(4000-word chapter)
"Thump, thump, thump."
The knocking sounded again. Yan Ruyu stared warily at the door, gripping the sharp knife in her hand tightly, as if the monster outside the room door would burst in at any moment.
"who?"
"Room service, guest 301, your wake-up call has been completed. We look forward to your positive feedback."
As the staff member outside the room finished speaking, a telephone suddenly rang in the room, echoing in the quiet room and sounding particularly abrupt.
After getting up and hanging up the phone, Yan Ruyu kept a safe distance from the hotel room door and said to the outsider, trying to appear calm, "Alright, I heard you, you can leave now."
Everything proceeded so smoothly that the staff member stopped knocking and instead left the guest room door, dragging his dry footsteps toward the stairwell.
Thankfully, it wasn't Su Luo.
This is not a scene from a dream.
When Yan Ruyu came to her senses, her legs felt slightly weak. Even holding onto her weapons, she felt uneasy in the face of these things.
Wake-up service, wake-up service.
After regaining her composure, Yan Ruyu recalled what the hotel staff had just said and frowned in confusion.
She hadn't requested any wake-up service since checking in, and she clearly remembered that the hotel's check-in guide stated that the wake-up service was only available in the middle of the night. She and Su Luo had parted ways around 9 p.m. at the latest, and she had only taken a short nap. Could she have already slept until the early hours of the morning?
Thinking of this, Yan Ruyu walked to the window and looked at it with a hint of doubt as she saw the window covered by a thick, dark red rose velvet curtain.
Did she just close the curtains?
No, I don't think so!
What exactly happened?
She had no recollection of the suddenly brewed hot tea, the closed windows, or the special wake-up service, but it all actually happened.
After thinking for a moment, Yan Ruyu made a tough decision and reached out to pull back the heavy curtains.
Outside the window, rose petals fell and covered the ground, and a waning moon hung in the sky. Everything was quiet and normal, with nothing particularly unusual about it.
Was it her imagination?
This place is full of disharmony, conflict, and illogical arguments. For now, Yan Ruyu just wants to find Su Luo and leave this hellish place as soon as possible.
There was no time displayed in the room, except for the waning moon hanging high outside the window. Yan Ruyu was restless and anxious as she sat alone in the room. The hot tea in the room seemed like a death knell, reminding her to make a decision quickly.
Since there was no exit from the room, Yan Ruyu preferred to go out and find out why, even if it meant dying!
Sitting idly by and waiting for death is not her style.
But as she was about to leave the room, she touched her pocket and immediately felt a chill run down her spine.
Her hotel room key... is missing!
She clearly had it in her pocket; there was no way she could have taken it unless someone got close, unless…
Unless she put it somewhere else herself, or gave it to someone else.
Tick-tock, tick-tock.
The wardrobe, which Yan Ruyu had always ignored, suddenly came into her view. A line of water ran down the gap in the wardrobe and dripped onto the carpet in the room.
This is……
Looking at the room key she found in the bathrobe, Yan Ruyu recalled the scene from her previous dream, where Su Luo, who came to find her, seemed to be wearing a bathrobe.
Bathrobe?
Do you mean we're going to a hot spring?
Gripping the key tightly, Yan Ruyu swung her hand and took off the bathrobe.
Half an hour later.
"Guest, please show your room key."
Yan Ruyu, wearing a bathrobe, arrived at the entrance of the hot spring without any hindrance. Just by standing at the entrance, she could feel the heat and a slight smell of sulfur, mixed with the aroma of hot rose tea, creating an indescribable fragrance.
It's like an old, dried-up corpse that's been incensed, both fragrant and foul, with a pungent odor that's hard to distinguish between the two.
"Guest, please take your key back."
"Our hot spring requires that guests stay in the hot spring for a full hour. After an hour, guests can decide whether to stay or leave."
Is there only one hour left before the deadline?
Yan Ruyu frowned, thinking to herself that this was definitely not a good thing. Now she was in a dilemma: either leave and go back to her room, or...
Taking the token handed to her by the staff member, Yan Ruyu nodded, "Understood."
Similar to the facilities of the hot spring hotels before the apocalypse, Yan Ruyu walked in through the curtain marked "Women's". There were no other guests along the way, and the silence was somewhat eerie. In the huge dressing room, only the rose-shaped lamps above dutifully illuminated the room.
Leaving the changing room, we headed to the open-air hot spring. The journey was safe and uneventful, as if it really was just a hot spring.
The only difference is that the hot springs here are individual small pools, just enough for one person to use. Each pool is surrounded by a bamboo fence to protect the privacy of each guest.
Yan Ruyu glanced at her hand, which had the number three written on it. When she passed by pools one and two, she found that the pools were locked from the inside, meaning someone must be inside. Pool three, however, was open.
Instead of immediately entering the pool, Yan Ruyu wanted to walk further to find pool number four and see how the entire hot spring was arranged. However, before she could move forward, the receptionist who had greeted her that morning came from another direction with a cup of hot rose tea.
"Guest, here is your hot tea."
"Please drink it while it's hot for the best taste!"
Yan Ruyu looked at the scarlet rose tea and felt an indescribable disgust. She didn't take the tea, but instead walked into number three. "I'll soak in the hot spring for a while. I'll drink this tea later."
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