Transformed into a heartthrob's simp, every day is a battleground.

Chapter 292 Outlaw

Chapter 292 Outlaw

“No.” Xiao He sat on the sofa and looked at Yan Xun, who seemed a little lost, gesturing for him to sit next to him.

Yan Xun slowly sat down beside him, seemingly deeply affected by Xiao He's rejection.

"Because it's unnecessary."

Xiao He said somewhat indifferently, "The children and elderly in this community don't need what you're saying."

Yan Xun was puzzled.

“There should be things left behind by the previous occupant in your house,” Xiaohe said.

"Yes," Yan Xun nodded. "The house has accessible facilities."

He recalled what the staff member said: "He told me that this is a community for young people, not many elderly people."

He still didn't seem to understand what Xiaohe meant by "it's unnecessary".

“The elderly people who come to this community are all in poor health,” Xiaohe said. “They don’t need to go for medical checkups anymore.”

"Children too."

"They can't attend children's extracurricular classes."

Xiao He looked at Yan Xun and said, "So these families won't sign; it's pointless."

“Just like your uncle,” Xiao He said to Yan Xun. “You can give up the idea of ​​getting them to sign; no family will agree.”

"Just like me."

His words were so direct that Yan Xun, who was sitting on the sofa, was a little confused and at a loss. After a long while, he said, "But I still hope that Uncle can go out for a walk and communicate with other people."

"Isn't that what they think?"

He seemed not to have fully understood what Xiaohe meant.

This time, Xiao He looked at him with even a hint of pity.

Do your parents know about this?

Yan Xun shook his head.

“Ask your parents for their opinion,” Xiaohe said. “They might tell you something different.”

He glanced at his watch again, then said, "I have some things to do."

"I need to go upstairs to handle this."

"Do as you please."

He didn't tell Yan Xun to leave, but Yan Xun had no reason to stay any longer. He stood up somewhat awkwardly and said, "I'm going back now."

He slowly walked to the door. Xiao He didn't try to stop him, but still saw him to the door.

Didn't your parents tell you why they moved here?

Yan Xun turned his head. "I told you."

“They said this community is great.” He pointed to himself. “It’s very spacious and perfect for our family of five.”

"They also said it's a good place for my uncle to live; he can live on the first floor here and won't be trapped upstairs."

"When Grandma recovers, she can live with us too."

Yan Xun carefully observed Xiao He's expression, and seemed to detect a hint of mockery on his face. He felt uneasy and asked, "Was I wrong?"

“Maybe your parents don’t think that way,” Xiaohe said.

He stood by the door, his body blocking the entire door frame—a gesture to prevent Yan Xun from looking into his home.

“Go back,” he said to Yan Xun. “You can ask your parents.”

At this point, he suddenly seemed to remember something, "You and your uncle have a very good relationship?"

"It's alright, we've been living together." Yan Xun replied, repeating the words he had made up when he first met Xiao He.

"Don't overthink it," Xiaohe said. "It will all be over."

He nodded to Yan Xun as he spoke, then closed the door.

Yan Xun left Xiao He's courtyard and happened to run into the family of four he had seen before. They were still pushing a stroller, and the baby inside was covered up tightly.

Upon seeing Yan Xun, they smiled warmly.

"Dad, why is my brother sleeping all the time?" the high school student asked.

“He hasn’t been feeling well lately,” Dad said.

"It'll be fine in a while," Mom said.

Yan Xun looked at the stroller they were pushing, took something out of his backpack, and quietly threw it under the stroller's wheels.

The stroller her father was pushing was slightly bumpy, and Yan Xun immediately rushed over in alarm—

"Sorry, these are my things."

He immediately bent down and picked up the wooden amulet from the ground—it was the amulet that Qin Ke had promised to give him when they were on the Terror Ship—he hadn't wanted to take anything from Qin Ke's pocket at the time, and Qin Ke had only given it to him after they left the storeroom.

It was a cylindrical amulet about the thickness of an index finger, with a totem on it that resembled a combination of a snake and an eagle. According to Qin Ke, if this thing was thrown into a fire and burned, one could receive divine protection.

At this moment, the object was stuck under the stroller wheel.

Yan Xun said apologetically to her father, "I didn't know when it rolled here."

He looked down at the stroller, "If there are any problems, I'll make it up to you..."

He was about to examine the stroller closely when he noticed a corner of the cover slightly lifted, and then he was roughly shoved aside—

"No need!" Dad said rudely.

"Stay away from my child."

The mother carefully moved the stroller away before looking at Yan Xun and her husband.

“He didn’t do it on purpose,” she told her husband. “I just checked, and there’s nothing wrong.”

“Yes, the little brother didn’t cry or fuss.” The older child nodded. “And the stroller only wobbled a little.”

"My little brother is so good," he said to his baby brother in the stroller.

The man seemed to want to say something more, but his wife pulled his arm and he shook his head.

He then looked at Yan Xun, who was clutching the wooden carving in his hand and was completely terrified.

"How old are you?"

“...I’m a junior in college this year,” Yan Xun said cautiously.

"Never mind," he said to Yan Xun. "I won't hold it against you because you're young."

"Be more careful next time."

The high school student probably felt that his father's attitude was a bit too bad, and said somewhat awkwardly to Yan Xun, "My dad has been under a lot of stress lately, and my younger brother isn't feeling well."

His mother tugged at his hand, signaling him not to say too much.

The father went over and covered the stroller up tightly again before pushing it away.

Yan Xun only spoke after the family of four had completely disappeared from his sight.

There are no children in the stroller.

There was only one plastic doll inside.

He had felt something was off when he saw them pushing the stroller.

Even if a child is very light, it's impossible for them to feel this relaxed, as if they were pushing an empty cart.

When the staff told him to get the consent of 10 families, Yan Xun knew that this was a breakthrough.

Clearly, the other party was certain that Yan Xun was incapable of completing the task.

So he chose Xiao He, who was most familiar with her – simply signing a consent form to allow the community to add children’s interest classes or organize regular health check-ups for the elderly. Logically, even if someone wasn’t interested, they shouldn’t be too averse to it.

Xiaohe firmly rejected the idea, telling Yan Xun that it was pointless.

In that instant, Yan Xun understood what Xiao He meant.

"What does that mean?" the system muttered in Yan Xun's head.

I don't understand what that means.

"Because they are all people who are about to die or are already dead, it doesn't mean anything to them." Yan Xun's gaze was still fixed on the direction the family of four had left in.

“These families will not agree to sign; they know that.”

"He told me to go back and ask my parents to prove that they were fully aware of this matter," Yan Xun said to the system. "It must be Lou Yanchuan's arrival that slightly altered the instance settings."

"Otherwise, it should be my grandmother living with us at this time."

He slowly walked back along the community road.

When he passed by Du Yun's house, he sent Du Yun a message—

[Yan Xun: Is the buzz cut still there?]

[Du Yun: You haven't left yet, bro? What's up?]

[Yan Xun: I'm downstairs, I'll be right up.]

As soon as Yan Xun finished sending the message, the window near the roadside immediately opened, and Du Yun leaned out, saying, "I'll open the door for you, just come in!"

Yan Xun stumbled upon Du Yun's gaming room and saw the crew-cut guy shamelessly lingering there, along with Du Yun playing games on the side.

"I'm almost done with this game," Du Yun said to Yan Xun. "This game is ridiculous."

"Is this the game you mentioned, where the protagonist dreams of being chased by a dog and wakes up to find dog bite marks on his body?" Yan Xun asked.

"Yes!" Du Yun exclaimed excitedly. "Guess what the truth is."

“The truth is that the protagonist actually has a dual personality; everything in his dream actually happened, but he interpreted it as a dream,” Yan Xun said. “Is that so?”

Du Yun: "..."

"Then tell me, why does the dog in his dream look more and more like someone he knows?" Du Yun suspected that Yan Xun had secretly played his game.

“That was something he wanted to do but didn’t dare to do,” Yan Xun said. “Actually, what he wanted to kill wasn’t the dogs in his dream, but the people he knew in his dream.”

Looking at Du Yun's subtle expression, Yan Xun knew he had guessed correctly.

“But that’s impossible!” Du Yun learned from Yan Xun that there might be clues in the game. “I used to live in the dormitory, how could I possibly have a second personality?”

"Why do you think you can leave the dormitory so easily?" the crew-cut man suddenly asked quietly.

"Just because you want to play games and do live streaming, you can easily move out of the dorm?"

When the crew-cut man saw Yan Xun and Du Yun turn their gazes to him, he said, "I'm so arrogant in this game, and I haven't moved out of the dorm because I don't want to."

"I bullied Xie Qingdu because I wanted to force him to get lost."

Yan Xun looked at the crew-cut man and said, "So, according to you, even someone as capable as you couldn't move out of the dorm, so you think Xie Qingdu can?"

“The situation is different,” the crew-cut man told Yan Xun. “He was able to move out because everyone in his dorm reported him to the school.”

"He has some mental problems."

"He often talks to himself, and when he stays up late at night, he stares straight at people."

"The most outrageous time was when he actually climbed up to one of his roommates' beds in the middle of the night and stared at him without saying a word."

"That person almost went crazy from fright when he woke up in the middle of the night."

"When we call him, he doesn't respond at all."

The man with the crew cut told Yan Xun, "When he woke up the next day, they asked him, but he knew nothing about it."

"And this isn't just once or twice."

"His roommates couldn't stand it either, so they beat him up in the middle of the night, but when he woke up in the morning, he didn't react at all."

"Only then did the people in the dorm believe that he really seemed to have some problems." The man with the buzz cut looked at Du Yun, "and that's why they jointly applied to have you leave the dorm."

Du Yun paused for a few seconds, "...I seem to remember being called in by the counselor."

"However, the reason given to me at the time was that I often do live streams, and the people in my dorm are not used to it."

"They asked me if I was interested in renting a place to live."

"We even got Lao Du involved in this matter back then." Du Yun said, then suddenly began to doubt himself, "...No way?"

"Why did your parents get divorced?" Yan Xun asked.

"I don't know," Du Yun said. "I don't remember this part. I think it was my mother who told him to get lost."

"She told me to stay away from Lao Du."

"He didn't do anything good."

Du Yun looked at Yan Xun and said, "However, when you showed me Dr. Du's photo, I thought of a detail."

He pulled a necklace out of his clothes. "This is a talisman my mother got for me."

"They said I was born with a weak constitution and was prone to bad luck."

"Wearing this will keep me safe and sound."

Yan Xun glanced at the amulet, which was a pendant with an engraved inscription.

The densely packed small characters above roughly mean that this child is protected and that evil spirits cannot enter his body.

Yan Xun looked at the pendant for a while, then took out his phone and flipped to his book on witchcraft.

He found the annotation that seemed to be written by his grandmother and carefully compared the two handwritings... The more he looked, the more he felt that they were written by the same person.

Did your mother tell you where she got it from?

"I heard she's a fortune teller," Du Yun said. "She's quite famous and very effective. She often helps people change their luck. I remember they call her Granny Shi."

Du Yun looked at Yan Xun's expression and asked, "Is there a problem?"

Yan Xun didn't say anything, but simply dialed Lou Yanchuan's number.

Lou Yanchuan answered the phone very quickly.

Do you remember my grandmother's last name?

“Her surname is Shi,” Lou Yanchuan replied immediately, realizing the reason for Yan Xun's question: “You found clues related to her?”

Yan Xun sighed, "More or less."

"I'll tell you when I get back."

"Go to the storage room and look at those books. See if you can find any records," Yan Xun thought for a moment. "Like visitor codes and difficult cases."

According to Lou Yanchuan, people who used to visit his grandmother were secretive, afraid that others would find out who he was.

But Yan Xun felt that as long as one sought to change their fate, it was impossible for them to have no record of it.

"How old were you back then?" Yan Xun turned around and asked Du Yun.

“I think I was eight years old,” Du Yun recalled. “I remember it was when I was in elementary school.”

Yan Xun extracted the keywords and gave them to Lou Yanchuan.

"So Du Yun also has dealings with her?" Lou Yanchuan understood Yan Xun's meaning and then hung up the phone.

Du Yun was still dumbfounded. "That sorceress is your grandmother?"

Yan Xun nodded, then turned to the man with the buzz cut and asked another question.

Was Fang Shuo present the night you killed Xie Qingdu?

The man with the buzz cut immediately looked a little awkward. He turned his head and said, "I don't know what nonsense you're talking about."

“Now that things have come to this, is there any need for you to hide anything?” Yan Xun asked. “Do you really think you can complete side quest 2 on your own?” His expression seemed genuinely confused, as if he didn’t understand why the crew-cut man was still hiding these details now.

Du Yun stood there dumbfounded, "You..."

"Damn it, an outlaw!"