Players, Please Board the Train

The piano wire was stuck in her mouth, sinking deeper into the corners of her lips as she bit down.

”Ahh!” Ni Tian’s face contorted in pain, but before she could retreat, Xu Huo grabbed her head and smashed it violently against the floor!

The floor tiles shattered, cutting Ni Tian’s face. In her shock and anger, she tried to bite his wrist, but the piano wire suddenly pulled back sharply, forcing her entire head to jerk backward, followed by a cold sensation pressing against her throat!

Ni Tian fell backward to avoid the fatal blow, grabbing the piano wire at her cheek and pulling hard to extract it. However, the crossed wires behind her head weren’t easily removed, and her whole body was lifted upright.

”Ugh!” Taking a punch to the abdomen, Ni Tian spat blood and tightened her grip on the wires, shouting, ”Help! Murder!”

Xu Huo thrust the dagger into her open mouth.

”Uh... uh...” Sweat beaded on Ni Tian’s forehead as she stared fixedly at the dagger handle in front of her, keeping her mouth wide open and mumbling indistinctly, ”Don’t kill me...”

”Knock knock knock!” Someone knocked outside. Xu Huo immediately moved behind the door, quickly opening it upon hearing Xie Man’s voice.

”Could you keep the noise down...” Xie Man’s words trailed off as Xu Huo opened the door. She involuntarily stepped back, glanced inside, then said, ”Please consider the feelings of those living next door.”

Xu Huo glanced at Gao Jun’s closed door to the right, then turned back to her. ”My apologies, I have violent tendencies.”At that moment, Ni Tian fell to the floor with a thud.

Xie Man stared steadily at Xu Huo, cursed ”Psycho,” and turned to leave. However, instead of returning to her room, she headed toward the exhibition hall, but just as she left the corridor, she suddenly spun around and ran back, hissing in a low voice, ”Get back inside quickly!”

Pan Siming and the Gloomy Man, who had just opened their doors, immediately retreated into their rooms. Seeing a slender, eerie shadow cast on the floor by the light, Xu Huo also closed his door and engaged the interior lock.

He quickly moved to Ni Tian’s side, knocked her out with a chop to the neck, then returned to the door. Light patting his back, Painting Woman, who had turned back into painting paper, slid out from his jacket.

Xu Huo pointed outside. Painting Woman immediately tried to float out under the door crack but was stopped.

”Wait,” Xu Huo mouthed.

Painting Woman nodded, then transformed into human form and mimicked him by pressing her ear against the door.

In the corridor, there was the sound of something hard scraping against the floor tiles, slowly moving from the exhibition hall to the upper corridor. It paused at the intersection before shifting toward the left side.

”Thump!” A knock unlike that of a human sounded.

Just one knock, and the room door slammed against the wall with a crash, followed by the startled scream of the player nicknamed ”Octopus Card Bear”—cut off in less than half a second!

The scraping sound moved out from the room, went a bit deeper to the left, then began knocking:

”Thump!”

This time it knocked twice, but whatever it was didn’t break the door down. Instead, footsteps moved toward the right corridor, slowly approaching Xu Huo’s room.

”I’ll go fight it,” Painting Woman showed Xu Huo her phone screen.

Xu Huo slightly shook his head. The sound didn’t stop at his door but continued on, passing Gao Jun’s room and heading toward Leather Jacket Woman’s room.

”Thump!”

This time it knocked three times, then turned back and went toward the exhibition hall.

The scraping sound gradually faded in the direction of the exhibition hall, and the corridor returned to silence.

At seven the next morning, the main lights in the exhibition hall turned on, and players gradually emerged from their rooms.

Pan Siming and Fan Shiji, being closest, went to Deng Yu and Da Xiong’s room first. Others followed a moment later, their eyelids twitching at the scene inside.

The kicked-in door aside, from the center of the room to the right bed and wall looked as if slashed by a giant knife. Deep grooves nearly split the entire room in half.

Deng Yu was missing, but Da Xiong sat by the collapsed bed.

”What did you see last night? Where’s Deng Yu?” Pan Siming immediately stepped forward to ask.

Da Xiong shook his head. ”I didn’t see anything. When we heard the noise, Deng Yu said turning off the lights would be safer, so we turned off the room lights. But after the door was smashed, I was swept by a strange gust of wind, hit the bedside table, and passed out. When I woke up, Deng Yu was already gone.”

The bandaged side of his head showed bloodstains, with shredded clothes and a bloody headscarf at his feet. The corner of the nearby bedside table had dried bloodstains.

You Huanhuan gave Da Xiong half a bottle of healing potion.

”You’re pretty lucky to survive that,” the Gloomy Man said sarcastically.

After drinking the healing potion, Da Xiong said, ”We still don’t know what happened to Deng Yu...”

”Let’s check the exhibition hall,” Pan Siming turned and said.

The group returned to the exhibition hall. After checking every pillar, they found no trace of Deng Yu—no person, no body.

”No bloodstains on the floor, no drag marks,” Pan Siming frowned. ”Did Deng Yu just vanish into thin air?”

”What appeared last night was probably the dungeon boss, right? Could it have eaten Deng Yu?” You Huanhuan whispered.

”You saw that thing yesterday—what exactly was it like?” Pan Siming asked Xie Man.

But Xie Man shook her head. ”To be honest, I didn’t get a clear look at what it was. It was in front of the statue at the center of the exhibition hall. I only saw a shadow as tall as the statue pressed against its back. I was too scared of being spotted to look closely.”

”As tall as the statue?” Fan Shiji looked up at the nearby statue. ”So it was five or six meters tall?”

The statue placed in the center of the exhibition hall was of a male figure, with carved drapery covering him. He held a book in his left hand, while his right hand was beneath the drapery.

Da Xiong swallowed hard. ”Could it have killed Deng Yu?”

”Whether it killed Deng Yu or not can wait,” Leather Jacket Woman interjected. ”The knocking last night had a pattern.”

”The first time it knocked once, the second time twice, the third time three times. What does that mean?”

”Also, why did it only attack the first room?”

”Could it be the order of entering the art gallery?” Xie Man pondered for a moment. ”Who arrived first?”

”That was me,” the Gloomy Man said.

”Then that’s not it,” Pan Siming recited the players’ names. ”First were Deng Yu and Da Xiong.”

”I was second,” Fan Shiji said.

”I was third,” Leather Jacket Woman said.

”What connection is there between these four people?” Pan Siming looked at them repeatedly.

”What if there’s no connection between them?” Ni Tian covered her injured mouth corner. ”Maybe the dungeon is just killing randomly.”

”It can’t be random killing,” Leather Jacket Woman said. ”If it were random, it shouldn’t have spared Da Xiong.”

Da Xiong licked his lips. ”I might know why.”

”It’s the paintings. Yesterday I saw Deng Yu accidentally damage a corner while removing a painting to inspect it.”