Chapter 58: “Teacher Xie, I Caught You.”
Xie Shibai rummaged through the corners where a safe might be hidden.
The safes were hidden by the Cat Team themselves; only they knew the locations. The production crew hadn’t filmed the hiding process. For the livestream audience, the perspective was set to follow the Mouse Team. Searching for the bells and keys alongside the “Mice” created a much stronger sense of immersion than a god’s-eye view.
The dim, flickering lights increased the difficulty of the search; it was easy to miss something if one didn’t check carefully.
Xie Shibai pulled open a cabinet door. Finding it empty, he closed it. As the door clicked shut with a soft sound, he keenly detected footsteps outside the room.
The window in the room was cracked open a sliver. Xie Shibai pressed himself against the wall, holding his breath to listen carefully to the movement outside.
[Who is it? Ahhhh!] [Damn, why is the show’s background music so cursed?] [Suddenly hearing footsteps gave me goosebumps.] [Who’s outside? It instantly feels like a horror story.] [I don’t even dare to breathe loud.]
Xie Shibai listened to the footsteps for a few seconds before sliding the window open, looking at a flustered Su Xingran standing at the door.
[It’s Su Xingran. Scared me to death. I thought Dog Lu had sniffed his way here to catch Teacher Xie.] [Su Xingran looks so panicked, is he being chased by a Cat?] [No, I just came from his stream. He’s purely scaring himself. He’s about to frighten himself into a breakdown.]
Su Xingran looked left and right, hesitating whether to open the door. He was worried that standing in the corridor too long would make him a target for the Cats, but he wasn’t sure if a Cat was already inside the room, waiting for a Mouse to walk into the trap.
He turned his head toward the window and saw the silent Xie Shibai. caught off guard, he sucked in a sharp breath of cold air, nearly screaming like a startled bird.
[Wwwwww Teacher Xie is so cute!] [Teacher Xie stayed quiet on purpose, didn’t he? Laughing to death hahaha. I’m hallucinating him as a bad cat intentionally scaring people.] [I was just about to ask why Teacher Xie wasn’t making a sound. Turns out he was waiting here hahaha.] [Actually, going to a haunted house to watch timid friends scream is the most fun! Especially introvert friends.] [The person above is too much! Stop treating us introverts as toys to play with, hey!]
After seeing clearly that it was Xie Shibai, Su Xingran calmed his breathing. He sneakily opened the door and ducked inside, letting out a sigh of relief now that he had someone beside him. “That’s great. Brother Xie, I finally found you.”
Xie Shibai glanced at the corridor outside the window. “Did you encounter a Cat?”
Su Xingran shook his head. Mentioning Mu Zhenzhen’s plan made him entirely unconfident. “No. It was Sister Zhenzhen’s tactic from earlier. she told me to stick close to you after coming in.”
Xie Shibai gave Su Xingran a calm look: ……
With Su Xingran’s small frame, defend against Lu Ciheng?
[Really defend? For real?] [No need for the Chihuahua to make things so hard for himself.] [I feel like Dog Lu will arrive on the battlefield in the next second.] [Clearly nothing has happened yet, but he’s already scaring himself. To think he actually wants to defend against LCH hahahaha.]
Xie Shibai asked, “Which way did you come from?”
Su Xingran thought for a few seconds and pointed in a general direction. “Over there. It feels not too far from here. I think I passed two or three rooms like this, but my spawn point was the restaurant. It was very dark around there.”
Xie Shibai: “Did you search the surrounding area?”
Su Xingran gave a light cough. His silence spoke volumes.
Xie Shibai understood. However, they didn’t have much time left; the Cat Team would search their way over sooner or later.
Su Xingran asked, “Brother Xie, did you find anything? Why doesn’t this game have any hints at all?”
Xie Shibai shook his head. The usual variety show trick of using cameras to find clues was useless here. There were no prompts in the game either; they only knew they were looking for safes.
“The production team wouldn’t use very small boxes,” Xie Shibai said softly. “I’ve searched this vicinity. You lead the way; we’ll go to the restaurant and search it again to rule it out.”
Although Su Xingran was a bit afraid of this game, getting a rare chance to be alone with Xie Shibai was simply too awesome. He instantly activated his Chihuahua attributes, overcoming his difficulties to lead Xie Shibai back to the restaurant for another search.
The restaurant was much larger than the average room, but the lack of lighting made the surroundings appear eerie and terrifying. The back kitchen was spacious; the stainless steel cupboards were large enough for a person to hide in if they curled up. There were ventilation windows on both sides.
The two split up. Anything with a lock that couldn’t be opened had to be checked.
After searching for five minutes, Xie Shibai discovered a map under a prep list in the back kitchen.
The torn map was labeled 1/3.
There were three map fragments in total; only by piecing all three together would they have the correct map.
This map only recorded the location of the safe in their current area.
Su Xingran was pleasantly surprised. “Is this a map?”
Xie Shibai looked at the torn paper map. “Mn.”
Su Xingran rejoiced, “Then if we just follow the map, won’t we find the safe and escape very quickly?”
Before his lowered voice even faded, Xie Shibai heard a faint sound. His originally relaxed state instantly turned alert. Not far away, a figure was approaching. With that exceptionally superior height, there was no need to guess who it was. The height of 1.93 meters made the space feel oppressive. Under the dim, flickering lights, the unhurried footsteps exuded a sense of danger, filling the air with the pressure of a large carnivore.
Xie Shibai pressed a pale fingertip to his lips, making a ‘shh’ motion to Su Xingran.
Su Xingran nodded immediately, his palms sweating from nervousness, but mostly from regret.
He had been alone with Xie Shibai for less than ten minutes, and Lu Ciheng was already here. Is this guy a dog?
They hid behind a low cabinet, their breathing becoming faint under the inexplicable pressure.
[He’s coming, he’s coming!] [Dog Lu is finally here! Brother Xie is right behind the cabinet!] [This lighting… how is this different from filming a movie?] [The crisis of the Cat and Mouse game is instantly real!]
Xie Shibai listened to the footsteps to determine Lu Ciheng’s position, signaling Su Xingran to adjust his direction. They were just waiting for Lu Ciheng to bypass the entrance so they could quietly leave.
Unexpectedly, after they waited for a long time, a low laugh suddenly spilled out into the restaurant.
Lu Ciheng’s deep tone contained a smile as he spoke leisurely, “Teacher Xie, I know you’re here.”
Xie Shibai frowned slightly, assuming Lu Ciheng was bluffing.
[Did LCH discover them?] [No way. XSB and SXR are hidden pretty tight, and they didn’t make a sound. How could they be discovered? LCH is probably bluffing.] [LCH wouldn’t say this every time he searches a room, right? Wouldn’t that be embarrassing?] [He’s not that much of a chuunibyou (delusional teen), hahahaha.]
Lu Ciheng waited quietly for a few seconds. There was no sound inside the restaurant, as if they intended to hide until the end; a simple sentence wouldn’t make them come out. The corner of his lips hooked up. “Teacher Xie, I can smell your scent.”
Xie Shibai’s fingertips curled slightly, his cold, beautiful eyes stunned. He hadn’t expected Lu Ciheng’s method of finding him to actually be scent.
He lowered his head and sniffed the aura on his clothes—a faint laundry detergent smell. The fragrance wasn’t very obvious.
Is Lu Ciheng a dog nose?
[Damn, is LCH a dog? He smelled him from that far away?] [Fake, right? How is it possible to find someone inside just by smell?] [That sentence was really perverted (stalker-ish), did any sisters notice? Ahhh!]
Lu Ciheng asked softly with great patience, “Will you come out yourself, or should I go find you?”
Xie Shibai chose neither. He looked at the side window, calculating in his heart how both of them could escape.
Su Xingran also saw the window. His eyes lit up with joy, and he gestured with his hands, roughly conveying that he would disguise himself as Xie Shibai and climb out the window to attract Lu Ciheng’s attention, allowing Xie Shibai to use that chance to escape.
The window could only fit one person at a time, and they couldn’t leisurely climb out one by one. After luring Lu Ciheng away, the other person could circle out through the door.
Xie Shibai had no objections and handed his jacket to Su Xingran. After making a ‘ready’ gesture, Su Xingran put on the hood, suddenly stood up, and sprinted toward the window, vaulting out right in front of Lu Ciheng to flee.
Lu Ciheng stared at the back figure for a few seconds without moving. He recognized the jacket as Xie Shibai’s, but the person was not. His brow furrowed slightly, but then his lips hooked into a deep, relaxed, and cheerful smile. Pretending not to be jealous, he approached at a leisurely pace. “Teacher Xie, thinking of luring me away by releasing a little mouse?”
A trace of surprise flashed through Xie Shibai’s eyes. He hadn’t expected Lu Ciheng to be able to distinguish a person’s back figure in this environment, especially since he had given his jacket to Su Xingran. Xie Shibai suppressed his thoughts, cat-walking with his back bent to avoid a face-to-face with Lu Ciheng. His heart beat faster in this environment.
[How did LCH tell?] [Right? Just now Su Xingran was wearing Teacher Xie’s clothes, running bent over. You couldn’t tell how tall he was at all. Plus he was wearing the hood, and this light is almost blinding. He could still tell it wasn’t XSB?] [This is the self-cultivation of a simp dog. Terrifying.] [Clearly it’s very shippable! Even in extreme environments, he can recognize you at a glance, wuwu! These two are really a bit too shippable.]
Su Xingran’s “luring the tiger from the mountain” strategy failed. Xie Shibai thought of another way. He reached out and quietly stuck a cooking timer to the wall, then retreated to the corner where he had just been, quietly waiting for the countdown to end.
Five, four, three, two, one.
Stuck to the metal, the timer on the cabinet was just preparing to vibrate when the semi-obstructed magnet failed to hold. It fell directly off the cabinet. The battery popped out with a bang, scattering on the floor and creating the sound of someone knocking something over while fleeing.
Lu Ciheng raised an eyebrow, approaching the location of the sound unhurriedly. “Teacher Xie, stop hiding.”
Xie Shibai leaned calmly against the cabinet door, thinking he’d be sick in the head not to hide. Being caught less than twenty minutes into the start would offer zero gaming experience.
When Lu Ciheng was sufficiently far from the window, Xie Shibai rose quickly. Like a cat, he silently braced one hand on the window ledge and vaulted out.
Even the subtle friction of fabric didn’t escape Lu Ciheng’s ears. He whirled around, looking with astonishment at Xie Shibai’s retreating figure as he flipped out.
Xie Shibai’s core strength in his lean waist was very strong. The large movement of flipping over caused his shirt to ride up, exposing a small section of white waist and abdomen, which flashed conspicuously in the dim environment.
Xie Shibai didn’t leave immediately. Bracing one hand on the window ledge, his competitive spirit was heavy, and his eyes held a hidden provocation. “So much nonsense talk. Catch me first, then speak.”
After speaking, he flashed away with rapid movements.
Lu Ciheng pressed the tip of his tongue against his canine tooth. His black eyes stared tightly at Xie Shibai’s back, and a muffled laugh spilled out into the empty space.
[Oh ho, didn’t catch him.] [Dog Lu can’t do it.] [Dog Lu is impotent!] [To lose such a wife!] [I’m really going to look down on you, brother.] [To be honest, the provocative Teacher Xie is so delicious.] [Yeah! As expected of the tsundere type, so damn hot!]
Recommended Reads
