Silent Communication

Night fell, and Bai Yuze was the first to move, yanking open the door.

Zhu Daqiang was gone from outside the door. Bai Yuze didn't say a word, merely tightening his grip on the Molotov cocktail in his hand.

He disappeared. Could he be self-healing inside the room?

It looks like we need to pick up the pace.

The trio marched imposingly to the door of Room 205. They tried to push it open, only to find the iron door wouldn't budge.

"What do we do now? Are we just going to wait for him to finish healing?"

Yuigahama Yui asked with concern, but Yukino, standing beside her, looked perfectly calm.

"You must have a way, right?"

Facing Yukino's inquiry, Bai Yuze was about to speak when he was suddenly interrupted by her.

"Stop the nonsense. I know you have the key to this room."

"Uh... right."

Bai Yuze couldn't help but scoff at himself. He had thought Yukino was relying on him, but it turned out he was just the clown.

As the key was inserted, the iron door of Room 207 opened sluggishly, like someone hiding under a blanket in winter, unwilling to leave the warmth.

The room was pitch black, making it impossible to see what was inside.

"Zhu Daqiang, I know you're in there. How about we talk?"

Bai Yuze shouted into the room a few times, but there was no response.

"Not here? Then I'll go talk to Yuan Xing. You know full well you didn't kill Yuan Xing, right?"

"I'm only counting to three. 3... 2..."

"Fine, come in."

"Got it."

Hearing Zhu Daqiang's response, Bai Yuze grinned and then ignited the Molotov cocktail in his hand.

Following a graceful parabolic arc of fire, Room 207 instantly grew warm.

"Ah!!!"

Zhu Daqiang's heart-wrenching scream echoed out, while Bai Yuze simply tossed a few more Molotov cocktails without haste.

"Zhu Daqiang, I just thought about it—your room is too dirty, so I'm helping you tidy up."

"Why are you doing this? Can't we cooperate?"

Zhu Daqiang asked with a piercing cry, his tone filled with unwillingness and shock.

"Heh, cooperation requires a cooperative attitude. Your room is pitch black; who knows what would happen if I walked in? But I'm not a bad person, am I? I didn't even close the door. Why don't you just come out?"

Bai Yuze's voice was like a devil's whisper, shattering Zhu Daqiang's psychological defenses.

Zhu Daqiang knew deep down that he couldn't go out no matter what, but his survival instinct had long since made him abandon all reason.

He ran, roaring, his body engulfed in flames.

The trio quickly dodged to the side. After rushing out of the room, Zhu Daqiang dove headlong into Room 206. The flames on his body ignited the bed in Room 206, but incredibly, as soon as Zhu Daqiang left, the fire in Room 207 vanished.

Seeing this, Bai Yuze casually tossed a Molotov cocktail into Room 206, then closed the door and locked it with the key.

"Quick, time is limited. That iron door won't hold him for long."

At Bai Yuze's command, the three of them entered Room 207 and tore the place apart in less than a minute.

"It's not here, Xiao Ze. Do you think he hid that thing on his person?"

Yuigahama Yui called out anxiously. She could feel that the iron door of Room 206 was already at its breaking point.

"It's a kitchen knife. Where could he have hidden it?"

Bai Yuze's brain raced at high speed.

Suddenly, he looked at the monitor on the desk. He picked it up and raised his foot.

Bang!

Bai Yuze kicked the monitor to pieces, and the kitchen knife fell out from inside the casing.

"So that's where he hid it! He hollowed out the inside. Let's get out of here now."

Yuigahama Yui said with pleasant surprise.

"No, not yet. We're technically stealing right now; we'll be sanctioned by the rules."

"Ah? Then what do we do?"

"Wait a moment... what time is it now?"

Yuigahama Yui hurriedly took out her phone to check the time.

"It was 7:50 when we arrived, and it's 8:30 now. I remember the clock said 8:50 before we came, so it should be 8:30."

"Tsk, time is running out. Now we can only see if Zhu Daqiang can get out quickly."

The timing was so tight that beads of cold sweat couldn't help but break out on Bai Yuze's forehead.

Bang!

The iron door of 206 was slammed open by Zhu Daqiang. His entire body looked like charred coal, and his gaze locked onto the three of them in an instant.

"You three bastards, I'm going to tear you to pieces!"

Zhu Daqiang had completely lost his sanity by now. He stomped into the hallway, the sticky sounds of the corridor intermingling with his heavy, wheezing breaths.

"Should we close the door?"

When Yukino asked this, she had already walked over to the iron door, but Bai Yuze stopped her.

"No, don't close it. This isn't our final destination anyway; who knows what might happen if we shut it.

Besides, there's going to be a good show in a moment. If you're interested, you can choose to watch."

"A good show?" x2

The two girls spoke in unison, but their question was answered the very next moment.

A monster with long, spindly limbs suddenly appeared behind Zhu Daqiang. Zhu Daqiang wanted to say something upon seeing the monster, but he missed his chance.

Rip!

The fat, burly Zhu Daqiang was as fragile as paper in front of the long-limbed monster. The creature tore him in two, and this time, Zhu Daqiang's corpse began to turn transparent. After a while, only a ball of black mist remained on the ground.

The black mist seemed to have consciousness and tried to escape, but before it could react, the monster inhaled it into its mouth.

"That... do we really not need to close the door?"

Yuigahama Yui's voice trembled slightly; seeing a corpse being torn in half alive was just too grotesque.

"No need, though you could toss a bag of the sugar in your pocket to it. We still need its help."

Hearing Bai Yuze's suggestion, Yuigahama Yui hurriedly threw the white sugar from her pocket. In her nervousness, she even forgot to tear open the packaging.

The monster outside the door seemed to recognize the sugar. Its arms, roughly the height of an adult human, allowed it to easily pick up the item from the floor.

It held the sugar packet above its head, tore it open with a hand the size of a human head, and opened its wide mouth to catch the contents below.

A bag of sugar was quickly devoured. It stood in place without moving, as if savoring the flavor that intoxicated it.

Seeing the monster calm down, Bai Yuze took out the knife that had belonged to Yuan Xing.

"Alright, Zhu Daqiang's business is settled. Now we should talk about our own business, don't you think? Yuan Xing?"

Seeing Bai Yuze talking to himself, Yuigahama Yui couldn't help but say to Yukino.

"Could Xiao Ze be sick? What do you think, Xiao Xue?"

"Hard to say. Let's observe for now."

Yukino didn't understand Bai Yuze's behavior either. The two girls' looks of "he's an idiot" made Bai Yuze feel a bit awkward.

"Playing dead, are you? Just you wait."

After saying this, Bai Yuze picked up a kitchen knife, looking every bit like he was about to hack down.

Just as the kitchen knife was about to make contact with Yuan Xing's blade, Yuan Xing's voice rang out.

"Wait!"

"Oh? Not playing dead anymore? How come you're alive again?"

Facing Bai Yuze's mockery, Yuan Xing ignored him. He had only one question at this moment: how did Bai Yuze see through his disguise?

"Can you tell me how you saw through my disguise? I was attached to the blade; I had both hearing and vision. I was monitoring your every move. How did you know?"

"You mean that? I didn't know before, but I know now!"

Yuan Xing: ...

Crack!

The blade that Yuan Xing had transformed into was chopped in two by Bai Yuze's kitchen knife.

A puff of black mist drifted out from the blade, but it was quickly absorbed by the monster outside the room.

Bai Yuze had lied about Yuan Xing's question. When Zhu Daqiang and Yuan Xing were fighting, Bai Yuze had realized the knife in his hand was fake. Therefore, when Tuanzi asked him the question, he had already devised a plan. He first deliberately explained his and Yukino's plan to Tuanzi, specifically mentioning the part about passing messages via notes.

As for why Tuanzi asked about the "real" path to survival, it was because Bai Yuze had folded the note in half. One side said, "There is something monitoring us from above, play along."

The other side was a "drawing." Bai Yuze faced the side with the "text" toward Tuanzi while covering the words "from above" with his finger, which resulted in Tuanzi seeing only "something is monitoring us, play along."

This was also the reason he gave Tuanzi a thumbs-up after their conversation ended.

So, from Yuan Xing's perspective, Bai Yuze was just fiddling with the note and hadn't written any new information, allowing the two of them to complete their silent communication right under Yuan Xing's nose.

Since Tuanzi had heard about his and Yukino's experiences, she immediately understood Bai Yuze's goal: to have her ask him about the "true path to survival," as both entities were concerned about this matter.

To prevent Yuan Xing from escaping, he intentionally stated his own hypothesis about the path to survival, all to make Yuan Xing confident in his "hiding in plain sight" strategy.

But he also admired Yuan Xing's audacity for playing such a game. If it weren't for Zhu Daqiang saying, "Where is your crappy knife? Can't you manifest it anymore?", Bai Yuze really wouldn't have suspected the blade itself.

But since one chooses a high-risk plan, one must be prepared to accept the conditions of failure.

Risk and reward coexist.

Regarding Yuan Xing's actions, Bai Yuze thought to himself.

Perhaps this is what they call being too clever for one's own good.