Deep Mountain Inn

The two of them had traveled five hundred meters through the pitch-black mountain forest on that rainy night when they noticed marks carved into the trees ahead by Yu Jing. This proved that they had returned to their original position, ending their brief exploration of the dark mountain forest.

"Is this a ghostly maze? We automatically come back once we reach a certain distance from the inn? The horizontal distance is five hundred meters, so we can barely use that to estimate how far we've gotten from the inn. It'll serve as a reference if we have to escape in the future."

"While we were moving just now, I felt as if something in the forest was watching us. It felt dangerous... very dangerous. Did you sense it?" Yu Xiaoxiao whispered beside him.

Yu Xiaoxiao's words sent a chill down Yu Jing's spine, and cold sweat seeped from the back of his neck. The woman, Fanrong, who had twisted and crawled around inside the inn in his memories, seemed liable to crawl out of the dark woods at any moment.

"Let's go! We'll head to the inn. There might be other teams that were teleported nearby."

Yu Jing immediately suggested heading toward the inn. At least the firelight could dispel some of their fear.

Yet as the two of them walked uphill toward the place illuminated by the firelight, Yu Xiaoxiao suddenly took Yu Jing's hand of her own accord. The contact between their skin gave Yu Jing an indescribable feeling, and the fear in his heart eased somewhat.

"This monotonous mountain forest, combined with the darkness closing in around us, can easily cause a period of sensory numbness. That could make us lose track of each other without realizing it. Maintaining physical contact will prevent that from happening."

Yu Xiaoxiao seemed unaware of certain taboos between men and women. Holding hands, the two of them reached the source of the light, where the three-story wooden inn appeared exactly as Yu Jing remembered it. Candles burned in every room, making the whole place look exceptionally eerie.

Though he had experienced life-and-death situations during the tests at the research institute, the scene before him still stirred the primal fear buried in Yu Jing's body.

"Someone!"

A blade slid from Yu Xiaoxiao's sleeve as she turned her gaze toward the distant stretch of road in front of the inn.

Four figures approached cautiously as well, but the tense atmosphere immediately vanished when the two sides met.

"Friend Yu Jing, I didn't expect you to be here too! The rain outside is really heavy. Let's go inside the inn and talk. I assume you also couldn't get out of this area and had no choice but to come here? There should be dangerous ghosts in the inn, just as Commissioner Lu Chuan emphasized. But right now, going into the tiger's den is the only path we have left."

This Jiang Pengyu from the Physical Training Academy appeared carefree and boisterous, but his powers of observation and analysis were actually quite good.

"Yeah."

Jiang Pengyu's gaze also lingered particularly on Yu Xiaoxiao holding Yu Jing's hand.

The two teams walked together into the lobby of the 'Deep Mountain Inn.' The same damp, foul smell drifted through the air. A candle and a sign reading 'Rooms Available Today' stood on the counter, while a teacup that still retained some warmth and an old-fashioned television that was still playing with the sound muted were all exactly as Yu Jing remembered.

But the most important item was missing: the bell that had stood on the counter in his memory.

"Creak!"

At that moment, footsteps came from the staircase at the end of the lobby leading to the second floor. Someone's weight pressed down on the wooden steps, making them creak.

The six people present were all being consumed by the fear brought on by the dark, chilly surroundings and the stench of decay. Yet their will to survive deep within suppressed that fear, and all six stared at the stairway with their guard fully raised.

Especially Yu Jing, who had experienced that special incident before. He had already imagined the scene of the twisted woman crawling backward down the stairs.

However, the person who ultimately appeared before everyone was an emaciated old woman dragging a candleholder in one hand. She looked at least seventy or eighty years old. With slow, tottering steps, she made her way to the counter in the lobby.

"It seems another landslide must have washed away the power poles down the mountain. Do you guests need rooms here?"

In Yu Jing's eyes, the old woman before him was a flesh-and-blood human being, not some strange entity. Judging from the situation, the power had gone out, so the old woman had gone upstairs to light candles in every room.

"We'd like to stay here. May I ask how much a room costs for one night?" Jiang Pengyu, the leader of the four-person team, asked politely.

"A single room is sixty a day, and a double room is eighty a day. Make your own arrangements."

Personal belongings were prohibited during physical training, and Jiang Pengyu's four-person team, along with Yu Xiaoxiao, had no cash on them. One of the women on Jiang Pengyu's team had even begun considering using special means to control the old woman in front of them.

"Do you need to borrow some money?"

Jiang Pengyu and the others had no idea how dangerous the inn truly was. In Yu Jing's eyes, the old woman before them was a key figure. To avoid causing an incident prematurely, Yu Jing took a stack of banknotes worth roughly three thousand yuan from the inner pocket of his hoodie.

"How did you bring money out with you...? Sorry to trouble you, Yu Jing. Could you lend me some money too? I'll pay you back double once we return to Di Hua."

Jiang Pengyu was somewhat surprised that Yu Jing had brought so much cash with him. After all, in this day and age, electronic transfers were accepted everywhere. Jiang Pengyu usually found cash troublesome and never carried any on him.

"For safety's sake, how about two people to a room? Since there's a woman on your team, she can stay with..."

"No. I'll share a room with you! The two of us are a team, and it has nothing to do with anyone else."

Yu Xiaoxiao immediately refused to share a room with the other woman from Jiang Pengyu's team, indirectly rejecting cooperation between the teams as well. Her words left no room for tact. Yu Xiaoxiao trusted only Yu Jing, and her eyes were filled with rejection—even hostility—toward strangers.

"That's fine. Our team can make our own arrangements. I borrowed one thousand yuan, and I'll definitely return it after physical training ends... Sorry to trouble you. Give us a double room for seven days."

Jiang Pengyu intended for everyone on his team to stay in a single room, allowing the four of them to act together and reduce the danger as much as possible.

The old woman behind the counter took the cash. She placed the hundred-yuan notes one by one in front of the candle to check whether they were genuine, then slowly recorded the names of the four people. Finally, she took a key with a wooden tag marked 207 from behind the desk and handed it to Jiang Pengyu.

"Let's go."

Jiang Pengyu and the other three headed upstairs, leaving only Yu Jing, Yu Xiaoxiao, and the old woman in the lobby.

"Are you sharing a room with me?" Yu Jing asked Yu Xiaoxiao again.

"Yeah. It'll be safer that way. I don't trust anyone. The woman among those four made me uncomfortable, and the other two are hiding things as well. I don't like dealing with them. We should choose a room in the corner of the third floor. It'll be easier to escape if we encounter an emergency."

Following Yu Xiaoxiao's request, the old woman took out a key with a wooden tag marked '310' and handed it to the two of them.

"If you need anything, come to the front desk yourselves. I'm old and my legs aren't very mobile. I don't know where my dear granddaughter has run off to."

"Your dear granddaughter..." Yu Jing hesitated briefly, but he did not choose to ask the old woman about it at this strange hour before dawn.