[Wait, am I seeing things? How did he do that? Did he buy wire for 1 point? Is he going to pick the lock?]
[No, no, no, the locks in this instance are complicated. Seriously complicated. Last time, a professional locksmith with over twenty years of experience spent more than fifty minutes trying to pick one with wire and still couldn't get it open. Then the countdown ended, he hadn't found a single clue, and he croaked!]
[It's showing up! It's showing up! ...He bought... iron-dissolving liquid?]
At the sight of what Yu Qing held, the livestream chat fell into shock again.
After the shock, realization slowly dawned on them:
[Holy shit! That move... I genuinely never saw it coming!]
[It's cheap, but against an iron lock, it really is more useful than a skeleton key!]
[What the fuck, he's solving the problem at its source. Who needs to pick locks?]
[This streamer knows a thing or two...]
[Tch, I could've thought of something that simple too. Aren't you hyping him up too much?]
[Why don't you try clearing the instance, then? The system automatically recommends popular items to throw off your judgment. With forty minutes left to live and no familiarity with the system shop, could you find something this cheap and useful to buy?]
Comments rolled past one after another. While the viewers bickered, Yu Qing had already searched more than half the room.
But there was nothing here besides toys and princess dresses!
Beep, beep, beep-
Time slipped away, second by second, as the system's death countdown echoed incessantly in his ears.
Before leaving, Yu Qing searched around the head of the bed. At last, beneath the pillow where the bloody smell was strongest, he found a diary... with a little rabbit on its cover.
It was locked, but the lock was plastic. Yu Qing yanked it open and saw two characters written in an extremely childish hand on the first page-Xu Tang.
Tangtang?
It was the diary of that rabbit girl, Xu Han's daughter!
[Ding-] [Congratulations to streamer Yu Qing on obtaining the key clue, "Xu Tang's Diary." Story exploration: 38%.]
Story exploration jumped by 18% all at once?
Yu Qing's gaze sharpened. He immediately sat down and opened the thick diary.
XX year, X month, X day
I'm three! I'm going to kindergarten! Daddy is teaching me to write!
XX year, X month, X day
So scary. Daddy and Mommy had a fight.
Daddy said Mommy was too thin and wouldn't let her lose weight. If she lost any more, she'd be nothing but bones.
XX year, X month, X day
Our family lives at the Sanatorium. Daddy and Mommy both live in the staff dorms. All my classmates make fun of me.
Daddy said, "It's okay. Daddy will earn money. Once I have enough, I'll buy a big house for you and Mommy."
I asked Daddy if we could buy the whole Sanatorium once we had money.
Daddy said yes!
I have the best daddy in the whole world!
XX year, X month, X day
I found a book today and kept begging Daddy to read it.
Daddy said Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio was really scary, but I wanted to hear it anyway.
There was an old lady in it with a hunched back who kept hopping around the courtyard like a frog, spitting out clear water as she hopped. I was so scared I couldn't sleep for days.
So Daddy took me to the Sanatorium's backyard and hopped around with a water gun, squirting water like the old lady.
Daddy said that if I kept being scared, he'd keep playing with the water gun to cheer me up.
When I think of Daddy, I'm not scared anymore. Time to sleep!
XX year, June 5
I don't know why, but Daddy had a huge fight with the director. We're moving out. We don't have a home anymore.
XX year, June 6
My daddy is gone. A fake daddy... came to our home.
XX year, July 6
Fake Daddy hit Mommy. Mommy didn't want me to see, so she told me to wait for her at the Sanatorium's front desk. Uncle Director gave me candy and said he'd take me to find Daddy.
Can we... really find him?
XX year, X month, X day
I was wrong. I'll eat my meat properly. Please don't kill me, don't kill me don't kill me don't kill me don't kill me don't kill me don't kill me...
The chilling words "don't kill me" covered an entire page in crooked, bloodstained handwriting. Their icy malice struck straight at Yu Qing's heart. He took a deep breath and kept turning the pages.
There were no more dates, only a single line-
Heehee, I'm a rabbit. Uncle Director praised me and said I was the most qualified rabbit.
Rub, rub, rub... rub, rub, rub...
Something furry brushed back and forth against his hand.
His heart jolted! Yu Qing realized a furry rabbit was standing right in front of him!
It was Xu Tang!!
At some point, the little girl had returned. Her expression was clearly less gentle than it had been on the first floor. Bloody tears poured from her eyes, and her bloodshot eyeballs bulged as she opened her mouth and shouted, "You're not my daddy!"
"He never snoops in my diary!!!"
Her voice was piercing, and her enormous, bloody maw was about to open toward him.
Yu Qing's heart lurched. He immediately snapped the hardcover diary shut, raised it high, and bang-
Smashed it hard onto the rabbit's head!
He wasn't strong, but he could still handle a little girl.
As she fell, he immediately dashed out of the room and slammed the door shut with a bang, then slid the damaged lock back into place. With the little girl's strength, she wouldn't be able to pull it open for now.
But, "Waaaah, Daddy-I want my daddy-"
The child's helpless cries rang through the entire corridor, eerie and hollow, making the other streamers, scattered about trying every possible way to find clues, shudder involuntarily.
"Aaaaaaah-"
A piercing scream came from the morgue right afterward.
The lights flickered, blood seeped from the walls, and the furnishings inside the rooms grew grotesque one after another. The streamers' hearts leaped into their throats, and their searching hands began to tremble involuntarily.
The sobbing grew more and more intense. Cold sweat soaked their clothes, and before long, every streamer inside a room could no longer bear the torment. Forced to come out, they all looked in Yu Qing's direction.
"Daddy-Daddy, save me-Daddy-"
The bang, bang of pounding on the door echoed through the entire corridor. Meanwhile, as if nothing had happened, Yu Qing had already dissolved the lock on the second room.
This time... there was actually someone inside!
Yu Qing's heart skipped a beat. Before he could get a clear look, he noticed the fluorescent tube overhead crackling and flickering even harder.
Like the Grim Reaper's blade, the system announcement hung mercilessly over everyone's head.
[Ding-dong-] [Latest bulletin: Current survivors in the "Angel Psychiatric Sanatorium" instance: 4.] [Six days and one night remain until the game ends. Keep up the good work, streamers~]
The first night. This was only the first night since the instance began, and already just four people remained alive...
Yu Qing stopped, his hands slowly clenching as he watched the person in the black coat inside the room rise slowly and turn toward him with sluggish movements...
His heart rose into his throat. Yu Qing stared even more intently at the person's face. Just as he was about to make out their features, suddenly, bang-
Every overhead light on the ninth floor went out!
The girl's pounding and cries became even more distinct, and the floor beneath his feet began to shake violently.
Plaster peeled from the walls, the ceiling caved in, and an invisible force crushed everything relentlessly, as though trying to destroy this entire place!
Worse still, the system announcements kept ringing in his ears without pause:
[Ding! Trigger conditions met. Congratulations to streamer Yu Qing on successfully activating the hidden NPC, "The deceased Xu Han." Xu Han has sensed the summons of his daughter's grief-stricken cries and is about to reawaken...] [Vengeful ghost taking form. Kill target: the impostor.] [Streamer "Yu Qing," please take extra precautions!]
Yu Qing: "..."
It might as well have announced outright that he was the impostor.
Rumble-
The ninth floor shook more and more violently. At this rate, the entire floor would collapse, and they would all be buried alive here!
Yu Qing struggled to stay on his feet. His pupils abruptly turned red as he carefully examined the darkness. After a long while, he found only two places that remained intact.
One was the room behind him, where the rabbit girl was locked inside, wailing and desperate to bite him to death, mouthful by mouthful.
The other was the morgue in the middle of the corridor, where Xu Han lay reawakening, with Yu Qing as his kill target.
Before you continue