Chapter 4
Chapter 4
Lin Yinxi played the voice message.
A wet, sticky sound came from the phone’s speaker.
“…Szz…”
“Krr…”
The sound seemed to drift closer, then farther away.
It sounded as if someone with water up their nose were breathing wetly against the microphone.
The message ended a few seconds later.
Lin Yinxi tapped the voice-to-text option.
[Flayer 002: Szz-krr… work…]
[Flayer 002: First floor… szz-krr… new employee gift… collect…]
Lin Yinxi rubbed her eyes. She had not misread it.
A Flayer could actually use a phone to send her a string of garbled messages.
They did not speak the same language.
Then she would reply in the universal language of stickers.
Lin Yinxi was about to tap a nodding rabbit when Deng Miao suddenly bumped her arm.
The sticker she sent was one position off.
It became a rabbit banging its head against a wall.
“Yinxi, stop playing with that dead phone. Look over there…” Deng Miao pointed with a trembling finger at the stairs from the fourth floor to the fifth.
A blind humanoid creature in yellow clothing and a dorm administrator’s cap held a register in one hand, feeling along the banister as he climbed.
His eyes were deeply sunken. There were no eyeballs, only skin and flesh drawn tight into the sockets.
Lin Yinxi quickly looked down and opened the group on her phone. [Rabbit Keeper] had added someone new, whose handle was [Prop Maker].
[New notification]
[Welcome to our new colleague: Prop Maker.]
[Prop Maker has entered the interior work area.]
Rabbit Keeper posted new work instructions.
[1. Exterior wall repairs are complete. Prop Maker will process the raw materials stacked by Organizer on the fifth floor. The work will take one hour. From the beginning of the work until its completion, Prop Maker will not leave his current station.
2. Prop Maker has no eyes or ears. He works solely with his hands, which can touch and modify anything. Passing colleagues, please do not disturb his concentration.
3. If Prop Maker’s hands touch you, please use your work equipment to identify yourself as an employee.]
Lin Yinxi tapped Prop Maker’s profile picture. His status read: A century of tradition. Dedicated to craftsmanship.
The completed exterior wall repairs reminded Lin Yinxi of the dormitory wall she had fallen from countless times in her previous loops.
The yellow-clad Prop Maker had already felt his way up the final few steps along the banister.
Deng Miao slowly backed away.
“Y-Yinxi… where do we run?”
Lin Yinxi said nothing.
Her mind raced.
Taking the stairs meant a high risk of running into the Flayers working on the third floor.
Prop Maker was blocking the emergency exit.
To take the exterior wall, they had to use a window. And the windows only opened from inside.
In terms of safety, the exterior wall beat the stairs, which beat the emergency exit.
Lin Yinxi pressed her fingers against the cart’s handle.
Its iron wheels were rusty, and its frame was heavy.
She could not hold on for long even empty-handed. Climb the outside wall carrying this? Two moves and both she and the cart would fall.
The newly arrived [Prop Maker] had started work.
He had neither eyes nor ears. Black thread sewed his mouth shut. Crouching beside the corpses at the emergency exit, he pressed his palms onto them.
Amid the crack of breaking bones, Prop Maker dismantled the bodies, drawing out bones and tendons to process them.
Lin Yinxi left the cart where it was for now, took Deng Miao’s hand, and led her to the far end of the fifth-floor corridor. Watching Prop Maker in the distance, she pushed the window open just as he raised his hand and snapped a bone with a crack.
A cold wind blew in. Outside the dormitory, mist blanketed everything. They could not see a hand in front of their faces.
“Go down from here and wait for me on the outside wall on the first floor. I’ll open the corridor window and let you in.”
“But you…”
“Quiet. Let me finish!” Lin Yinxi abruptly raised her hand and covered Deng Miao’s mouth.
She spoke faster. “You can use the outside wall, but stay clear of the shrines while you’re climbing.”
“Wait at the first-floor corridor window. Don’t go onto any of the dorm balconies.”
“Most importantly, don’t climb straight down to the first floor and jump off. There’s an abyss below, not solid ground.”
“Blink if you can do that!”
Deng Miao’s large eyes fluttered, her eyelashes moving like butterfly wings.
She thought of how her upperclasswoman’s family had gone bankrupt, forcing Yinxi to attend Jincheng University.
Even a camel starved to death was bigger than a horse.[^camel] Yinxi must still have some incredible connections feeding her inside information!
She was absolutely certain.
If one person in this world could still get her out of here alive, she knew who it was.
It had to be Lin Yinxi.
She blinked hard twice.
Lin Yinxi took her hand away.
“Good.”
After Deng Miao climbed out of the window and vanished into the thick mist, a new message arrived on Lin Yinxi’s phone.
[New notification]
[The Flayers are clearing the stairwell. Organizer, please use the emergency exit route to reach the first-floor entrance and collect your new employee gift.
Failure to collect it within half an hour will be taken as dissatisfaction with the gift. An additional 8,000-word report explaining your refusal will be required.]
Lin Yinxi’s heart sank.
She had to get past Prop Maker and go downstairs by the emergency exit route.
Which meant coming face-to-face with a monster.
Her heart sank. She slowly let out a breath and hesitated no longer. On aching legs, she returned to the rusty flatbed cart and pushed it toward the emergency exit, step by step.
“Screee…” The iron wheels scraped across the floor with a piercing noise.
Prop Maker, who had been dismantling corpses, slowly raised his head. Though he had no eyes, Lin Yinxi could feel him looking at her. His hands felt along the edge inch by inch. Then he stood, his head brushing the ceiling, and reached toward her.
His hands extended farther than they looked. With his arms hanging naturally, they could reach his ankles.
Lin Yinxi’s heart gave a hard thump. Her breathing faltered for half a beat before she forced it back under control.
There was no avoiding Prop Maker if she wanted to take the emergency exit route.
Lin Yinxi thought of the group message.
[If Prop Maker’s hands touch you, please use your work equipment to identify yourself as an employee.]
She pushed the cart forward.
Clang!
The front of it gently bumped Prop Maker’s knees.
His hands stopped in midair. From this close, Lin Yinxi could see that they were smooth and fingerprintless, gleaming with corpse fat.
Lin Yinxi gritted her teeth.
The closer she looked, the more horrifying this kind of monster became.
Her hairs stood on end.
In her previous loops, Lin Yinxi had only scrambled desperately to escape. This was the one time she had deliberately approached these monsters.
Touching one of her own accord was nothing short of a gamble.
Those hands hung still in midair.
Less than an inch from her face. She could almost smell the grease on Prop Maker’s fingertips.
She forced herself not to move.
Fortunately, the hands slowly lowered and landed on her battered cart.
Just as she was about to push the cart away, those hands pressed it down firmly.
Lin Yinxi’s pupils contracted.
Was he… taking her cart apart?
Before her eyes, those hands dismantled the cart’s iron frame without tools. The metal framework was rearranged, polished, and repainted. Prop Maker even provided new parts at his own expense and fitted them to her cart.
At last, the broken old cart became a brand-new flatbed cart.
With a lift, it automatically folded down to the size of an iron box.
Prop Maker supported the iron box on his palm and placed it in front of Lin Yinxi.
Was that for her?
A flatbed cart, Plus edition.
Prop Maker? Please!
He was practically Master Lu Ban reincarnated![^lu-ban]
[^camel]: A Chinese saying: even after losing their fortune, the formerly wealthy may retain resources beyond ordinary people’s reach.
[^lu-ban]: Lu Ban is the revered ancient Chinese master craftsman traditionally associated with carpentry and ingenious inventions.