HBWnovel Chapter 273 Tutoring Class
Chapter 273 Tutoring Class
"It's possible that both are true," Yan Xun said.
"No way, the dungeon world is this realistic?" Du Yun wondered.
"You and the crew-cut guys should have been in the same year, don't you remember?" Yan Xun asked.
After they met Kong Ling, Shu Fan remembered this senior.
The two of them have seen Du Yun's campus card, so they should be able to access memories of people like Cun Tou.
Unexpectedly, Du Yun still shook his head, "No."
"That's normal, isn't it? We're not in the same major, and there are so many people at school. He's not a big name like Kong Ling, so how could I possibly remember him?"
That's strange, Yan Xun thought. What's the purpose of a game where they have to arrange for all these characters to attend the same university?
Although there's no news from Fang Shuo's side yet, Yan Xun guesses that the other party's school is most likely one of these two.
The plot has stalled again at this point.
Du Yun then brought out the donation certificates, saying, "I've checked these online, and these organizations do exist."
Yan Xun had no doubt about this; such obvious clues meant the copy couldn't possibly be faked.
"What about your home?" Du Yun asked. "I've given you so many clues, you should at least share some clues about your home too."
"A clue about my family?" Yan Xun said. "Does having a grandmother count?"
Du Yun was about to say, "What kind of clue is this?"... when he remembered that this grandmother had never been seen in the other party's house.
"Is there a problem?" Du Yun asked.
Yan Xun shared all the clues they knew so far.
“That is indeed a bit strange,” Du Yun said. He pulled the chair from the live broadcast next to Yan Xun, sat down, and began to analyze, “Lou Yanchuan said that the grandmother he met, who is his mother, could never be seen clearly.”
"And they haven't said a single word to each other."
"Your sister said your grandmother has been sick for over a year?" Du Yun analyzed. "When did your uncle break his leg?"
"The dungeon didn't say."
“Then you can easily check the medical records,” Du Yun said. “If he broke his leg more than a year ago, doesn’t that contradict the timeline your sister mentioned?”
Yan Xun had also considered this point.
Shuangshuang said that her grandmother had been sick for more than a year.
But in Lou Yanchuan's memory, every time the other party saw his mother, she was lying on her side in bed, fast asleep.
He couldn't see his mother's face clearly, and whenever he tried to get closer, Yan Xun's father would stop him.
This wasn't just once or twice; in Lou Yanchuan's memory, it always happened like this.
Unless the time Shuangshuang mentioned is more than a year after her family sent her grandmother away for treatment.
"This is tough!" Du Yun leaned back in his chair. "Could it be that we haven't found enough clues yet?"
"Are there some clues that won't appear for a while?"
He thought optimistically, "After all, this is a 15-day survival instance."
"It doesn't matter if we can't decrypt it, as long as we survive safely for 15 days."
Yan Xun did not speak.
Du Yun looked at him, "Do you still want to complete that side quest 2?"
"Otherwise, you wouldn't be so eager to go to houses of other colors," Du Yun guessed.
He felt that Yan Xun was definitely not content with just completing the main quest and side quest 1, which was why he kept going to houses of different colors to look for clues.
"I suppose so," Yan Xun said conservatively.
His enthusiasm stemmed from his belief that there was a hidden quest in this instance that hadn't yet been revealed.
He was more interested in the hidden mission.
Du Yun couldn't find any more clues for the time being, and Yan Xun also prepared to get up and leave.
Before leaving, he turned back to Du Yun and said, "The goldfish scooping game at the market is quite interesting; you can give it a try."
"Huh?" Du Yun exclaimed subconsciously. He watched Yan Xun's departing figure and muttered to himself, "Is catching goldfish really that fun?"
"Is it even worth recommending?"
He said that, but since he was just idling around anyway, he figured it wouldn't hurt to catch some goldfish, so he got up and decided to take another stroll around the market.
……
When Yan Xun returned home, he saw his father sitting on the sofa watching TV.
When Yan Xun returned, he merely greeted him briefly, his attention still focused on the television.
"Where is my uncle?" Yan Xun asked.
Dad turned around and said, "Your uncle is messaging you, don't bother him."
"Rest?" Yan Xun looked incredulous. "He seemed quite energetic when he came back."
“He’s not in good health, of course he needs to rest more.” Dad’s tone was a little reproachful. “You’re not young either, don’t spend all your time leading your uncle astray.”
Yan Xun wondered, where exactly did he lead Lou Yanchuan in his foolish antics?
"How has Grandma been feeling lately?" Yan Xun pretended not to hear this and changed the subject.
"The same as always," Dad sighed. "Sometimes it's good, sometimes it's bad."
Yan Xun knew that asking this question wouldn't yield any specific information, so she asked, "When can I go see Grandma?"
"Shuangshuang also misses her grandma a little."
“Not recently,” Dad said. “Your grandma’s condition is still unstable.”
"Let's wait a while longer."
"When she's feeling a bit better, Dad will take you to see her."
At this point, Dad turned back to watch TV. Yan Xun looked around the house but didn't see Mom. "Where's Mom?"
"She went out with Shuangshuang?"
"Yes," Dad said, "Shuangshuang has a tutoring class."
"They just went out."
Yan Xun nodded, "Then I'll go upstairs and rest for a while."
Dad waved to indicate that he knew, his attention was now completely on the TV.
Yan Xun climbed the stairs and paused on the second floor. He listened to the sounds downstairs and, after confirming that his father was still sitting on the sofa watching TV, he went upstairs to his parents' room.
He reached out and turned the doorknob, then pushed the door open and went inside.
Everything in the room was neat and tidy, with no clues whatsoever. However, the calendar on the side of the bed caught Yan Xun's attention.
Today on the calendar is marked with a five-pointed star.
It seems today is a special day.
Is Shuangshuang taking extra classes?
Yan Xun flipped through a few pages of the calendar and found that one day each month was marked with a five-pointed star, and the dates were all different. This was far too infrequent for the tutoring sessions, and most of the dates were weekdays.
Yan Xun took out his phone and took a few photos, then put the calendar back in its place. He looked around the room a few more times but didn't find any obvious clues.
He didn't linger, and after making sure he hadn't left any trace, he left his parents' room.
Back in his bedroom on the third floor, Yan Xun flipped through the marked photos in the album.
Is it time to visit Grandma?
"It shouldn't be," Yan Xun immediately dismissed the idea.
Even if some follow-up examinations can only be scheduled on weekdays, the intervals between them shouldn't be so irregular.
Although Yan Xun didn't know how long Shuangshuang's tutoring would take, since they were only leaving around noon, it would only take an afternoon at most.
This afternoon, Mom has to go to the hospital to visit Grandma, and also travel back and forth between the tutoring center and the hospital. Isn't that a bit too rushed?
In Lou Yanchuan's memory, his father seemed to care so much about his grandmother. If it was only a once-a-month opportunity to meet, why would he stay at home and not go out?
Although Yan Xun felt he could rule out this possibility for the time being, he still decided to verify it.
So he went back downstairs and asked Shuangshuang where her tutoring was.
Although his father was puzzled as to when Yan Xun had started to care about this, he still told him the exact location.
Perhaps worried that he might not know, I also mentioned the shopping malls and landmarks nearby.
Yan Xun nodded. "When will she be back?"
"Shu Fan said he made a new cake and wants to invite Shuangshuang to try it."
"She should be back around 4 or 5 o'clock," Dad said. "Shufan is being so polite? You should thank her properly."
Perhaps because Yan Xun's reason was too plausible, her father didn't suspect anything. His attention was focused on the TV, and he didn't even notice that Yan Xun had sneaked into Lou Yanchuan's room.
……
Yan Xun opened Lou Yanchuan's bedroom door and saw him lying on the bed, seemingly resting.
He closed the bedroom door, walked to the bedside, and looked down at Lou Yanchuan, who was fast asleep.
He stood there for a long time, but Lou Yanchuan, who had been pretending to be asleep, finally couldn't hold on any longer. He opened his eyes and looked at Yan Xun, "Standing by my bed without saying a word, are you trying to scare me or are you planning to strangle me?"
"The one in the back," Yan Xun said.
"I just went to their bedroom." He was too lazy to argue with Lou Yanchuan, so he directly stated his purpose and handed the photos he had taken on his phone to the other party.
Lou Yanchuan struggled to sit up and lean against the headboard.
He took Yan Xun's phone and scrolled through the photos.
“The markings on the photos started in January,” Yan Xun said. “There’s a five-pointed star for each month.”
“This month it’s today.” Yan Xun told Lou Yanchuan the information she had just received. “I asked him, and he said that his mother took Shuangshuang out for tutoring, and they would be home around 4 or 5 pm.”
Seeing that Lou Yanchuan had finished looking at the photos, Yan Xun reached for her phone and marked the location on the map app.
"It takes about 40 minutes to drive from this community to where Shuangshuang has her tutoring class."
"It takes almost two hours round trip."
"Do you know when they left?" Yan Xun asked.
"Around 10:30," Lou Yanchuan recalled.
"They arrived at the tutoring location around 11 a.m.
With less than an hour left until midnight, Yan Xun felt it was highly unlikely that any more classes could be scheduled.
Yan Xun thought for a moment, "Assuming the tutoring starts at 1 p.m., and they need to get home around 4 p.m., then they need to leave at 3 p.m.
"Two hours of tutoring time also gives mothers two hours of free time."
"Do you think she went to see her grandmother?" Lou Yanchuan asked.
“I think it’s unlikely. There’s no hospital near the tutoring location, and the nearest hospital is a 20-minute drive away.” Yan Xun looked at the map. “The sanatorium is even further away, taking more than two hours round trip.”
“So even if she considered the parking problem and took a taxi to the hospital, it would still take 40 minutes round trip.” Yan Xun pointed to the nearest hospital on the map, “but I don’t think Grandma would stay in this hospital.”
Lou Yanchuan glanced at the screen and discovered that the nearest hospital to Shuangshuang's tutoring location was actually a men's hospital.
Several general hospitals are at least a 30-minute drive from the tutoring location.
"If it's to visit Grandma, why is it marked at different times each month?" Yan Xun glanced outside the door. "If it's to visit Grandma, why doesn't he go?"
He repeated his previous guess to Lou Yanchuan, "So I think she probably didn't go to see her grandmother."
"She had other plans for the time marked on the calendar."
"The person on the sofa is also aware of this arrangement."
It seems that this matter was kept from Yan Xun and Shuangshuang, and even Lou Yanchuan was unaware of it.
It's understandable that they kept it from Yan Xun and Shuangshuang; to parents, they are all "children." But Lou Yanchuan is Yan Xun's father's younger brother, an adult living in this house. What kind of arrangements would they keep from him as well?
"Can we leave this community and go to the vicinity of the tutoring location?" Yan Xun asked.
“That probably won’t work,” Lou Yanchuan said. “This tutoring location and business district are just settings within the game; we can’t break away from this community environment.”
This means there are two maps, and the player has no path to the other map.
The main reason Yan Xun was able to go to the convenience store where Zhu Gan was located was that the convenience store was just outside the community gate; Yan Xun couldn't go to places further away either.
"How's it going on your end?" Yan Xun asked Lou Yanchuan.
"He won't say." Lou Yanchuan sighed.
He said I was overthinking things because I'd been staying home too long.
"My mom is fine and told me not to worry."
“I asked him if I could go see my mother, but he said no,” Lou Yanchuan said. “My mother’s condition is unstable right now. If she wakes up and sees that I broke my leg, she might get emotional and it could worsen her condition.”
“The reasons are high-sounding, but I said I just want to take a look from afar and I don’t even need to say anything.”
He said it still wouldn't work.
"If we really want to meet, we'll have to wait a month," Lou Yanchuan said. "The doctor said that her condition will be more stable by then."
A month? Yan Xun thought, their instance would only last 15 days at most.
It's been a month already, and it's long gone.
It seems that the meaning of the instance is that they can only confirm clues through dialogue and search within this community, and cannot contact NPCs outside the community, not even their own grandmother.
That's true; as a D-level dungeon, the system wouldn't create such a detailed map.
"What did you say on your end?" Lou Yanchuan asked.
Yan Xun recounted all the clues he had found at Xiao He, Kong Ling, and Du Yun's homes.
"Now you suspect that a large family lives under the white roof."
"The people living under the black roof are single."
"The couple lives in the red-roofed house."
Lou Yanchuan recounted Yan Xun's guess.
"Now only the green and yellow roofs haven't been confirmed," Yan Xun said.
He then mentioned a family of four with a baby that he had seen, saying, "I think we white-roofed residents have something in common."
What do you think it is?
"Are you asking questions with the answers already in mind?" Lou Yanchuan's gaze fell on the handrail in the room, a facility left behind by the previous owner.
“In our homes with white roofs, there isn’t always someone with mobility issues or health problems.”
Although Lou Yanchuan didn't know what had happened to that family's child, judging from the fact that they had to be covered up tightly even in the summer, something was clearly wrong.