"The mountain inn" So... was the candle attracting it?!
High-Ponytail Woman held the candlestick as she cautiously led the way.
The relatively bright candle flame flickered slightly, illuminating the dim corridor ahead.
Xu Xi followed behind her, ears pricked as he listened closely for any sounds behind them.
He was afraid that, just like in certain movies and novels, footsteps would suddenly sound behind the protagonists as they walked along.
He turned to look at the plaques set into the doors. 101, 103...
High-Ponytail Woman stopped and raised her head, seemingly looking at something.
It suddenly occurred to Xu Xi that since the area through the stairway to the right of the reception desk contained the guest rooms, the area to its left, hidden behind a heavy curtain, was probably the kitchen.
"Go in?" High-Ponytail Woman looked at the young man beside her and asked.
Xu Xi glanced at her and reached out to take the key. "I'll open the door."
She had just volunteered to carry the candle and lead the way, so he couldn't very well keep following her without taking any risks himself.
Opening the door was a job that suited him well enough. If there was an unavoidable door-opening kill...
He could just reload and start over.
Xu Xi inserted the key into the lock and turned it gently. The door to room 103 gave a faint click.
He slowly pushed the door open, and the High-Ponytail Woman beside him immediately raised the candle in her hand toward the room, dispelling a small portion of the darkness.
There were no disturbingly bloody scenes inside. On the contrary, everything was ordinary, just like a normal inn room.
The two exchanged a glance, and Xu Xi stepped inside first.
High-Ponytail Woman followed him in, pulling the door mostly shut behind her.
Neither of them spoke, but they silently split up to look for clues.
The room wasn't large, and one candle was enough to cover the whole space.
By the faint light, Xu Xi had just rounded the moderately sized bed when his foot struck something hard, sending it rolling a couple of times.
He looked down and saw that it was a flashlight. He bent down to pick it up and casually pressed the switch. To his surprise, it still worked, and it was quite bright.
There was nothing on the bed except the pillows and quilt provided by the inn, and the quilt was neatly folded. A drinking glass sat on the bedside table, with a toy robot beside it.
High-Ponytail Woman found something too. She pulled a large cloth bundle out from under the table. Inside were colorful clothes worn by elderly people, along with a boy's short-sleeved shirts and shorts.
None of that was important. What mattered was the diary tucked among them.
The two searched the rest of the room again. After finding nothing else useful, they regrouped behind the door.
"I didn't find much. Just a flashlight on the floor." Xu Xi held up the flashlight in his hand to show his teammate.
High-Ponytail Woman nodded lightly. "I only found this diary. It seems useful."
Reading by candlelight was hard on the eyes, especially when they needed to look at writing, so Xu Xi switched on the flashlight.
Its bright beam illuminated the contents of the diary.
One look at the childish, ant-sized handwriting was enough to tell that a child had written it.
Skipping the unhelpful accounts of everyday life at the beginning, they looked only at the entries from the days spent at the inn.
"July 27, sunny
"I'm so tired. I can't walk anymore. When are we going to get to Auntie's house?
Grandma said it was too late today, so we're staying here for the night and continuing early tomorrow morning.
That uncle is so strange. Why did he tell us not to open the door if we heard knocking? He won't let us go out at night either. What if I need to pee?
Grandma told me to go to sleep early, but I couldn't sleep. She'd scold me if I stayed awake, so I pretended to sleep. I'm so smart, but it's so boring.
I heard knocking. I think it was that strange uncle outside the door.
Didn't he say we couldn't open the door no matter what we heard? Why did Grandma open it?
Grandma went to sleep, so I got up and secretly wrote in my diary.
That's all for today's diary."
"July 28, sunny
"Why did Grandma get so strange today? She's even stranger than that uncle.
Grandma smiled at me again. Her smile was so scary. And why does Grandma have so many more teeth? Do adults still grow teeth? Mom lied to me. She said kids don't grow any more teeth after their baby teeth fall out. I get it now. Mom just doesn't want me to eat candy.
Grandma keeps sitting there. She ignores me even when I call her.
Grandma's arms seem to have gotten longer. Grandma seems to have gotten taller.
Grandma told me to go to sleep.
All right, that's all for today's diary."
"July 29, sunny
"Grandma said she wanted to play a building-block game with me, and I'd be the blocks.
Grandma took off my head, my hands, and my legs, but she didn't put me back together. Now I can't even write in my diary.
Why is there blood on Grandma's teeth?
Oh, Grandma is eating my leg.
I'm hungry too. I really want to eat.
I begged Grandma not to eat my hands yet. I still want to finish today's diary.
I'm done. That's all for today's diary."
"..."
A chill ran down both their spines after they finished reading the last three days of entries.
The first day at the inn had been relatively normal, but things had started to go wrong on the second day.
First, Grandma had grown a lot of teeth. Then she had gradually grown taller, and her arms had lengthened. Her body was clearly mutating.
The reason Grandma had changed was that she hadn't heeded the strange uncle's warning and had opened the door when she heard knocking at night.
The third day's entry went without saying. It didn't even bother hiding how bizarre things were.
Judging by the contents, the boy's perception had clearly been altered. He hadn't died after being dismembered, so he had probably mutated too. His final fate went without saying: his grandma had likely eaten him all up.
"Let's take this diary and wait for them at the stairs." High-Ponytail Woman closed the diary and broke the silence.
The diary was clearly an important clue. What it recorded meant they were no longer as completely in the dark as they had been at the start.
But there were still many things they didn't understand. They could only pin their hopes on the other three and see whether they had found any other clues.
Xu Xi had no objection. He voiced his agreement and pulled open the door they had left ajar.
But he had barely stepped outside when he froze in place.
Not far away, a figure was climbing the stairs toward the second floor, one step at a time. He couldn't make out much in the dark, only that the figure seemed very tall and had excessively long arms.
Before he could give a warning, High-Ponytail Woman had already stepped out from behind him.
The warm glow of the candle flame seemed to catch the figure's attention.
It slowly turned its head toward them, and then...
It started walking toward them.
Xu Xi's mind raced. When he came out, the figure hadn't noticed him. Only after High-Ponytail Woman came out holding the candle did it spot them, and it instantly changed its original direction and made them its target.
So... was the candle attracting it?!