Chapter 13
Chapter 13
While Yu Lingling gathered information about her surroundings, Sister A and Brother Knife had already formed a general picture of all four floors. They had certainly taken Brother B’s earlier remark about there being four floors and four people to heart.
However, the two of them believed they had seized the initiative by inspecting the entire building first.
There were five apartments on each floor. The first, third, and fourth floors each had only one vacant apartment, while the second floor had two.
Judging by the belongings placed outside the apartments, Sister A and Brother Knife surmised that most of the residents on the first floor were elderly.
The three occupied apartments on the second floor likely housed young people.
As for the third and fourth floors, most of their residents appeared to be families, and many children’s items had been left outside.
In a Horror Game Instance, elderly- and childlike entities stood at opposite ends of the power spectrum.
In the last Instance Sister A had experienced, their six-person team had nearly been wiped out by a single child. In the end, she had survived only by using a life-saving item provided by her guild.
As for Brother Knife, Sister A could not see through him.
Still, judging from the knife he carried, Brother Knife clearly had powerful backing of his own. He probably had other trump cards he had yet to reveal.
Based on the number of vacant apartments on each floor and the entities residing there, the second floor seemed to be the safest in the entire building.
As for both of them choosing the second floor…
It was somewhat risky, but entities occupied only three apartments there. There were not many daily necessities outside them, so each apartment likely housed no more than two or three residents. By joining forces, the two of them should be able to handle them.
After weighing their options, Sister A and Brother Knife decided to work together, each choosing one of the vacant apartments.
They both knew that a player’s first three Instances were the least difficult. There had to be a path to survival built into the instance, and they suspected that path lay on the second floor.
According to their analysis, the fourth floor was probably the most dangerous of the four.
In the Horror Game, it was best to avoid numbers with ominous connotations, such as four. Besides, from their position on the second floor, they still had the third floor as a buffer.
As for why they had tricked Yu Lingling into going to the fourth floor…
Some rules and information within an instance would not be given to players directly. They needed someone to test the waters for them. Whether Yu Lingling survived was none of Sister A and Brother Knife’s concern.
Sister A could not stand the way Brother B carried himself, but Brother Knife had warned her that it would be best not to provoke him.
Sister A and Brother Knife were currently standing around a corner in the fourth-floor corridor. Using the surrounding clutter to conceal themselves, they kept Yu Lingling from noticing their presence. Sister A took out the small compact mirror she carried, and the two of them observed Yu Lingling through its reflection.
The entire building seemed cut off from the outside world. Even during the day, the corridors were gloomy and sinister, without a sliver of sunlight. Several dim yellow bulbs hung overhead, providing barely enough illumination to see.
Although the corridor was enclosed, a draft blew through it. The wires suspending the bulbs swayed back and forth, casting twisted, distorted shadows over the piles of clutter and the filthy, mottled walls. Viewed through the mirror, the shadows seemed to transform into countless human heads hanging in the air.
For a moment, Sister A could have sworn that all those heads were staring at her through the mirror. Her face went pale, and she snapped the compact shut.
Brother Knife frowned at Sister A and made a questioning gesture.
After collecting herself, Sister A shook her head.
Brother Knife motioned for her to open the mirror again.
Sister A hesitated before lifting the cover. Her gaze, however, drifted instinctively toward the pile of clutter beside them. She could not shake the feeling that she had overlooked something, yet she could not remember what it was.
The entire incident had lasted little more than a dozen seconds. However, neither Sister A nor Brother Knife noticed that the moment Sister A silently closed the mirror, Yu Lingling glanced in their direction.
Yu Lingling had a secret that not even her brother, Yu Huan, knew.
Yu Huan had always assumed that Yu Lingling merely had a photographic memory. In truth, her condition was closer to hyperthymesia. Even something that flashed past her for only an instant would remain perfectly clear in her mind, beyond her control and impossible to forget.
Before Yu Lingling even knew what this ability was, she had already instinctively begun to hide it. Whether at the orphanage or in the laboratory, she had never shown herself to be anything more than a little smarter than the average person.
After entering the so-called Horror Game Instance, the viewers watching through the screen and Sister A’s trio all thought Yu Lingling needed to carefully observe and memorize her surroundings. In reality, all she had to do was walk through the building once, and its entire floor plan appeared in her mind.
Yu Lingling wasn’t sure whether Sister A and the others had noticed, but not everything piled outside a door necessarily belonged to the person living inside.
The most obvious clue was that although some things had been piled together, there were differences in both their arrangement and type. Tiny gaps separated them rather than everything being pressed tightly together.
All of it was filthy and worn, but some items had been arranged according to a particular system, while others had simply been dumped there at random.
Whether human or animal, every creature had its own habits and behavioral patterns. Most of the time, even the one performing them remained unaware.
Yu Lingling had found the building fascinating from the moment she entered. She hadn’t expected that bad neighbors and bullies who preyed on the weak existed not only in the real world, but even in the Horror Game.
There were five households on every floor, and the proportion of bad neighbors was surprisingly high. As expected of the Horror Game, she supposed.
The moment Yu Lingling reached the fourth floor, she identified the empty room Sister A and the others had mentioned. It was the second room to the left of the stairwell, with little clutter or signs of habitation outside it.
When they passed the second floor, the two of them had stood in front of the doors, intentionally or otherwise blocking Yu Lingling and Brother B’s view of the floor. But judging by their positions, the footprints in the corridor, and the condition of the door handles, Yu Lingling could tell they had each entered the room behind them.
Those two rooms were indeed empty for now – but only for now.
And why did she say for now?
Considering the amount of clutter in the building and the personalities Yu Lingling had deduced from its residents, there was no way any room here could truly remain vacant.
If a room had no owner, its entrance – and perhaps even its interior – would have been crammed with other people’s junk. Its door would not have remained properly shut, waiting for outsiders like them to enter.
So why had the empty rooms not been taken over?
There was only one possibility: the owners of those so-called empty rooms were people these bad neighbors could not afford to offend.
Yu Lingling was even looking forward to seeing how the owners would react when they returned and found their rooms occupied.
The empty rooms were nothing more than traps.
As for the path to survival this game instance had left them, it most likely lay with the residents being bullied in the building.
Yu Lingling didn’t know what the residents whose space had been taken over were like, but she could be certain of one thing: they were the weakest and easiest to bully on their respective floors.
As for telling Sister A and the others what she’d discovered?
No way.
Hee-hee.
She really was a kind, adorable good child who knew how to keep a secret.
Once she identified the pattern, it was easy to determine who was being bullied on each floor.
On the first floor, it was the Westernmost Unit. On the second, it was the unit beside the room Brother Knife had chosen. On the third, it was the unit to the left of the empty room. As for the fourth floor…
Yu Lingling looked toward the second unit from the west.
What a pitiful resident. There was almost nowhere left to put their feet, and the stench outside was simply unbearable.
Holding the brown Teddy Bear Doll in her arms, Yu Lingling walked straight past that unit and made her way to the Westernmost Unit’s door. Then she raised a hand and knocked.
The door was opened by a timid-looking woman in an apron. Her head was bowed, and her hair concealed most of her face.
Yu Lingling’s eyes curved sweetly as she said in a bright, adorable voice, “Hello, ma’am. I’m here to join you.”