Ex-Girlfriend – Chapter 106

BUG

Life and Death Examination Room 13

Examination God

Once they knew that NPC death was equivalent to another way of clearing the stage​¹, Xin Lan and Wan Yan weren’t afraid anymore.

            

This room full of all sorts of strange creatures wasn’t anything scary either.

Wan Yan looked at the battle-damaged maid outfit, not quite willing to let others see Xin Lan’s current state.

She spotted a hanging cloak, grabbed it, checked it for anything strange, and draped it over Xin Lan.

            

Xin Lan looked up to see Wan Yan manage to mumble, “It’s cold.”

She found it a bit funny and was about to take it off when she noticed the change in Wan Yan’s expression and suddenly understood the meaning behind her action.

Tsk, possessive devil​².

            

Only the one classmate they’d seen before remained out of the three, but Xin Lan and Wan Yan didn’t know where she had hidden, or whether she was dead or alive.

For the next hour and a half, trouble kept coming.

But having grasped that killing NPCs also counted as a way to clear the stage, Xin Lan and Wan Yan no longer held back. If discovered, they worked together to take them out​³. Thus, they survived until the end.

            

“Congratulations on clearing the exam! After a ten-minute rest period, you will enter the next exam site!”

Successfully clearing the stage, the people appearing in the white rest area no longer looked as confused and terrified as before. Most of them were silent, sitting alone or paired up, encouraging each other, whispering something in low voices.

Generally, those in the same rest area were likely to be classmates in the next exam site. Xin Lan and Wan Yan didn’t care, but that didn’t mean others didn’t.

            

As soon as Xin Lan and Wan Yan appeared, some people had already started secretly sizing them up.

In the rest area, they wore their original clothes. Xin Lan kept her hands tucked in the pockets of her cotton-padded jacket​⁴, waiting with her eyes closed for the next stage to begin, ignoring the scrutinizing gazes.

Ten minutes felt both long and short. After plunging into dizziness, that odd voice sounded in her mind again.

            

“The fourth exam is about to begin. There are a total of five examinees in this round. Please get ready.”

“Exam begins.”

Xin Lan opened her eyes. The surface beneath her was soft and comfortable. Before her was a large screen—it was a movie theater.

            

The card was in her hand. Using the faint light from the screen, she made out the line of text on it.

[Find the exit to pass the exam.]

No identity restrictions, no necessary conditions.

            

The screen glowed dimly, and background music played from the speakers.

A woman sat before a dressing table mirror. She wore red clothes​⁵ and red lipstick, her long, glossy black hair hanging down.

Her gaze was vacant. Suddenly, she looked up. A heavy beat sounded in the background music, making one’s heart jump.

            

She revealed a smile. Blood began to flow from her seven orifices​⁶.

Xin Lan sat calmly on the soft chair, completely unfazed. This level of horror movie was merely child’s play​⁷ to her.

The person beside her also sat quietly, not making a sound.

            

Xin Lan turned her head. Wan Yan’s exquisite, beautiful face appeared cold and indifferent in the dim light.

Suddenly, a scream rang out in the theater. Xin Lan looked towards the source of the sound, then quickly whipped her head back to look at the large screen.

The female ghost, bleeding from her seven orifices, crawled out of the screen with a face full of resentment. She revealed a smile, an extremely eerie one.

            

Giggling sounds emitted from the theater speakers, surrounding the entire space, seeming to come from all directions​⁸, pervasive​⁹.

Several people stood up and ran towards the outside. Xin Lan and Wan Yan also stood up.

Someone rushed to the doorway. Suddenly, a speaker fell, smashing onto his head.

            

Blood splattered onto a girl standing nearby. The girl let out a terrified cry and covered her mouth.

“What do we do now?”

The girl’s face was pale with fright. Her eyes suddenly widened as she pointed behind Xin Lan, full of terror.

            

The female ghost had already crawled nearby. Her lower body looked as if it had been severed by something, leaving just a bare stump​¹⁰.

Wherever she passed, she left a trail of bloodstains.

“Get out! Anyway, there isn’t a second speaker left to fall! Are we just gonna wait here to die?”

            

Someone pushed the frightened girl aside and ran towards the door outside. The others immediately followed.

“Should we go out?”

Wan Yan looked at Xin Lan.

            

Xin Lan looked back at Wan Yan, then called​¹¹ Ling Jiu in her mind.

No response.

The sound of dragging came from behind, reaching out to grab Xin Lan.

            

Before Xin Lan could dodge, Wan Yan moved faster, stomping on the female ghost’s hand and letting Xin Lan retreat.

“I can handle it myself.”

“But I like you, so I want to protect you.”

            

Hearing this, Xin Lan’s gaze hardened. She grabbed ‘Wan Yan’s’ neck and pinned her against the wall.

“Where is she?”

“What are you talking about? I am Wan Yan.” ‘Wan Yan’ looked utterly confused, perplexed by Xin Lan.

            

“Where is she?”

“It is me, Ah Lan.”

Xin Lan’s hand tightened, her gaze icy.

            

“I’ll ask one more time. Whatever thing you are, where is she?”

“It… it is me,” the person being choked said intermittently, face flushing red.

Xin Lan decisively snapped her neck. Suddenly, her hands felt empty.

            

The body falling to the ground dispersed like motes of light.

At the same time, Ling Jiu’s voice sounded in her mind.

【Finally reconnected! Host, are you okay?】

            

Where’s Wan Yan?

【The Commander is currently in a movie theater. Just now, I suddenly disconnected from both of you. This BUG is certainly powerful.】

The system resided within the host’s mental domain, but just now, even it had been shielded and disconnected.

            

Still no way to detect?

【No way.】

Ling Jiu was very frustrated. Apart from facilitating contact between them, all its other functions were unusable.

            

So now, it had no way to determine if the Host and the Commander were in the same space but mutually invisible due to some kind of field​¹², or if they were in two different spaces altogether.

Xin Lan rubbed her wrists. It’s fine. As long as we can still make contact.

From the moment she entered, she had felt something was off about ‘Wan Yan,’ but it was the kind of wrongness she couldn’t put into words—just a feeling.

            

Xin Lan always trusted her feelings.

When she met ‘Wan Yan’s’ eyes, her suspicion solidified.

Looking at that unknown thing impersonating Wan Yan, she felt no stirrings in her heart. Despite having the exact same outward appearance, the feeling it exuded was completely different.

            

Plus, there was that line it said…

Someone like Wan Yan, who could always keep things bottled up—if she hadn’t suddenly confessed due to the situation, who knows how much longer Xin Lan would have been kept in the dark—how could she possibly just blurt out something like “But I like you, so I want to protect you”?

Besides, Wan Yan always knew her capabilities and skills, had even figured out her personality; she would never say something like that.

            

Good that she’s not here, then.

Xin Lan stretched her neck. In that case, I won’t be polite. Time to show my brutal side.

During the last “monster feast,” her methods had still been quite elegant.

            

Not that she deliberately hid this side, it was just that, inexplicably, she didn’t really want to be excessively bloody in front of Wan Yan.

She looked at the half-bodied female ghost not far away, her steps light.

The nearby female ghost suddenly had a bad feeling[. Seeing Xin Lan approaching, it even felt an urge to crawl back.

            

But as a ghost, it couldn’t be so cowardly, so it bravely charged forward.

Xin Lan grabbed its long hair, enraging it. As it lunged forward to bite, she slammed it onto the ground.

Xin Lan cleanly snapped the ghost’s neck, then yanked hard. The ghost’s head rolled onto the floor; it had died once more.

            

Xin Lan dusted off her hands and walked expressionlessly towards the exit door.

Wan Yan, upon learning that Xin Lan was in the same scenario as her, wasn’t in a particularly good mood.

What’s with this BUG? Fine, separate us this time, but it actually created a fake to trick people?

            

As soon as she entered this scene, Wan Yan had realized the ‘Xin Lan’ sitting beside her wasn’t the genuine article​¹³.

Wan Yan had chased Xin Lan through several worlds. In each world, Xin Lan’s appearance was different, but that didn’t matter; to Wan Yan, outward appearance was just that.

Wan Yan didn’t act immediately, observing for a moment instead. Through dialogue, she deduced this might be a data-simulated fake, possibly even a mirror image.

            

Since it wasn’t a real person, even with an identical appearance, a certain cool-headed Commander remained completely unmoved, killing it directly before contacting Ling Jiu.

She felt a tiny bit apprehensive inside: What if Little Tiger couldn’t recognize me?

That would be a tragedy to make listeners grieve and onlookers weep​¹⁴, something that would make even her shut down​¹⁵ upon hearing it.

            

When Ling Jiu reported that contact could be established with Xin Lan’s side, Wan Yan happily crushed​¹⁶ the female ghost beside her.

Great.

She just knew Little Tiger would definitely be able to recognize her.

            

However, they were still in different spatial dimensions. Perhaps passing this exam would allow them to be together again, perhaps not.

If not, she would have to accelerate her plans to destroy this BUG.

After ripping apart the half-bodied female ghost, Xin Lan walked out of the screening room into a straight corridor lined with other screening rooms. At the end was a large main door.

            

Xin Lan checked the other screening rooms. No people, only ghosts.

These ghosts crawled out from various places, laughing creepily in all sorts of contorted postures, lunging at Xin Lan to bite and tear, only to run back whimpering.

They only look scary, they seemed to imply, was there really any need to be so violent?

            

After sweeping through all the screening rooms, Xin Lan straightened her clothes and leaned against the wall.

Her hair was tied in a low ponytail, hanging quietly down her back. Seen from afar, she looked like a painting.

If not for the scattered limbs of ghosts beside her, the picture might have been somewhat more harmonious.

            

Xin Lan walked towards the direction indicated by the exit sign. Turning the corner of the corridor, she arrived at the main entrance.

The large cinema doors were tightly shut. With no light, it looked gloomy and eerie.

The projection screen in the lobby was still playing movie clips, accompanied only by ghostly sounds like weeping and lamenting.

            

The ticket booth and the concession stand selling soda and popcorn were deserted. Everything was deathly quiet, the only light sources being the projection screen and the hanging digital display showing the movie schedule.

The main entrance was blocked solid; this shouldn’t be the exit.

Xin Lan tried pushing the door. Her fingertips touched something cold and sticky.

            

She frowned, looking at the bloodstains on her hand, then looked up and saw the ‘Safety Exit’ sign.

She walked in the indicated direction, her footsteps echoing in the empty lobby.

The movie posters on the walls had changed; bloody handprints were pressed onto them, looking exceptionally creepy.

            

Xin Lan paid them no heed and walked past.

The area where the safety exit was located had some light.

This must be the exit, she thought.

            

The light stretched her shadow long, casting a slender trace behind her.

Ling Jiu, tell Wan Yan: in one minute, we leave through here together.

【Host, the Commander asked me to tell you…】

            

This voice sounded almost simultaneously.

【One minute from now, leave together.】

Ling Jiu’s voice gradually weakened, having suffered a double critical hit.

            

This world is just too exhausting, she seemed to think.

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LP: Re-translated on April 04, 2025

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