Yu Feizhou turned his head, scanning Lin Zhen from head to toe with a serious expression, and said, “You’re not injured.”
Lin Zhen, still covering his eyes, replied nonchalantly, “I’m not in an instance right now.”
Yu Feizhou shifted his gaze back to Lin Qing’s perspective.
In the scene, Lin Qing, like Yan Mingguang and the others, had taken out a small lamp and placed it beside him. His expression remained solemn, with only a faint trace of emotion in his deep black eyes, showing no signs of disturbance.
However, the fabric on his right shoulder was completely soaked through, the bloodstain spreading out, and one could vaguely make out a gaping hole in the center of the blood—where he had been pierced by the Ghost/Monster in the sleeper compartment earlier.
He didn’t cry out in pain, but his right arm trembled slightly. The wound hadn’t disappeared and remained on Lin Qing’s right shoulder.
The dim light revealed the situation inside.
The dirty thing from earlier had vanished, but the floor of the sleeper compartment was covered in blood, with the sound of dripping blood echoing incessantly.
Lin Qing sat on one side of the sleeper berth, while on the opposite side, the once snow-white bedding had turned completely crimson. The dripping sound of blood also came from this berth.
Cao Qun’s body lay sprawled on the lower berth.
—Truly sprawled.
His entire body had been roughly torn open from the middle, the jagged wound starting from his forehead and extending all the way down to his waist, as if he had been ripped apart from the center, with his internal organs exposed. The torn stomach still contained undigested food, emitting a nauseating sour stench.
Lin Qing’s expression remained unchanged.
He took out some medicinal ointment and began treating the wound on his shoulder, calling out across the compartment, “Cao Qun is dead. Don’t come over yet. Yan Wei was right—it’s about the number of people. After Cao Qun died, the Ghost left. If you come over now, it might cause another imbalance in the numbers.”
Yan Wei’s lips had just parted from Yan Mingguang’s. He was slightly out of breath, and the chill in his cheeks and limbs had now been warmed by their earlier actions.
Upon hearing Lin Qing’s words, he cleared his throat and called out, “Yan Mingguang and I will stay in compartment twelve tonight!”
There was no further response from the other side.
The surroundings fell into silence once more. Yan Wei listened to Yan Mingguang’s breathing, which was so close, and looked up. In the hazy light cast by the flashlight beam, he could vaguely see traces of blood on the man’s cheeks. It seemed to have splattered from the Ghost/Monster, with no visible wounds, just a few spots of black blood.
Yan Mingguang’s dark eyes were fixed on him, his sharp features strikingly clear even in the dim light. Though his expression towards Yan Wei was never cold, the blood on his cheeks added a touch of solemnity.
He motioned for Yan Wei to sit down, then turned to close the door.
The smell of rust and blood still lingered in the air, and the flashlight’s beam formed a single, focused line ahead, both dim and bright. Everything around them had quieted down—whether it was the Players who had been woken up and were secretly eavesdropping, or the possible Ghosts/Monsters that might appear—there was no movement now.
The night was likely over.
As Yan Wei’s rationality returned, he finally felt the pain in his fingertips and arm. Yan Mingguang had evidently noticed these injuries before he did. The man slowly approached, knelt down on one knee in front of him, and began bandaging his hand.
Yan Wei looked down at him, first confirming that Yan Mingguang didn’t seem to have any major injuries, except for a bandage wrapped around his wrist, which had likely been treated before they entered.
Once he was sure Yan Mingguang was fine, Yan Wei’s earlier urgency and panic were replaced by calmness, followed by a faint anger. “I don’t like it when you make decisions on your own.”
“Mm.”
“My Undying State only lasts for two minutes,” he took a deep breath, “it would have been wiser for you to hide and let me block that Ghost.”
“Mm.”
“I want to leave this Tower World where there’s no freedom, but I want to leave with you. I don’t want to play those ‘I die for you, you die for me’ games. We’ve been through so much already—you should know that maximizing benefits is always the best choice.”
“Mm.”
“Yan Mingguang.”
The man paused in his bandaging.
“I was terrified.”
“Mm.”
Yan Wei: “.”
Yan Wei had never lost an argument before—except to Yan Mingguang, because this man didn’t play by the rules.
Yan Mingguang finished tending to his wounds, then sat down beside him and began cleaning off the dirt Yan Wei had gotten on himself during the chaos.
Yan Wei stopped dwelling on what had just happened and began sorting through his jumbled thoughts.
The names on the blackboard were the Death List. In Prometheus, the Evil Eagle that appeared day after day was likely the Attendant.
The Death List had been written by the Attendant.
The incident with Zhao Jingchen was related to the Death List. As for the two Ghosts/Monsters inside and outside their door, it was probably because of the number of people.
In the chaos earlier, Yan Wei hadn’t thought much about it. He had only compared the differences before and after, which was the addition of Cao Qun.
There was also the possibility that the Ghost had come for Cao Qun, who was originally assigned to berth 1101, but this possibility was ruled out when the Ghost attacked them indiscriminately. That left only the difference in numbers.
It was possible that each room had to have a fixed number of occupants. If there was one extra person, a Ghost would appear.
“…Then why were there two?” Yan Wei muttered to himself. “If it was just Cao Qun being added, turning three people into four, and one person had to die, then the Ghost outside that was disguised as Xu Miaomiao was targeting the extra person. But what about the one that suddenly appeared inside?”
He recalled the strange chill they had felt all day near their berths, and the constant sense of being watched—the Ghost had likely been hiding in their sleeper compartment for a long time.
“That means there were two extra people,” Yan Mingguang said calmly. “The Ghost that had been hiding for a long time was targeting the person who was already extra, and the Ghost that suddenly appeared outside was targeting Cao Qun, who had only entered in the evening.”
Yan Wei blinked and nodded lightly.
“Yes, that’s it,” he said. “Our compartment can only hold two people? So even if Cao Qun hadn’t come tonight, that Ghost would have suddenly appeared in our compartment. Since Cao Qun did come, the Ghost outside also appeared. And now we’re completely safe because…”
Yan Mingguang continued, “Because the sleeper compartment in carriage twelve can hold two people.”
Now, there were exactly two of them staying here.
In their original sleeper compartment, the moment they ran out the door, the Ghost had likely attacked Cao Qun. After they left, the Ghost departed when Cao Qun died.
Whether it was their original sleeper compartment in carriage eleven or the one Yan Wei and Yan Mingguang were now in, the number of people had changed.
The one in carriage eleven had gone from three people to one living person, while this one had gone from no one to two people. It could also be said that the number hadn’t changed, since Zhao Jingchen and He Dong had also been two people when they stayed here earlier.
Yan Wei spotted the common thread: “So each sleeper compartment can only hold a maximum of two people? That makes sense. If ‘Zeus’ really punished the workers on the train, and they turned into Ghosts, continuing to kill the passengers who boarded later, then these places must have originally housed the workers. If the train’s staff lived in the sleeper compartments, they likely would have shared rooms in pairs, sleeping on the lower berths and using the upper berths for storage, since four people wouldn’t have enough space for their belongings.”
“Just speculation.”
“We can confirm it tomorrow. Aside from our three-person room, there’s another one like it. We’ll see if they’ve lost any members…”
Though it was cruel, it was also the truth.
If this speculation was correct, they could confirm two pieces of information.
First, each sleeper compartment could only hold a maximum of two people; otherwise, death would be triggered, and the Players would keep dying until the number was reduced to two or fewer.
Second, the Ghosts on the train were once the train’s workers, because their living arrangements were not those of passengers.
“Alright,” Yan Mingguang said, “your pants are covered in blood. Should I help you change, or—”
“I’ll do it myself,” Yan Wei quickly replied. “If you help me, I might be tempted to do something inappropriate in a place like this.”
Yan Mingguang glanced over, his gaze deep and lingering.
Yan Wei’s face flushed slightly, and he looked down at his pant leg.
During the critical moment earlier, he had been lying by the door, pushing against it, and some of the filthy blood from the Ghost outside had seeped through the crack, soaking his pant leg. He hadn’t paid attention to it earlier, but now he naturally needed to change.
Out of the corner of his eye, Yan Wei caught a glimpse of the man’s legs beside him.
Long, straight, and clean.
He paused, his movements abruptly halting.
—Clean?
In that life-or-death moment, the blood had seeped through the door crack, and even he had been stained by the filthy black blood inside.
This man would never be the type to change clothes in the hallway.
Could it be that only the Ghost had been pressing against the door?
For a moment, Yan Wei, taking advantage of the dim light, subtly glanced at the bandage on Yan Mingguang’s wrist—he suddenly wanted to tear it off and see if there really was a wound underneath.
The thought flashed through his mind, but Yan Wei took no action.
He suddenly remembered the Puppet Castle instance, where Yan Mingguang had “accidentally” dropped a map, using it to hint at further deductions and clues. At the time, Yan Mingguang had claimed that he had already recovered the data and memories stored in the coin, so he knew some information that others didn’t.
But now, Yan Wei had fully recovered the memories and data stored in the coin as well. In theory, he should know just as much as Yan Mingguang, and their situations should be the same.
Yet he still felt the same sense of uncertainty and lack of control that he had felt before.
Yan Wei’s gaze lowered slightly, his expression unchanged, as he subtly averted his eyes. He closed the projection feed that Lin Zhen and the others had been watching, undid his belt, and said softly, “Could you grab me a fresh set of clothes?”
