Raising a Wife in a Supernatural World [Infinite] – CH30

Chapter 30: Spook High (30)

When the flashlight beam struck another deathly pale human face, Qin Fu’an held the circle of light dead center on its features.

Three seconds later, the face—twisted in agony and venomous rancor—slowly dissolved from the white plaster.

Qin Fu’an stepped onto the final stair. The night wind whipped fine flurries of frost against his face, and the hollow corridor groaned with the weeping wails of screeching specters.

He moved forward. The beam fell upon a shut red door bearing a placard with the resident’s title and name.

Instead of investigating right away, Qin Fu’an kept his flashlight raised, checking every single door along the floor until his footsteps finally came to a halt outside the very last one.

The beam dipped straight to the floor, bathing a pair of blood-red high heels in stark, garish relief.

After a few seconds, the light drifted slowly upward.

“Head Proctor.”

Qin Fu’an stared at the empty space where the name should have been, his eyes narrowing slightly.

Under what circumstances would every faculty member—including the principal—have a clear name listed, while this one alone remained a blank void?

In Qin Fu’an’s mind flashed the memory of the first night: the retreating backs of the four players walking away together after asking about Nan Zhu’s disappearance.

A beat later, he lifted a hand and rapped his knuckles against the wooden door in a steady cadence.

Knock, knock—

The sound rode the winter draft down the long hallway, leaving only vast, hollow silence in its wake.

Under the breathless, anxious watch of the livestream viewers, Qin Fu’an reached out and firmly turned the door handle.

Unsurprisingly, the door that should have been locked swung open beneath his palm without the slightest resistance.

The room inside was dark and barren. No living soul, nor any lingering horror.

Qin Fu’an crossed the threshold, the flashlight in his hand sweeping over every corner within sight.

He walked deeper inside, surveying the areas bathed in the beam.

A sharp, pungent scent hung in the air—the stale odor of a space left sealed for ages. The floor and desks were buried beneath a thick layer of dust. As his steps stirred the gray powder into the air, it made the room’s abandoned state all the more obvious.

“Take a guess: where is our Head Proctor right now?” Qin Fu’an remarked with sudden amusement, bantering with his shivering viewers while inspecting the dust-laden items around the room.

[Pass. Please clear the instance yourself, streamer, don’t ask the audience for help (the audience is currently dying of fright from those shoes, thanks).]

[Waaaah, I’m the one who’s terrified! When I saw those shoes just now, every horror movie I’ve ever seen flashed before my eyes!]

[Why isn’t the proctor here? Isn’t this her room? Why does it look like nobody’s lived here in ages?]

[I know, I know—because the proctor is disguised as a player!]

[So that’s it—wait, WHAT?! Why can such a massive spoiler get through the chat filters?! Isn’t the system supposed to ban this??]

[…It’s obvious. The streamer has already figured it out and confirmed it.]

The viewers spamming the chat froze. Once they finally processed this bombshell of a clue, they flooded the screen asking how on earth he had deduced it.

They had been watching the exact same perspective the entire time! Why were they screaming in terror at eerie shadows and creepy faces, while Qin Fu’an was casually piecing together game-breaking deductions from the exact same environment?

Didn’t that make the audience look like absolute NPCs? How rude!

Despite their indignant complaints, the dazzling donation effects cascading down the virtual screen were a feast for the eyes.

Seeing this, Qin Fu’an set aside an old examination schedule he had just unearthed to satisfy the viewers’ burning curiosity.

“Because of the shoes at the door.”

He turned and aimed the flashlight back at the crimson heels, watching with wicked satisfaction as a fresh wave of startled screams rolled through the chat before continuing his explanation: “We know the Head Proctor walks in high heels and communicates normally like any standard entity. Based on the school’s general environment, we can boldly infer that this proctor is a humanoid, female horror.”

“With conditions that clear, let’s ask ourselves: why is this proctor different from the other teachers? Why can she manipulate the entire school’s exams without ever showing her face?”

The viewers: […Wait, wait, slow down! Our brains can’t keep up!]

Yet amid the chaotic flood of comments, Qin Fu’an calmly laid out his deduction: “This teacher never shows her face and leaves a pair of high heels outside Grade 12, Class 4. Let’s take the hypothesis a step further: what if she’s inside Class 4 herself, watching everything unfold firsthand?”

At this point, Qin Fu’an recalled his initial suspicions and shook his head with mild regret. “Initially, I suspected the other two. After all, both Nan Zhu and Chen Qi seemed far more plausible than Zhao Jiayue. That’s why I deliberately left the classroom empty-handed when the exam started—so they’d see I had no way to defend myself.”

The bait had worked, but the catch wasn’t the fish Qin Fu’an had been angling for. Even after Nan Zhu died, the high heels had remained planted in the hallway, completely unmoved.

With the exam spiraling into chaos, Qin Fu’an had been forced to deal with the immediate crisis first. He had assumed he would have to wait until the second day to investigate the remaining two female players, but pure serendipity stepped in: because of Nan Zhu’s death, the four players had cornered him outside the dormitory.

When Chen Qi and Zhao Jiayue turned to leave, Qin Fu’an’s gaze had dropped to their feet.

“They’re using the physical bodies of student NPCs, so shoe sizes are hard to distinguish,” Qin Fu’an murmured as he continued rummaging through the room. “However, their walking cadences are completely different. If you compare them closely, it’s easy to notice that Zhao Jiayue’s gait matches the rhythm of the proctor’s high heels almost perfectly.”

The slight discrepancy was simply the difference between high heels and flat canvas sneakers, not a difference in the person walking.

To confirm it, Qin Fu’an had deliberately waited until the second night to listen to the footsteps again for comparison.

His string of bold yet chillingly logical deductions left the livestream audience utterly speechless.

Even veterans who had watched other runs of Spook High were dumbfounded.

[Wait, you can do that? Huh? I don’t get it—how can you just make a wild leap like that? Who gave you permission to assume things so boldly??]

[As someone who tried clicking into Zhao Jiayue’s stream earlier only to find she didn’t have one, I’m completely floored. How is the streamer deducing things in more detail than someone with an omniscient view?! I call hacks!!]

[My brain is fried. Seriously. This is the first time the streamer has talked this much, and it sounds like a math lecture—confusing and completely sleep-inducing. I’m already drowsy…]

[A brain this fresh and sharp… I really want to scoop it out and study it. When are you visiting the Eldritch Realm, streamer? I’ll be your tour guide for free, guaranteed fun.]

[Yeah, guaranteed brain extraction, more like. Hehehe ^.^]

[Wait, wait, wait—so that warning the streamer gave the three players earlier—?!]

Reminded by that comment, the rest of the viewers caught on. Qin Fu’an had told them it was just an offhand remark, claiming he was worried about “bad apples in the crowd.” It turned out there really was a bad apple, and he hadn’t just been mocking the chat!

Seeing their delayed reactions, Qin Fu’an caught a trace of that same dazed, endearing innocence he found in Xie Yunhuai. With amusement dancing in his eyes, he glanced toward the screen and teased, “You guys actually have real potential to be classmates with Xie Yunhuai. Not bad at all.”

The viewers: [QAQ]

[Warning: do NOT resort to personal attacks!!]

[You’re just calling us stupid in a roundabout way, aren’t you?!]

Qin Fu’an shook his head in mock defense. “You’re the only stupid ones. Xie Yunhuai is just a product of his environment—it’s completely different.”

The next second, his personal translator logged on, dropping a comment that united the entire chat in shared outrage:

[Translation: My wife has a valid excuse for being slow—it’s the harsh environment and this garbage trial. Besides, that’s not called being stupid, it’s called being adorably oblivious. You born-stupid blockheads don’t get to lump yourselves in with my wife!]

The viewers: […]

Damn it all! Not only are we getting insulted, but we’re also getting force-fed romance dog food! We’re filing a complaint!!

Yet a second before they could riot, the man—as if anticipating their reaction—deliberately shifted the floating screen out of view, lowering his head to examine the document in his hands.

The aggrieved audience was thoroughly ignored.

…They had never felt this insulted in their lives, yet their hands kept twitching, reflexively showering the man with tips and gifts. Dammit!

It was only to boost his channel’s heat so more innocent viewers would get dragged in to suffer—definitely not because they were enchanted by this shameless bastard!

Soon enough, however, the audience realized that when Qin Fu’an stopped bantering and got serious, he was impossible to look away from—and without his commentary, the terrifying, oppressive atmosphere was enough to make them shiver in dread once more.

Qin Fu’an had finished searching the small apartment.

The only useful item he had found was an old examination schedule.

Following the flashlight beam, the viewers saw a date printed on the weathered paper—a date firmly rooted in the summer months of the real world:

June 12, 2013.

Qin Fu’an retrieved the teacher credential from his pocket, checking his appointment date:

Eldritch Realm Year XX, January 13.

Evidently, this examination schedule was a relic from before the school became an instance.

The table clearly outlined the five-day exam schedule leading up to the Gaokao.

Just as Qin Fu’an had deduced: Comprehensive Humanities/Sciences, followed by Chinese, Mathematics, and English. Furthermore, the physical exam on the first day had originally been a practical exam for Chemistry and Physics.

Under the harsh white beam, the dense timetable was plain to see—a standard, ordinary schedule common to any normal school in the real world.

The header at the very top didn’t read Spook High, either. It read: Jiang’an No. 1 High School.

Qin Fu’an folded the schedule, slipped it into his jacket pocket, and unhurriedly walked out.

As for the danger looming over the three players left alone with the Head Proctor, Qin Fu’an didn’t seem concerned in the slightest.

Stepping out the door, Qin Fu’an was met by the blurred, featureless faces of the school administrators and faculty from his memory.

Among them was the homeroom teacher who had gone berserk over back pay.

Its facial features had blurred into a featureless blank as well.

Like the phantom specters roaming the grounds, they stood in the narrow corridor, their dark, hollow eyes fixed straight on Qin Fu’an.

Qin Fu’an pulled the door shut behind him as the homeroom teacher’s familiar voice drifted into his ear: “Young Qin… what are you doing wandering around here in the dead of night instead of sleeping?”

The tone was eerily hushed, murmuring right against his ear.

In fact, it had already draped itself over Qin Fu’an’s shoulder. Eyeballs blinked into existence across its flesh in rapid succession, spreading over Qin Fu’an’s arms within seconds. In the next breath, they threatened to tear into his flesh just as they had devoured that player on the very first day.

Qin Fu’an looked down at the eyes sprouting on his arm. Meeting their gaze, the dizzying spiritual shock made him scowl in displeasure. His voice dropped cold and level: “I am a teacher as well. Why shouldn’t I be here? What, are you running a clique to discriminate against new colleagues?”

The eyeballs blinked in visible confusion, their lids fluttering with utter bewilderment. They clearly hadn’t expected Qin Fu’an’s response to be so… completely unreasonable.

Wasn’t he supposed to scream, sob, beg for mercy, and be devoured piece by piece?

Why was he acting so thoroughly entitled, looking like he was the one taking the moral high ground?!

Not just that entity—the other teachers shrank back with guilty consciences beneath Qin Fu’an’s displeased green glare, falling into genuine self-doubt: Am I forming a clique? Am I discriminating against a new colleague??

The next moment, Qin Fu’an brushed the eyes off his sleeves with open disgust, as if shaking off trash. He turned on the muddled faculty, demanding, “Why aren’t you resting? What are you doing out here? The Gaokao is right around the corner! If you don’t conserve your energy, how do you expect to raise the students’ scores? If they perform poorly, how are you going to compensate them?”

The teachers: […]

Naturally, not every entity was swayed by his nonsense.

The homeroom teacher and the dean quickly snapped out of the stupor. Both entities closed in on Qin Fu’an, clearly done listening to his drivel and eager to swallow this gourmet meal whole.

“As the Examiner, do I not even have the right to inspect the examination schedule?” Qin Fu’an stood his ground, his serpentine green pupils narrowing into cold, lethal slits. Faint outlines of iridescent scales rippled beneath the skin of his forearms.

His words made the two horrors—and the puppet-like figures behind them—freeze once more.

Qin Fu’an produced the examination schedule, snapping it open before thrusting it directly toward the dean, demanding coldly, “Dean, I believe I am owed an explanation. Why is the school’s examination schedule not following this document at all? Who disrupted the arrangements?”

He practically shoved the paper into the dean’s face, slender fingers pinning the creases as he pointed to the schedule, pressing every syllable: “A practical exam warped into a physical endurance trial, a comprehensive Chinese diagnostic turned into a Silent Night… Two whole days of testing, yet the students haven’t touched a single real exam paper! Is this what you call a hundred-percent advancement rate?!”

Beneath his razor-sharp barrage of questions, the homeroom teacher and the dean involuntarily took two steps back.

Perhaps because every word he spoke was unimpeachable, and his identity was that of a faculty peer rather than a bottom-tier student, the corridor plunged into an eerie silence once more.

After a long pause, the dean rasped out, “Teacher Qin… please, calm yourself. Regarding the exam schedule… we can sit down and discuss this properly. What do you think?”

Hearing that, Qin Fu’an knew his gamble had paid off.

Students had to follow student codes; why wouldn’t teachers have to follow faculty regulations?

Under the rules, mortal and horror were equal.

Students focused on academics, with scores serving as their sole hall pass.

Teachers, by extension, could not violate their professional duties under the campus rules. They dared not—and could not—neglect the students’ academic progress.

Especially now that Qin Fu’an had pointed out the discrepancy, they couldn’t simply kill him; instead, they had to scramble to patch the hole.

Calculations flashed through Qin Fu’an’s mind, yet his expression remained a blend of cool composure and restrained fury. Softening his tone slightly toward the conciliatory dean, he said, “Dean, you know my character. I’m not looking to cause trouble over minor details, but when it comes to the students, I cannot remain indifferent.”

“Look out at the campus. How much blood and sweat have those children poured in just to earn good marks and graduate?”

Qin Fu’an gestured toward the shadows drifting below, his voice ringing with righteous indignation: “They know nothing! As their educators, shouldn’t we look out for their interests? Who ordered this schedule change? Why was it changed? Who bears the responsibility for the fallout? We cannot allow these children to suffer for the administration’s dereliction of duty!”

As he pointed outward, the other teachers turned to follow his gaze.

Qin Fu’an noted that… their eyes held no reflection of the phantom shadows.

They couldn’t see the students’ wraith forms.

Qin Fu’an arched an imperceptible brow, a fresh theory forming in his mind.

Leaning close to the homeroom teacher, he asked abruptly, “By the way, the school disbursed wages, didn’t it? Why haven’t I seen any of you shopping at the campus convenience store?”

“If we want something, we can just buy it outside, can’t we?” Under the gaze of Qin Fu’an’s slitted green pupils, the homeroom teacher answered in a daze: “The goods in that store have been sitting on the shelves for centuries. Who knows if they’re expired?”

Qin Fu’an understood.

The livestream audience fell dead silent, the screen illuminated only by an uninterrupted eruption of dazzling gift effects.

“So you really are just hired staff…” Qin Fu’an murmured in a soft, eerie sigh. “Trapping the same batch of students and teachers here for centuries, tormenting and toying with them under the guise of education… Even if it brought you amusement at first, you must have grown dreadfully sick of it by now, haven’t you?”

His voice was barely a whisper. Yet endowed with the authority of the Examiner’s badge, his soft, melodic murmur resonated across the dark sky above the campus, carrying cleanly into every corner of the grounds.

“There was never any Gaokao to begin with. They’re just animals trapped in a cage, dying over and over, waking over and over. You must have loved watching from your high balconies as they tore each other apart, didn’t you?”

“And this Silent Night…” Qin Fu’an looked upon the assembled administrators, chuckling softly. “If I’m not mistaken, it’s because those poor wretches broke out of their loop for the first time. Having no idea how to handle the anomaly, you came up with the excuse of a Silent Night to drag out the darkness, hoping to force the school into an early reset. Am I right?”

They had assumed every loop reset with the arrival of the next dawn, provided the student body had been culled below a specific threshold. But this time, that threshold hadn’t been met. The loop couldn’t trigger, leaving the students stuck in a glitch—reduced to wandering wraiths, the very state they should have occupied in death.

As Qin Fu’an’s voice echoed across every corner of the campus, the wandering wraiths froze in place, quietly turning toward the faculty apartments in unison.

As Qin Fu’an laid out more of his deductions, the students—who couldn’t even remember their own faces—seemed jolted by lingering memories. The crimson embers deep within their eye sockets flared to life, and their blurred features began resolving into sharp, distinct faces beneath Qin Fu’an’s gentle, sorrowful sighs.

Meanwhile, inside the instructional building, the three players—who had been warily searching through the classrooms—froze and looked toward the sky, their eyes widening in sheer shock.

The sheer volume of lore the boss was dropping… was insane!

Was it really okay for him to lay it all bare like this?

Behind Yake, Zhao Jiayue stopped her pretended search, murmuring softly, “He really is brilliant.”

Yake nodded in fervent agreement. “Yeah. It feels like we aren’t even playing the same game. I’m still stumbling around in the dark, and the boss is already solving extra-credit questions…”

Hearing this, Zhao Jiayue seemed amused. Staring at Yake’s back, she said softly, “No. He is brilliant. And you… are very lucky.”

“Lucky?” Yake turned back in confusion, only to watch in horror as Zhao Jiayue’s silhouette began fading, dark shadows creeping across her delicate features…

Yake stumbled back several steps, knocking over a row of desks and chairs. Yet Zhao Jiayue made no move to attack. Instead, with tears pooling in her eyes just as they had on the first day, she murmured sorrowfully:

“If only I were truly one of you.”

In life, she had been an ordinary girl with a mother who loved her and a dog she adored. But after entering this game as a player, everything had been torn away.

“D-do you have anything else to say?” Yake asked, watching her tears fall, blurted out on pure impulse.

Zhao Jiayue looked at him, more than half of her body already dissolving into a ghostly shade, yet she forced her lips to move: “Go… to my home. The address is… in the drawer. Help me… tell Mom…”

Her voice was swallowed entirely by the darkness.

Right before Yake’s eyes, she dissolved into a mute, drifting wraith.

And the words she had wanted to say… were lost to the wind.

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