Besides the area directly behind Xiao Cheng, there were five other entrances to the hall. Heavy curtains were drawn, completely obscuring the scene behind the doors.

The puppet beckoned her over, poured her another glass of red wine, and then pointed to the still-unactivated camera above her head.

"What is this?" Xiao Cheng looked up and saw that it didn't quite look like a surveillance camera; rather, it seemed to be...

"Live broadcast." The puppet answered in a stiff tone, then pointed to the red wine again and urged, "Drink."

Xiao Cheng picked up her wine glass, took a small sip, and immediately frowned uncomfortably.

She put the cup down, then pushed the base back in front of the puppet with two fingers.

"It tastes awful," she commented. "If this is really made from grapes, then they must be rotten grapes."

The puppet didn't understand her complaints at all, but he still maintained the posture of a proper listener, swirling the half-full glass of red wine in his hand, waiting for Xiao Cheng to continue.

But there was no follow-up.

Xiao Cheng narrowed his eyes, his gaze passing over the puppet's shoulder and looking at the entrance directly opposite.

Footsteps.

Then the curtain was lifted, and Number Three peeked out from the pitch-black passage.

His gaze paused for a moment when he caught sight of Xiao Cheng, a fleeting look of surprise crossing his face, but he quickly readjusted his emotions and casually brushed the dust off his clothes.

"Everyone's here." The novelist's voice boomed from the loudspeaker behind the puppet, "Live broadcast... officially begins!"

Then, a bottomless hole suddenly appeared beneath the puppet's feet, and it plummeted downwards. The hole then closed instantly, as if nothing had ever happened.

Xiao Cheng looked up at the camera with its red light on above her head.

At the same time, a line of brightly colored words popped up on the ceiling.

[A shared task from livestream users: Who am I?]

"Live stream?" Number Three asked, slightly puzzled. "Do you have any news from your end?"

“No, in fact I didn’t arrive much earlier than you.” Xiao Cheng turned her head and looked around, not seeing any other information. “But since the mission has already been issued… then the objective is clear. Let’s just follow it. In short, we can only take it one step at a time for now.”

"So you came here because of the bookstore," Number Three said bluntly. "So what's the key word that attracted you here?"

"I didn't see any keywords, I just randomly picked a fragment, is it that important?" Xiao Cheng didn't answer directly.

Number Three glanced at her thoughtfully, then shook his head in denial, saying, "Of course not, just consider it curiosity. So, next, we'll..."

"Let's split up." Xiao Cheng interrupted him, then randomly chose a door, flung open the curtain, and stepped into the darkness behind it.

Number Three stared at her retreating figure as she lifted the curtain and walked out, then suddenly followed after her.

"Wait!" He flung open the curtain, but all he saw was an empty, dimly lit corridor.

Xiao Cheng has disappeared.

“…Hmm?” Nan An stared at the fork in the corridor not far away with a puzzled look.

He didn't expect Xiao Cheng to move so quickly; he lost track of her in the blink of an eye.

"Never mind," he muttered to himself, retreating back into the hall with a hint of regret, "After all, this is just the beginning."

Xiao Cheng stared blankly and speechlessly at Fang He in the darkness.

"...Are you kidnapping me?"

Just as she lifted the curtain, a hand suddenly reached out from inside the wall and gripped her arm tightly like a pair of pincers. If she hadn't recognized it as Fang He's hand, Number Three would have witnessed a bloodbath.

Then Xiao Cheng realized that it wasn't a hand reaching out from the wall, but rather a hidden door in the wall, and Fang He was crouching behind the hidden door like a thief.

Darkness weakens eyesight but amplifies other senses. The two people are now very close, a distance that could even be described as ambiguous.

Their breaths mingled together, but—

Xiao Cheng could only hear her own heartbeat.

Fang He didn't let go of Xiao Cheng's arm, and didn't even dare to loosen his grip. He was always confident in his fighting ability, but he also knew that if Xiao Cheng wanted to leave, he would definitely not be able to stop him.

"Let go." Xiao Cheng seemed to hear his thoughts and patted his shoulder reassuringly. "Let go first, Fang He. We'll talk about it later."

Fang He remained silent for a moment, but quickly calmed down, slowly released his hand, stepped back, and returned to a normal social distance: "Sorry, I just... lost my composure."

"It's okay, I forgive you." Xiao Cheng ignored the faint awkwardness deep in her heart and turned to look around the room she was in.

It was more like a cave than a room, with uneven, pitted walls, but it was fully furnished with all the necessary furniture.

The space here is not large, with a round wooden bed in the center, which occupies almost a third of the entire room.

In the corner of the room, a frosted glass partition separates the washroom area. There is no door, so you can clearly see the porcelain white bathtub and sink inside.

The front door of the room looked rather flimsy; the wooden door panel appeared to be corroded, with several coin-sized holes pockmarked on it.

There were no windows; the only light source was a candle on the bedside table, flickering with an extremely faint glow. Even the windproof cover was adorned with intricate patterns embroidered with gold thread, making it exceptionally exquisite and completely out of place with the rest of the room.

“I’ve been here since I came in,” Fang He explained. “Besides that hidden door, there’s another door with a nameplate on top that says BY. Before you came, I tried to look around outside, and this is roughly how it’s structured.”

As he spoke, he pulled out a simple hand-drawn map and held it up to the candlelight.

Xiao Cheng went closer to take a look. The crooked lines intertwined, like a tree that started from the roots and spread out branches endlessly, with the hall being the top of the tree.

Each node is a new room, and each room has a different nameplate with different letters. Most of them are GY and BY, and there are two that are specially marked at the bottom, which are the starting points of all the lines.

CY and XY.

"What do all these mean?" Xiao Cheng pointed at the letters. "Are they related to the so-called main quest? If they can be matched with each of us... then they should represent our identities, which would answer the question of who I am."

“You’ve felt it too, haven’t you? This structure and layout, rather than being described as an underground cave, can be described in a more intuitive way,” Fang He said.

"Ant nest." Xiao Cheng knew what he meant and quickly analyzed, "The female ants, male ants, soldier ants, and worker ants all correspond perfectly. So..."

She looked around the room again: "The only possible clues that might be hidden are probably in the room."