Chapter 17

Chapter 17

Tang Ying’s partner was a middle-aged man named Liang Chen. They had been assigned to search the hotel’s sixth floor.

After leaving the elevator, they followed Chen Nuo’s instructions and began searching in opposite directions.

The guest floors were arranged in a broad ring, with rooms on one side facing the street and rooms on the other facing the ocean. Since every member of the tour had been given an ocean-view room, no one had entered or even seen one of the street-facing rooms. Before entering the hotel, they had merely observed that one side of the building faced a road.

Tang Ying now walked down the corridor on the left. Every room in this row faced the street, and every door was closed. A laundry room stood midway down the corridor, with a storage room at the far end. Tang Ying opened every washing machine and inspected it carefully but found no Mouse. The storage room was even easier to assess. It contained only a mop sink and cleaning equipment, with nowhere a person could possibly hide.

The pair met at the end of the corridor. Neither had to ask whether the other had found the Mouse. If one had, there would certainly have been shouting.

“Mr. Liang Chen, it looks like the Mouse isn’t on our floor. Under the plan, one of us needs to stay inside an elevator. You seem tired, so you can guard one. I’ll go downstairs and regroup with Chen Nuo to discuss our next step,” Tang Ying said.

“All right.”

Liang Chen was in his thirties and worked as a public servant. He spent most of his days sitting in an office and rarely exercised, so Tang Ying’s arrangement suited him perfectly.

Tang Ying ran down the stairwell. As a food blogger, she frequently visited restaurants to sample and review their dishes. To avoid gaining weight, she exercised for more than an hour every day and possessed excellent fitness and stamina. She ran down from the seventh floor without even breathing hard.

Nine people had already gathered in the lobby. With Tang Ying’s arrival, all the Cats assigned to floors three through nine had returned to the first floor. Obviously, they had regrouped because no one had found the Mouse on their assigned floor.

“Only the teams on floors two and ten haven’t come down,” Chen Nuo said. “That’s more or less what I expected. If the Mouse is hiding, he’s most likely on the second or tenth floor, where all the recreational facilities are.”

One of the twin sisters asked, “The doors to the guest rooms on the other floors were all closed. Could the Mouse be inside one?”

“I don’t think so,” Tang Ying said. “Every room has a different key card. The Mouse isn’t wearing any clothes, only a pair of swim trunks. Where would he keep a card?”

“He wouldn’t need many,” Xiang Meiling said. “What if he asked reception for the key card to one room before the contest and then hid inside it? We’d have almost no chance of finding him.”

“That’s true. This hotel has one or two hundred guest rooms. We could never search each one carefully before time ran out. But if reception, meaning the organizers, gave the Mouse a key card and helped him cheat, what would be entertaining about this contest? The dark-web audience would find it boring. I doubt the K Organization would allow that. They want an exciting game,” Tang Ying said.

“Tang Ying has a point.” Chen Nuo nodded. “I don’t think the Mouse can be inside any of those guest rooms either.”

“He can’t enter the others, but he can certainly enter his own room,” Xiang Meiling said.

“Of course. But would he hide there? One person could block the door while another searched inside, leaving him nowhere to escape.” Che Dongming looked at Lu Qian. “Besides, I doubt Miss Lu Qian would give us the key card to their room.”

“I don’t mind.” Lu Qian pulled the card from her pocket and offered it openly. “If you want to go inside, be my guest.”

No one took it. They all believed Lv Chao could not be stupid enough to hide in his own room. With no escape route, it would amount to suicide. More importantly, all their rooms were on the eighth and ninth floors. Sending at least two people upstairs to check would waste more time.

“Half the time is gone!” Shu Yanjun checked the time on his phone, sounding frantic. “What are we going to do? We can’t keep wasting time!”

Just then, the curly-haired student came running down the stairwell, panting. With one hand braced on his hip, he addressed the group.

“Another person and I were assigned to the second floor, but it has the restaurant and several recreational areas. If the Mouse uses hit-and-run tactics and keeps circling around us, we’ll never catch him. We need more Cats on the second floor!”

“Are you certain the Mouse is there?” Shu Yanjun asked.

“No. But after searching for a while, we realized that even if he is, the two of us could never catch him alone.”

“Every other floor has been ruled out,” Chen Nuo said. “The available Cats should reinforce floors two and ten. That will greatly increase our chances of finding the Mouse.”

“Understood. Ten Cats are free now,” Tang Ying said. “Ruirui and I will take Mr. Shu’s family of three and reinforce the second floor. The other five can reinforce the tenth.”

They were about to move when Chen Nuo suddenly noticed something. Lu Qian, who had been standing nearby, had walked to the stairwell. She cupped her hands around her mouth and shouted upward with all her strength.

“Go to any of the middle floors! They’re all empty now!”