Chapter 6: The Midnight Visitor |
Before him stretched a European-style cemetery, shrouded in night. Rows of ghastly white tombstones stood in perfect formation, like teeth sprouting from the earth, the loose soil their rotting gums.
A towering statue rose from the center of the graveyard. The crimson moonlight cast a lurid glaze over its pristine white surface. In its hands, held before its chest, it cradled something a startling, venomous red.
Qi Si strolled toward it, unhurried, when a sudden rustle sounded behind him.
He spun around at the sound to see a bone-white hand breaking through the soil. In the faint crimson light, it looked uncannily like a blood-soaked rose.
“How beautiful.”
Qi Si held his breath, afraid to disturb the rare beauty of the scene.
He watched, transfixed, as the skeletal fingers dug into the soil, leveraging the ground to pull the rest of the body out, inch by agonizing inch, like a grotesque dance at some bizarre bacchanal.
The skeleton twisted and writhed, but for a long while, it failed to pull itself free.
Qi Si kindly stepped forward, grasped the bony wrist, and with all his might, began to pull, as if yanking a turnip from the ground.
Everything in the dream was a chaotic haze. The unpleasant memory failed to stir any real sorrow, quickly overwhelmed by the phantasmagoria unfolding before him.
The bones were as smooth as polished jade, their beauty captivating. At the thought of soon possessing them, Qi Si’s eyes curved into a smile.
The next second, however, a swirl of gray mist consumed his vision as a fierce gust of wind erupted, sending him flying backward.
His back slammed into something solid, and a jolt shot through his entire body. Qi Si’s eyes snapped open in bed, and he found himself staring straight at the ceiling, mottled with tiny sprouts of grass and dark stains.
“Dong... dong... dong...”
A clock outside the door chimed with a steady rhythm.
It was three in the morning.
Qi Si quickly realized that Shen Ming's earlier advice—"Don't think about anything, just go back to sleep"—was utter nonsense, as absurd as being told not to think of a pink elephant.
He immediately placed his right hand on his left wrist, counting the seconds in time with his pulse.
Light, delicate footsteps sounded from overhead, like the tapping of a wooden cane or the pirouette of a dancer on tiptoe. The faint, fragmented noise was deeply unsettling, like the feeling of ants crawling across his heart.
The sound was nothing like Miss Anna's footsteps. It was lighter, more tentative and unsteady, creating the impression that the person might lose their footing and tumble at any moment.
Someone else was on the third floor? Who could it be? A ghost, or a living person?
Qi Si turned his head to glance at Lin Chen beside him.
The guy was breathing evenly, deeply unconscious. At least he wouldn't be jumping at shadows and causing a scene. That, at least, was a small mercy.
The footsteps overhead continued for another moment before stopping without warning.
About thirty seconds later, footsteps with the same rhythm echoed from the direction of the stairwell.
—Whatever was upstairs was coming down.
Qi Si held his breath, eyes wide and fixed on the door.
A faint shuffling sound drifted through the hallway, drawing near and then receding, as if someone were searching for something at a leisurely, strolling pace.
Suddenly, the sound stopped. A moment later, a knock broke the silence, the soft, slow *tap, tap* echoing along the corridor.
If Qi Si recalled correctly, the knock was on the door of Room 1—where Liu Qingye and Zou Yan were staying—diagonally across the hall from his own.
The two of them were likely fast asleep. The knocking went unanswered, disappearing into the silence without a ripple.
The thing outside knocked for a while longer, but when no response came, it let out a long, drawn-out sigh.
The footsteps resumed, but now they had changed direction. They sounded purposeful, and within seconds, they moved from down the hall to right outside his door.
“Tap, tap, tap.”
The familiar tapping sounded against Qi Si's door, its rhythm identical to before.
A heavy floral scent began to fill the air, and a slithering, hissing sound came from the crack beneath the door, as if something were trying to force its way inside.
Qi Si sat up in bed without a sound and twisted the bracelet on his right wrist.
A cool blade popped out, and he pinched it between his fingers.
“Tap, tap, tap.” The visitor knocked three more times, then fell silent, waiting.
When still no answer came, the footsteps began to retreat, and the strange sound from beneath the door stopped instantly.
Qi Si narrowed his eyes, his breathing drawn out long and soft, until he almost merged with the surrounding silence.
Sure enough, a second later, the footsteps, which should have been fading, abruptly returned.
It had only pretended to leave.
“Are you asleep?”
A woman's voice drifted from outside the door—soft, delicate, and muffled, as if she were talking in her sleep.
It sounded like Miss Anna, yet there was a distortion to it, an indescribable strangeness.
Qi Si said nothing, his fingers tightening around the blade.
“Are you asleep?” the voice asked again.
The situation was clear: being awake at night was dangerous. The only question was what form the danger would take, and whether it would simply smash its way through the door.
Qi Si had been silently counting the seconds all along, so he knew the exact time even now: 3:11:27 a.m.
Perhaps that was why the creature outside couldn't get to him directly.
“You're not asleep, are you? Won't you let me in?” the “Miss Anna” outside cooed, her tone a mix of persuasion and pleading.
Qi Si scanned the rules on his system interface, his gaze landing on the fourth entry.
[4. Do not refuse Miss Anna's requests. Try to satisfy all of them. Miss Anna dislikes disobedient guests.]
Satisfy Miss Anna's requests... did that mean he actually had to open the door and let her in?
But was the person outside really Miss Anna?
[5. Miss Anna likes to wear red dresses. The Miss Anna in a red dress can be trusted. If you see a Miss Anna in black, please keep your distance from her as much as possible.]
The guest room door didn't even have a peephole. How was he supposed to know what color dress she was wearing?
Breaking the rules at dinner could be explained away by “safety in numbers,” but violating them now would be tantamount to shouting at the sky, “Let me die!”
Qi Si stroked his chin, considered for a moment, and made a firm decision: he would continue to play dead.
After all, the person outside was *requesting* to be let in. A request and a demand were two different things, weren't they?
Besides, didn't “try to satisfy” imply that it wasn't mandatory?
Qi Si found no flaw in his logic. It seemed perfectly sound.
Waking up in the middle of the night was an unavoidable, random event, like a force of nature. No response could be one hundred percent correct. Whether he lived or died would come down to luck.
He'd been plagued by bad luck his entire life, but he wasn't afraid to gamble. As long as the risk was acceptable, what did it matter if he lost?
When a long moment passed with no response, Miss Anna's voice grew sharp and shrill. “You're not asleep! I know you're not! Open this door and let me in!”
The sound of fingernails scraping against wood came from the other side of the door. Qi Si could easily imagine Miss Anna pressed against it, clawing furiously. This confirmed one crucial fact: she couldn't enter the room without his permission.
Qi Si felt a wave of relief. He even found the sound of scraping on the door strangely pleasant.
The thought of her, unable to enter, raging impotently on the other side of the door... just imagining it was deeply amusing.
He sat hugging his knees, chin resting on them, and stared forward with keen interest.
Finally seeming to give up on getting him to open the door, Miss Anna's voice took on a mournful tone:
“Please, won't you let me in? I just want to see you...”
“You promised me you'd take me with you tonight... We already set the time...”
“The time has come, so why didn't you come for me? I came for you, so why won't you see me?”
The previously composed Qi Si suddenly broke out in goosebumps, and an involuntary shudder ran through his shoulders.
Fortunately, “Miss Anna” didn't stick to that script for long.
After a few more moments of this one-sided drama, she let out a faint sigh and muttered to herself, “I guess he really is asleep.”
The light footsteps started again, heading toward the last door on the floor.
Qi Si took a deep breath and let it out, forcing down the wave of nausea, but his relief was short-lived.
From the direction of the French doors, the sound of a phantom wind began to howl. The windows were shut tight, yet the sound sliced right through them.
Acting on pure instinct, without a moment's thought, Qi Si threw himself back onto the bed and squeezed his eyes shut.
The very instant he hit the mattress, a sudden, sourceless gust of wind blew the curtains wide open. The stool weighting them down toppled over with a *clang*, clattering across the floor.
The room key in his breast pocket grew faintly warm, and new lines of text appeared on the system interface before him.
[Name: Key to Room 2]
[Type: Item (Cannot be taken out of the instance)]
[Effect: When the holder is in the corresponding room, other entities cannot forcibly enter without the holder's permission.]
[Note: A guest should have the right to their privacy. It's only polite. Of course, this does not apply if the host becomes extremely angry.]
Qi Si felt a gaze land on him, so tangible it was like a physical weight. It slid over every inch of his body, a sticky, probing presence.
He calmly kept his breathing even, as if he'd been sound asleep for hours.
The pad of his finger pressed the blade into the duvet. He remained utterly still.
The gaze from beyond the window lingered for a full minute before reluctantly shifting away.
A sigh, laced with disappointment and resignation, drifted on the night wind. “It seems he really is asleep...”
At the same time, a soft *tap, tap* began at the door of Room 3, where Shen Ming and Chang Xu were staying. It was unhurried, incessant...
...
In Room 3, Shen Ming’s eyes had snapped open the very instant the clock began to chime three.
The first two rules flashed through his mind, and panic seized him, throwing his breathing into disarray.
He wasn't a decisive man. In the real world, he'd only become a factory floor manager through sheer seniority, and he avoided responsibility whenever he could.
Stepping forward to play the leader was a bold, almost reckless move for him, a classic case of puffing out one's chest to look bigger.
But he had no choice. This was his third instance, and if the rumors were true, his chance of dying here was far higher than anyone else's. The slightest mistake would be fatal.
He had to seize every advantage he could, preferably by tricking the other players into testing the dangers for him.
Unfortunately, things weren't going smoothly.
Chang Xu was too strong-willed, remaining cold and impassive no matter what Shen Ming said. Qi Si seemed mild-mannered, but he clearly had his own plans. Zou Yan was an enigma, and Lin Chen was basically useless...
Shen Ming silently cursed his niece for giving him the advice. “Establish yourself as a reliable and righteous leader,” she'd said. “Seize the moral high ground.” Easy for her to say. In practice, it was impossible and had only put him in the hot seat.
He'd pulled that stupid niece of his into the game to serve as a canary in a coal mine, someone to test the death traps for him, not to add to his troubles.
“Tap, tap, tap.”
The knocking had passed the first two rooms. Now, like the blade of a guillotine, it had finally fallen, arriving at his door along with the footsteps.
Shen Ming's whole body went rigid, and a cold sweat broke out across his skin.
The soft female voice drifted from beyond the door. “You're not asleep, are you? Won't you let me in?”
[4. Do not refuse Miss Anna's requests. Try to satisfy all of them. Miss Anna dislikes disobedient guests.]
The rule on the system interface was perfectly clear. Shen Ming sat up, about to climb out of bed.
Without warning, a pair of ice-cold hands clamped over his mouth from behind, forcing him back down onto the mattress.
Shen Ming instinctively began to struggle violently, but then he heard Chang Xu's hushed voice right beside him. “Be quiet if you want to live. Don't let her know we're awake.”
As if to prove his point, the voice outside turned shrill. “I know you're awake! Open this door! Let me in!”
‘*She already knows!*’ Shen Ming screamed in his mind, his rationality shattering. ‘*If we don't open the door, we'll be breaking the rules!*’
He gave a sudden, violent thrash. Though Chang Xu still had him pinned, the movement made a loud *thump*.
It was as if the sound had flipped a switch. The door let out a long, drawn-out *creak* as it swung open, slow and steady.
A figure in red stood in the doorway, its face mostly obscured by a mane of disheveled white hair. The image immediately brought to mind the legendary ghosts in red, come to claim their lives.
Shen Ming jumped in fright, but then he remembered the fifth rule: *The Miss Anna in a red dress can be trusted*. He relaxed, just a little.
The next second, however, several vines shot out from the darkness, ensnaring the red figure and dragging it backward amid choked sobs. “Why... why did you have to see him again?”
More vines shot into the room, lunging toward the bed.
Shen Ming's heart nearly stopped. Fortunately, he was not completely unprepared.
Before entering the instance, he had donated more than half of his assets to his guild in exchange for a life-saving item.
He raised a trembling hand to the amulet hanging from his neck and activated its power.
[Name: Transvergence Talisman]
[Type: Item]
[Effect: Reduces your presence to a minimum, allowing you to evade the sight of supernatural entities (Duration: 30 seconds).]
[Note: They can't see you anymore, so I guess they'll have to go for your roommate.]
The talisman in his palm grew warm. Shen Ming watched as the vines that had been lunging for him suddenly changed course, striking instead at Chang Xu beside him...
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