Chapter 9 (1/2)

Translator: Atlas Studios

Editor: Atlas Studios

In the hotel.

Zhou Zhenguo closed his eyes and leaned against the chair, his expression one of fatigue.

On the wall in front of him was a small hole from which he could see Li Liang and Tang Luo’s room through it.

This was something that he had secretly created after reaching a mutual understanding with Tang Luo for the convenience of keeping an eye on Li Liang.

Tang Luo and Little Chu were out ‘fishing’ tonight.

The others kept the established law of horror films, where splitting up and moving about solo equated to death firmly in mind. Thus, both men and both women were all gathered in Tang Luo’s room.

Originally, the two pairs could have returned to their own rooms to sleep, but there just had to be a problem with Li Liang’s body.

The high school student wasn’t willing to stay with him alone, either. Being alone similarly felt rather eerie too. As for being thick-skinned and shamelessly going over to join the two young ladies, for the majority of braggart high school students, this was something impossible.

Thus, everyone decided to just stay there together and wait. Should anything unexpected happen, at least, there was strength in numbers, probably.

And so, on that night, the four of them stared at each other in silence, the atmosphere somewhat awkward.

In the other room, Zhou Zhenguo’s eyes were rather tired and close to tearing up from keeping watch as well.

‘This doesn’t make sense. Why do I feel like I’ve become a spy on surveillance duty?’

Zhou Zhenguo felt like this situation wasn’t quite right. He was clearly the only experienced player—pseudo—there. But in the end, with the way how things developed, he had ended up following Tang Luo’s instructions instead.

The other party was completely in charge now.

‘How did things turn out like this?’ Zhou Zhenguo thought about it long and hard. He felt that this wasn’t his fault.

The problem lay with that ‘Master Xuanzang’.

‘That man isn’t a warrior monk or an enlightened one. He’s a demonic monk.’

The moment he thought of it that way, Zhou Zhenguo felt a lot better.

‘It isn’t so much myself that didn’t work hard enough, but rather, it’s because the enemy ‘has Gundams1′.’

“Ah~”

Next door, Li Liang let out a huge yawn. He ignored the rest of them and went straight to sleep. He had already completely given up on himself by now. He didn’t care even if the mission failed. After all, he felt like his body had been hollowed out.

It wasn’t as if there were Shenbao1 tablets there to nourish his health and replenish what he had lost.

Moreover, everyone was even suspicious of him.

In any case, that damned Old Zhou had already said that they wouldn’t receive any penalty for just one failed mission.

His wife had told him once, “Escaping may be shameful, but it’s useful!”

Bi Wanhui asked her friend, “Do you want to go to the restroom?”

“Yes.” Her friend nodded.

Carrying on the basic bosom buddy principle of ‘friends must go to the toilet together’, the two of them went out of the room.

Next door, after thinking for a moment, Zhou Zhenguo chose not to follow after them.

The rooms in this hotel didn’t have their own private restrooms.

There was one at the end of the corridor.

The only guests staying in the hotel now were Tang Luo and the rest of them. The place went through daily cleaning too. Thus, it was rather clean.

With her friend standing guard outside the door, Bi Wanhui walked in and half-shut the door, looking as if she was in urgent need to relieve herself.

She wasn’t really in urgent need. Rather, it was because she had thought of how Li Liang had precisely gotten into danger in the toilet (alleged).

In addition, places such as toilets were ‘regulars’ in horror films.

Like Hanako-san1 and Moaning Myrtle’s Bathroom2—the latter seemed to be comic relief material, though.

In any case, even if she had a friend standing guard outside and the door wasn’t fully closed. She was still rather nervous going to the toilet in the middle of the night and hoped that it would be over sooner rather than later, especially when there was only an extremely dim kerosene lamp in the toilet corner.

By being nervous, she instead found it rather hard to let it out smoothly.

Right at that point, a cold and sinister breeze suddenly blew into the small and cramped space, scaring Bi Wanhui so badly that she jumped to her feet.

She looked over to find out that the little window next to her wasn’t shut tight.

Bi Wanhui let out a small sigh of relief. It was pitch-black outside the little window. One could only squeeze a large watermelon through the gap at best.

The chilly wind caused the slightly ajar door to open slightly.

Bi Wanhui heard a series of clear footsteps.

“Cheng Cheng, are you still there?” shouted Bi Wanhui, afraid that her friend had already lost her patience and left.

“Yes, I am.”

Her friend’s voice drifted in from outside. What she said next wasn’t directed at Bi Wanhui, however. “There’s someone inside. Come over and clean the place later instead.”

Bi Wanhui assumed that the footsteps she heard were probably the hotel’s cleaners walking over.

Thinking back a little, the footsteps earlier had been coming closer rather than going away.

With people outside, Bi Wanhui felt a lot more at ease.

From the crack that was about two fingers’ width apart between the door and the frame, she could vaguely see the shadows of people moving.

They weren’t very distinct.

After a while, after she was done with her business, Bi Wanhui washed her hands and pushed the door. The door, which opened outwards, collided with the back of the person outside.

“Hey, don’t block the entrance,” said Bi Wanhui. At the same time, she applied slightly more force.

Bam!

The sound of something heavy crashing onto the wooden flooring rang out.

Bi Wanhui stopped pushing the door at once.

The sound had come from right outside the door.

The dim light that had originally been blocked by the form of a person streamed into the toilet.

Bi Wanhui’s eyes widened.

At some point, black liquid had trickled through the gap under the door into the toilet. It was dark red blood that was spreading all over the floor.