Chapter 420 Photos on the Wall

Chapter 420: Photos on the Wall

At the start of the game, when Su Bai and the others stood in the mist outside the Happy Inn, they could see that the inn, despite having only four floors, had many windows on each level, meaning there were many rooms on every floor.

Now, Su Bai and his group were standing in the space concealed by a false wall on the inn's second floor. There were six rooms hidden in total, three on each side of this hidden corridor, yet they had noticed nothing unusual while on the other floors...

This suggested that the walls blocking the ends of the corridors on the third and fourth floors were likely also false. Similar hidden spaces likely existed from the second floor all the way up to the fourth. The eerie entities could even move freely within these spaces, since not only were six rooms hidden, but also the staircase at the end of this hidden corridor.

Originally, both the second and third floors of the Happy Inn had a staircase on each side of the corridor. However, one staircase, along with a section of the corridor, had been hidden by those eerie entities. They could use that staircase to move between the second and fourth floors at any time, completely undetected by the players. The bell-ringing waiters from earlier had likely appeared suddenly in this manner.

Su Bai pictured the layout from an observer's perspective. It was as if the entire inn had been "split" into two parts: one side was the domain for the human players and their "family members," while the other side was the "home" of the eerie entities lurking in the shadows. Both sides existed on the same floors, adjacent to each other, yet the human players remained completely unaware.

Su Bai glanced back at the wall behind him. It still looked like an ordinary wall, making it hard to imagine it was a secret passage.

So how did those eerie entities pass through this wall? Was it because they possessed a natural advantage over human players in controlling the power of the Red Moon?

Su Bai couldn't help but think of Li Feiwen's power. Like Lin Wenhua of later generations, Li Feiwen seemed to possess the ability to control earth and rock. However, the earth and rock of the Nightmare World had long been saturated with the power of the Red Moon. Their control over earth and rock was essentially a form of power control.

Thinking about it this way, was Li Feiwen's act of breaking through the rock wall unintentionally deconstructing the Red Moon's power within the rock and temporarily reassembling it onto his own arm? If Li Feiwen continued his research, he should be able to...

Countless directions for ability mutation flashed through Su Bai's mind, but he had to stop himself. Although continuing this analysis seemed to suggest that every human player's potential was limitless, and the balance of power between humans and eerie entities could still shift, the gap between theory and practice was simply too vast.

While Li Feiwen and Tan Ying were considered veteran players, the Red Moon's power within their bodies was pitifully weak. Their control over earth, rock, and shadows had no relation to their control or understanding of power itself. It seemed more like "talents" and "abilities" bestowed by the entities that created the player group, fearing humans would perish too easily in the Nightmare World. These gifts allowed humans some chance of survival despite their extremely weak power reserves.

Therefore, until they possessed sufficient power, the current situation was difficult to change.

And what humans lacked precisely was the time to accumulate and enhance their power reserves. The time available to humans was far too little compared to that of the eerie entities.

In his previous life, Su Bai started from the same low point as ordinary human players. Borrowing abilities from the "puzzle pieces" within the Evil Ghost Puzzle also consumed his own already insufficient power. However, the puzzle pieces were excessively indulgent towards Su Bai. On the surface, they consumed Su Bai's power, but behind the scenes, they would rather weaken themselves to help Su Bai reduce consumption or even fill the gaps.

In this life, Su Bai possessed the Mist Shop.

Even though the current Su Bai was still not a qualified shopkeeper, since his rebirth, the Mist Shop had continuously helped him store and acquire more power in various ways. This power was chaotic and disorderly, but it also made Su Bai's Meditation and his ability to organize power more proficient and potent.

In his previous life, although Su Bai encountered some incredibly powerful puzzle pieces, even if they were willing to help him, Su Bai couldn't push open their "doors." He didn't even have the chance to let those few puzzle pieces help him fill the gaps. If those puzzle pieces had forcibly intervened to help Su Bai, the instantaneous power consumption would have been devastating for him.

In this life, Su Bai's power was more abundant, and with the support of the Mist Shop, he could barely manage to push open the "doors" of those few puzzle pieces. He could even bring them out for a walk in the real world, just like when he encountered Lin Wenhua and the others in the abandoned park.

Having been reborn, Su Bai gained more information, and many changes had occurred within himself. Although his memories of what happened just before his death in his previous life remained chaotic, he believed he could make a difference in this life.

Of course, the most important thing right now was to leave the Happy Inn.

...

After entering the hidden area, Su Bai and the others slowed their breathing. Liang Yuyan, afraid of making a mistake, even reached out and covered her own mouth and nose, not daring to make a single sound, maintaining a deathly silence in the air.

It was in this environment, where only faint breathing could be heard up close, that Su Bai could confirm that Wu Hang beside him wasn't even breathing.

Besides the dimmer lighting, there were actually many differences between the hidden space and the outer area. For example, the walls on both sides of the hidden corridor had many photos nailed crookedly to them, most of which had already begun to yellow.

Under the dim light, relying on his own vision, Su Bai found a few special photos.

As the others looked over, Su Bai was using his finger to indicate two photos on the wall that hadn't started yellowing yet. One photo captured the moment Liang Yuyan's wrist was bitten by the little ghost beside Su Bai. The other photo showed Wu Hang holding the spider female ghost by the neck.

Although they couldn't communicate verbally, Su Bai believed the others understood what the photos on the wall meant. Even though no camera or surveillance device was visible, this inn seemed to record the moments when game losers were punished, turning them into photos posted here.

"Mm." Liang Yuyan suddenly saw a certain photo and, even with her mouth and nose firmly covered, couldn't help but make a sound.

Following Liang Yuyan's gaze, Su Bai saw that the photo she was looking at actually contained figures of the zombie waiter and the female ghost waiter missing a piece of her skull! However, in the photo, the zombie and the female ghost weren't wearing waiter uniforms. Instead, like the other "family members," they were in the act of punishing someone.

The photo also captured a waiter in uniform standing to the side. That half of a face, bloody and mangled, was unmistakably Ai Qing's "brother"!

Were the "family members" once waiters?

And were the current waiters once players who had played the role of other players' "family members"?