Zou Yan stood outside Room 2 for five minutes, but Lin Chen never responded.
It was as if the room had been empty all along.
But she clearly remembered Lin Chen entering the room and never coming back out.
Over the years she had worked as a psychologist, Zou Yan had gained a wealth of experience. A little interaction was all it took for her to see what kind of person someone was. She knew Lin Chen wasn't very decisive or calculating, and that he was softhearted and eager to help. Generally speaking, he would never stand by and let someone die.
Where had things gone wrong? Did he know something?
Zou Yan's gaze tightened. She faintly sensed the stirrings of something called "an unexpected variable."
She felt uneasy, but when she saw her right hand wrapped in vines, her mind quickly settled.
It was fine. She had already grasped the biggest secret of this instance. Even if she couldn't kill Lin Chen, killing someone else would do just as well...
What a pity. Qi Si was clearly the kind of person best suited to the Eerie Game. Since he wasn't willing to accept her offer, then he could only die.
Zou Yan made up her mind and turned toward the stairwell.
Inside the room, Lin Chen's palms were slick with sweat. He could barely keep hold of the slippery key. Hearing the footsteps outside gradually fade away, he breathed a sigh of relief.
Zou Yan really was up to something. Good thing he hadn't opened the door...
So this was the Eerie Game? You had to stay on guard at all times. Even if you were both human, you couldn't trust each other...
Lin Chen felt as though he understood something. The barriers formed by the beliefs he had built over the past twenty years suddenly cracked.
He took a deep breath and let it out. Just as he was about to retreat to the bedside, the sound of knocking came from the door again.
Miss Anna's voice came from outside. "Is anyone there? Could you open the door?"
Lin Chen's hair stood on end. He could no longer hold back his urge to complain. Why are all of you picking on me? Do I really look that easy to fool? At least try a better trick, come on!
On the third floor, Qi Si stopped at the stairwell and peered down from behind the railing.
Dark green vines crept along both handrails, breaking up the view below into crooked fragments. The gaps between the leaves offered no clear view of the path ahead, leaving him to guess at what lay there from shadows and flickers.
Qi Si clicked his tongue. "What a waste of a good ambush spot. Think someone might be waiting for us down there?"
Chang Xu understood what he meant.
The two of them had already spent an hour on the third floor. Who knew what might have changed downstairs?
The appearance of the Eye of Hermes indirectly showed that at least one of Zou Yan and Ye Zi was a veteran player, and that they knew all about them.
An hour was more than enough time to set plenty of things in motion.
"Lend me a blade." Chang Xu looked at Qi Si, his tone matter-of-fact. "I've trained before. A weapon would be more useful in my hands."
Handing a weapon to someone else was the stupidest thing you could do, especially when trust was already in short supply.
Qi Si pretended not to hear. He pulled a blade from his wristband, pinched it between his fingers, then stepped back and gestured for Chang Xu to take the lead.
He even threw in a blatant guilt trip. "Brother Chang, the more capable should do more. I've always admired the police, too—so I'm counting on you to get us through the next stretch."
Chang Xu gave him a couple of sidelong looks but said nothing. He raised a hand, pushed the vines aside, and walked ahead.
Qi Si followed half a step behind, keeping just enough distance to attack or retreat.
After everything that had happened, their partnership was hanging by a thread.
Under the Eerie Game's survival-of-the-fittest system, players had little reason to trust one another in the first place. Qi Si and Chang Xu had managed a brief alliance only because each had something the other needed.
After Shen Ming's death, Chang Xu had fallen under suspicion and struggled to find companions. He was naturally short on information that could help him figure out the rules of the instance, so he needed to explore further.
Qi Si didn't know much about the Eerie Game, and he wasn't much of a fighter, either. He badly needed a capable companion to take the hits while they explored.
As they explored the third floor, the two of them had been ideal partners.
Now their exploration was over, and the partnership no longer seemed so important. On top of that, Qi Si had openly admitted to withholding information at several key points...
Chang Xu was a little slow when it came to dealing with people, but he wasn't stupid. He was beginning to see things differently. From the very beginning, when everyone had turned against him, Qi Si had seemed to nudge the other players' thinking with his words...
By now, Chang Xu had labeled Qi Si "not a good person." He'd let it slide for this instance, but if they ever met again, he wouldn't trust a single word out of Qi Si's mouth!
The staircase wasn't long, and even with the vines in the way, it wasn't too difficult to climb.
At the turn, the second floor came into view. Unlike the third floor, where plants had run rampant, the second-floor corridor was spotless, like the calm before a storm.
Whether Chang Xu had slowed down or something else was going on, Qi Si drew closer and closer. Soon, they were only half a step apart—close enough to touch with a raised hand.
"Chang Xu! Qi Si! Ye Zi is trying to kill me! Help me..."
Behind the curtain of vines, Zou Yan's white coat was stained with reddish-brown blood. She ran toward the stairwell in a panic, her voice full of anguish.
Qi Si glanced at the right hand she was hiding behind her back and gave a mocking laugh. "Didn't you already kill Ye Zi? What's this supposed to be? Her vengeful spirit coming after you?"
Zou Yan froze for just a second, then let the surprise fade from her face.
It wasn't strange that her disguise had been seen through. Even without a chance to attack by surprise, she might still have the upper hand in a direct fight.
Zou Yan knew exactly how strong the average player in the Novice Pool was. She also knew what she herself could do.
She slowly lowered her right hand. Dense vines burst out of the blood vessels in her arm.
"Sorry, I was just guessing. Didn't expect you to give yourself away." Seeing her reaction, Qi Si smiled even more broadly.
Ye Zi was already dead, yet her face hadn't appeared in the photo in the second room on the third floor. Did that mean Miss Anna wasn't omniscient in this instance?
The guests who had been snatched up and dropped into the manor might seem to be at a disadvantage, but perhaps they still had a way to turn things around.
Watching Zou Yan's reaction, Qi Si murmured, "My chest rots away, my flesh spreads across the ground, roses dwell here, and tomorrow they'll endure with me..."
"So, by making roses one with your flesh, you can gain power on par with a monster? That's what my four lines of poetry meant. Thanks for testing it out for me..."
Zou Yan still didn't speak. In an instant, she burst forward at a speed no human could match. A few strides took her to the stairwell, where she raised her right hand toward Qi Si.
Nourished by flesh and blood, the vines had found fertile ground to grow. They surged through the corridor, twisting and clawing.
The danger triggered Chang Xu's instincts. He reflexively hunched over, clenched his fists, and took on a crouch like a leopard ready to pounce.
He had been different from other people since childhood, born with the ability to restrain certain anomalies. Those people had deliberately trained him to become a machine for dealing with the uncanny.
Even if Zou Yan had gained control of some of the supernatural powers in this instance, he might still stand a chance against her...
Chang Xu sank into an uncanny state of focus. Zou Yan's figure broke apart before his eyes into images and fragments from every angle. He found his opening, pushed off the ground, and lunged forward.
But the next second, he felt a chill at the nape of his neck, followed by the unmistakable pain of a blade slicing open his artery...
His pupils dilated, then contracted. Only belatedly did Chang Xu realize what had just happened.
Warm blood sprayed out, soaking his neck and collar. Then came a coldness as if he had fallen into an icy abyss.
Death closed in step by step. There was no turning back...
Amid his scattered thoughts, he heard Qi Si's amused voice. "No wonder you're trained. Your carotid artery's a lot easier to find than an ordinary person's."
His voice was far too casual, stirring the dangerous instinct of a beast facing its natural enemy. Chang Xu fell helplessly to his knees and struggled to look back.
In the dim light, the young man's white shirt, already stained with blood, was spattered with another layer of fresh red.
The killer gently wiped the blood from the side of the blade with his finger. His smile grew even more harmless and innocent, as if someone else had struck the blow. "Sorry, Brother Chang. I'll have to trouble you to die once first."
He paused, then said jokingly, "But considering you probably won't remember what happened during this time later, I'll spare you the long-winded apology."
That same excruciatingly dull sense of humor...
Chang Xu didn't know what he was supposed to feel. Anger, hatred, resentment? Or, like always, nothing at all—no joy, no sorrow, as if none of this concerned him?
All he could feel now was an exhaustion urging him to sleep, as though he had been submerged in a dead sea whose waters no longer flowed.
He looked at Qi Si once more. In the end, his last scrap of strength ebbed away. His head drooped, and he closed his eyes.
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