Chapter 2

No one had come back to their senses yet.

The door of the Hall suddenly swung shut, and stroke by stroke, blood-red words floated up on its surface.

[Death rate tonight: 1/11]

As the last stroke fell, the red paint slowly trickled downward. Against the night beyond the glass, it was blindingly vivid.

Everyone’s gaze dropped to the keys on the table.

The six keys corresponded to Room 207, Room 208, Room 315, Room 316, Room 415, and Room 417.

Two people per room. Eleven people total. One person was destined to be left on their own-and that death warning for tonight felt tailor‑made for that one.

A suffocating silence fell. Everyone was on guard.

After a crack of thunder, the Fat Man suddenly spoke up, flattering Wang Meng. “Brother Wang, you do the assigning.”

Wang Meng’s eyes swept across the group. In the end he just casually pointed at someone, took a key himself, and said nothing more.

He wasn’t about to do something as thankless as distributing all the keys.

Once he made his stance clear, the rest of them glanced at each other and quickly paired off. In the blink of an eye, only the Fat Man, Chu Yue, and the little boy were left.

Expressions turned odd. Quite a few eyes landed on the youngest boy, and some faces even showed a hint of pity.

The Fat Man pulled at the corner of his mouth, grabbed a key, and called to Chu Yue, “Little Brother, you and me in one room.”

Chu Yue ignored him, looking only at the boy.

The kid kept his head down and didn’t say a word.

Chu Yue closed his eyes briefly, then picked up the last key left on the table and said evenly, “I’ll take a room by myself.”

The Fat Man stared in disbelief. “You-you’re fucking out of your-”

Chu Yue looked over, his gaze icy. “Is there a problem?”

The aura rolling off him made the Fat Man jolt. He shut his mouth on reflex.

As the tension thickened, Wang Meng stepped forward and patted Chu Yue on the shoulder. “Be careful tonight.”

Chu Yue’s face barely changed. Holding the key, he turned and was the first to walk into the stairwell.

“Tch. Already on death’s doorstep and still playing the saint,” the Fat Man spat. Nothing decent ever came out of his mouth.

“Cut the drama,” Wang Meng’s voice followed. “It’s already close to ten. Head back. No matter what you hear tonight, don’t stick your nose in.”

Lights flicked on in the stairwell as Chu Yue headed up.

Room 315 was easy enough to find. Once he reached the 3rd Floor, it was the room right opposite the stairs.

The place was a bit rundown. A lot of the paint on the door had peeled off. Chu Yue unlocked the padlock and went in.

A faint, long‑stale moldy smell hit him in the face.

Inside were two sets of bunk beds. The railings were caked with rust. One on the left, one on the right, both pushed up against the walls. There was no other furniture.

Further in was a small balcony partitioned off from the room, with a separate bathroom inside.

Chu Yue went to check. No water.

After he roughly straightened the bedding, it had gone quiet outside. It was probably ten o’clock by now.

He carefully checked the door and windows, then sat for a bit before switching off the light and lying down.

He wasn’t all that panicked. This was originally an Instance for twelve people. The rooms checked out; they were correct. One of their number had just happened to die beforehand, that was all.

Although it was his first time entering the game, he guessed there was a high chance this was not the Death Condition.

That thought brought a wry smile to his lips. Was he really already at the point where all he could hope for was that his guess wasn’t wrong?

Sleepiness didn’t come easily to Chu Yue.

He’d woken up before ending up here. Time in this place passed a little faster; by normal flow, only four or five hours should have gone by.

With his eyes closed, he thought of the boy he had just seen, and his mind sank back to an autumn seventeen years ago.

Same age. Similar clothes. Even the name overlapped in a strangely familiar way.
Shen Yubi.

He silently mouthed that name. Back then, what was his full name again…

Chu Yue slipped into old memories, and when he snapped back, a jolt of alarm shot through his chest.

It was a strange sensation. Eyes closed, yet he could feel a scorching gaze fixed on him.

The instant that thought surfaced, every hair on his body stood on end. A prickling, restless heat crept over his skin.

Something got in this fast?

Had he guessed wrong-was being alone really a Death Condition?

His breath hitched for a second. He thought it through, then suddenly opened his eyes.

A vague, featureless shadow stood at his bedside, head tilted slightly as if studying him.

But as his eyes adjusted to the dark, that shadow vanished.

The room was deathly quiet. The rain outside the window showed no sign of letting up. With no moonlight, he could only make out hazy outlines of the furnishings.

Empty. Just him.

His heart thudded so hard it felt like it might burst out of his chest. Chu Yue broke into a sudden cough, his breathing trembling.

Once he calmed down again, he wordlessly tugged the blanket up higher, no longer sure whether that thing had actually appeared or if he’d imagined it.

The chill in the room seeped into him. Chu Yue lay there with his eyes open, staring into the darkness above, too afraid to close them.

But it wasn’t up to him. A heavy, inexplicable drowsiness welled up, and before he realized it, he’d fallen asleep.

He woke again to a strange noise.

A peculiar, rhythmic banging.

Like metal hitting the floor with a clanging “clang, clang,” yet muffled, as if someone were slowly dragging something up the stairs.

The rain outside had stopped by now, leaving the sound unnervingly clear.

Chu Yue opened his eyes and looked at the little window set into the door. He had no idea what time it was. Outside was pitch-black; he couldn’t see a thing.

He could only hear it-whatever it was, coming closer and closer. The sound came from across the hall. Something was definitely coming up the stairs.

The knocks were even and regular. After a dozen or so impacts, they shifted into a heavy scraping, and then the noise cut off.

It had stopped. Chu Yue knew it was right outside the door of Room 315.

His body tensed up on its own. As he was thinking about what to do if that thing came in, a breathy whisper sounded next to his ear.

“Close your eyes.”

Cold breath brushed over the shell of his ear with the words. Chu Yue’s scalp went numb, and then something clamped over his mouth.

The voice repeated, “Close your eyes.”

It was an unfamiliar male voice, drifting as if from the edge of the sky, insubstantial and unreal, yet echoing right at his ear.

He had just started to struggle when the sensation over his mouth froze him in place.

The hand he’d left under the blanket balled into a fist. There was something else in the room with him.

He abruptly remembered the shadow he’d seen before falling asleep. So it hadn’t been his imagination after all.

The cold breath at his ear, the icy touch on his lips-Chu Yue didn’t want to think about what this thing was.

He gave in and followed the instruction, shutting his eyes. In his heart, his understanding of this world deepened yet again.

Passing out without warning was bad enough. Now there was also this bizarre entity in his room.

This time, he hadn’t even seen where it was.

When it felt him stop struggling, that thing let go.

It seemed to have moved away; even the frigid air in the room felt marginally warmer.

The door gave a slow, creaking “screee” as someone pushed it open.

Heavy footsteps, accompanied by that earlier scraping sound, slowly made their way into the room.

Chu Yue’s heart leapt back into his throat.

The sound drew closer and closer, then stopped right at his bedside.