Li Zhi waited almost the entire night, but the monster from last night never showed up. However, just like the night before, footsteps echoed in the corridor as people seemed to walk back and forth, opening doors and washing their hands. Thinking about the uncles and aunties the ball-playing child mentioned, Li Zhi could only endure it.
Why bother arguing with the dead?
As dawn was breaking, she heard footsteps from above—someone must have gotten up. Only then did Li Zhi manage to doze off for a short while. When daylight streamed in through the window, she had a good rest. Meng Yuhan climbed out of bed and shook her awake, saying, “Sister Zhi Zhi, wake up!”
Li Zhi: “…”
Resigned, she got up.
Meng Yuhan pulled the curtains open, flooding the room with light. Young people are so full of energy. Standing beside the bed, she did a light morning exercise routine and then suddenly turned around with a hint of fear in her voice. “Sister Zhi Zhi, did the monster not come last night?”
She had been lying in bed waiting, but at some point, she must have fallen asleep. Sister Zhi Zhi hadn’t woken her up either.
Rubbing her head, which felt a bit groggy, Li Zhi got dressed and replied, “No, it didn’t come.”
She had a bad feeling in her heart, so she picked up her toiletries and opened the door. “Let’s freshen up first, then we’ll go check downstairs.”
As soon as it was light, the lanterns had also gone out. Li Zhi suspected that the lit lanterns were a signal indicating that the ghosts in the rooms could come out and roam. Once the lanterns went out, they had to return to their rooms. Players knocking on doors seemed to be the trigger for death in this game—if you knocked, the room’s occupants would come find you at night to “play.”
While Meng Yuhan was brushing her teeth in the bathroom, footsteps echoed in the nearby hallway. Li Zhi turned her head and, sure enough, saw Qu Rong coming down with a basin in her hands.
The two smiled and greeted each other. Qu Rong turned on the faucet to get some water, and while squeezing toothpaste, she asked Li Zhi, “Didn’t sleep well last night?”
Li Zhi touched her face. “That obvious?”
Qu Rong smiled. “Your dark circles are worse than yesterday.”
Li Zhi sighed, taking the opportunity to ask, “Are there any rooms available on the third floor? If not, I might move up. It’s way too noisy on the second floor.”
With her mouth full of toothpaste foam, Qu Rong mumbled, “Not sure, you should ask the landlord.”
Li Zhi wiped her face, feigning curiosity. “Which room does that writer Xiao Ke stay in on the third floor? It’s the first time I’ve met an author in real life.”
Qu Rong shook her head in confusion. “Xiao Ke? Don’t know them.” She took a sip of water, spit out the toothpaste foam, and said, “I’m not too familiar with the neighbors here.”
Li Zhi smiled and nodded.
After freshening up, she put her things back in the room and led Meng Yuhan downstairs to have breakfast at Grandma Qiu’s place. The other players arrived one after another, and everyone seemed to tacitly use this breakfast stall as their daily meeting point.
As they gathered and saw each other’s exhausted faces, there was a silent understanding.
None of them had slept well. Everyone must have stayed up all night waiting for the monster.
Only Meng Yuhan and Qiao Junyuan seemed to have a bit of energy.
Li Zhi counted the people and waited for a while, but noticed that two team members were missing.
The others noticed as well. “Where are Cao Xun and Shen Zhijian?”
Li Zhi’s ominous feeling came true, and she headed back toward the apartment. “Let’s go check.”
The two were staying in room 105. Even in the daylight, the hallway on the first floor remained dim and eerie, filled with a chilling coldness. Li Zhi knocked on the door but got no response. Just as she was about to break the door down, Xiang Ling stopped her. “Let me do it.”
She pulled a thin, long wire from her pocket and fiddled with the lock. Soon enough, with a soft click, the door opened.
The group was astonished by Xiang Ling’s skill. “You can do that too?” someone exclaimed.
Xiang Ling gave an embarrassed smile. “I specifically practiced it before entering this instance.”
Li Zhi was taken aback. Wait, the official training for players includes lock-picking now?
They switched on the light on the wall, and the single room was clearly empty. The others began to panic. “They just disappeared? They didn’t even knock on any doors last night!”
Li Zhi glanced at the bed, which was perfectly made with no signs of anyone having slept in it. Her gaze swept from the smooth bed to the doorway, and then to the staircase at the end of the hall. If she tried to imagine what had happened, this was likely the route the two missing players had taken.
She pointed toward the staircase. “Let’s check the stairwell.”
The group headed toward the stairs. As soon as they entered the narrow space filled with clutter and debris, they spotted something unusual—a black umbrella lying quietly in the corner. It clearly didn’t belong there.
The umbrella was closed, lying so inconspicuously that they wouldn’t have noticed it if they hadn’t been searching.
Li Zhi bent down, picked up the umbrella, and pressed the automatic button on the handle. With a loud snap, the umbrella opened—and a person fell out of it.
The group was scared out of their wits.
It was like a magic trick gone horribly wrong!
The figure tumbled to the floor, but Li Feng, quick on his feet, managed to catch him. When they took a closer look, they realized it was Shen Zhijian.
He was covered in blood, his face pale, and his eyes glazed over. If it weren’t for Li Feng holding him, he would’ve collapsed completely. The group hurriedly helped him back into the room, fetched some water, and gave it to him. Shen Zhijian, lying on the bed, gradually started to recover. When he saw his teammates gathered around the bed, he was dazed for a moment before bursting into tears.
“Cao… Cao Xun is dead… So much blood… Everywhere…”
He seemed to be in shock, and it took some time before the group could piece together what had happened the previous night from his broken recounting.
The two of them had hidden in the stairwell, but the monster found them. Holding their breath didn’t work. Cao Xun was dragged away, and in a panic, Shen Zhijian used an item—a hiding umbrella—which concealed him completely, allowing him to escape.
Shen Zhijian continued sobbing, while the rest of the players started to worry. “Holding our breath doesn’t work? But it worked the night before!”
“It works when the monster can’t see you,” Li Zhi analyzed. “The monster has both sight and hearing. Holding your breath helps when you’re separated by a room, but if you’re exposed to it directly, holding your breath won’t hide you.”
In the dead of night, with their hearts pounding so loudly in the stairwell, it was nearly impossible for the monster not to notice them.
Once Shen Zhijian had calmed down, Li Zhi asked him, “Did you get a clear look at the monster?”
Shen Zhijian shook his head stiffly. “It was too dark… I only saw a lot of blood. It was covered in blood…”
His own clothes were also soaked in blood, but it wasn’t his—it was from the monster when it grabbed him.
Li Zhi frowned.
“Cao Xun was dragged away…” Shen Zhijian muttered, shivering. “I heard the sound of something being torn apart, and then the umbrella closed…”
The hiding umbrella could completely conceal a person’s scent and presence, which was why the monster let Shen Zhijian go.
The group comforted Shen Zhijian for a while, leaving him to rest in the room. When they returned to the breakfast stall, the atmosphere was heavy. With one teammate dead, no one had much of an appetite. If they couldn’t find any clues during the day, they knew they’d have to venture out at night to investigate, which would mean facing the monster head-on.
The tension grew palpable. After finishing her bowl of soy milk, Li Zhi reached into her pocket, took out the folded newspaper she had found earlier, and shared this new clue with the others.
With the new clue in hand, everyone was visibly energized. After reading the news, they began to discuss it eagerly.
“So, is this Xiao Ke who lives here a human or a ghost?”
“She’s probably human. She still comes down to sell boxed meals and doesn’t seem like a ghost. Besides, the ghosts in this game usually only come out at night.”
“Should we just ask her directly if we see her today?”
As the players continued their discussion, Li Zhi went over to speak with Grandma Qiu, who was busy preparing food.
“Xiao Ke?” Grandma Qiu had a faint impression of her. “You mean that quiet young girl? She doesn’t come out much, but she does stop by to buy food from time to time.”
This matched the description in the news article of her being introverted and socially anxious.
A short while later, Li Zhi returned to the group and said, “There might be more clues in the newspapers from the fresh market. I’ll go buy all of them, and we can look for more information.”
Several players went with her, while others stayed behind to see if Xiao Ke might show up. As Li Zhi stepped outside, she bumped into Chu Guangyan. He was impeccably dressed in a suit, holding a briefcase, looking as polished as ever. He threw a bag of household trash into the bin at the entrance.
Li Zhi greeted him. “Good morning, Mr. Chu. Why didn’t you join us for breakfast at Grandma Qiu’s today?”
Chu Guangyan smiled at her. “Morning. I had some leftover soup from last night, so I just heated it up at home.”
As Li Zhi headed to the fresh market, Chu Guangyan walked toward a mist-shrouded street corner. This was a zone players couldn’t approach, but for the NPCs in the game, it was just another part of their world.
At the fresh market, the morning produce was fresh, and the shopkeeper eagerly introduced various items. When Li Zhi mentioned she wanted to buy the old newspapers he used for wrapping, he was surprised.
The newspapers were worthless to him—he had them bundled carelessly under the table. Someone offering money for this junk was a windfall, so he happily sold the entire bundle to Li Zhi. She picked it up—it weighed at least five pounds, enough for a thorough search.
When they returned to the apartment, the sight of the stack of several hundred newspapers caused the players to groan.
But they dove into the task, each taking a share to comb through. This was tedious work, and everyone was painstakingly careful, afraid of missing even the smallest clue. They barely paused for a quick boxed lunch before returning to their task.
After a few hours, they had finally gone through the entire stack of newspapers.
The results were disappointing.
They hadn’t found a single useful clue.
Room 104 was nearly carpeted with newspapers, and everyone felt dizzy and disheartened. “Could Xiao Ke’s news article have just been a coincidence? We’ve gone through everything, and there’s no new lead.”
Already sleep-deprived from the previous night, the players now felt exhausted from hours of scanning dense text, leaving them lightheaded and frustrated.
Li Zhi stood up and walked to the window for some fresh air, massaging her temples to ease the throbbing headache. The window in room 104 faced the security office, and just a few steps away, she noticed a blue garbage bin.
She froze for a moment before something clicked in her mind. “There’s still one more newspaper we haven’t checked.”
Last evening, Chu Guangyan had wrapped the bouquet of lilies for his wife in a piece of newspaper.
Two minutes later, the group stood before the foul-smelling, stained garbage bin, their expressions a mix of disbelief and disgust.
Recalling the bag of trash Chu Guangyan had thrown out earlier, Li Zhi began sifting through the trash. In the hours since, the bin had filled with household waste, and a few players were gagging from the stench.
Who would have thought? They were digging through trash in the middle of a game instance!
Yue–!!
Just when they were on the verge of retching, Li Zhi’s voice rang out, “Found it.”
Fortunately, the bag of trash from Chu Guangyan’s house didn’t contain any liquids, and the newspaper was simply crumpled into a ball. After everyone cleaned up in the bathroom, they finally unrolled the newspaper they had dug out of the trash.
On the cut-up section of the newspaper, a bold black headline reported a news story about a female journalist who had experienced sexual harassment in the workplace. After her complaint failed, she attempted suicide to prove her innocence.