Global Collapse-Chapter 671 - 638: Damn, I Almost Stood Someone Up_2

Actually, there was no need to look for the phone anymore. They all knew the answer in their hearts. They didn't want to pay with their lives for an instance. Right now, they were just delaying, delaying the arrival of the final judgment.

"Actually, this instance doesn't have an absolute death mechanism," Ye Qianqian mumbled to herself. "If we find Liu Ben innocent, the ghost will come to kill us immediately... But what if we manage to survive until the court adjourns? As long as we leave the court alive, we can leave the instance immediately..."

Ye Weiwei's voice came through, "But we can't hold on."

Ye Qianqian fell silent, searching the bookshelves. Suddenly, an old cell phone caught her eye. A picture of a boy was stuck to its back.

She shifted her gaze to the name next to the picture: Liu Ben.

"Sis," Ye Qianqian instantly picked up the phone from the shelf, "I found it."

Found it? Ye Weiwei stopped searching and walked over.

It was a very old gray cell phone. The edges of the casing were chipped and scratched, evidence that it had been dropped countless times. Due to long-term use, the phone screen was slightly separating from the body. A few cracks spread from a shattered corner to the entire screen, and on that shattered corner was a small piece of transparent tape. The tape looked quite old, and some dust had accumulated beside it.

Ye Qianqian quickly pressed the home button.

The phone lit up; it still had battery.

Liu Ben's phone wasn't locked; she saw the apps page with a slight swipe of her finger.

There were no unnecessary apps on the home screen, and she quickly spotted the photo album.

"I guess Liu Ben might have discovered something in the school. He either took photos or recorded it. Let's look at his album first," Ye Qianqian said as she tapped on the photo album app.

The phone had been used for so long it lagged when she tapped the screen. It took three seconds for the phone to respond to Ye Qianqian's tap and slowly open the album.

The first item at the top of the album was a video.

Judging by the video thumbnail, it looked like a corridor in a student dormitory. Furthermore, it looked like a recording of a computer's surveillance screen.

The two exchanged a hesitant glance, then clicked on the video.

The phone lagged for a few seconds again before it slowly started to play the video.

As the two watched the video playing on the phone, their expressions grew increasingly grave. The light from the screen cast their faces in deeper shadow, making them look even more somber.

As the video played, Ye Qianqian bit her lip tighter and tighter until the video ended. Only then did she open her mouth, her eyes red.

She looked at the screen in her hand, seemingly wanting to speak, but no words came out. Finally, her slightly open mouth uttered a single, hoarse word, "Sis..."

"Hmm," Ye Weiwei exhaled in response.

Ye Qianqian tightly held the phone in her hand. "Do we really have to..."

But before she could finish her sentence, she suddenly felt a chill behind her head.

Ye Qianqian's sense of danger had always been sharp. She knew something was behind her.

She shoved Ye Weiwei hard, sending her stumbling away, then turned to flee.

But it was too late.

She felt a pair of icy hands wrap around her neck, and a tremendous force pulled her from behind.

Ye Qianqian fell to the ground, dragged backward by the hands on her neck. Her vision blurred; all she could see was the ceiling with its light fixture and the toppled bookshelf amidst the chaos.

Breathing instantly became difficult.

"Sister!" Vaguely, she heard Ye Weiwei's cry.

Following the sound, she lifted her hand with the last of her strength and threw the phone fiercely away from her.

"Sister!" Ye Weiwei chased after Ye Qianqian, who was being dragged by the ghostly hands, but she couldn't stop it.

She watched as Ye Qianqian was dragged behind the door by the ghostly hands and disappeared.

She knew Ye Qianqian was dead.

Only the phone that Ye Qianqian had thrown with her last strength remained on the ground.

Hearing the commotion, Wang Youcai came rushing over. All he saw was the mess on the floor and Ye Weiwei, phone in hand, tears streaming down her face.

"Ye Qianqian..." Wang Youcai began, taking a step forward. But as he did, he abruptly saw a ghostly hand resting on Ye Weiwei's shoulder.

"Run!" Wang Youcai's voice was strained with urgency.

But it was too late.

He watched in horror as the ghostly hand pulled Ye Weiwei into the collapsed bookshelf behind her.

Ye Weiwei's last action before her demise was to hurl her cell phone, seemingly afraid it would be dragged with her.

CLATTER.

The thrown phone bounced a few times on the ground before landing at Wang Youcai's feet.

He looked down at the cracked phone, cold sweat trickling down his forehead.

By now, he was beginning to understand. The deaths of the two female players were almost certainly connected to this phone. They had found important clues in the phone, and that's why they were killed by the ghost.

They were both protecting this phone with their last breath. Were they trying to pass the evidence to me, the judge? he wondered.

Wang Youcai stared intently at the phone.

If I pick it up, I might die too, he thought.

The room fell into an eerie silence. The only survivor stood silently, his eyes fixed on the phone at his feet.

Finally, he made a choice.

Wang Youcai bent down, picked up the phone from the ground, and swiftly fled the room.

Once he was out of the room, he didn't stop running. Only after about thirty seconds of frantic sprinting did he finally halt, gasping for breath. He slumped down in a corner to examine the phone.

As soon as he turned on the screen, a video was already playing: surveillance footage from a dormitory hallway.

At one end of the corridor were several sinks with a water heater – a place for students to fetch hot water. The camera was positioned in the middle of the hallway, so the other end wasn't visible; it only recorded one section of the corridor.

But that was enough.

Within a few seconds of the video's start, he recognized a familiar figure.

It was Liu Baoma, the same boy whose picture was on the back of the phone.

Liu Baoma was seen carrying several thermoses out of a dorm room. After taking a few steps, someone from the dorm seemed to call him back, and another thermos was thrust into his hands.

Liu Baoma nodded slightly, as if agreeing to something.

From the dorm, another boy emerged, rudely slapped Liu Baoma on the back of the head, and then sauntered back inside.

The slight boy, burdened with five or six thermoses, awkwardly made his way to the water heater, filling each one. He couldn't carry too many full thermoses at once, so it took him several trips to bring all five or six back to the dorm.

Because the recording was playing at high speed, this segment of the video passed quickly. 𝐟𝚛𝕖𝚎𝕨𝗲𝐛𝚗𝐨𝐯𝐞𝕝.𝐜𝗼𝗺

Liu Baoma had barely settled back in his dorm when he was pushed out the door again, a pile of clothes shoved into his arms. He was pushed to the doorway, and when he shook his head, apparently refusing, he received a kick to the stomach.

The frail boy stumbled a few steps from the kick, then silently gathered the clothes and headed to the sinks to wash them by hand.

During this time, several other boys came out of that dorm and tossed more clothes into Liu Baoma's basin. One even threw clothes directly onto the boy's head before walking away, laughing loudly.

Liu Baoma silently scrubbed the clothes in the basin for quite a while.

Then, the group from the dorm, apparently having thought of another prank, tiptoed out of their room. They crept up behind Liu Baoma, who was bent over washing clothes. Suddenly, a tall roommate jumped up and sat squarely on the back of Liu Baoma's head.

Liu Baoma's entire head was forced into the sudsy basin. He flailed his hands, struggling desperately, perhaps even screaming in terror, but the person sitting on his head remained unmoved, laughing wildly, which prompted the other roommates to laugh as well.

The other students in the corridor seemed to be infected by the laughter, clutching their stomachs as they mocked the boy whose head was pressed into the washbasin.

Wang Youcai saw everyone's mouth agape. He could almost hear the frenzied laughter pouring from those hollow openings. The laughter filled the entire corridor, threatening to spill out of the screen.

When he'd had enough fun, the roommate finally jumped off Liu Baoma's head.

The boy at the sink remained motionless. A few seconds later, amidst the jeers, he slowly straightened up and turned to look at the laughing crowd.

He looked at the corridor full of smiling faces, his mouth opened, but no words came out.

After a long moment, Wang Youcai saw a smile appear on the boy's soaking-wet face. It was a forced, despairing smile, one that desperately tried to hide his true feelings.