happen..."
Zhang Qingyang was panicking. It was only the second day, and Zhang Ping had barely left her room. How could she be dead?
Nan Yue stepped forward to examine the body, as forensic examination was a required subject for them.
Zhang Ping's death was clearly agonizing. The corners of her mouth were torn, and blood was mixed with the rice in a gruesome red and white mess.
She had obviously been in a state of extreme panic when she died, with pain and despair still lingering in her eyes.
Nan Yue's gaze shifted to Zhang Ping's body. Her stomach seemed to have swollen...
Gu Xiang Kai clearly noticed this as well. He reached out and pressed on Zhang Ping's abdomen, and in the next second, a massive amount of rice erupted from her mouth.
Nan Yue had the foresight to stand far back before Gu Xiang Kai moved, so not a single grain of the spraying rice touched her.
The others were more or less splashed. Cries of disgust filled the room as Gu Xiang Kai shook his sleeves with a grimace, casting a subtle glance toward Nan Yue.
Nan Yue maintained an innocent expression.
Luo Feifei's face was dark. "So she was stuffed to death with rice."
Zhang Qingyang asked in a panic, "Why? What did she do? Did any of you see her today?"
Nan Yue sighed and recounted their meeting at noon in detail.
Zhang Qingyang said urgently, "Then she must have wasted food! She didn't finish it, right?"
The others agreed. This rule was very prominent, and Zhang Ping's strange death seemed to match it perfectly.
"Then she has no one to blame but herself. The hints were so clear."
Luo Feifei felt a sense of relief. If that was the cause, they just had to be careful. Zhang Ping had been restless since they arrived, and her psychological value had clearly dropped. It was normal for her to make such a mistake.
"No,"
Nan Yue suddenly spoke up. "She ate everything."
The others looked over. Nan Yue pursed her lips. "She even ate the chili peppers."
While Zhang Ping's psychological value was unstable, she wasn't stupid. She knew the explicit rules were the most helpful hints. Someone who couldn't even follow those wouldn't have become a Scavenger.
"Then..."
Nan Yue looked toward a corner of the room. "I think she did violate the rule about not wasting food, but it wasn't during lunch."
Zhang Qingyang already disliked Nan Yue, and now he felt she was just being cryptic for the sake of it.
"What are you talking about? A newcomer shouldn't try to act all profound here!"
Nan Yue's train of thought was interrupted. She frowned and walked up to Zhang Qingyang.
For some reason, it was only when the seemingly delicate girl stood right in front of him that Zhang Qingyang realized Nan Yue wasn't as easy to bully as she looked.
Standing at 1.7 meters, her presence felt as imposing as someone much taller. More importantly, when her usually downcast eyes suddenly fixed on him, he felt a surge of extreme horror.
It was as if he were being watched by an immense danger, one that didn't even seem to come from a living creature, but rather something more primordial and hidden.
The hair on his neck stood up, and his heart pounded wildly as his body tried to scream a warning, but Zhang Qingyang couldn't move.
His body had gone stiff with terror, refusing to obey him.
"I may be a newcomer, but I'm not someone anyone can just push around."
Nan Yue gave a cold smile. "The next time you try to treat me like an easy target, I won't mind giving a bully like you a lesson he won't forget."
Zhang Qingyang's face turned pale as cold sweat poured down. He nodded frantically, and only then did Nan Yue give him a strange look before letting him go.
Turning around, she found the once noisy room had gone silent. Everyone else was staring at her, the fear in their eyes not yet dissipated.
Strange.
Nan Yue touched her ear. Was she really that scary?
She just wanted to intimidate Zhang Qingyang so he would stop targeting her. She wouldn't actually do anything to him.
Was there really a need for everyone to look like they had seen a ghost?
Gu Xiang Kai moved his stiff shoulders. He had always known Nan Yue wasn't a simple newcomer, but he hadn't expected the pressure she unintentionally released to be so terrifying.
He knew Nan Yue just wanted to scare the man, but she might not even realize that the sense of dread leaking from her just now was more frightening than any mission boss he had ever encountered.
Was it an illusion?
Gu Xiang Kai shrugged. It must be. After all, there was a corpse right next to them.
The thick-skinned Gu Xiang Kai found an excuse and pushed aside the instinctive animal fear he had just felt, breaking the silence in the room.
"Why do you think she violated the rule later? Other than lunch, she shouldn't have had any opportunity to eat."
Gu Xiang Kai didn't believe someone as high-strung as Zhang Ping would be eating snacks in her room.
Nan Yue's eyes shifted as she pointed to the corner of the room.
"Because that thing... shouldn't have been in Zhang Ping's room."
"Someone must have brought it here."
Everyone turned around. In the corner of the room stood a large stainless steel bucket.
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