Imposter

"We caught a few minors, Captain."

"Give them a warning, then let them go."

After the customers had been evacuated from the Happiness Internet Cafe, Old Li asked the two cashiers crouching on the floor, "Where's your boss?"

Zhu Xianxian looked up and said slowly, "She went out on business. She hasn't come back yet."

Bullshit.

Chen Feng distinctly remembered that the Landlady had stayed inside the Internet Cafe throughout both the first and second loops. She had never gone out.

Zhu Xianxian had seemed like such a nice girl. Chen Feng hadn't expected her to lie. Was she in league with the Landlady too?

Chen Feng opened the front desk computer. The first and second floors were open to customers, so they had security cameras. He quickly found footage of the Landlady disappearing up the stairs to the second floor half an hour earlier. "Look, Uncle Li. She must have gone to the third floor."

"She's hiding something, all right." Old Li instructed his deputy, Old Yang, "Cuff these two cashiers."

He had barely finished speaking when he added, "Don't use zip ties. Get handcuffs from the car."

"Handcuffs?"

Old Yang was surprised. The zip ties were disposable police restraints. Small and easy to carry, they were more popular with officers than handcuffs, though a strong detainee might break free.

These two delicate young women hardly looked strong. Did they really need handcuffs?

It seemed excessive, but Old Yang trusted his colleague. "All right."

Old Li began assigning positions. "We'll split into three teams. You two stay on the first floor with Old Yang. You three go to the second. Ruobing, Mr. Chen, you're coming with me to the third."

Old Li was about to set off when he noticed Chen Feng hadn't moved. "Mr. Chen, do you have a problem with the plan?"

"Of course not."

Chen Feng's voice dripped with sarcasm. "Splitting up like idiots in a horror movie so the ghosts can pick us off one by one sounds perfectly sensible."

Zhang Ruobing frowned. "Could you say that without the attitude?"

But Old Li thought it over and realized Chen Feng had a point. "Everyone comes with us, then, except Old Yang and the officers guarding the cashiers."

The group thundered up the stairs.

The horrifying sight of human skins flying everywhere never appeared. There was only lumber, sand, and an unfinished, empty hall, exactly as Old Li had described.

Chen Feng was baffled. "Where's the Landlady?"

"What the hell?" Old Li's heart sank. They hadn't found the human skins, but a living person had gone up to the third floor and vanished. How could that happen?

Someone went to a window. "Did she jump out? No, it's covered in dust. It hasn't been opened."

"Maybe there's a hidden room?" someone else suggested. "A secret compartment?"

"That doesn't make sense," Chen Feng said. "I've been to the third floor. I saw human skins everywhere. Even if there's a hidden room, she couldn't have moved them all this quickly."

"We came up here this afternoon," Old Li said. "It looked exactly like this."

Your third floor and mine don't seem to be the same place.

"There can't be two third floors," Zhang Ruobing said helplessly.

Wait. There might be!

Zhang Ruobing's offhand remark gave Chen Feng an idea. A cunning rabbit kept several burrows. The Demoness's lair might well have two third floors.

But what did it take to reach the real one?

Chen Feng recalled the second loop. Everyone had run toward the third floor to escape the Water Ghost, but he alone had reached it. Looking back, the others might have ended up here.

Why was I able to reach the real third floor?

Because I'm a transmigrator? Is there something special about me?

Chen Feng quickly rejected the idea. If something about him had let him reach it, why couldn't he do so now?

What was different between now and the second loop?

Then it hit him. "I know! The key!"

Old Li blinked. "The key?"

During the second loop, Chen Feng had gotten a key to the place. The Landlady had specifically given him three rules, including one forbidding him from going to the third floor.

There had been no need for that rule. With the false third floor as cover, he would have found nothing even if he went up. Yet the Landlady had given the warning anyway. That meant he had been able to enter the real third floor then!

The key was the secret way in!

Once he understood, Chen Feng hurried everyone downstairs. He found a network attendant leaning against the wall on the second floor and demanded, "Where's your employee key?"

"Restart," the attendant replied mechanically.

Fucking idiot.

Chen Feng went straight for the attendant's pockets and soon found a metal key identical to the one he remembered.

"Got it!"

Before Chen Feng could celebrate, everything changed.

The attendant, who had only been repeating "restart," suddenly made a strange, inhuman clicking sound. With a sharp snap, he broke free of his cuffs, spun around, and lunged for Chen Feng's throat.

But after several brushes with death, Chen Feng was no longer the green kid he had once been. The moment the attendant made that strange sound, he sprang back.

At the same time, the officers reacted, raising their yellow Tasers and firing.

Electricity crackled, but the attendant didn't slow down at all!

Apart from Old Li and Zhang Ruobing, who had seen the Water Ghost, the other three officers gasped. "Is he even human?"

"Get him!"

With the Tasers useless, all five rushed in to pin him down. As police officers, they were much stronger than ordinary people, yet they could barely hold the attendant.

"He's strong!"

Old Li was glad Chen Feng had spoken up. If only three of them had come, this might have gone badly.

One officer grabbed the attendant's arm and tried to pin it down. When he pulled, there was a ripping sound, and a patch of skin peeled away like damp paint from a wall!

"Ah!"

The officer jerked in fright. That one pull set off a chain reaction: the attendant's skin cracked and fell away before their eyes, exposing the red, rotting flesh beneath.

"A monster! He's a monster!"

"His skin's coming off!"

Even the seasoned officers' voices rose in panic.

Once all his skin had fallen to the floor, the mass of rotting flesh went still. The attendant was dead.

A notification from the Ghost-Catching System immediately sounded in Chen Feng's ear.

[Imposter]

[Resentment level: ★]

Imposter?

So this Internet Cafe really is full of monsters!

Chen Feng hurriedly warned them, "Quick, the radio! Tell the people downstairs to watch out!"

Just then, snap!

Every light in the Internet Cafe went out.

On the first floor...

"Why did the power suddenly go out?"

"Probably the rain."

Plunged into darkness, anyone would have panicked. The three officers on the first floor were no exception. They reached for the lamps on their shoulders.

Then they heard a faint, dense rustling.

Bugs?

A series of tiny crunches came from underfoot.

Old Yang felt something small crush beneath his shoe, hard yet yielding. It was summer, he thought. It could have been a cockroach, a centipede, a spider, or a cicada. Any insect would have been unremarkable. What unsettled him was how many there were.

Countless tiny things were crawling up his pant legs.

"What is that?"

"Turn on the lights! Now!"

After some fumbling, their shoulder lamps came on. Three pale beams swept wildly through the dark, revealing spiders.

Lots of spiders. Far too many spiders.

Spiders covered all three officers, and even more swarmed across the floor, moving like a black carpet.

Now they knew why the Internet Cafe was so clean. Why there hadn't been a single fly.

"Ah!"

"H-how are there so many spiders?"

Old Yang tried to run, but he couldn't move. Threads of silk from the spiders held all three officers fast.

"Don't leave."

A sultry woman's voice rang out. The three looked toward it and went cold with terror.

What they saw was the most horrifying thing of their lives, almost beyond words.

A swarm of spiders wore fingernail-sized scraps of skin. Linking the scraps together, they held up the form of Zhu Xianxian.

A rustle filled their ears, and a flood of spiders swallowed all three.

It hurts! God, it hurts!

Bites covered their bodies, the pain so intense they nearly passed out.

"Old Li! Watch out!"

Old Yang knew he wouldn't survive. He reached for his radio, desperate to warn the others. But as soon as he opened his mouth, spiders crawled down his throat, sending him into a violent coughing fit.

The first-floor team was wiped out.