Players, Please Board the Train

After all, there were few of them. As Xu Huo said, trying to fully understand the Mirror Hotel from scratch would take too long, and with how dangerous it was outside, going solo was simply unwise.

Soon, Peng Fengnian’s side had results as well. Besides Peng Fengnian and that young man, there was one male and one female player.

Peng Fengnian looked grim as he introduced his companions to Xu Huo with some emotion.

The young man was Sun Bo. The other two were Lin Zhenhuai for the man, and Gao Xiaoyue for the woman.

Sun Bo’s disdain for Xu Huo and the others showed plainly on his face; he couldn’t be bothered to greet them. Lin Zhenhuai and Gao Xiaoyue scrutinized Xu Huo instead. Lin Zhenhuai looked like an easygoing middle-aged man; he shook Xu Huo’s hand. “I’ve heard of you for a while. When Peng Fengnian mentioned Brother Yu, I wondered what kind of person he was. I didn’t expect someone so young—truly impressive!”

“Whether we can escape alive this time still depends on Brother Yu. Although we entered earlier, we didn’t touch the key parts. We could only find things placed out in the open. Brother Yu, feel free to ask us anything, and we’ll answer fully,” he added.

He spoke eloquently. Xu Huo courteously replied a couple sentences, then got to the point.

First, the footsteps. Whether outside or inside the Mirror Hotel, the sounds could only be heard at night—this was the conclusion they’d reached after several sleepless days and nights.

But apart from the sound, they found nothing. There were absolutely no traces on the ground.

“We experimented with items. There’s absolutely nothing extremely light and invisible,” Peng Fengnian emphasized.“What items did you use to test?” Xu Huo asked.

“Want to see our items?” Sun Bo said coldly. “What exactly do you want to know?”

“Want to go out?” Xu Huo dropped the previous friendly tone he’d used when meeting “friends,” his gaze sharpening. “If you want to go out, shut up.”

“You…” Sun Bo was infuriated, but Lin Zhenhuai and Gao Xiaoyue blocked him from left and right. Lin Zhenhuai gave him a look before turning back to say, “Brother Yu, it’s not that my companions are sensitive. If you want to inspect the detection item because you don’t trust us, I can tell you with certainty that even a feather can be detected by that item.”

They didn’t say which item or who owned it, handling the matter cautiously.

Xu Huo glanced at Peng Fengnian. After seeing him nod, he continued, “Alright, let’s keep talking.”

Next was the issue of the sequence of footsteps.

Peng Fengnian clearly stated they heard the footsteps first and then followed—opposite from the outside scenario where the footsteps followed behind people.

“That’s unreasonable,” Yu Guangnan raised a doubt. “You chased the footsteps and thought they were made by the players who entered the Corpse Hotel, so why did you keep trailing behind them?”

“We didn’t keep following directly behind; we used all the methods available,” Gao Xiaoyue said. “But it felt like, aside from the sound, the person in motion was entirely in another space we couldn’t touch.”

Xiao Ling and Yu Guangnan exchanged a glance. This was different from the situation they’d encountered outside, where the footsteps had kept trailing behind them from start to finish.

“Could this mean the people encountered inside and outside aren’t the ‘opposite side’ each group assumes?” Xiao Ling asked.

“That’s possible.” Xu Huo thought of something else: the real Corpse Hotel and the Mirror Hotel entered after hearing footsteps might be two separate spaces. If so, that didn’t rule out a third layer of “space.”

“Maybe it’s just a special item,” Sun Bo said. “Unrelated to entering the Mirror Hotel.”

“Whether you say that because your thinking is simple or just to contradict us,” Xu Huo’s face darkened, “if you keep wasting time spouting meaningless things, I suggest you stay silent.”

Sun Bo snapped, “Yu, don’t get cocky. Do you really think you alone can leave here?”

“Then what are you doing here?” Xu Huo countered.

Sun Bo was at a loss for words. Gao Xiaoyue grabbed his arm, “Say less. This was a group decision.”

Seeing none of his companions siding with him, Sun Bo petulantly shrugged off Gao Xiaoyue’s hand, crossed his arms, and sat aside, his expression mocking and as if to say, suit yourself.

They resumed exchanging details.

“When you entered, the footsteps you heard were trailing behind, right? When you split up, did you ever hear multiple footsteps appear simultaneously?” Xu Huo asked.

This was a crucial question. In fact, Peng Fengnian and the others had only sorted these details out after all of them came in. Three members of their team had recorded the start times of several occurrences of footsteps before moving into the Mirror Hotel, and those times didn’t match.

However, because they hadn’t scattered far, the intervals between footsteps weren’t particularly meaningful—if they were on different floors, the intervals could roughly reveal the footsteps’ movement pattern. For example, whether the sound’s appearance behind someone would be affected by the distance between two people. If distance was long but the interval short, that would suggest the footsteps’ movement wasn’t like normal human walking. If both distance and time were long, the footsteps could be caused by a “person,” and even if not a real person, would resemble one.

“Besides those three, others either didn’t note the time at all, or were killed by that monster before regrouping,” Peng Fengnian lamented. He paused, then asked, “Is that detail that important?”

“Not too important,” Xu Huo said. “Footsteps don’t necessarily follow every player. They might only appear where players gather, or they might pick targets randomly.”

“But since you and your companions are all here, it shows the footsteps will eventually find every player. It’s only a matter of time.”

“That’s enough to reach one conclusion: the footsteps are related to entering the Mirror Hotel.”

“We thought the same, which is why we didn’t want to assume the footsteps were a trap of the Corpse Hotel or were made by other players. We proactively followed,” Peng Fengnian said.

“Have you previously encountered other players whose walking routes overlapped with the locations where you heard footsteps?” Xu Huo asked.

“Of the six who came in after us, three bumped into us. The places and times line up.”

“Could it be that the sounds we heard outside were truly the Mirror Hotel’s footsteps?” Yu Guangnan asked.

“Do you really think someone in the Mirror Hotel can wander around like they’re at a market?” Xiao Ling shot him a look.

“That’s the weird part,” Yu Guangnan said puzzled. “If the footsteps were made by players, Peng Fengnian and his group shouldn’t have been able to hear them before entering. If not, then why did the footsteps they later heard match up with other players?”

In short, some characteristics of the footsteps at the Corpse Hotel and the visible hotel don’t line up.