"Is that you?" Yu Qing asked.
Hearing that voice left him with a strange, complicated feeling. He hadn't expected it, yet somehow, he wasn't surprised.
The person on the other end paused. "I was just about to introduce myself, but I guess there's no need. You know who I am?"
"I've heard your voice once before," Yu Qing said.
He would have found it difficult to explain how he'd recognized a voice he'd heard only once, so he added, "I have a good memory for voices I dislike."
"Oh," the other person said softly. "Well, I'm honored."
A rather frivolous person.
Yu Qing came to this conclusion privately. He was exactly like that irritating username.
His expression hardened. "What do you want?"
The other person laughed again. "Unless I'm mistaken, you're the one who called me."
Yu Qing: "..."
Hearing this person speak irritated him so inexplicably that he'd forgotten.
"So you called just to tell me how much you dislike me?"
Of course not. He'd actually wanted to find out what was going on with Room 1811.
But Yu Qing said, "Yes."
"All right, then." The other person sounded vaguely disappointed, though it was hard to tell how much of it was genuine. After a pause, he added, "Actually, there's something I've been meaning to tell you. I only had time to write half of it in the chat window last time."
Yu Qing had a feeling it wouldn't be anything good. "What?"
"One moment. I've prepared something."
From the sound of it, the other person unfolded a sheet of paper. He cleared his throat and began to read.
"A letter of apology."
Yu Qing: "?"
Is he insane?
"My dear..." The person on the other end paused, then muttered under his breath, "I was only trying to sound sincere when I wrote this, but reading it aloud makes it sound a little frivolous."
Sincere?
As far as Yu Qing was concerned, every sentence that came out of this person's mouth might as well have ended with a "^ ^".
He slammed down the receiver, then turned to the skeletal kitten beside him and demanded with a frown, "How can someone like that even exist?"
Only after hanging up did he realize that the entire call had lasted barely half a minute, and he still knew absolutely nothing about the other Room 1811.
All he'd heard was a stupid apology letter.
And only its provocative opening, at that.
As he was thinking this, the telephone suddenly rang.
Yu Qing: "..."
His expression darkened. He turned to the little skeleton.
"Hang up."
The little skeleton had always been obedient. It immediately raised a paw over the button to end the call and was about to press it when its master's hand suddenly reached across, intercepting it.
Yu Qing answered the phone himself.
The little skeleton: "?"
With an expressionless face, Yu Qing addressed the person on the other end.
"Read any more of that idiotic nonsense and you can get lost."
Over the years, anyone who had heard him speak in that tone had invariably felt a measure of fear.
Yet the person on the other end actually laughed.
"Then I won't read it. I'll keep it for now and put it to good use next time the occasion calls for it."
Yu Qing: "..."
Next time?
The amusement faded somewhat from the other person's voice, and he continued more seriously, "I was so busy reading my apology that I forgot to ask. When you first called, was it because you'd discovered something?"
"I've discovered that I never should have made this call."
With that, Yu Qing slammed down the receiver again.
In the instant before the call disconnected, he thought he heard the other person fall silent, apparently so taken aback that he couldn't think of a reply.
Yu Qing pictured the scene.
At last, he felt a little better.
A few seconds later, the telephone rang again.
The little skeleton still had its paw hovering over the button. It blinked up at its master in bewilderment, waiting for an instruction it could actually rely on.
This time, Yu Qing spared it the trouble. He moved its paw aside and answered the phone.
The person on the other end gave a helpless laugh.
"Feeling better now?"
Yu Qing scoffed but didn't hang up again.
This time, without waiting for the other person to repeat his question, he began to explain.
"I called because that phone kept ringing, and it was annoying. I looked at the messages in Team Chat and discovered that there are two rooms numbered 1811 on this floor. I'm staying in one of them. Of course, the number on my door and the number on my key card have clearly been altered."
He had noticed that much when he'd first checked in. At the time, however, the details hadn't seemed to concern him, so he hadn't given them any further thought.
"If I'm not mistaken, my room was originally supposed to be 1814. As for the other room, the real 1811, its furnishings are exactly the same as mine..."
Yu Qing considered how best to describe it.
"It's as though everything has been copied over in a mirror image. So I wanted to see whether the people had been copied as well."
Now, it seemed that they had.
"Oh," the person on the other end murmured. "No wonder..."
"No wonder what?"
"No wonder everything in the room looked a little off when I first opened my eyes. It's because everything's reversed."
When he first opened his eyes?
Yu Qing asked, "You only just woke up in that room?"
"That's right. I'd only just woken up when the telephone started ringing. I opened my eyes and found myself sitting in the chair beside the desk. For a moment, I thought you'd decided to fall asleep sitting up this time so you could kick me out and make me clean up the mess again."
Yu Qing listened thoughtfully.
"So you—"
He had been about to say, "When you're inside my body," but the words sounded far too peculiar.
He chose another way of putting it.
"So whenever I'm awake, you can't see what I see or hear what I hear, and you don't know what's happening. Is that right?"
"More or less."
Yu Qing's face darkened. "What do you mean, more or less?"
The other person gave a vague little laugh before explaining.
"When I'm not the one in control, your body is like..."
He searched for the right words.
"A little house."
Yu Qing: "?"
He froze, almost convinced he'd misheard.
"A little what?"
"A little house," the voice repeated, amusement creeping back into it. "The doors and windows are all shut, and I'm staying inside. Sometimes I'm asleep, and sometimes I wake up for a while. When I'm awake, I can faintly hear sounds coming from outside."
"I can piece together what little I hear—and I mean very, very little—and make a few guesses about what's happening. That way, I don't look like a complete blockhead when I wake up. But that's about all I can do."
"Well, then, if you don't want to look like a blockhead..." Yu Qing stubbornly pinned the description on the other person in retaliation for the little-house comparison. "You'd better make a few more guesses about why your room has copied mine."
He still had no particular interest in these so-called instances or quests.
What he found intolerable was the thought of every trace he'd left behind being reproduced exactly for someone else to see.
"Hold on. Let me have a look."
The person on the other end seemed to switch his telephone to speakerphone and began inspecting the room.
After a while, his voice came closer again.
"Try leaving your room."
Yu Qing switched his own telephone to speakerphone. Under the skeletal kitten's bewildered gaze, he walked out of his room.
He had taken only a single step through the doorway when the sound from the telephone faltered.
The call abruptly disconnected.
All that remained was the monotonous beep... beep... of the busy signal.
It seemed that as soon as Yu Qing stepped outside his room, the person in the other room disappeared.
A minute later, the disconnected call was reestablished.
The person on the other end sounded resigned.
"Well, it looks like I'm under quite a few restrictions. If I can't even leave the room, there's not much I can do. Why don't you come over and take a look yourself?"
Yu Qing asked, "Have you said please?"
The other person immediately changed his tune, speaking in his usual unhurried manner.
"Would you please come over and take a look yourself?"
Yu Qing gave a reluctant nod.
He straightened up and was about to hang up when the other person spoke again.
"Looks like I'll have to crawl back into my little house for a while."
Yu Qing's hand paused over the button.
Then, without any apparent connection to their conversation, he suddenly asked, "What's your name?"
"Hm?"
The person on the other end seemed just as surprised by the question.
"Your name." Yu Qing immediately felt that asking had been unnecessary. "Forget it. Never mind."
He simply found that smiling face too irritating.
The voice on the other end fell silent for a moment.
Then, before Yu Qing could hang up, the person answered.
"Mi Xiaobai."
******
In the end, Mr. Painted Skin went out wearing his bathrobe.
He could at least take comfort in the fact that he was the only person in the pitch-dark corridor.
He brought along the room key card he'd obtained from the clue reward. First, he tried it on his own door and discovered that it worked.
Then he walked over to the other Room 1811 and swiped it there.
To his surprise, it worked again.
Yu Qing had dealt with more than enough deaths in the island city to be thoroughly accustomed to all manner of sinister practices.
One look at the situation was enough for him to suspect that someone had placed something in the two rooms.
Usually, it would be beneath the threshold.
Yu Qing used the toe of his slipper to lift a corner of the doormat.
There was nothing underneath but years of accumulated dust.
Then it must be on the door.
He closed the door and examined it, preparing to pry up the brass number plate marked 1811.
Just then, a rapid succession of footsteps sounded from the elevator lobby.
The footsteps were light and hurried, punctuated by little hops, like children running.
Then came two little girls' voices, one after the other.
"Why are you touching our room number?"
"Daddy, there's a strange man trying to take our room number off!"
Yu Qing: "..."
He first looked down at his own bathrobe and muttered a curse at the laundry department.
Only then did he turn around.
A man in a well-tailored suit was walking toward him, resting a hand on each of the two little girls' heads. He spoke in a tone that was half coaxing, half admonishing.
"Don't run so fast. Mommy and Grandma are still in the lobby. They'll be up in a moment. Let's wait for them."
The man had handsome, well-proportioned features and the bearing of someone who either came from a wealthy family or had achieved considerable success in his career.
Both the ring on his finger and the watch visible at his wrist were clearly expensive.
The two little girls wore identical white dresses. They looked about five or six years old and appeared to be twins.
They chattered excitedly as they rushed toward Yu Qing, only to be restrained by their father.
"Wrong way again. How is it that you can never remember which way to turn when we get out of the elevator?"
The man gave Yu Qing an apologetic smile.
"Sorry about that. They've mistaken your room for ours."
Yu Qing said nothing.
His gaze passed smoothly over the three of them. He took his hand away from the number plate and started back toward his own room.
There was an old custom in the island city: if a wandering ghost spoke to you, you should never answer carelessly, no matter what it said.
The safest course was to behave as though you hadn't seen it at all.
Yu Qing might have walked past the three of them, but the annoying holographic screen wasn't about to let the matter rest.
The instant the man and the two little girls passed him, the screen sprang into view.
【What terrible luck! You've managed to find yourself in the wrong place at the wrong time and run straight into that family of five!
But you've also triggered the time-limited quest, "His Treasure." Isn't that a blessing in disguise?
Within the beginner instance, time-limited quests are shared by the entire team.
Time limit: 10 minutes.
09:58
09:56
09:51
...】
The notification appeared simultaneously in Team Chat.
Two minutes later, Three Ks came rushing up like a whirlwind, dressed in his black hooded sweatshirt, his bright-red hair impossible to miss.
Being something of a coward, he had dragged Just Plain Rude along to keep him company.
Mr. Painted Skin was already in an exceedingly foul mood at being forced to parade around the corridor in a bathrobe.
He had originally intended to leave his two noisy "teammates" to their fate.
However, when the elevator doors opened with a ding, Three Ks and Just Plain Rude weren't the only people who emerged.
There was also a young woman and an elderly woman.
Clearly, these were the "Mommy and Grandma" the man had mentioned.
The twin girls had been peeking around the corner. The instant they saw the people in the elevator, they called out.
"Mommy! Grandma! We went the wrong way again!"
They skipped over, each taking one of the women's hands and pulling her out of the elevator.
Their pitch-black eyes shifted, and they noticed Three Ks and Just Plain Rude, who had ridden up with the women.
"Oh, there are two big brothers here, too!"
The girls giggled.
"Are you staying on this floor as well?"
Yu Qing frowned.
For the first time, he typed a message into Team Chat.
—Two Points: Don't answer them. Pretend they aren't there.
But he had forgotten one thing.
Three Ks and Just Plain Rude had never imagined that they would encounter ghosts inside the elevator itself.
At that very moment, they were huddled together in a corner of the elevator like a pair of terrified quails, so frightened that their eyes were practically rolling back in their heads.
Neither had even thought to look at his phone.
And so Three Ks answered the little girl in a trembling voice.
"Huh? C-could I be a housekeeper?"
The words had barely left his mouth when Just Plain Rude smacked him.
Only then did Three Ks notice the message Yu Qing had sent in Team Chat.
The two of them scrambled out of the elevator and practically threw themselves toward Yu Qing.
"It's over. I answered them." Three Ks lowered his voice. "Why aren't we supposed to answer?"
"Why?" Yu Qing pointed behind them. "Turn around and see for yourselves."
Three Ks and Just Plain Rude silently turned their heads.
The family of five, now reunited, had suddenly gone completely expressionless.
Their hollow black eyes stared at the two players without blinking.
The next instant, dark-red blood came pouring down the entire corridor like a waterfall.
The five figures tilted their heads to one side.
All five heads, along with their limbs, collapsed into a scattered heap.
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH—!"
Three Ks let out a piercing scream and collapsed to the floor, dragging Just Plain Rude down with him.
Severed limbs rolled everywhere.
The two players scrambled frantically across the floor among them.
Yu Qing closed his eyes for a moment.
"..."
Two useless idiots.
Much, much later, Mi Xiaobai would change Yu Qing's contact name to "Little House."
Yu Qing: Die.