Chapter 3

Chapter 3

Above our heads, the System projected a translucent light screen.

“Dungeon ‘Fog Harbor Apartments’ has commenced.”

“Clear Objective: Maintain your status as a resident until dawn at 6:00 AM.”

“Current Resident Count: 8.”

Then came the rules.

1. Do not open the door for anyone after midnight.

2. If you hear someone speaking in the pipes, stay away from the bathroom immediately.

3. There is no Room 404 on the fourth floor.

4. If security requests a room inspection, please cooperate.

5. The Management Office at the end of the corridor is staffed twenty-four hours a day.

When I saw the third rule, I actually breathed a sigh of relief.

That was more like it.

When I wrote this scenario, I deliberately changed 404 from a “room” to a “doorplate.” There truly was no Room 404 on the fourth floor, but there was a fire door with 404 written on it. The real safe point was behind that door, provided you entered before midnight.

“To the fourth floor first,” I said.

The burly man immediately countered, “The rules say there is no 404, and you’re still running that way?”

“Precisely because there is no room, there is a door.”

“Are you insane?”

I turned to look at him. “Then you live by the rules.”

His expression soured, but he didn’t stop me again.

Next to the elevator was a notice for owners, the red characters bloated by the damp air. The elevator buttons only went from one to four; there was no top floor and no basement. I knew the top floor didn’t exist because the true “upper level” of this apartment was in the Management Office’s ledgers, not in physical space.

Just as we reached the fourth floor, we heard knocking from downstairs.

It was very light and rhythmic, like someone using their knuckles to test every door.

Xu Zhibai’s face turned pale. “It’s starting already?”

“This is just the warm-up.” I looked up at the peeling iron door at the end of the corridor. “Hurry.”

The 404 doorplate was hanging on the fire door, the characters looking as if they had been painted with some black liquid that was seeping outward in concentric circles. The door handle was freezing. When I twisted it open, the scent of aged paper and ink mixed with dampness wafted out from behind the door.

The interior wasn’t a room; it was an archive room.

The walls were covered in resident files, the pages fluttering slightly as if someone were breathing in the shadows.

I reached out and pulled the Resident Registry from the very center.

The first page listed eight names-the eight of us survivors. However, in the check-in time column next to the names, everyone’s was blank, except for mine, which was followed by a string of dates.

August 17, 2019.

That was the date I wrote the first chapter of Fog Harbor Apartments.

My fingers felt a bit cold.

Xu Zhibai leaned in and saw that line of text as well. “You’ve been here before?”

“No.” I closed the Resident Registry. “But the System knew me long before I knew it.”

The knocking in the corridor suddenly stopped.

Immediately after, an announcement blared through the speakers across the entire floor:

“Security inspection. All residents please remain in your rooms and await verification.”

The burly man looked delighted. “Rule four says to cooperate. Let’s go out.”

“Don’t go,” I said. “He isn’t security tonight.”

“On what basis are you saying that now?”

I looked at the tiny note on the last page of the Resident Registry and lowered my voice.

“Because the real security guard has a limp in his right leg.”

The footsteps outside the door drew closer and closer.

But they were steady and heavy, without the slightest sound of dragging.

That wasn’t the security guard.

That was something that lived on the fifth floor and shouldn’t have come down at all.