PTYS Chapter 22

A few people quickly surveyed the corridor. Indeed, there were rows of doors on both sides, but no staircase.

“How are we supposed to get out?” The girl who had been screaming earlier had calmed down and was now leaning closely against Xiao Muyu, whispering. It was clear she trusted Xiao Muyu because she had saved her.

“There must be an exit. They wouldn’t expect us to walk through walls,” Xiao Muyu replied calmly, looking around at the rooms.

“Hello, everyone. My name is Zuo Tiantian, I’m a freshman in the English Department. This is my second time in a dungeon. Thank you for saving me.”

As they inspected the rooms, the second girl who had come out timidly looked at Xiao Muyu and the others and introduced herself.

“I’m Wang Yushan, a nurse. This is my second time in a dungeon too.” This was the girl who had been screaming.

“I’m Su Jin, I just graduated. This is my first time in a dungeon.” Xiao Muyu glanced at her in slight surprise; for a first-timer, maintaining such calm was impressive.

“Xiao Muyu, second time.”

“Shen Qingqiu.”

Both of them were concise, but no one questioned them because their calm demeanor was very reassuring.

All the room numbers on this floor started with 43. Xiao Muyu counted them, and Shen Qingqiu, understanding what she was doing, directly said, “There are 20 rooms in total.”

Xiao Muyu looked at the room number at the end, 4320, the highest number they had seen.

“This is 4320, but I remember the smallest number was 4300,” Su Jin reminded them, puzzled.

So, there was a missing number.

“4316 is missing,” Shen Qingqiu, sensitive to numbers, noted. She had looked at all the door numbers as they passed. There weren’t many, so it wasn’t hard to notice.

As soon as she spoke, six of the twenty doors suddenly opened.

The five of them looked at the six open doors, their expressions turning grim, some looking completely at a loss.

“What does this mean? Do we have to go back into the rooms?” Zuo Tiantian shuddered at the thought of what she had encountered in her room and didn’t want to go back.

Xiao Muyu stayed silent, staring at the six open doors. The door numbers were 4311, 4318, 4312, 4315, 4314, and 4317.

“Do any of these seem familiar?” Xiao Muyu asked after a moment.

“I came out of 4315,” Su Jin responded. Zuo Tiantian and Wang Yushan looked embarrassed and said, “I didn’t look at the door number.”

“Me neither, I was too scared to notice.”

“Wang Yushan came out of 4314, and Zuo Tiantian, you came out of 4318,” Xiao Muyu said, glancing at Shen Qingqiu. She smiled and said, “I was in room 4312, the third one out, just five rooms away from you, Muyu.”

She had reverted to calling her Muyu again. Xiao Muyu just turned away, not wanting to engage with her.

“Then 4317 is… the one who didn’t make it out…” Wang Yushan didn’t dare to bring up the incident, her voice trembling with fear.

“Correct.” Xiao Muyu glanced at the time, her expression grave.

Countdown: 11:32.

The ticking clock sound gripped Wang Yushan and the others’ hearts. Wang Yushan’s expression changed, and she said anxiously, “Only eleven minutes left. Does this mean we have to go back the way we came?”

“But if that’s the case, the game would be too easy,” Su Jin, inexperienced and ignorant about the game, remarked. However, Zuo Tiantian, having been through a dungeon before, disagreed.

Noticing the missing room within fifteen minutes to activate the six doors wasn’t difficult. As long as someone remembered their room number, they could deduce where to go. Even if no one remembered, it wouldn’t take long to try each door.

“In such fear and chaos, finding the correct room number is actually challenging. Ordinary people would probably just want to escape and wouldn’t pay attention to the room numbers,” Su Jin analyzed.

For instance, she hadn’t thought of remembering the room number. She had seen it by chance when Xiao Muyu and the others rescued her. Now the rooms were all mixed up, and the only identifying mark was the room number, making it quite difficult.

“You’re right, but with six doors open, it means the so-called return to your original rooms is impossible. The sixth person didn’t make it out,” Shen Qingqiu said, still watching the open rooms, all eerily quiet. This statement effectively refuted the theory.

“We don’t have time to waste. Without any objective basis for reasoning, we can only try.” Xiao Muyu glanced at the time: 10:25.

Shen Qingqiu nodded and looked at room 4311. “Are you the first one to come out?” she asked Xiao Muyu.

“Yes,” Xiao Muyu replied. Shen Qingqiu turned and smiled at her, “Let’s see what’s in your room.” With that, she was the first to step inside.

Zuo Tiantian and the others looked particularly tense. Xiao Muyu gave them a reassuring glance, “Let’s go in together.”

After all, staying outside was pretty scary too.

As soon as they entered, there was a loud bang as the door closed.

Wang Yushan couldn’t help but scream and then quickly covered her mouth, tears almost spilling out.

Shen Qingqiu immediately turned to stare at the door, while Xiao Muyu nervously surveyed the room, finding nothing unusual.

The five of them, with Xiao Muyu and Shen Qingqiu in the lead, and Zuo Tian, Wang Yushan holding the new member, Su Jin, closely following behind.

As for Shen Qingqiu, despite her frequent smiles, the others were somewhat intimidated by her.

The room was very dark, but Xiao Muyu noticed that it had changed.

“The layout has changed. When I came in, it was a room. But now, it’s clearly a corridor.”

Although everything was unknown, at least the thing in the mirror was gone.

However, this corridor was excessively long, not conforming to any known building structure.

Xiao Muyu walked step by step, Shen Qingqiu glanced back at her, a slight smile in her eyes, hidden in the darkness.

“There’s no way through,” Shen Qingqiu said softly as her toe touched a wall.

Entering the room and moving slowly to avoid missing any information, they walked cautiously. It was already 9:05.

Shen Qingqiu felt around the wall and quickly said, “There’s a door.”

“Let’s go out,” Xiao Muyu decisively said. The next moment, Shen Qingqiu pushed the door open, and all five of them were forcefully shoved out.

Shen Qingqiu, with her quick reflexes, stood firmly. Xiao Muyu and the others weren’t as lucky, stumbling out.

But Shen Qingqiu quickly grabbed Xiao Muyu’s waist, stretching out her left leg to stabilize.

Thus, Wang Yushan, Zuo Tian, and Su Jin screamed as they fell into a heap. When they looked up, they saw Shen Qingqiu holding Xiao Muyu securely.

Xiao Muyu, startled, instinctively clung to Shen Qingqiu’s shoulders, looking quite intimate.

Feeling confused, Xiao Muyu turned to see Shen Qingqiu’s teasing smile. She quickly stood up, adjusted her clothes, and said softly, “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome,” Shen Qingqiu replied, not taking advantage of the situation. She helped Xiao Muyu stand properly with a push of her left arm.

Xiao Muyu brushed back her slightly messy hair, glanced at the three people on the ground, and quickly averted her gaze. Her expression then became serious.

“We’re back again.” After walking such a long corridor, they had returned to the hallway. Xiao Muyu immediately looked at the room number; it was still 4311!

In the next moment, the entire corridor spun clockwise like a giant turntable, the hallway itself not moving, but the six rooms rotated like a carousel. The room that had been 4314 next to them became 4317.

Now, even Shen Qingqiu’s expression turned serious; time was running out.

Xiao Muyu closed her eyes, quickly recalling every scene from the start of the instance. What did this mean?

The instance shouldn’t be this complicated at the beginning, or they might die here without even getting out the door.

Why were these six rooms the ones they came out of? This couldn’t be a coincidence. The peculiarities often held the key.

Did each door change with each entry? Thinking this, she immediately turned and entered room 3411 again.

Shen Qingqiu was taken aback but followed without hesitation. Su Jin, the quickest to react among the three, also stepped in. Zuo Tian and Wang Yushan barely had time to react and were pulled in by Su Jin just as the door closed.

This time, Xiao Muyu felt the walls almost running. After covering the same distance, she pushed the door open, finding themselves back in the hallway.

She stared at the six doors and muttered, “This time, it didn’t move.”

“Then our first path was correct; at least it reacted.” Shen Qingqiu said quickly, her gaze locking onto the second room, 4314.

“Enter 4314,” Xiao Muyu decisively said.

Wang Yushan and Zuo Tian were confused, feeling their brains couldn’t keep up, “Why 4314?”

“Because that was the second door we opened.”

Countdown: 8:25;

Shen Qingqiu seemed to trust Xiao Muyu completely, following her to 4314 and saying indifferently, “Do as you please.”

Su Jin immediately followed, having a hunch that following them would lead to escape.

Zuo Tian and Wang Yushan had no other choice, completely clueless.

In 4314, it was still a dark corridor. Xiao Muyu counted, 199 steps, the same as 4311.

Opening the door, they were back in the hallway, the six rooms rotating clockwise again.

“4312.” Without hesitation, they entered, and again, the order changed upon exiting.

Countdown: 7:20;

“4318…”

“4315…”

“4317…”

Countdown: 5:30;

They finished the sixth room, opening the door to find themselves still in the hallway.

Su Jin’s heart sank; how could this be?

Wang Yushan almost cried, “What do we do? We guessed wrong.” With only five minutes left, if this attempt was wrong, they had no hope of escaping.

“It shouldn’t be,” Xiao Muyu frowned. Following the order of the doors made sense, and indeed, each time there was a reaction.

She looked at the six rooms and their changing numbers.

“The room numbers are changing; let’s check the rooms again.”

After speaking, they split up to search. Su Jin and the others quickly scanned the rooms, finding them still disordered, all starting with 43 but with no new numbers: 4310, 4319, 4316.

Su Jin’s eyes quickly skimmed over the numbers, then suddenly stopped. She muttered, “4316.”

She reached out and pushed, and 4316 opened with a creak.

“Found it!” Su Jin couldn’t contain her excitement and shouted loudly.

The others gathered around. Xiao Muyu looked up at the room number. It was 4316 again.

And this time, the door labeled 4316 didn’t lead to a room but to a staircase.

“Just as expected, let’s go.”

They hurried down the stairs and finally reached the first floor, seeing light at the end.

Upon exiting, they fully realized where they were. It was a school, and the place they had been was likely a dormitory building.

Their destination, the main building, was directly ahead—a white building with a clock tower on its roof.

Without wasting time on observing the surroundings, Xiao Muyu and the others quickly ran into the main building.

As soon as they stepped inside, the system voice echoed.

“Congratulations to players Xiao Muyu, Shen Qingqiu, Zuo Tian, Wang Yushan, and Su Jin for successfully reaching the conference room on the first floor of the main building. Time taken: 10 minutes 30 seconds!”

Hearing the familiar voice, Su Jin and the others breathed a long sigh of relief, feeling like they had returned to the real world.

In contrast, Shen Qingqiu and Xiao Muyu remained calm, already scanning the only open conference room on the first floor of the main building.

On the projector in the conference room, blood-red letters displayed a countdown timer. As they looked up, it ticked to 3:40.

“Why is the countdown still running?” Su Jin asked nervously.

Xiao Muyu observed for a moment, then pulled back the curtains in the conference room. The window provided a clear view of the building they had just left, now behind and to the right of the main building.

At the same time, there was another building to the left rear of the main building, with a large metal number 4 prominently displayed on its exterior.

She was stunned and turned to look at the dormitory building they had just left. Shen Qingqiu glanced at her and said, “That’s building 4, opposite this one.”

“Look at the building number over there,” Shen Qingqiu said, raising an eyebrow as she noticed, “It’s also building 4. A mirror image?”

“There might be more players who haven’t come out yet, but I don’t know if they can make it,” Xiao Muyu said solemnly, staring at the windows of the other building.

Time passed, and when the countdown reached 59 seconds, Su Jin nervously said, “Someone’s coming out.”

They turned to the conference room door, watching as one, two… four men came running in.

They were clearly tense, running frantically. When they entered the main building, the system announced:

“Congratulations to players Lin Hai, Zhang Qiang, Chen Kaijie, and Ni De for successfully reaching the conference room on the first floor of the main building. Time taken: 14 minutes 30 seconds!”

Three of the four men were out of breath, two of them collapsing into chairs with their eyes closed, panting heavily. Only a tall man in a black coat stood aside, surveying the room.

The countdown on the projector had stopped.

The five women didn’t speak, waiting for the men to catch their breath.

Soon, the standing man turned his attention to the women. When he saw Shen Qingqiu, he quickly looked away, focusing on Xiao Muyu. “You were fast, four minutes ahead of us.”

Xiao Muyu remained calm, “Surviving is already an achievement.”

As soon as she finished speaking, a creepy laugh echoed from outside the conference room, reverberating between the two buildings.

The man and Shen Qingqiu rushed to the window simultaneously. Seeing the scene outside, their faces changed dramatically.

Xiao Muyu and the others joined them. The sight almost made everyone in the conference room retreat in fear.

All the curtains on the third floor of the two buildings were lifted, revealing figures standing in the windows. In the sunlight, their ghastly pale faces and blood-red lips stood out, staring directly at those in the conference room with eerie grins.

Xiao Muyu, with her sharp eyes, noticed some of them looked exactly like people in the room.

But strangely, after showing their faces, the figures disappeared.

“What does this mean?” the tall man asked in a low voice.

No one answered; no one knew the answer.

The conference room fell silent.

Xiao Muyu frowned and sat down. The man broke the silence, “We should exchange information. You must have come from the building opposite ours. What’s your situation? I’m Chen Kaijie. This is Zhang Qiang, Lin Hai, and Ni De. What are your names?”

While Xiao Muyu was lost in thought, Shen Qingqiu’s cold gaze was on the men staring at her, clearly uninterested in talking.

Understanding their personalities, Su Jin took the lead, briefly explaining their experiences and introducing themselves.

Both groups had encountered similar situations. Unfortunately, the other group hadn’t reacted quickly at first and lost two members.

“May I ask how you got out?” Chen Kaijie asked.

Su Jin glanced at Xiao Muyu before describing their escape method.

“Our experience was quite similar. We inexplicably faced a mirror, saw a ghostly figure, and managed to escape by stopping it from writing bloody words. But Xiao Muyu, your speed was impressive,” Chen Kaijie said, directing his compliment at Xiao Muyu.

Su Jin and the others didn’t find anything odd about his words, but Shen Qingqiu subtly observed the man.

From Su Jin’s brief glance, he deduced that their escape was primarily due to Xiao Muyu’s efforts. He seemed very experienced, likely the reason their group managed to get out.

Xiao Muyu looked up at Chen Kaijie, picked up a pen from the conference room table, and took a piece of paper, placing it in front of her. Then she asked, “What were your room numbers?”

“Starting with 43, from 4300 to 4320, but missing 4313.”

Xiao Muyu wrote down six room numbers and held them up for the four men to see.

“Are these the same six room numbers?”

Chen Kaijie and his companions were surprised and nodded. “It seems that aside from the missing room numbers being different, our two buildings are identical. Did you also clear the rooms one by one?”

“Yes.”

“But what’s the point of this round? There’s no clear objective or rules. We’re here, but…” A slightly chubby man, Ni De, expressed his frustration, unable to finish his sentence.

Suddenly, the projection screen turned black, and white text began to appear line by line with a typing sound.

“Congratulations on successfully completing the first round of the Fatal Room Game. The dungeon game has now begun. There is only one rule: survive six rounds.”

The words “survive six rounds” were stark white on the black screen, the contrast intense and eerie. The system was adept at creating a spooky atmosphere, with the letters seeming to flow and drip, heightening the sense of terror.

These six words weighed heavily on the ten people present. If the first round was already nerve-wracking, what would the next five be like?

“You have fifteen minutes to prepare. The second round will begin in fifteen minutes. Make the most of your time in the conference room; this time is life.”

The screen displayed a countdown timer: 15:00.

“We initially encountered that mirror in the room, and it was just…” Zuo Tian couldn’t continue, the memory of the scene driving her nearly to madness.

“What exactly was that? Will we face the same thing in the next rounds? Also, what was the word we interrupted?” Lin Hai asked, his lips pale from recalling his own experience.

“Have you ever heard of the game Bloody Mary?” Chen Kaijie asked, breaking his silence.

Most people present looked puzzled, clearly unfamiliar with it.

“Then you were lucky to interrupt it,” Chen Kaijie said with a humorless laugh.

“It’s a forbidden game of summoning spirits, once popular but now largely forgotten. It’s said that many people died because of it,” Xiao Muyu continued, her expression grave.

Hearing this, Lin Hai couldn’t help but stare at her. She was coldly elegant, with a unique demeanor.

“So the complete word on the mirror was ‘Bloody Mary.’ In this game, it summoned an evil spirit. No one knows what would happen next,” Xiao Muyu explained.

Everyone fell silent after hearing her words. Was this game really just a twisted version of Bloody Mary?

Shen Qingqiu, who had remained silent, stood up and began examining the conference room.

Apart from a conference table, there was a simple bookshelf filled with books.

Shen Qingqiu carefully examined the bookshelf. Xiao Muyu followed her, not saying anything.

The others, trapped in despair and fear, were puzzled. Xiao Muyu didn’t look up from her book as she spoke, “Ever played escape rooms? Sometimes the text you read is full of hidden meanings and often contains clues.”

“When we entered this world, the system should have told you not to overlook any word or sentence. The game rules might be hidden in them.”

Chen Kaijie gave her a thoughtful look and then also started searching the room.

Even those who didn’t understand knew there must be clues in the conference room. Lin Hai nearly jumped up and began searching.

The books on the bookshelf appeared to be borrowed from a library, each labeled with a number and neatly arranged.

Lin Hai, in his thirties, was a businessman with substantial assets. But he never liked reading. Seeing the books made his head hurt, but he didn’t want to miss any crucial information, so he started pulling out books and flipping through them, leaving the bookshelf in disarray. Xiao Muyu frowned as she watched.

He held a book on linear algebra, baffled by the mathematical symbols, and tossed it aside.

“This information is useless to me.”

Shen Qingqiu walked by him, paused, and stared. When she wasn’t being cold, she was stunningly beautiful. Her gaze made Lin Hai nervous, and he stood up straight, swallowing hard.

“Miss Shen, do you have a question?” he stammered, his face red.

Even Ni De and Zhang Qiang, as fellow men, looked at him with disdain.

Shen Qingqiu pointed to the bookshelf, “If you can’t understand it, at least put it back in its place.”

Lin Hai misunderstood, feeling humiliated and retorting angrily, “You’re being too nosy. This is a game prop, not your home. I can place it however I want. Is it bothering you?”

“Idiot,” Shen Qingqiu said disdainfully, putting the book back and quickly arranging the others. Lin Hai’s face turned livid.

“What did you say?” He was already frustrated and full of negative emotions, and her insult made him furious.

Xiao Muyu’s cold voice interjected, “If you don’t want to die early, be smart. The information might not be in the books but in their order. You’ve disrupted the layout, possibly ruining the clues. Do you want more people to die?”

Lin Hai froze, and Chen Kaijie’s brows furrowed, “Miss Xiao is right. Search, but don’t mess up the order.”

Lin Hai, who was obedient to Chen Kaijie, immediately shut his mouth and turned his head, still fuming, to continue flipping through the books. This time, he conscientiously put them back in their place.

“Did you find anything?” Shen Qingqiu asked in a low voice, leaning closer. Although she had her suspicions, she hadn’t discovered anything concrete, only that her intuition told her something was off.

Without looking up, Xiao Muyu replied, “No.”

“Oh—” Shen Qingqiu drew out the word meaningfully and then bent down, turning her head to watch Xiao Muyu as she continued flipping through the books. In a soft voice, she asked, “So, were you defending me?”

Xiao Muyu rolled her eyes upward briefly before responding calmly, “You could probably snap his neck effortlessly. You don’t need me to defend you.”

“They say the smarter the woman, the more arrogant she is. It seems that’s true,” Shen Qingqiu muttered, quite pleased, as she continued her search.

Xiao Muyu paused for a moment, pursed her lips, and thought to herself that confidence wasn’t a problem unique to men; Shen Qingqiu was the same.

“Numbers are the origin of all things,” Su Jin muttered to herself as she stared at the book in her hands, unconsciously reading out the sentence.

Everyone, including Xiao Muyu, looked up at Su Jin. She held the book open, showing them.

“This is from the ‘Lectures on the History of Western Philosophy.’ I’ve read it before, and this sentence is indeed in there. But it shouldn’t be alone on the title page, and it’s far too prominent.”

A single, clean page with only this one sentence was indeed unusual.

“But what can this sentence tell us? We only have six minutes left.”

“This sentence was originally proposed by Pythagoras. He believed that numbers were the essence of everything. Once numbers appeared, people found them everywhere.

In Eastern traditions, like the I Ching, Feng Shui, and physiognomy, and in Western traditions, like astrology and tarot, numbers are indispensable. Numbers themselves are used as a method of divination and are imbued with metaphysical significance.”

Xiao Muyu pondered this after seeing the sentence.

Shen Qingqiu watched her. Xiao Muyu was undoubtedly attractive, with her long, straight black hair flowing like silk.

Her skin was fair, her features delicate, and there wasn’t a single flaw. Despite her icy demeanor, there was an inherent poetic beauty in the way she spoke and thought, making it hard not to focus on her.

Just like now.

Shen Qingqiu had quickly realized Xiao Muyu’s intelligence and found her charm undeniable, even her coldness couldn’t hide it. Initially, Shen Qingqiu found her interesting, but now she was curious about the environment that could produce someone like her.

“So this sentence is useful? What about numbers? Speaking of which, this dungeon does seem to be related to numbers. Aren’t those room numbers made up of digits?” Su Jin’s excitement made her speak faster.

“And the dungeon’s name, ‘Fatal Room Numbers.’ It seems this game’s key is those room numbers.”

Chen Kaijie understood this, but they still didn’t know what to do next or the significance of the numbers.

“Could it be those room numbers from our original rooms?”

With three minutes left, Xiao Muyu and Shen Qingqiu remained silent. Xiao Muyu sat quietly, listening to their discussion, while Shen Qingqiu stared at the bookshelf, seemingly lost in thought.

Unable to contain himself, Chen Kaijie asked, “You two don’t seem worried at all. Do you already have a plan?”

Everyone turned to look at Xiao Muyu and Shen Qingqiu.

Xiao Muyu shook her head. “No.”

“Miss Xiao, Miss Shen, there’s no competition between us. If you have any clues, please share them. We’d be very grateful,” Chen Kaijie said, unable to guess their thoughts.

“Mr. Chen, there’s no need to worry. We’re all in the same boat, and only sincere cooperation will get us off it alive. I understand that. But I really don’t have any leads; there are too few clues. However, everyone should remain calm. In a game with six rounds, if everyone were eliminated in the first round, it would be too uninteresting. If I’m correct, this round shouldn’t be too dangerous. That would align with the game’s style.”

“Its style?” Chen Kaijie asked, puzzled.

“We’re already in the second round. Given the game’s severity, everyone knows how harsh it can be.”

Xiao Muyu’s words resonated with the group, who all nodded in agreement.

Shen Qingqiu ignored the others. She noticed that the books on the shelf were categorized. According to library habits, similar books should be together, such as Marxist works, literature, and natural sciences. But the math books were scattered.

Her eyes fell on the math books. They had been examined before, and nothing seemed special, but their placement was too odd.

With 1 minute and 30 seconds left on the countdown, Xiao Muyu and the others were getting anxious. Zuo Tiantian, leaning against the conference room wall, was absentmindedly picking at a wall calendar, making a faint noise.

Xiao Muyu glanced at it. The calendar showed July, with an image of the Egyptian pyramids, which seemed somewhat out of place.

Her thoughts wandered. She no longer knew what year it was. She had long forgotten the exact date in reality. Was it a week, a day, or a year?

It was a strange thought that came out of nowhere. Xiao Muyu felt a part of her mind suddenly open up. Just as she was about to explore it, Shen Qingqiu nudged her arm.

“Miss Xiao, do you think there’s something wrong with the arrangement of the books on that shelf?” She pointed to the shelf. “Look at the 9th, 15th, 23rd, 25th, 30th, and 33rd books.”

Having already examined the shelf carefully, Shen Qingqiu quickly identified their positions. She called her ‘Miss Xiao’ with a particular tone, glancing at her with a mischievous smile, which Xiao Muyu noticed with a slight glance.

Xiao Muyu was at a loss for words. Who could possibly, at a glance, identify the 9th, 15th, and 33rd books on a bookshelf?

However, she seemed to be no ordinary person. Although she couldn’t instantly see the books in the middle, a quick glance revealed Shen Qingqiu’s intention.

“They’re all math books.”

Shen Qingqiu’s eyes lit up. “Indeed, you understand me. Did you see what I saw?”

Xiao Muyu remained calm. “If you didn’t see it, how could I?”

Just as she spoke, the countdown ended!

At the same time, a tremendous roar came from outside the window.

Xiao Muyu quickly turned her head to see the two mirror-like buildings outside actually moving!

The two four-story dormitory buildings, originally separated by more than fifty meters, were now coming together, merging into one before their eyes.

“Is something wrong with my eyes?” Ni De murmured.

“This is a supernatural instance; anything is possible,” Lin Hai began to say, but before he could finish, the world around them blurred, and they found themselves back in the corridor!

Above them, the mechanical voice they had come to dread resounded once more.

“Attention, players. The second round of the game begins!”

As soon as the announcement was made, a door in the corridor flung open. Xiao Muyu immediately noticed that the previous room number was gone.

“Players, please enter the room.”

The room was pitch black, and their hearts pounded like drums. No one dared to be the first to enter, not even Chen Kaijie hesitated.

Xiao Muyu took a deep breath, thinking it was better to get it over with quickly. As she lifted her foot to step in, someone beside her held her back. It was Shen Qingqiu.

“I’ll go first,” she said softly, glancing at the four men with a faint smile that made Chen Kaijie flush.

Xiao Muyu watched Shen Qingqiu draw her dagger, extending her left hand slightly in front of her, serious and alert, quite different from her usual nonchalant demeanor. She couldn’t help but look a few more times.

Soon, that bright and delicate face vanished into the darkness, and Xiao Muyu shifted her gaze, trying to adjust to the blackness.

The pitch-black night swallowed the corridor’s light entirely. They say light dispels darkness, but here, darkness devoured the light.

After the two went in, Su Jin glanced at Chen Kaijie, who wanted to enter, and said coolly, “I’ll go first.”

Chen Kaijie’s expression soured.

The always frightened Wang Yushan and Zuo Tiantian still trusted the organization more and squeezed in after them.

Leaving the four men in awkward silence.

The author has something to say: This chapter is a three-in-one. I hope everyone supports it. Tomorrow, I’ll draw some cute readers in the comments of Chapter 22 to send Jinjiang coins. I hope everyone has great luck in the new year.

Previously, some readers mentioned that short-answer questions are not friendly to science students, so this time, let’s do a math problem. Haha.