As he climbed the familiar stairs, Su Bai could hear the intermittent ringing of a bell on the second floor.
With Lian Xiangyu, Shen Dong'er, and the others blocking the stairwell, and Cheng Xun's group now deprived of the Experimental Subjects' help, their movements had immediately become constrained. Above the hotel's ground floor, the only sounds were the faint ringing and Su Bai's footsteps.
Su Bai remembered the ringing he had heard the previous night. When the cloaked Bell Ringer drifted along the hotel corridors, the sound had been steady and continuous. But whenever the Bell Ringer stopped, it became faint and intermittent, just as it was now.
So Su Bai knew the Bell Ringer was still on the second floor. It might even have stayed there deliberately to wait for him.
Perhaps the other party also wanted to have a proper conversation with Su Bai.
Stepping onto the soft carpet of the second-floor corridor, Su Bai looked up and saw the figure shrouded in a black cloak standing at the far end.
"Lorimas?"
Su Bai had a guess about the Bell Ringer's identity, but he wasn't certain. Looking at the cloaked figure, he tentatively called out the name he suspected.
"Don't come any closer." A familiar, clear female voice came from beneath the cloak. It was the very voice of Lorimas that Su Bai had previously heard through the door. Yet for some reason, even though there was no longer a door between them, her voice still sounded muffled, as though something stood in the way.
"That flame is terrifying. Please don't come any closer. You're human, just like him, like Cheng Xun. Why do you have something so terrifying inside you?"
"What about you? Poor Lorimas, chained up on the Sixth Floor-why are you here?" Su Bai approached