Xiao Cheng picked up the broken mirror from the ground and left room 202. Just as she reached the stairwell, she looked up and saw Fang He waiting there.
"It's over?" Fang He, hands in his pockets, leaned against the wall and whistled at Xiao Cheng. "How was the game?"
"One-star review is the most I can give." Xiao Cheng said expressionlessly. "You've been waiting for me here; have you discovered something again?"
“Diary.” Fang He said succinctly. He straightened up, took out a palm-sized notebook from his pocket, and handed it to Xiao Cheng to read.
The diary was written in red pen and was quite brief. The contents recorded at the beginning were not much different from the one in Xiao Cheng's hand.
Until the latest page, the beginning was all gibberish, and only the last sentence was legible.
—Great, we're really together now.
“Because of our interference, a bug has appeared now,” Fang He said. “This also confirms my previous guess that we are just repeating what the diary’s owner experienced.”
"As long as you survive seven days, you can clear the game. There's no need to worry too much about the plot, right?" Xiao Cheng didn't want to create trouble for himself.
"It's really unnecessary. Just consider it a personal little quirk of mine. It's getting late, go back and rest early. Good night." Fang He took the notebook back, stuffed it back into his pocket, and then turned and walked upstairs.
Xiao Cheng watched him disappear around the corner of the stairs, then suddenly heard his voice float down again: "Guess when the original owner of the diary died?"
As Xiao Cheng walked back to her room, she kept thinking about Fang He's words. But she really couldn't come up with any ideas; she had always hated things that required thinking.
The room was eerily quiet. She opened her diary.
The handwriting appeared quickly on the blank page, messy and incoherent.
"How could this be... How could this be... I'm really dead. Will I die too? Today's game... Ah, it's time to rest."
The lights in the room turned off automatically.
Xiao Cheng clutched the diary, speechless. It was only eight o'clock! Wasn't the wonderful nightlife just beginning?
The next second, the familiar drowsiness came over her again. Knowing that there was no point in arguing with the dungeon, she sighed helplessly, got into bed in the dark, and crawled into the cold blankets that smelled of formaldehyde.
This night seemed exceptionally long.
Xiao Cheng slept very soundly. When she woke up, she felt as if she had been through another world. When she looked at the clock again, it was not yet 6:30, but the sky was already quite bright.
The morning sunlight streamed in, illuminating the messy, horrifying bloody handprints on the windowpane.
She was startled reflexively, and after checking, she realized that the handprints were on the outside of the window, indicating that something had been lying there last night, trying to get in through the window.
In other words, she was being targeted.
"What a mess!" Xiao Cheng scratched his head irritably, pulled out the mirror that sealed the female ghost, and tossed it onto the windowsill. "Let the dogs fight it out!"
Apart from the bloody handprint, there was nothing else unusual in the room. Xiao Cheng breathed a slight sigh of relief, finished washing up, and opened the door to go out.
Then I heard a muffled thud.
A shriveled corpse slid down the open door and landed right at her feet. A rope was hanging from the corpse's neck, the other end of which was attached to the doorknob. The corpse's head was bent backward, its expression ferocious, and its pair of cloudy, empty eyes stared intently at Xiao Cheng.
Looking at the unruly blond hair, Xiao Cheng guessed that this must be number 1.
Unexpectedly, he had a face after his death.
She stared at the corpse for a while, her expression conflicted as she pondered how to get out. Then, she glanced up and saw the door to room 507 across the street open. Brother Number 7 came out of the room and witnessed this bizarre scene.
Feeling the intense gaze, Xiao Cheng blinked, then, as if just realizing what was happening, screamed loudly, "Ah—!!!"
A powerful soprano voice broke the morning's tranquility.
First floor lobby.
Xiao Cheng, still looking shaken, recounted what happened that morning: "I don't know, I didn't hear anything. I woke up to find bloody handprints on the window... Do you think it was number 5...?"
"Last night, Number 1 played the game with you." Number 3 pointed the finger directly at Fang He.
Fang He looked heartbroken. "In fact, we didn't play any games last night."
Even Xiao Cheng was shocked: "What?!"
“It’s all my fault. I didn’t firmly refuse him when Number 1 made the suggestion. But he said that Number 5’s death had dealt him a heavy blow, and he really had no mood to play the game.” Fang He said earnestly, “I didn’t expect that he was so deeply attached to Number 5. So, maybe he committed suicide!”
Xiao Cheng: "..."
Digital Human: "..."
The strange turn of events left the digital beings somewhat stunned. The first to respond was Brother Number 7: "Is that really how it is?"
Thus, the death of Number 1 was also left unresolved.
Tonight, the third night's game, was proposed by number 3.
“If it’s a three-person game, then let’s just play Ouija board.” Number 3 let out a strange chuckle, which sounded like teeth grinding together. “Six people, divided into two groups, maybe we can find out whether Number 1 really committed suicide for love.”
“I can team up with them,” said Brother Number 7, pointing to Xiao Cheng and Fang He. “We live close by, so let’s just stay in my room.”
The game was scheduled for 9 p.m., and the digital humans gradually returned to their rooms, leaving only Xiao Cheng and Fang He in the lobby.
“I have the bloody handprint in my room too,” Fang He said bluntly. “But judging from the digital humans’ reaction, they don’t know about it.”
"so what?"
“We triggered something yesterday, but it didn’t qualify as a death condition. So that thing came after us, but we’re still alive.”
"You suspect Number One too..."
"Yes, I want to go to his room and take a look."
The door to room 201 was ajar. As soon as you stepped inside, you were hit with an extremely pungent, putrid stench that was nauseating. Fang He frowned and stared at it for a while before walking straight to the bed and yanking back the covers.
A severely rotting severed hand was exposed, with the decaying flesh sticky and mushy on the bed frame.
"Holy shit..." Xiao Cheng covered his mouth and nose tightly, taking two steps back with a look of disgust.
Fang He said nothing, quietly covered himself with the blankets again, and even remembered to take the diary from the bedside table.
"Let's go." He patted Xiao Cheng on the shoulder. "If you need to vomit, then vomit. Don't mess up the scene."
Xiao Cheng wasn't about to vomit, but the smell was just too unbearable. Before leaving the room, she glanced back at the window; it was spotless, without a trace of blood or even ash.
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