Chapter 3
Again, he was being scrutinized.
Unlike the gaze he’d felt before falling asleep, this time the look directed at him was filled with undisguised malice, sweeping over him from head to toe like it wanted to peel off his skin and strip out his bones.
Chu Yue kept his breathing as even as possible and didn’t move a muscle.
It was a long time before the thing by the bed finally stirred.
He heard a rough snort, and then footsteps headed toward the door-each step slow and deliberate.
“Bang-” The door slammed shut, and bits of debris tumbled down from the frame.
There was that scraping sound again, followed by a series of metallic clangs.
It hadn’t gone to Room 316. It went straight upstairs instead.
Only when the sounds gradually faded into the distance did Chu Yue open his eyes.
He let out a breath. In just a few minutes, the back of his shirt was almost soaked through.
It just left? Chu Yue was puzzled.
It had come in here only to take a look?
Thinking it over, Chu Yue sat up and glanced around.
After a few seconds of silence, he tested the air with a question: “Who are you?”
No response.
He asked again, “Are you still here?”
Still no sound.
Chu Yue lowered his eyes. He had the nagging feeling something was off. If he didn’t meet the Death Condition, why had the Monster entered his room? If he did, then why didn’t it kill him?
It definitely couldn’t be that it entered every room. So what was the pattern?
Had the Monster held back because of the shadow? Then what was the shadow, and why would it help him?
With no clues at all, he couldn’t reach any conclusion.
The bolt on the door was intact and undamaged, just like when he’d checked it before going to bed.
The Monster had come in and gone out, as if it hadn’t used this door at all.
While he was thinking, the clanging stopped, and after that, there was no more sound at all.
After going through something like that so suddenly, Chu Yue thought he wouldn’t be able to sleep. Unexpectedly, he slept straight through until morning.
Maybe because it had rained last night, even though it was daytime, the room was still a bit dim.
He sat up and straightened his clothes. This time, there was water in the bathroom.
After washing up, he opened the door-just in time to see Wang Meng and another man coming out of the room opposite.
“You’re not dead?” the man blurted when he saw Chu Yue.
Chu Yue gave him a flat look. “Sorry to disappoint you.”
“Brother Chu, what are you saying?” Wang Meng stepped in to smooth things over. “He’s just too surprised, that’s all. He didn’t mean anything by it.”
Having been snapped at, the man frowned, still wanting to say something more.
But Chu Yue ignored him and headed upstairs.
The Monster hadn’t killed him last night, but it had gone to the 4th Floor.
The System had announced that one person would die on the first night. Since nothing had happened to him, the one who died was, in all likelihood, a player on the 4th Floor.
The other two knew this as well and followed behind Chu Yue.
The staircase here was quite broad, but the corridor itself felt a bit narrow.
The moment he stepped onto the 4th Floor, Chu Yue caught a strong, metallic stench of blood.
He looked up and saw that the door to Room 417, diagonally across from the stairs, was open. Two girls around seventeen or eighteen stood in the doorway, both pale as paper.
Chu Yue paused. The Fat Man had taken the key to Room 417 last night.
When they saw the three of them come up, the two girls looked like they’d just seen their saviors.
One of them forced out, haltingly, “We heard… something last night, so we thought we’d come take a look. We didn’t think…”
With five people crowded at the door of Room 417, the space immediately felt cramped.
Chu Yue shifted to the side and saw into the room.
There was a pool of blood on the floor. Exposed to the air for too long, it had already turned a dark, blackish red.
Blood spatter was everywhere, like dots of paint flung from a brush-on the bed frame, on the walls, on the ceiling, all over the room.
But there was no corpse.
He turned his head, and the moment his gaze fell on the boy sitting on the bed, he let out a shallow breath of relief.
The Fat Man was gone. It was obvious who had died.
Wang Meng was the first to go in. He looked around the room back and forth, then turned and shook his head at the people outside the door.
There really was no body.
But as he came out, he didn’t watch his step and accidentally kicked something out from underfoot.
It was a soft, limp piece of flesh, like a chunk of meat.
The instant Chu Yue saw it, he shifted his eyes away.
The two girls both cried out.
It was nothing else-just the most important part of a man’s lower half.
The blood all over the room was one thing, but seeing that thing roll out all alone…
One of the young girls couldn’t hold it in. She clapped a hand over her mouth and bolted back to her room.
A few seconds later, the sound of retching came from inside.
Chu Yue frowned slightly and stepped into the room, carefully avoiding the blood.
The boy looked like he’d been scared out of his wits. He was only wearing thin long underwear, head bowed, sitting on the bed without moving.
Chu Yue walked to the bedside, picked up the clothes at the foot of the bed, and clumsily helped him get dressed.
Shen Yubi didn’t resist. He let himself be handled like a marionette with its strings pulled.
In the end, he was even picked up by Chu Yue, and he still didn’t say a word.
Wang Meng watched how he moved. “You two know each other?”
“No,” Chu Yue said.
Wang Meng snorted. “Then suit yourself.”
What a joke. A newcomer, not even sure if he could survive himself, and he was minding a kid on top of that.
But when he heard the crisp clink of silver ornaments, his gaze slid back to Shen Yubi.
A probing look flashed in his eyes.
“What happened last night?”
The question was for Shen Yubi, of course.
Shen Yubi stayed silent for a long time before finally whispering, “I don’t know. I fell asleep.”
“Really?”
Shen Yubi didn’t answer. He just shrank a little further into Chu Yue’s arms.
When the people from the 2nd Floor came up to check, Wang Meng dropped the subject.
Seeing the blood all over the room and the piece of flesh on the floor, the remaining four also fell silent.
They’d all seen yesterday’s dismembered corpse. Whoever needed to puke had already puked. Compared to that, this scene today only made that one girl throw up.
And that was purely from disgust.
Of course, the main reason was that there was nothing left in their stomachs.
“Let’s go, nothing worth staring at. Head down,” Wang Meng said, turning to go downstairs.
Chu Yue carried Shen Yubi. Shen Yubi obediently wrapped his arms around Chu Yue’s neck and lay against his shoulder.
Chu Yue’s nose twitched slightly; he caught the faint scent of medicinal herbs coming from Shen Yubi. It was very light, with a mysterious undertone.
By now, the Duty Room beside the Hall had breakfast ready.
A long table, ten sets of bowls and chopsticks.
Wang Meng casually picked a seat, said nothing, and started eating as soon as he picked up his bowl and chopsticks.
It had taken them three to four hours to come down from the mountain last night, and then they’d walked around town for quite a while. He was starving.
“Is this food really safe? Shouldn’t we be more careful?” someone asked hesitantly.
Wang Meng took a second to reply, “If this game wants you dead, it’s got plenty of ways to do it. It doesn’t need to bother poisoning your food.”
The logic was sound, but everyone still ate with extreme caution.
After they finished breakfast and had just sat down in the Hall, someone walked in through the door.
He was a simple, honest-looking man with a greasy apron tied around him. After coming in, he swept his eyes around the room.
“I’m Li Ergou. Thanks for being willing to come help this time.”
Then he explained the situation.
“My Butcher Knife is missing. I called you here to help me find it. Without it, I can’t keep my business going.”
As he spoke, he kept sighing, his brows knotted together, looking utterly miserable.