Author: 木尺素 / Mu Chisu
Translator: Kinky || https://kinkytranslations.com/
Chapter 89
The disappearance of the ring had a plausible explanation: another guest staying here had come out after hearing the quarrel and picked up the ring from the floor.
However, the room that should have been empty but wasn’t not only made this event inexplicable but also added a layer of mystery to the disappearance of the ring.
Zhou Qian immediately had an idea about what was going on. He grabbed Bai Zhou’s hand and bit the back of it fiercely, leaving a deep bite mark.
Afterwards, Zhou Qian extended the back of his own hand to Bai Zhou. “Come on, bite me too.”
Bai Zhou obviously understood Zhou Qian’s intention. He took Zhou Qian’s hand, but instead of biting the back, he gently bit the index finger, leaving a slightly bloody mark.
The reason Zhou Qian did this was, of course, to take precautions.
Having witnessed the strange phenomenon before him, he had a subtle hunch. Although he knew his guess might not be correct, it was always good to be prepared.
After biting Bai Zhou’s hand, when Zhou Qian tried to communicate with him through a private chat tool, he discovered the tool was unusable. This development seemed to align with his suspicions.
As for the secret hidden within the exhibition hall, before entering Hall C, Zhou Qian had a guess: different exhibition rooms corresponded to different points in time, suggesting that the exhibition hall could potentially connect to different time periods.
Analyzing from a game design perspective, if one considered the entire exhibition hall as a large instance and each virtual game within as small instances, hiding various secrets of the larger instance within the smaller ones was a common game design approach.
Zhou Qian and He Xiaowei had played in Halls A and B, but the information these two revealed was very limited and had no mention of “time connectivity”. Hence, the now more challenging Hall C might be linked to the concept of time.
Given this, when they returned to the 11th floor and witnessed a series of abnormalities, Zhou Qian’s first reaction was that they had been transported back to the 11th floor many years ago.
Since the concept of “time” was in play, there could be a parallel timeline trick at work. Zhou Qian was concerned that another version of himself and Bai Zhou might exist in this “past” space, which was why he marked their hands with bites.
What Zhou Qian thought of, Bai Zhou immediately realized as well. He tightly held Zhou Qian’s hand and said in a low but certain voice, “We’ll stick together.”
By now, more and more blood was flowing from room 1108. The woman’s screams grew fainter and eventually disappeared. The sounds of beating stopped briefly, presumably because the woman had died.
But after about 30 seconds, the beating sounds resumed. This time, instead of a woman’s cries, it was a child. The child, not as resilient as an adult, didn’t cry for long before falling silent.
Horrific brutality was taking place just beyond the door, its sounds causing Zhou Qian to frown deeply. Then he heard the “ding” of an elevator door opening. Looking towards the elevator, he saw two men walk out.
One man, an NPC Zhou Qian didn’t recognize, was dressed in a suit with oiled hair, appearing quite respectable. The other was the fat player from Hall D, who, by all accounts, should have been dead.
The reappearance of a supposedly dead player made Zhou Qian wonder: did this instance involve parallel timelines? Were the same group of “budget travelers” staying in the hotel from years past?
As Zhou Qian pondered this, he noticed something else. The fat man was walking effeminately, holding the hand of the man beside him.
They seemed intimate, even sharing a kiss once out of the elevator. But shortly after, the suited man quickly let go of the fat man’s hand, as if afraid of being caught in an illicit affair. The fat man stepped back, keeping a considerable distance.
The suited man walked straight down the corridor, passing Zhou Qian and Bai Zhou, and stopped in front of room 1108. He obviously noticed the blood seeping out.
Panicking, he hurriedly used his keycard to open the door. But the moment he did, he was met with a nylon hood.
His head was quickly covered, the door was shut, and a ruthless male voice demanded, “Swear to me—”
The suited man pleaded, “I swear! Please let me go! I’ll swear to anything!”
The aggressor demanded, “Swear that you will worship Satan and be forever loyal to him!”
The suited man responded in sheer terror, “I s-swear, I’ll worship Satan and be forever loyal to him!”
The response to him was a swift and powerful blow.
“Very well, I give you this opportunity! Now, I’ll send you to hell to serve! You’re going to be a loyal servant of Satan!”
After the malicious words, another quick and intense blow was heard.
After a while, the room became silent again, indicating that the man in the suit was probably dead.
However, the killer inside didn’t leave immediately. It seemed he was still doing something in the room.
By the time he emerged, three minutes had passed.
Three minutes later, holding a baseball bat, a man pushed open the door of room 1108 and entered the corridor.
After a few steps, he stopped, turned his head, and looked at Zhou Qian and Bai Zhou.
His baseball bat was covered in blood, and droplets of blood also adorned his forehead, nose, and face.
With a bloody, eerie smile on his lips, his bloodshot eyes squinted slightly, and he said in an incredibly hoarse voice, “Bai Zhou, Zhou Qian. Hello… I hope you’ll join me in serving Satan.”
Hearing this, Zhou Qian tried to read his data and the chubby man beside him through the system panel and, surprisingly, could get information about them as players—
The man with the shaved head holding the baseball bat, who had just killed someone in the room, was called Xiong Fei. The chubby man was called Li Yuan.
Through Xiong Fei’s words, Zhou Qian realized that they still recognized him.
But their personalities had drastically changed.
Li Yuan, the chubby man, gave Zhou Qian and Bai Zhou a glance that was somewhere between a smile and a smirk.
Xiong Fei picked up the baseball bat again and naturally draped his arm around Li Yuan’s.
The two turned around and headed towards the elevator.
Zhou Qian and Bai Zhou exchanged glances and went to room 1108.
The door was wide open, revealing three dead bodies inside: a man, a woman, and a young girl.
All three had nylon bags over their heads, their faces brutally beaten, and their organs damaged to varying extents.
As for the walls and floor, they were smeared with inverted pentagrams in fresh blood.
A family of three died in room 1108 on some date. The room was sealed with cement, and the room number was removed.
Later, the other rooms in this corridor were renumbered.
The room known as 1108 was no longer this one but was on the other side of the corridor near the elevator.
Years later, Zhou Qian and a group of tourists checked in here.
This should be the sequence of events.
Initially, Zhou Qian thought he had traveled through time, returning to the scene of the crime before room 1108 was sealed with cement.
However, if it was just time travel, they shouldn’t have met Xiong Fei and Li Yuan.
Zhou Qian hypothesized that there existed two parallel timelines, “past” and “present”.
In both timelines, eleven budget tourists checked into the Saiya Hotel.
However, if this were true, Xiong Fei and Li Yuan shouldn’t have changed so dramatically.
Thus, it seemed that the concept of time travel alone couldn’t explain the situation.
Why Xiong Fei and Li Yuan, both supposedly dead, appeared in a timeline that resembled the “past”; why Li Yuan appeared to have turned into a woman, leaning against the man in the suit as they emerged from the elevator… These questions remained to be answered as they continued further.
Zhou Qian pondered seriously for a while, then opened the system panel to check. “Can’t send messages to He Xiaowei. The system has a new restriction.”
Bai Zhou, holding Zhou Qian’s hand, led him back to the corridor. “There’s so much blood here. Are you okay?”
“I’m fine.”
Zhou Qian replied, catching something out of the corner of his eye and looking towards the elevator.
He noticed that Xiong Fei and Li Yuan were still standing by the elevator doors, probably because someone on another floor had pressed the elevator button, and it hadn’t returned to their floor.
While waiting, Li Yuan raised his head, yawned, and, to everyone’s shock, his head dropped to the floor.
His head was rather bouncy, as it bounced a few times before settling.
Li Yuan’s headless body seemed to panic and clutch onto Xiong Fei’s arm.
Shortly after, a huge wound opened up on Li Yuan’s neck, gushing blood.
Xiong Fei patted him on the shoulder, picked up his head, and placed it back onto Li Yuan’s neck.
The wound on Li Yuan’s neck vanished, and his head was securely in place. With Xiong Fei’s support, Li Yuan stood up.
Finally, the elevator arrived. The two, hand in hand, entered it and left.
Zhou Qian stared at the closed elevator doors for a moment, then walked with Bai Zhou to the room opposite the crime scene 1108. The door of this room still bore the number 1107.
Not long ago, Zhou Qian and Bai Zhou were eavesdropping behind this door. They wondered if the door they had listened at was still the same now.
Taking out the room card, Zhou Qian tried swiping it. With a “click”, the door actually opened. No one was inside, and everything was as he remembered from his last visit. Even the towel filled with ice cubes that Bai Zhou had used to soothe Zhou Qian’s injury was still there.
Upon seeing the towel, Zhou Qian and Bai Zhou exchanged a knowing look. Both had the same thought and left room 1107 together, heading in unison towards room 1109.
That room should have been occupied by He Xiaowei and Hidden Blade. If they hadn’t left, they might still be inside.
Bai Zhou pulled Zhou Qian behind him with his left hand and, with his right, held his Tang sword, knocking on the door with its hilt. However, no one answered. It seemed the two were indeed not there.
Zhou Qian had suspected this. With all the noise in the corridor, if they were inside, they would have responded.
After a brief consideration, as Zhou Qian was about to suggest they check another floor, suddenly, the door of room 1104 opened.
Not long ago, there had been an argument in room 1104 between a couple, ending with the wife being pushed out into the corridor.
A man from room 1103 soon joined her, and they were openly affectionate, even asking Zhou Qian and Bai Zhou to buy condoms. Now, from the same room 1104, a woman in a red dress identical to the previous one emerged.
The first time Zhou Qian saw her, she was on the corridor floor, looking very upset, until she saw the man from 1103, and then her mood lifted.
Her expression now was quite different. She seemed less than pleased but was not despondent. Her eyes and expressions were free from malice. After leaving room 1104, she headed for the elevator, walking lightly, showing she was in a relatively good mood.
As the woman in red waited for the elevator, suddenly, the door to room 1103 opened, and a man came out. This was the same man who had asked Zhou Qian and Bai Zhou to buy him condoms earlier.
Previously, he and the woman in the red dress couldn’t keep their hands off each other in the corridor. Now, they seemed like strangers. The man quietly approached the elevator and waited with the woman. When their eyes met, they just nodded as a polite greeting.
After a while, the elevator door opened, and the two entered, one after the other. Zhou Qian, exchanging glances with Bai Zhou, followed the two NPCs into the elevator.
The entire corridor was silent as a church. Except for the man and woman, there seemed to be no other NPCs around, and the whereabouts of the other players were unknown. Given the inability to forcibly break into all the rooms for the time being, Zhou Qian speculated that exploring this floor further would yield no new findings. Thus, he decided to take the elevator and assess the situation on another floor.
Inside the elevator, upon seeing Bai Zhou and Zhou Qian, the man and woman looked up at the two of them. They both took a few steps back, almost pressing their backs against the elevator wall, evidently making space for the newcomers. Following suit, Zhou Qian, holding onto Bai Zhou, entered the elevator and casually pressed the button for the 9th floor. No other floor numbers lit up on the elevator’s digital panel.
It appeared that the man and woman hadn’t selected any floors.
As the elevator doors slowly closed, Zhou Qian asked, “Which floor are you heading to? Shall I press it for you?” Turning his head around after posing the question, he found the space behind him empty.
The man and woman had vanished out of thin air!
Zhou Qian and Bai Zhou exchanged glances, remaining silent. The grip they had on each other tightened just a tad more.
The elevator quickly descended to the 9th floor. As they stepped out, they noticed that the entire corridor—from the ceiling to the sofa and tables in the lounge area across from the elevator—all of the furnishings were identical to those on the 11th floor.
Having a certain hunch, Zhou Qian, still holding onto Bai Zhou, headed straight to the end of the corridor.
As suspected, where there should have been a room, there was instead a wall. On the other side of this wall was a door with the number “1107” on it.
It was clear that they were still on the 11th floor.
Zhou Qian was about to frown when he heard a voice exclaim, “Qian’er! Damn! Finally, I see a familiar face!”
Recognizing the all-too-familiar voice, Zhou Qian turned around to see He Xiaowei rushing towards him.
At that moment, his wrist vibrated. Zhou Qian received several messages from Li Xuehai—
[The elevator might now be a medium leading to different spaces.]
[Something’s not right here. The teammates you see might not be the actual teammates, like this He Xiaowei. Also…]
[Given your intelligence, I probably don’t need to remind you. But I’ve noticed that your relationship with Bai Zhou is special, and he might deceive you.]
[So, I still want to remind you. Don’t forget, earlier, when you were showering in the room, he went down on the elevator by himself to ask the front desk for ice cubes. Have you ever thought…]
[Maybe the one who returned isn’t the real Bai Zhou?]
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