Chapter 79: Flaws

Chapter 79: The Flaw

First, return to your room after 6 p.m. and do not leave, no matter what you hear.

Second, do not approach the sixth floor; the deceased Luolimasi is weeping there.

Third, you must eat three meals a day and drink at least ten glasses of water.

When Shen Donger discovered these three rules printed on a white paper behind the sculpture, Su Bai was still eavesdropping at the first-floor staircase, so he naturally committed them to memory as well. These rules did not come from the administrator but were posted behind a sculpture. Although it would be difficult for players in the lobby to do such a thing with everyone watching, Su Bai remained skeptical about the validity of these rules.

As Shen Donger and the others outside had mentioned, based on the situation in the cafeteria, it could be inferred that the time was already around 5 PM. It would be very difficult for players to follow the third rule given the first rule. So, what would happen to the players who couldn’t comply with the third rule today?

"Meow."

While Su Bai, still in a maid's long dress, stood lost in thought by the medical room window, a beautiful black kitten lay lazily on the windowsill. Outside the window, the sea of red roses in the hotel garden bloomed in the darkness, looking at first glance like a unique oil painting.

However, as Su Bai looked at the happy little black cat, his mood was still tinged with resentment.

Before, the little one had been very attached to him, happily nuzzling against him when he reached out to stroke its fur. But after entering the Luolimasi Hotel this time, not only had the kitten reverted from its black rope form back to a small cat, but it was also giving Su Bai the cold shoulder.

Well, not entirely indifferent—after turning back into a kitten, it had always stayed by Su Bai’s side, or more accurately, keeping watch over him. But it no longer actively snuggled into Su Bai’s arms like before, nor did it roll over to expose its belly for him to pet.

If Su Bai forcibly held the kitten in his arms, the little black cat wouldn’t resist too much, but it would lie stiffly and motionless in his embrace, as if something were wrong. To make the kitten more comfortable, Su Bai let it stay wherever it liked, since it never wandered too far anyway.

It was always by his side.

And even though the kitten was behaving oddly, its companionship made Su Bai feel less bored in this empty medical room.

Yes, the medical room was empty.

At this moment, Su Bai’s identity was Server No. 8, responsible for the fifth-floor medical room. Before finding the medical room, he had assumed it would be similar to a school infirmary. However, upon entering, he discovered there wasn’t even a table or a bed inside. Apart from a chair by the window, there was only a row of cabinets against the wall.

The drawers of the cabinets contained an assortment of medication boxes and bottles. Some were unopened, while others were already empty. At first glance, the designs of these boxes and bottles resembled common medicines from the real world, but upon closer inspection, the text on the packaging was all unrecognizable blocky mosaics.

Ignoring these suspicious medications, the only useful things in the entire medical room might be the band-aids and bandages of various sizes placed in the cabinets, as well as the faucet and sink installed between the cabinets.

Su Bai also found a few glass cups under the sink in the medical room. They didn’t look brand new but rather like old cups that had been frequently used.

The entire medical room was sparsely furnished, and no matter how many times Su Bai looked around, he couldn’t find any other clues. Or perhaps... if the three rules Shen Donger found in the lobby were indeed related to the hotel, then clues might appear after 6 PM.

While eavesdropping at the staircase earlier, Su Bai had heard the players in the lobby adopt the suggestion of the temporary leader, Peng Zhen. Everyone decided to follow the first rule by choosing roommates and room keys before 6 PM and formally checking into the Luolimasi Hotel.

Just like Lian Xiangyu and his two female teammates, who for some reason were still lingering outside the medical room door.

For Su Bai, this was definitely very good news. Since all human players would choose to stay in their rooms after 6 PM and not leave, it meant that Su Bai, with his special identity as Server No. 8, would have more freedom to move about after 6 PM and search various corners of the hotel for clues related to Luolimasi.

The bad news was that Su Bai finally got a clear look at his current appearance through the reflection in the medical room window. The so-called "bad news" was actually just Su Bai’s playful remark about the black umbrella in the puzzle. After all, all the black umbrella had done was make Su Bai’s features appear more mature and softer, change the length and style of his hair, and add some makeup. He still looked seventy or eighty percent like his real face, but not enough for others to recognize him as the same person immediately.

Su Bai never doubted the black umbrella’s abilities, but he was certain that the word "low-key" did not exist in that guy’s dictionary.

Now that the die was cast, Su Bai could only temporarily move around the hotel with this face.

"Excuse me."

After hearing the knock on the medical room door, Su Bai slowly sat back down on the chair by the window.

So when Lian Xiangyu and Shen Donger entered the medical room, they saw Su Bai sitting there quietly. The motionless, exquisite figure, set against the red moon outside the window, presented an indescribable mix of eeriness and beauty.

"It’s Server No. 8," Shen Donger recognized Su Bai, who had appeared in the lobby earlier. After taking a closer look at that face, she couldn’t help but exclaim, "Is she really just a doll or something like the other servers?"

Before going upstairs, the players had inspected the servers standing on the first floor and confirmed that, apart from specific lines and assigned tasks, these servers had no self-awareness. They were essentially serving as display dummies.

"Probably," the petite Zhu Nian, standing nearby, nodded. "Only dolls can be this exquisitely beautiful and sit there so motionlessly."

As women, Shen Donger and Zhu Nian, upon seeing Su Bai, who was also "female," could only marvel at the doll’s exquisite beauty and nothing more.

But when Shen Donger and Zhu Nian turned to look at Lian Xiangyu, they instantly understood why the team’s anchor insisted on entering this empty medical room for a look.

At this moment, Lian Xiangyu’s gaze was firmly glued to Server No. 8. His expression alternated between excitement and panic, and his steps wavered between moving closer to Server No. 8 and stepping back. He didn’t look like a powerful player who had mastered "Beast Form" at all; instead, he resembled a novice mustering the courage to confess to his dream crush for the first time.

But in the end...

Perhaps knowing that no matter what he said, he wouldn’t get a response from the doll, Lian Xiangyu simply gazed quietly at Su Bai sitting there, as if admiring an oil painting hanging in the hotel lobby.

Noticing Lian Xiangyu’s unusual behavior, the petite Zhu Nian had a sudden look of understanding, her eyes filled with curiosity as she glanced between Lian Xiangyu and Server No. 8 by the window. However, Shen Donger, standing on the other side, didn’t seem very pleased. She even coughed lightly twice, then stepped between Lian Xiangyu and Su Bai, saying pointedly—

"Could it be that the legendary Young Master Lian prefers a lifeless service doll over a living human standing right in front of you? You should know, this ‘service’ isn’t the kind of ‘service’ you imagine. She’s just a server in this hotel..."

Shen Donger’s words abruptly cut off halfway, not because she realized her words were unpleasant, but because she suddenly felt a knife-like chill piercing from behind. She quickly turned to look back, but there was only Server No. 8 sitting by the window and the black cat on the windowsill.

Shen Donger had noticed the black cat when she entered the medical room. At that time, the small black cat was lying lazily on the windowsill, but now it was sitting upright, its beautiful golden cat eyes flashing with a dim blood-red glow as it looked at Shen Donger and the others.

The next second, the little black cat jumped down from the windowsill, landing accurately in Su Bai’s arms, then fell asleep looking tired and listless, as if the kitten had just undergone an exhausting activity like parkour.

"Really," Shen Donger thought she had just been startled for no reason and turned back to complain, "This Server No. 8 doll just sits here dumbly like a mute. Even Server No. 1 in the lobby can say a few words like ‘distinguished guests.’ I suppose the legendary Young Master Lian wouldn’t be so obsessed as to fall for a doll, right?"

Su Bai, sitting there pretending to be a doll, didn’t pay much attention to what Shen Donger said later. But when he heard her mention that Server No. 1 could still say "distinguished guests," something suddenly clicked in Su Bai’s previously tangled thoughts.

Su Bai recalled Server No. 1 repeatedly saying "distinguished guests" and "honored guests" in the lobby.

Then he remembered the administrator’s whispers in his ear every time he entered the game. Every single time, the administrator referred to the human players sent into the nightmare world as "dear citizens of the nightmare world" or "dear residents of the nightmare world."

But earlier in the lobby, Cheng Xun, the university teacher, had recounted a line that went—

"Wishing all players a pleasant game."

This was the "something wrong" that Su Bai had been unable to figure out!

Both "administrator" and "player" were terms coined by the players themselves upon entering the nightmare world. The dolls wandering the nightmare world and the eerie beings watching over them never used "player" to refer to the humans entering the nightmare world.

If Su Bai remembered correctly, only players referred to themselves as "players."

If Cheng Xun’s recollection was accurate, was the voice whispering in the ears of the thirty players really the administrator?

If it wasn’t the administrator speaking, then who was the voice that tasked the players with surviving seven days in the Luolimasi Hotel and issued the hidden mission "Kill Luolimasi"?

Why did the administrator choose Su Bai to infiltrate the Luolimasi Hotel in a non-player capacity?

Since even the administrator needed external help like Su Bai to interfere in this game, did it mean that this hotel had already slipped out of the administrator’s control? If that were the case, then who was currently controlling the Luolimasi Hotel, controlling the actions and even the lives of the thirty players?