Chapter 88
Chapter 88
Early the next morning, Zhong Lingkun had already left the room by the time Wei Sen woke up.
The first thing Wei Sen did was check the doorway.
The area outside was spotless. There wasn’t the slightest trace of blood. Only a few scratch marks left on the door, along with a red press-on nail found beneath it, proved that everything last night had truly happened.
Wei Sen checked the list of names in the main group chat. Two more names had turned gray overnight, and both belonged to members of Blue Team. Presumably, the woman who had died outside her door last night was one of them.
After washing up, Wei Sen went to the dining hall. It was not yet seven o’clock, but most of the people had already arrived.
The members of Green Team found a large round table and sat down.
“What happened last night? Around eleven, after the lights went out, we heard violent banging from upstairs. Then in the middle of the night, there were hurried footsteps and someone knocking on doors, calling for help,” Lin Xiaoxue asked.
Hearing this, Wei Sen looked toward He Xu and Zhou Jie. Only the three of them from Green Team were staying on the third floor, so they would know more about what had happened upstairs than the others.
The commotion Xiaoxue mentioned from the latter half of the night had been caused by the woman who died outside her door. But what was with the violent banging right after lights-out?
“We only heard the sounds in the second half of the night. We didn’t hear the banging you mentioned after lights-out,” Xu You said.
Liu Shuang, whose dark circles were severe, spoke up. “Susu and I didn’t hear it either.”
Guo Lan looked at He Xu and Zhou Jie. “The room above us is 301. The noise after lights-out came from your room.”
He Xu froze, then glanced at Zhou Jie out of the corner of her eye.
Zhou Jie silently drank his water with a frown.
“Since we’re teammates, shouldn’t you at least share the intel you got?” Liu Shuang said indignantly when he saw that neither of them seemed willing to talk.
Huang Xinze, who had not spoken this whole time, suddenly thought of something. His brows lifted slightly, and a smile tugged at the corner of his mouth as he looked at Guo Lan. “If I’m guessing right, the noise you heard probably didn’t last more than half an hour, did it?”
“I timed it. Five minutes and two seconds.”
“Pfft!” Zhou Jie sprayed out a mouthful of water. Why the hell had someone secretly timed him?!
“Hahahahaha!” Huang Xinze doubled over with laughter, his gaze fixed straight on Zhou Jie. “Bro, you’re terrible at the game, but you still love playing, huh?”
Zhou Jie and He Xu’s faces turned black and red respectively.
At the sight, everyone at the table fell silent. Even Lin Xiaoxue, who had only just turned eighteen, figured out what had happened.
Guo Lan was the most speechless of all. Xiaoxue was relatively innocent and had not thought in that direction at all before this.
As for Guo Lan, she had guessed that perhaps those two had been duo-queueing, but she had dismissed the idea.
After all, she really had not expected that in the Eerie World, where death could come at any moment, there would still be people capable of doing something like that. Were they not afraid an Eerie Entity would suddenly show up before they even had time to pull up their pants?
“…Let’s talk about what happened last night first,” He Xu said seriously.
God knew the soundproofing in this hotel was so bad. And she had not noticed that the people staying directly downstairs just so happened to be their teammates.
Huang Xinze covered his mouth. “Right, right, right. Let’s talk business. Don’t wreck Brother Jie’s confidence.”
As a man, Liu Shuang buried his head, his shoulders shaking uncontrollably. He held back his laughter until his face turned red. Only another man could empathize with how badly Zhou Jie wanted to disappear from the face of the earth right now.
“You just have to run your damn mouth, don’t you!” Zhou Jie snapped, slapping the table in anger.
“Enough, Brother Jie. Business first!” He Xu grabbed hold of Zhou Jie.
The others stopped pursuing the topic and shifted their focus back to the commotion in the latter half of the night.
“The two people who died last night were both members of Blue Team. One of the women died right outside my door,” Wei Sen said.
Xia Susu shrugged. “Isn’t that just stupid? Running around in the middle of the night instead of sleeping. If she didn’t die, who would?”
“If I’m not wrong, she most likely ran out of her own room. We didn’t hear anything on the second floor, which proves she didn’t run up from downstairs. And since we were explicitly told not to go to the fourth floor, she probably wouldn’t have risked going up there in the middle of the night,” Guo Lan analyzed.
Wei Sen nodded. “Mm. The deceased should have been staying somewhere around the middle of the third floor. Something chased her out of her room, and in her panic, she chose the wrong direction and couldn’t get downstairs. So she could only knock on doors for help, and she finally stopped outside my door. Then I heard a sound like someone’s neck being snapped. That should have been her cause of death.”
“But no body was found in the corridor, and there were no bloodstains either,” He Xu said, puzzled.
“Maybe there were, but… someone cleaned it up.” Xu You’s expression was grave. “I didn’t go up to the third floor, but when I was on the stairs, I smelled blood.”
Wei Sen narrowed her eyes slightly. Xu You really was sensitive to the smell of blood. The last time Xu You came to her house, she had immediately noticed the scent of blood on the tabletop too.
Huang Xinze said, “An Eerie Entity killed someone, then specially came back to clean up the scene? How polite of it.”
Wei Sen said, “There was more than one Eerie Entity last night. A ‘woman’ also entered my room in the middle of the night.”
“So I wasn’t the only one who ran into ‘her’!” Xu You said.
“She came into our room too,” Guo Lan said with a serious expression.
“Huh?!” Lin Xiaoxue shot to her feet in fright and stared at Guo Lan in shock. “Sister Lan, someone came into our room last night?!!!”
Guo Lan held her forehead. “Mm. She only looked at us and didn’t do anything, so I ignored her. Running into an Eerie Entity in the middle of the night is normal in an Instance. There’s no need to be so surprised.”
Lin Xiaoxue felt her scalp go numb. “Uuugh, I’m not going to dare sleep tonight.”
“Don’t worry. I’ll protect you.” Guo Lan motioned for her to sit down.
Liu Shuang swallowed. “Last night, I moved the bed to the doorway and slept there. In the middle of the night, I did feel someone trying to open the door, but she couldn’t get ours open. She left after a little while.”
At that, everyone finally understood where Liu Shuang’s panda eyes had come from. He had probably been so frightened by that incident that he hadn’t managed to fall asleep all night.
Xia Susu looked at Liu Shuang with a smile. “Thank you, Brother Shuang. You guarded the door all night to protect me!”
Liu Shuang’s expression turned somewhat unnatural. “Of course, of course!”
He Xu shook her head. “We slept deeply last night and didn’t notice anything unusual.”
Huang Xinze rubbed his chin and looked at Zhou Jie, deliberately saying, “I only exercised in my room for a mere hour and a half last night, but I slept pretty deeply too!”
Zhou Jie clenched his fists, his eyes practically spitting fire.
After everyone exchanged information, Wei Sen also sent the strange tracks she had photographed in the snow last night to the Green Team chat.
She had reason to suspect that whatever was in the snow had also slipped into the inn last night and killed that woman from the Blue Team.
Because when the body was being dragged, she could hear that the thing outside was walking on four legs. The parts of its legs that came into contact with the floor must also have been rather hard, like an animal’s hooves. Only then could it make those thump, thump, thump sounds.
But ordinary animals’ hooves clearly couldn’t snap an adult’s neck. Which meant it could easily break a person’s neck, had hard contact points, and walked on four legs…
Wei Sen had some guesses in mind, but she still needed time to verify them, so she did not discuss them with everyone for the moment.
Before long, Meiya pushed a dining cart out from the back kitchen. Even from far away, everyone could smell a rich, mouthwatering aroma of meat.