Mountain Inn: Expert Xu Xi Seems to Have Matched with a Chosen Teammate

Xu Xi raised a hand and rubbed his nose. It felt a little itchy.

Someone had taken credit for the clue he had found first. He would have been lying if he said he wasn't angry.

So he followed up mildly, "She found the same thing I did."

Catching the short-haired woman with glasses stiffen out of the corner of his eye, he finally felt a little better.

He was a little socially anxious and wasn't used to talking much with strangers, but that didn't mean he was a pushover.

He wasn't going to swallow this insult.

[Hahahaha, so Expert Xu Xi did care after all]

[I'm dying, Xu Xi: I care so much.jpg]

[That's normal. Anyone would feel uncomfortable about what the short-haired woman with glasses did. I'd have taken a jab at her too]

[Look at her face. I bet she didn't expect Xu Xi to confront her directly]

[Maybe she thought Expert Xu Xi would be easy to bully because he's so quiet. Though the expert's appearance really is deceiving]

[I wonder if this player Xu Xi holds grudges. The way the woman with glasses offended him, someone petty would definitely get back at her]

[I don't think Expert Xu Xi would hold it against her]

[Not necessarily]

To be honest, for all the barrage viewers' praise of "Expert Xu Xi," they didn't actually know him very well.

Everything they knew about Xu Xi came from the only two instances he had been in.

The barrage began arguing over whether Xu Xi would hold a grudge.

The "expert" Xu Xi, who was supposedly "aloof and unwilling to bother with his teammates," wasn't that petty, but he wasn't that magnanimous either.

He wouldn't go so far as to cause someone's death over something like this, but he wouldn't pretend nothing had happened, either.

The other three players had all noticed the tense atmosphere between the young man and the short-haired woman with glasses, but they pretended not to.

Everyone went over to the wall where the rules were posted and carefully deciphered the information on the paper.

Once everyone had finished looking, they fell silent for a moment.

"The characters we can barely make out don't connect very well, so we can only make a rough guess," the Refined Man said after pondering for a while. "The first rule: night, door, hear, respond. Someone will knock on the door at night, and if you hear it, don't respond? Or perhaps you must respond."

"The second rule: trust, person. That's too broad. Does it mean we need to trust someone, or that we can't trust someone?"

"The third rule: be sure, discover you, they..."

The Refined Man looked at the final line, clearly at a loss.

"Be sure to what? Is it 'be sure not to'? Be sure not to let something discover you... observe them? Or what?"

The burly man murmured, "'They'... does that mean there are some... unusual things in this inn?"

A chill ran through the group at his words.

Just then, the High-Ponytail Woman suddenly spoke up. "Although these tables and chairs look like they've been knocked about, I checked them just now. They aren't damaged, and there aren't any unusual traces like dried blood, so we can rule out violent disturbances."

If it hadn't been people causing trouble, then it could only have been the "they" mentioned on the paper.

"Do you think these might be the rules we need to follow?" the short-haired woman with glasses asked cautiously.

"Unlikely." The Refined Man rejected the idea decisively. "These were clearly meant to inform the guests. Something probably happened at the inn, such as 'them' appearing, so these rules were posted for the guests to follow. But clearly these warnings didn't play a decisive role, or the inn wouldn't have been abandoned."

"There's one more question," the burly man said coldly. "Where did the five people who never checked out and the owner of this inn go?"

Everyone fell silent again.

A crisp jingle suddenly rang out.

The burly man tossed the key ring in his palm and separated three keys from it.

"There are too few clues. Standing here and racking our brains won't help. We need to explore the three rooms whose guests never checked out. Let's discuss how to divide the teams."

"One room on the first floor, two on the second. The five of us will split into two teams. Two people will explore room 103 on the first floor, and the other three will explore rooms 202 and 204 on the second. Any objections?"

Splitting into two teams was partly for efficiency and partly to spread out the risk of running into danger.

Sometimes, having all the players gathered together made them too big a target and put them in greater danger.

Seeing that no one objected, the burly man continued with satisfaction, "He and I will be on one team. You three can decide among yourselves."

He pointed to the Refined Man beside him, who raised no objection, tacitly agreeing.

For the burly man, though he and the Refined Man had clashed somewhat over leadership of the team, that didn't stop him from acknowledging the other man's ability.

The Refined Man felt the same way.

In their eyes, none of the other three had performed particularly well.

The young man who looked like a college student and the woman with the high ponytail were too quiet, each less noticeable than the other. The short-haired woman with glasses was fairly proactive, but shallow-minded.

"Could I go with you?" The short-haired woman with glasses glanced at the other two, who hadn't made a move, and nervously raised her hand.

"Sure." The burly man nodded casually. "Then that's settled. Let's go and not waste any time."

The short-haired woman with glasses immediately breathed a sigh of relief.

[The woman with glasses looks pretty happy]

[She thinks she's found someone to carry her]

[Too naive. If they run into danger, those two men will definitely push her out first]

[I'm dying. Looking at it this way, Expert Xu Xi seems to have matched with a chosen teammate. Sitting in silence together with him hahaha]

Xu Xi let them decide the makeup of the two teams among themselves and offered no opinion.

As far as he was concerned, anyone would do as a teammate, as long as it wasn't the short-haired woman with glasses.

He turned to look at the High-Ponytail Woman, who, like him, hadn't voiced an opinion from beginning to end. She seemed to notice his gaze and turned to give him a calm nod.

The group went to the reception desk and lit another candle. Each team carried a candlestick for light, and they parted at the foot of the stairs.

Before they separated, the Refined Man reminded them gently, "Everyone, be careful."

The rainstorm was still raging outside, and it had grown completely dark.

About to enter a new area, everyone unconsciously breathed more quietly.

Knowing that "they" might still be in the inn had put everyone on the highest alert.

They still didn't know the forbidden rules of this instance, but most of the time, those so-called forbidden rules had to be tested with human lives.

No one wanted to be the one who died.

[Ahhh, watching this is making me nervous]

[What on earth could "they" be? The unknown is scary, but fuck, even after you find out, it's still scary]