ALL NOVEL Chapter 11 - Roommates.
“Ding—”
Another sound.
The sudden alert shattered the frozen atmosphere.
Lin Lin felt sweat sliding down his face.
Ignoring it, he swallowed hard and quickly looked at the notification.
[Caller: Settle the overtime pay first]
[Source of Infection 3011 has escaped.]
[Go to the last contact person in the report immediately.]
An attachment was included.
It was a few seconds of video.
In a high fever, the person mumbled “Ye Jishu’s” name.
Perhaps it was due to the hatred towards a rival, making him the first to suffer.
“……”
[Caller: Settle the overtime pay first]
[Understand? Hurry up. I don’t want to clean up the mess in my area.]
[I’ll be there in half an hour.]
Lin Lin ignored the caller’s typically arrogant tone.
Looking at the name and the time displayed on his phone, he felt a chill. His entire arm went numb.
Twenty minutes had already passed.
For him, the heavy suspicion about [Ye Jishu] seemed to have occurred just seconds ago. Still, in reality, his brain had shut down, overwhelmed by illogical information, making him stand there dazedly, completely missing the passage of time.
Just thinking about it.
The [Rationality] had already decreased.
Lin Lin’s chest heaved violently.
“Smack!”
He suddenly raised his hand and slapped himself hard.
His face immediately swelled up.
But the annoying cicada noise in his ears finally diminished.
No matter what—
The situation required urgent attention.
Move!
He had to get to Ye Jishu immediately!
Ordinary people encountering the [Source of Infection] would certainly die.
Even if it was an individual just becoming the [Source of Infection], once transformed, it would instantly understand how to control the infected creatures and ravenously destroy everything around it, just like a newborn crying immediately after birth.
If he couldn’t take appropriate measures in time, Ye Jishu would—
……
Ye Jishu returned to his dorm.
As he climbed the stairs, his gaze wandered over to the elevator.
It was very tempting.
As he passed by, the elevator’s power light was still green, but it showed no sign of opening or closing.
…… He wondered who would dare to use it.
He slowly walked to the dorm door.
No sounds came from behind the thin door; the entire dorm seemed eerily silent, as if it were dead.
Sometimes, it felt like he was living alone.
Considering his roommate’s feelings, Ye Jishu didn’t immediately take out his key. Instead, he paused and knocked on the door.
“I’m back.”
After a few seconds.
A flurry of sounds came from behind the door.
Rummaging and chaos.
After about half a minute.
The chaotic noise ceased entirely.
Then, a faint voice finally came from inside the dorm: “…… Welcome back. Uh, I’ve cleaned up. You can come in now.”
Ye Jishu then took out his key from his jacket, inserted it into the lock, and opened the dorm door.
He walked in.
Turned around and locked the door.
Only then did Ye Jishu take off his jacket and hang it on the rack by the door.
His gaze swept across the dorm.
It was spotless.
He had no idea where the earlier sounds came from.
The only thing unusual was a sticky liquid on the floor, like a mop that hadn’t been wrung out properly, leaving traces of water from the balcony to his roommate’s bed, which disappeared completely. Looking up, he met a pair of eyes peeking out from behind the bed curtain.
As usual, his roommate was staring at him with a fixed gaze.
“…….”
See, see.
If he was initially uncomfortable with it, after a semester, he had completely adapted to the constant gaze.
He went to the bathroom to take a shower and clean up.
Then, he returned to his desk.
“By the way, Jishu, have the results of the modeling competition come out?” his roommate asked.
For some reason, the roommate was also very concerned about this matter.
During the month leading up to the results, the roommate frequently inquired, seemingly eager to get his answer.
“No.”
“Oh, oh……”
“I’m going to play a game later. Will it bother you?” Ye Jishu asked.
Even though he would wear headphones, keep the screen brightness low, and use a controller that wouldn’t make the usual keyboard noises, he still sought his roommate’s consent first.
“No, it won’t… Just do your thing, don’t worry about me…”
“Thanks.”
Ye Jishu opened his laptop.
The startup was slow, taking a few minutes to light up.
The desktop wallpaper was an image of an aquarium.
The soothing blue made him feel at ease, as if colorful small fish surrounded him, and the hot temperature seemed to drop a little. He couldn’t help but gaze at the tiny ripples on the glass.
His hand paused over the mouse.
In his mind, he recalled Yan Mei’s invitation.
Back then, he had asked if he wanted to visit the city center aquarium the next day, obviously not expecting him to refuse. Yan Mei himself wasn’t particularly interested in such things.
The invitation was probably just because he happened to know about his hobby.
These past few months.
It seemed to be the same story.
Always accommodating his boring routine and trying to enter his world.
“……”
The hand holding the mouse unconsciously tightened.
Suddenly, his phone vibrated. He released his grip, and the inexplicable tension in his heart dissipated.
It was a scheduled reminder he had set.
Ye Jishu glanced at the bottom-right corner of the computer.
It would be midnight in three minutes, and he could start downloading the game.
He opened the bookmarked URL and went directly to the download page.
In the last few minutes, he reviewed the game description again.
The game was called [Cocoon Room]
The premise wasn’t too complicated.
It was about the protagonist going to school day after day, only to find that his once peaceful life was filled with abnormalities. His loving parents, classmates, and even his childhood friend turned out to be monsters. It followed the usual horror game development pattern.
Just a bit tricky in terms of gameplay.
But for someone who often played games requiring skill like Ye Jishu, it was just a pastime.
He agreed to play it because he owed a request to a fan.
Ye Jishu’s game live streams were always for his own amusement, never intended to make money. He had an obsession with game statistics and wanted to tackle difficult games immediately without using guides, so he occasionally reviewed his gameplay.
The reason he started streaming in the first place was because his computer’s performance was too poor to handle hours of recording, and there wasn’t enough storage for it. So he used the platform’s auto-generated [live playback] function to record his gaming sessions.
As a result, his streams were silent.
Compared to other streamers, his streams were completely quiet, with only the game’s kill streak and combo sounds.
[Wow, the streamer is so good. He completed it in one go!]
[Why isn’t he talking?]
[Is my sound system broken? I can’t hear anything.]
[Is the streamer mute?]
……
Regardless of whether the comments were malicious or curious, Ye Jishu ignored them.
He never intended for others to watch.
Unexpectedly, this silent streaming method attracted a batch of fans who admired his skill.
Becoming a famous streamer was an accident.
One day, his fan count unknowingly exceeded the platform’s threshold, and the tipping feature was activated.
Though Ye Jishu quickly turned it off.
In those few seconds, a fan had tipped his stream.
He didn’t like this.
It feels like he owed something to strangers,
He felt as if ants were crawling all over him, causing extreme discomfort.
So he asked what the person wanted.
The request was simple.
To play the newly released game.
[Please, please play it.]
[I will… keep watching you…]
[Until you are safe.]
Ye Jishu agreed.
He ignored the strange comments that felt like online stalking jokes.
Midnight arrived.
Ye Jishu clicked the download button.
The game installation file was a bit large, estimating it would take about half an hour, which matched his expected time.
Ye Jishu lowered his head and took out his phone.
He skillfully opened the mobile game he had been playing recently and completed the unfinished daily tasks.
Suddenly, there was a knock at the door.
Ye Jishu: “?”
At this late hour, who could it be?
He stood up from his spot and walked toward the dorm door.
He could feel his roommate’s gaze following him through the bed curtain, staying fixed on his back, but only an eye was visible peeking from the dark.
Probably just curious about who was visiting so late.
Ye Jishu opened the door.
In the next moment, a face appeared.
“……”
“……”
A few seconds later, the person abruptly took a step back.
Their eyes widened, almost popping out of their sockets.
Their hand, still in a cast, waved excitedly in the air.
“Y-you’re here—!”
Ye Jishu: “……”
Good question, he also wanted to ask.
Although he wasn’t good at remembering faces, this one had been seen recently, so he shouldn’t have forgotten completely.
It was Yan Mei’s passerby admirer.
The one who had tried to bully him in the morning, ended up having his hand broken, then awkwardly fell on the desk and crawled away red-faced when Yan Mei arrived.
“You’re studying sports, aren’t you?” Ye Jishu said.
“You… who’s studying sports?! Enough, just because my skin is dark doesn’t mean you can say that!” The person’s face reddened with anger, veins bulging on their neck. “I’ve been in the same math classes with you for a whole semester, and you don’t even remember me? I’m also in the math department!”
Forgotten.
Sorry about that.
Ye Jishu thought, with no guilt.
After all, they were just passersby without a name.
Ye Jishu had won many awards in math competitions this semester, and his photos and name had been featured on the school’s public account and website and praised at a school-wide meeting. But everyone’s first reaction was always, “Who’s this?” or “Our school has this guy?”
He was used to it.
Coming back to his senses, the person was still staring at him.
“I also live here.”
Ye Jishu’s gaze fell on the dorm key in the person’s hand, confirming their claim.
Oh.
The missing roommate.
Being a local, they had never visited the dorm.
“If it weren’t for the fact that you broke my hand, I wouldn’t be here for the night,” the person muttered. “It’s all your fault. I really don’t understand why Yan Mei would choose you as a boyfriend. You’re so violent. You’re only good-looking, and I…”
Blah blah blah.
Ye Jishu remained expressionless, letting the words go in one ear and out the other, stepping back to give them space.
But instead of immediately entering, the person suddenly stopped speaking.
Then he frowned and said, “Do you hear that?”
“?”
“The sound of a girl crying,” he said. “It seems… very close.”