Chapter 1

After Bob finished speaking, everyone's gaze fell on Dan Fei.

This thin black player had a gloomy face and a somber expression. He held a sharp-edged axe, exuding a fierce and unapproachable aura.

Before Li Ang arrived, Dan Fei had already told the other players about his brother, Kafi's, death.

At dawn today, after seeing the note on the window of room 1008, he immediately rushed out of the room, into the corridor, to look for the old woman in red and his brother.

After running around the corridor without finding them, he went downstairs to knock on Bob's door on the ninth floor, but there was no response.

Dan Fei didn't know if Bob was deliberately not opening the door or if he was already trapped in an abnormal situation and couldn't escape.

He had no choice but to stop knocking and return to the tenth floor to search alone.

He used lock-picking props to open the doors of various rooms on the tenth floor, searching carefully.

Guest rooms, electrical rooms, hotel staff rooms, elevator shafts, the space above the elevator shafts...

The terrifying old woman in red and his brother had vanished without a trace, as if they had disappeared from the face of the earth.

Even the pool of blood at the end of the corridor had disappeared when Dan Fei went back to check again.

Increasingly desperate, Dan Fei wandered aimlessly on the tenth and eleventh floors, clutching his battle axe, determined to fight to the death with any alien creature that appeared in his sight.

Unfortunately, he didn't encounter any.

It wasn't until the 07:07 curfew ended that he went downstairs and met up with the others, as the players had previously agreed.

Kafi... was probably gone.

Li Ang glanced at Dan Fei. His brother was probably the burly black man living on the tenth floor. The energy fluctuations around him were deep and heavy, making him a good fighter. He didn't expect him to be the first to be attacked by the abnormality, disappearing without a trace.

After Dan Fei finished speaking, it was the others' turn.

Yu Yi, on the seventh floor, was required to enter the bathroom and play rock-paper-scissors with himself in the mirror for three hours, while resisting the ethereal sounds that constantly eroded his sanity.

The Plague Doctor on the sixth floor was required to sit on a chair and perform an appendectomy on himself with an ice knife from the refrigerator before the ice melted.

In the room of Mule on the fourth floor, the air conditioning malfunctioned, and the temperature rose to nearly seventy degrees Celsius for two hours.

Wan Li Feng Dao on the second floor was required to catch a total of five hundred green bottle flies that flew in from the cracks in the door within half an hour.

As for 13mArk on the eighth floor, Li Ri Sheng on the fifth floor, Liu Wu Dai on the third floor, and Ω on the first floor, they claimed that they did not encounter any abnormal events last night.

They also didn't find any notes and stayed in their rooms from 00:11 to 07:07 without incident.

"Hmm... so, 14, 13, 12, 11, 10, 9, 7, 6, 4, and 2 had notes and abnormal events. 8, 5, 3, and 1 had no notes and no abnormal events."

Bai Haozheng pondered for a moment and said slowly, "There doesn't seem to be any pattern."

"Doesn't the Accommodation Guide say that notes are randomly generated in the rooms? It advises residents to ignore the contents of the notes unless the hotel is lost or the staff are out of contact, in which case they should stay in their rooms and follow the instructions on the notes."

The Plague Doctor spread his hands and said, "Maybe these are just randomly generated notes."

"Hard to say."

Fish Tank Head Ω shook his head and said, "The hotel itself is a 'monster' with its own habits and quirks. The hotel staff have compiled a summary of their experiences through bloody safety incidents, and have written the summary into a book.

According to the book, most areas of the hotel will no longer be safe between 00:11 and 07:07, and abnormal events may occur—such as the cries of babies or the knocking of dead lovers.

And the notes are randomly generated in the guest rooms. Normally, residents should ignore them, but if the hotel is lost and the staff are out of contact, they should act according to the contents of the notes.

Did you notice? The guide says that abnormal events are always happening, and the notes are random.

These two things are discussed separately.

It doesn't explain the connection between the abnormal events on the floors and the notes.

And from our experience last night,

None of the players who didn't receive a note heard any abnormal activity outside their doors on their floor.

That's very strange, isn't it?"

Ω paused for a moment, and said with a sneer, "There are several possibilities.

[1] The abnormal events on the floors and the notes exist independently. The notes only take effect in the rooms, while the abnormalities outside the door take effect on the floor.

Both can cause fatal damage to the players. They don't interfere with each other normally. The only difference is the place of residence.

There were no floor-specific abnormalities wandering around last night—possibly a system protection mechanism to allow us to adapt to the rhythm of this script first.

[2] The abnormal events on the floors and the notes exist independently.

However, in addition to being an abnormality, the notes are also a kind of bait, an inducement.

When the notes are refreshed, they will attract the abnormal events in the corridor. The two cooperate with each other inside and outside the door, inducing residents to open the door, or directly killing the residents who open the door.

Evidence for this possibility is the two guidelines: 'do not open the door' and 'ignore the notes under normal circumstances'.

If there is no note, it will not attract abnormalities outside the door—the residents of 8, 5, 3, and 1 naturally didn't hear any abnormalities outside the door.

[3] The abnormal events on the floors and the notes are essentially the same thing. They live in the hotel, or are part of the hotel itself.

The notes are created by the floor abnormalities, or the two are mutually beneficial and symbiotic, a whole.

Receiving a note means being targeted by the abnormal events on the floor.

In the current situation where the hotel is lost and the staff are out of contact,

The aliens in the floors can ignore some of the safety attributes of the rooms and invade the guest rooms.

If the note is completed, the defense is still effective and can resist the abnormalities outside the door.

If it is not completed, the abnormalities outside the door can invade in large numbers and kill the residents inside the door at will.

Evidence for this possibility is the sixth rule in the Accommodation Guide: 'Do not place meals at the door'—meals may be a ritual, inviting abnormalities outside the door to invade.

The rooms on floors 8, 5, 3, and 1 may not have had notes because they were not noticed by the hotel.

Or the power of the hotel's abnormalities is limited and it can't eat so many people at once, so it does it in batches.

The same fact has three possible reasons. Each possibility corresponds to a different response strategy."

"What's the point of thinking about these things?"

The Plague Doctor shook his head. "I think all the information we have right now is given by the hotel. If the hotel itself is an alien, it has countless ways to give us wrong information.

And the Accommodation Guide is not entirely trustworthy.

Remember the second stage mission objective?

The mission objective is to find the Dolphin Hotel Accommodation Guide.

It doesn't say anything about following the Accommodation Guide.

Those hotel employees disappeared inexplicably. Maybe their summary of experiences is wrong and has fatal loopholes.

Or they are also malicious, deliberately luring foreign residents to commit taboos.

Guessing randomly and making action plans based on guesses in the absence of complete information can kill yourself and your teammates."

"Alright, alright."

Bai Haozheng waved his hand, interrupting the argument between the two players, and said in a deep voice, "Don't quarrel,

Players should indeed be skeptical, guess boldly, verify carefully, question everything unreasonable, and find loopholes or clues set by the script.

But there is too little information and it is too vague, and it cannot be verified by multiple parties.

If you suspect everything, then there is no room for thought.

Um... let's go to the tenth floor first to check the situation in Kafi's room. On the way, we'll discuss the abnormal events we encountered last night to see if we can find anything in common."

The other players had no objections. Just as everyone was about to walk towards the stairs,

Li Ang, who had been thinking with his head down, came back to his senses, raised his head, and raised his hand, saying, "Wait a minute."

Bai Haozheng turned around, "What's wrong? What is it?"

"I want to take a look at the two notes that Dan Fei found in his and Kafi's rooms first."

Li Ang said slowly, "The abnormal events you experienced are a little different from the others."