Chapter 29: Unexpected

The weekend passed, and early Monday morning, Zhang Xiaofan arrived at the classroom ahead of schedule. He saw Su Qianqian and Lin Rou already back in their seats, chatting away about their weekend activities and occasionally bursting into silvery laughter.

Seeing Zhang Xiaofan enter the classroom, the two girls immediately gravitated toward him.

"Xiaofan, how did your errand go? You have no idea, we went to the amusement park this weekend, and it was so much fun! We rode the rollercoaster at least a dozen times!" Lin Rou said excitedly.

Su Qianqian chimed in with a smile, "We went bungee jumping too, jumped more than ten times! Oh, it's just a shame the platform was too low, not thrilling enough at all."

Good grief!

Zhang Xiaofan’s jaw dropped in disbelief. It was hard to imagine that these two girls actually enjoyed such extreme rides.

And damn it, they went bungee jumping and complained it wasn't thrilling enough! Simply mind-boggling!

He was increasingly feeling that these two girls had undergone drastic personality changes and were acting somewhat abnormal.

Gathering his thoughts, he asked, "Let me ask you two—did you tell anyone about me going to Hundred Flowers Village?"

Lin Rou and Su Qianqian shook their heads in unison.

"You told us not to tell anyone, so I didn't," Su Qianqian said with wide eyes.

"I didn't say a word, Xiaofan. Why do you ask?" Lin Rou said.

"Oh, nothing much." Zhang Xiaofan smiled. At that moment, a female student exclaimed, "So many people suddenly joined the group chat!"

"What? Let me check."

"Li Yunfeng, Tai Yong? What the hell, why did everyone from Class 1-6 join?"

A notification chime rang out sharply from a phone.

Ding!

Bao Lei: "Classmates, welcome the students of Class 1-6 to our red envelope group. Let's welcome them."

Wang Hu: "Morons!"

Zhou Jian: "What are the people from Class 1-6 doing here?"

Li Yunfeng: "You think we wanted to come?"

Tai Yong: "Alright, we're all victims of this red envelope group anyway, let's not fight among ourselves."

Jiang Gang: "Hello everyone, I'm Jiang Gang, in charge of the gaming activities for Class 1-6."

Seeing this name, Zhang Xiaofan frowned. This was the student who had committed suicide in the cafeteria—the first person from Class 1-6 to die from playing the game. Just like Bao Lei, after death, he had become a game publisher.

"Cut to the chase, what are we playing today?" a student posted in the chat.

Bao Lei: "Recently, Jiang Gang and I have some matters to attend to. Therefore, future games will be published by someone from your two classes, and my phone will be handed over to that person."

"Getting your phone... does that mean we can publish games and punish students?" a female student asked in astonishment.

Bao Lei: "Correct."

Upon receiving this confirmation, a male student immediately typed: "What? Haha, give it to me quickly!"

"No, give it to me!"

Wang Hu: "Damn it, nobody is allowed to snatch it from me. It's mine."

In an instant, the students descended into chaos. After all, faced with the temptation of a phone capable of publishing death games, no one could resist.

This phone represented power. For instance, if you found someone an eyesore, you could force them to play a death game, and watching them die would be more satisfying than anything else.

Many people began to grow suspicious, casting wary glances at students with whom they had past grievances, terrified that their enemies might seize the phone.

"Everyone, stop arguing! If anyone gets the phone this time, I suggest we hand it over," Zhang Xiaofan blurted out anxiously.

Cold sweat beaded on his forehead. If Bao Lei continued to publish the games, there would at least be a pattern to follow, and she would usually leave a sliver of hope for survival. But if the students themselves started publishing...

He dared not imagine it! Bao Lei's move this time truly caught him off guard.

"Right, whoever grabs the phone has to turn it over," Hu Xiaotian chimed in.

The students naturally echoed the sentiment, but Zhang Xiaofan acutely noticed that several male students had shifty eyes, their gazes even glittering with excitement.

A few female students also wore ecstatic expressions, casting glowing looks toward Murong Feng. Without even guessing, he knew that if they got the phone, they would undoubtedly issue game tasks designed to force Murong Feng into falling in love with them.

Zhang Xiaofan realized that everyone had gone completely mad.

Ding!

Bao Lei: "It seems the students are very enthusiastic. However, this time it won't just be handed to anyone casually. Next, I will send a red envelope. Whoever grabs the highest amount—the Lucky King—gets the phone."

Zhang Xiaofan quickly typed: "Then what are you two going to do?"

He asked this because he wanted to figure out what Bao Lei and Jiang Gang were really up to.

Bao Lei: "I already said, Jiang Gang and I have matters to attend to."

A thought stirred in Zhang Xiaofan's mind. Matters to attend to? Could it really be as Li Qingshan claimed—that Bao Lei and Jiang Gang were actually being controlled by Li Ting, and because Li Ting was injured, she was temporarily unable to control this place?

Yet, lingering doubts remained in his heart. This alone wasn't enough to definitively prove that Li Ting was the mastermind behind the scenes, because the game could still be published; it was simply being delegated to one of the students.

Shortly after, Bao Lei sent out a massive red envelope. Since the headcounts of both classes were combined, the group now had over eighty people, making the red envelope substantial—worth twenty thousand netherworld coins.

Everyone scrambled to grab a share, silently chanting to themselves: "Lucky King, Lucky King..."

"What the hell, such a tiny amount of netherworld coins."

"Damn it, my luck sucks, I'm not the Lucky King."

Everyone wailed and shouted. As the red envelope grabbing ended, the amounts won by each individual instantly vanished.

Zhang Xiaofan glanced at his phone screen; he had only received a few hundred netherworld coins, and the amount quickly disappeared. This meant the identity of the Lucky King had been concealed.

"Hey, whoever won the Lucky King, hand over the phone!" Wang Hu stood up and shouted.

Yet the students merely exchanged blank stares; not a single person confessed.

Ding!

Bao Lei: "The student who won the Lucky King must publish at least one game task every day, or else you die! You can choose easy, or you can choose difficult; the life and death of the students in your class are entirely in your hands. Well then, Jiang Gang and I are going offline."

"Hey, then who is going to send red envelopes from now on?"

"That's right, playing games should at least come with red envelope rewards, right?" Students repeatedly tagged Bao Lei, but received no response whatsoever.

Back in the classroom, chaos reigned. "Whoever got the Lucky King, don't make the games too difficult, okay?"

"I think we should pool some money together. Whoever got the Lucky King, just hand over the phone."

"Are you an idiot? You have to publish a game every day. If you don't play the game, the Lucky King dies."

The students chattered endlessly in discussion. Before long, someone suggested, "Hey, do you think those scum from Class 1-6 might have grabbed it?"

"Definitely! Our class is so united; if one of us had won it, we definitely would have handed it over."

"Let's go, let's head over to Class 1-6," someone proposed.

Quite a few people echoed the suggestion. However, just as they reached the door, they saw Li Yunfeng and Tai Yong leading a group of people marching in. Their faces were gloomy, and several of them still bore injuries—remnants of the wounds sustained previously in Silent Village.

The relationship between the two classes was already strained, and meeting now only fueled their mutual hostility. In a split second, the two factions squared off against each other.

"Hey, Li Yunfeng, what are you bringing your people over here for? What, looking for a fight?" Wang Hu demanded aggressively.