Game of Deception Chapter 48: Are You Trying to Cheat?

As they began to walk, the flickering lights stabilized once again.

Chen Bingwen looked at Gao Fan with a hint of surprise.

He could obviously tell that the two of them knew each other.

He was just wondering—was this little kid the one calling the shots in their group?

But he had no way of knowing... Gao Fan had actually participated in countless Adventure gas.

Gao Fan knew that all Adventure gas shared a similar chanic.

To prevent players from using their abilities to hole up in a cleared safe zone and avoid the next stage, the Ga of Deception had a built-in anti-stalling chanism.

For instance, in a zombie apocalypse survival scenario, hiding in an attic and using abilities to seal the door to buy ti simply wouldn't work.

The point of the ga was to force players to scavenge for supplies while risking discovery and infection. If they failed to engage with this core objective, unexpected events would rapidly occur—such as the sudden spawn of a toxic zombie, or a catastrophic issue with their food supply.

So Deceivers of the World whose original Hosts had graduated believed these situations were rigged by the unfamiliar Hosts they were matched with. But Gao Fan was absolutely certain this wasn't the work of a Host... because he knew for a fact that Lady Utopia would never do sothing like this to force people into imdiate danger.

Therefore, it had to be a built-in chanic of the Adventure ga itself.

After all, it was an "Adventure" ga... without danger, where was the adventure?

At this mont, Ming Po feigned nonchalance and glanced to his left.

The students who had been visible just monts ago had completely vanished.

Although the classrooms still stretched into an infinite hellscape resembling a corridor-style apartnt building, there wasn't a single person in sight.

Ming Po looked to his right again... The empty classrooms were suddenly full of people once more. In every room, students had their heads down, scribbling furiously, while a teacher watched over them.

It was as silent as a real exam. The only thing slightly off was the complete absence of any teachers patrolling the corridors outside.

Clearly, they had entered so sort of independent space once again.

This wasn't particularly surprising.

There was definitely sothing wrong with this girl—leaving aside the bizarre "2048" classroom, even if this teaching building really did have twenty floors with forty-eight classrooms per floor...

For sothing like an exam, they obviously weren't in the sa class, which ant they wouldn't be in the sa testing room.

Shouldn't she have asked them which classroom they were assigned to, to see if they were heading the sa way?

Ming Po naturally had no idea where his classroom was, and he figured Gao Fan and Chen Bingwen were in the sa boat.

So...

The girl most likely knew exactly that they had no idea where their classrooms were, which was why she didn't bother to ask!

Taking a step back, she should have at least shown so curiosity about Gao Fan.

No matter how you looked at him, Gao Fan appeared to be a young child.

In this day and age, with better nutrition, even an elentary school student would generally be taller than one ter thirty. Seeing Gao Fan wearing a high school uniform, she should have at least asked sothing like, "What grade are you in?" out of curiosity.

Yet, she hadn't asked a single question.

The reason was simple: she knew they couldn't answer.

Ming Po, however, wasn't in a rush—following a lead was still better than fumbling around blindly on his own.

Besides, he was gradually getting used to Gao Fan's presence...

This timid guy was actually quite useful as an early warning system. If the path they were taking was dangerous, he would definitely scream.

With nothing else to do, Ming Po kept his eyes fixed on the classrooms to his right.

The teachers were invigilating, the students were answering questions, and the girl was chatting away with them, lost in her own world.

The teachers invigilated, the students answered questions.

The teachers invigilated, the students answered questions...

...

The teachers were watching them.

After passing who knew how many identical classrooms, an invigilator suddenly turned around and stared blankly out the window.

Staring right at them.

—Oh?

Ming Po raised an eyebrow but didn't call the others over to look.

He was the only one who had noticed this detail.

In the next classroom, the teacher was still watching them. Their movents were as stiff as a wooden puppet.

The next few classrooms were exactly the sa.

In the classroom after that, a new anomaly occurred:

All the students stopped writing and silently stared out the window, looking directly at them.

In the following classroom, both the teacher and the students wore eerie smiles, and the girl's endless chatter finally ceased completely.

And as they passed the next classroom...

Almost all the students pressed themselves against the glass.

Piled on top of one another, their handprints were tightly flattened against the windows.

In the very next classroom, the teacher and the students suddenly beca massive—

With those sa eerie smiles plastered on their faces, they pressed silently against the windowpane, looking down and staring at them.

It felt as though those things were the living ones, while they themselves were re dolls inside a toy box!

Suddenly, the girl walking in front stopped.

Ming Po turned his head back around.

There was no way forward.

Reaching the very front, they were t with nothing but a wall of white ceramic tiles.

They looked back, only to find another wall of white ceramic tiles behind them.

Looking to the sides, the infinite school building with its overlapping dozens of floors of classrooms had also transford into a wall of white ceramic tiles.

Ming Po had a pretty good idea of what was about to happen.

He sighed.

After the others looked toward the classrooms, he was the last to slowly turn and face the classroom on his right.

That, too, was a wall.

Surrounded by pure white ceramic-tiled walls on all four sides, they were left with a space of barely four square ters.

If ordinary people had encountered this scene, even if they didn't scream in terror, they would likely be panting heavily in panic.

—But the bizarre thing was...

All four of them remained completely silent.

The stern and vigilant Chen Bingwen, the relaxed and easygoing Ming Po, the speechless Gao Fan, and the girl whose expression was obscured.

As if waiting to see who would speak first, the four of them didn't communicate, didn't discuss, and didn't even panic or look around wildly. They just stared in their respective directions, none showing any other reaction.

The standoff lasted for about ten seconds. The sheer weirdness of the silence made the atmosphere incredibly awkward.

"Um..."

Gao Fan decided to break the silence.

The instant he opened his mouth, the ground suddenly collapsed!

He didn't know if it was an illusion, but in the mont they began to fall, Gao Fan thought he heard the girl let out a faint sigh of relief—

He instantly lost his composure.

Although this should have been a terrifying situation, he couldn't hold back a laugh.

"Hahahahaha..."

Gao Fan's immature, shrill laughter echoed through the void.

"Hahahaha!"

Hearing Gao Fan's laughter, the plumting Ming Po also burst out laughing. "What a sha! What a sha! It's a sha we didn't get to see it!"

Lawyer Chen, however, only felt his scalp tingle and a chill run down his spine—

—Were both of his temporary teammates ntally unhinged?!

The next mont, Chen Bingwen jolted awake.

He realized he was actually still in the examination room, and more than half of the exam ti had already passed.

'How long was I asleep?'

'How much ti is left?'

In that instant, cold sweat truly soaked his back—this was the most terrifying mont he had experienced so far.

But then, he realized sothing was wrong...

Not only was his test paper completely filled with answers, but the other students were also writing furiously. The sound of pen tips scratching against paper was distinct.

He was just about to look up and glance around.

But right then, the rule flashed through his mind.

[Exam Room Rules: No talking, no glancing around, no passing items, no cheating...]

Before he could look left or right, Chen Bingwen abruptly stopped himself.

That might be considered cheating!

'Then... looking up should be fine, right?'

He raised his head, only to see the teacher on the podium staring right at him.

"Why are you looking up?" the invigilator asked sternly.

Chen Bingwen quickly lowered his head, pretending to check his exam paper as if nothing had happened.

Co to think of it... the paper was quite full. Even though he had completely forgotten high school mathematics, he felt like the answers looked surprisingly legitimate.

After staring at the paper for a good while, he figured the invigilator must have looked away by now.

So Chen Bingwen raised his head again.

The invigilator was still glaring at him.

This ti, he was no longer on the podium but had walked halfway down the aisle.

"Why are you looking up?" he asked sternly once more.

Chen Bingwen quickly lowered his head.

But in his panic, he lost a bit of control over his gaze.

He subconsciously glanced left and right.

But with just that one glance, the back of his collar was suddenly yanked!

The invigilator, who had been in the aisle just a second ago, had sohow appeared right behind him.

"What are you looking at?" he asked. "Are you trying to cheat?"

"No, I'm not..." Chen Bingwen hurriedly tried to explain.

His eyes darted around uneasily, and he subconsciously looked up again.

But this ti, the back of his head seed to explode, and a tallic ringing echoed in his ears—

The lights flickered violently. Everyone in the classroom had, at so unknown point, turned to look at him.

But they hadn't turned around in their seats, nor were they sitting backward...

Everyone was sitting facing forward, but their heads had rotated a full 180 degrees to stare directly at him!

Their expressions were incredibly solemn, their eyes filled with what could only be described as pure hatred.

The lights in the classroom went out one by one, and the students stood up one after another.

"Are you trying to cheat?" the invigilator asked.

"I'm not, I'm not..." Drenched in sweat, Chen Bingwen desperately tried to explain.

"Are you trying to cheat?" the invigilator's voice grew louder and louder, and the ringing in Chen Bingwen's ears worsened.

The students who had stood up were also growing taller and taller.

They were like telephone poles, towering straight into the clouds until he couldn't even see their faces. Was that... a hallucination?

Suddenly, a phone began to ring.

One, and then another.

Overlapping phone ringtones echoed from every single telephone pole, creating a maddening cacophony.

Only the invigilator's voice remained, deafening like a thunderclap in the darkness: "Are you trying to cheat?"

"It was all his idea!"

A shrill, agonizing scream from a girl pierced the air.

The next mont, accompanied by a violent, earthquake-like tremor, the classroom plunged into absolute darkness.

Chen Bingwen's vision went black, and he passed out once again.

When he woke up again, he found himself, "Xiao Ke," and "Gao Xiaofan" sitting around a table with a dark silhouette whose facial features were completely obscured.

The four of them sat at the four corners of the table, as if they were playing mahjong.

"Tell ," a heavily echoing voice resounded. "Who is the mastermind?"