Imposter

"Captain, we found a few minors."

"Give them a talking-to, then let them go."

After evacuating all the customers from the Happiness Internet Cafe, Old Li asked the two receptionists crouching on the floor, "Where's your boss?"

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

Bullshit.

Chen Feng clearly remembered that in both the first loop and the second, the Landlady had stayed inside the Internet Cafe the whole time. She had never gone out.

Zhu Xianxian seemed like such a nice girl, yet she could lie too. Was she in league with the Landlady?

Chen Feng opened the computer at the front desk. The first and second floors were business areas, so they had surveillance cameras. Checking the footage, he soon found that the Landlady had disappeared up the second-floor stairs half an hour earlier. "Uncle Li, look. She must have gone to the third floor."

"She's definitely hiding something." Old Li instructed his deputy, Old Yang, "Cuff these two receptionists."

Still uneasy after giving the order, Old Li added, "Don't use zip ties. Get the handcuffs from the car."

"Handcuffs?"

Deputy Captain Old Yang was surprised. The zip ties were disposable nylon restraints used by the police. Compact and easy to carry, they were more popular among law enforcement officers than handcuffs. Their drawback, however, was that a sufficiently strong detainee might break free.

These two delicate young girls didn't look strong at all. Were handcuffs really necessary?

Although he thought it was overkill, Old Yang trusted his colleague and agreed. "All right."

Next, Old Li began assigning teams. "We'll split into three groups. You two, stay on the first floor with Old Yang. You three, go to the second floor. Ruobing, Mr. Chen, we'll head to the third floor together."

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

"Of course not."

Chen Feng's voice dripped with sarcasm. "I think splitting up like idiots in a horror movie so the monsters can pick us off one by one makes perfect sense."

Zhang Ruobing was displeased. "Can't you speak nicely?"

But after thinking it over, Old Li realized he had a point. "Then everyone comes along except Old Yang and the others guarding the receptionists."

The group clattered up the stairs.

The horrifying sight of human skins everywhere never materialized. There was only lumber, sand, and a bare, completely unfinished hall, exactly as Old Li had described.

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

"This is downright uncanny." Old Li's heart sank. They hadn't found any human skins, but a living person had gone up to the third floor and vanished. What could be stranger than that?

Someone approached a window. "Did she jump out and escape? No, there's dust all over this. No sign it's been opened."

Someone else suggested, "A secret room? A hidden compartment?"

Chen Feng felt something was wrong. "I've been to the third floor before. I definitely saw human skins all over the place. Even if there's a secret room or hidden compartment, she couldn't have moved them all so quickly."

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

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

Zhang Ruobing said helplessly, "It's not like there could be two third floors."

Wait. She might be onto something!

Zhang Ruobing's offhand remark gave Chen Feng an idea. A crafty rabbit had three burrows, as the saying went. As the Demoness's lair, this place really might have two third floors.

But what were the conditions for reaching the real third floor?

Chen Feng thought back to the second loop. Everyone had run toward the third floor to escape the Water Ghost, but only he had reached it. Now that he thought about it, the others might have ended up here.

Why was I able to reach the real third floor?

Was it because I'm a transmigrator, so I'm special?

Chen Feng quickly rejected that idea. If he could reach the third floor because he was special, there was no reason he shouldn't be able to do it now.

What's different between me now and me in the second loop?

A sudden flash of inspiration struck Chen Feng, revealing what he had overlooked. "I've got it! The key!"

Beside him, Old Li froze. "The key?"

During the second loop, Chen Feng had obtained a key to this place. At the time, the Landlady had specifically given him three rules, one of which was not to go up to the third floor.

Logically, that warning should have been unnecessary. With the fake third floor as cover, anyone who went upstairs would discover nothing. Yet the Landlady had made a point of warning him. That meant Chen Feng had been qualified to enter the real third floor at the time!

The key was the secret way into the third floor!

Having figured it out, Chen Feng immediately led everyone downstairs. He grabbed an attendant on the second floor who was lying against the wall and asked, "Where's your staff key?"

The attendant answered mechanically, "Restart."

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, however—

Something suddenly changed!

The attendant, who had previously done nothing but repeat "Restart," suddenly made a strange, inhuman rattling sound deep in its throat. Then, with a crack, it broke free of its handcuffs, whipped around, and lunged for Chen Feng's neck with both hands.

But after several brushes with death, Chen Feng was no longer an inexperienced rookie. The moment the attendant made that strange sound, he had already begun backing away rapidly.

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 all sucked in a breath. "Is that thing even human?"

"Get it!"

With the electric shocks proving useless, all five rushed forward to restrain it. As police officers, they were far fitter than ordinary people, yet they could barely hold the attendant down.

"It's so strong!"

Old Li thought Chen Feng had shown remarkable foresight. If there had only been three of them here, things really might have gone wrong.

Just then, one officer grabbed the attendant's arm, trying to pin it down. But as he pulled, there was a ripping sound, and a patch of skin peeled away like damp plaster from a wall!

"Ah!"

The officer jumped in fright. His tug triggered a chain reaction: the attendant's skin visibly cracked and peeled off, exposing bright red, rotting flesh beneath.

"A monster! It's a monster!"

"Its skin is splitting open!"

Even these seasoned officers' voices cracked.

Once all its skin had fallen to the floor, the mass of rotting flesh lost all signs of life and died completely.

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

[Imposter]

[Resentment level: ★]

An Imposter?

This Internet Cafe really is full of monsters!

Chen Feng hurriedly warned them, "Quick, the radio! Tell the people on the first floor to be careful!"

Just then, there was a snap!

Every light in the Internet Cafe abruptly went out.

Meanwhile, on the first floor.

"Why did the power suddenly go out?"

"Probably because of the rain."

Anyone would panic when their surroundings suddenly went dark, and the three officers on the first floor were no exception. They reached up to switch on their shoulder lights.

Then they heard a faint, dense rustling.

Bugs?

Soft crunching sounds followed.

Old Yang felt something small beneath his foot crunch, hard yet soft at the same time. He thought that, since it was summer, it could be anything: cockroaches, house centipedes, spiders, cicadas. Bugs were nothing unusual. What was unusual was their sheer number.

Countless little things were crawling up their trouser legs.

"What are these things?"

"Turn on the lights! The lights!"

After a frantic scramble, their shoulder lights finally came on. As three pale beams swept wildly around, they saw spiders.

Lots of spiders. Lots and lots of spiders.

All three men were covered in spiders, and there were even more on the floor, writhing like a black carpet.

Now they knew why this Internet Cafe was so clean, without a single fly.

"Ah!"

"H-how are there so many spiders?"

Old Yang tried to flee, only to discover he couldn't move. Silk—the threads those spiders had spun bound all three of them firmly in place.

"Don't go."

A sultry female voice rang out. The three men looked toward it, and their blood ran cold.

They saw the most horrifying sight of their lives, something almost impossible to put into words.

A swarm of spiders wore fragments of skin no bigger than fingernails, joining those fragments together to hold up the woman called Zhu Xianxian.

Rustling filled their ears as the flood of spiders swallowed all three men.

It hurt! It hurt so much!

The sensation of being bitten all over was so painful they nearly passed out.

"Old Li! Danger!"

Old Yang knew he wouldn't survive. He reached for his radio, hoping to warn his colleagues, but the moment he opened his mouth, spiders crawled into his throat and sent him into a violent coughing fit.

The first-floor team was wiped out!