“Dong — dong — dong —”
Ten o’clock.
In room 102, Xiao Hui flinched at the sound and yanked the thin blanket higher over her head, sealing herself inside it, curling into the smallest shape she could manage.
Darkness is fear’s finest catalyst.
The room’s lights had already switched themselves off.
She had always felt, in some wordless, irrational way, that as long as she kept perfectly still in the dark, whatever might be out there simply couldn’t see her.
It was a completely illogical form of self-comfort — and yet it was the only thing she could bring herself to believe right now.
Her name was Mingri Qianhui.
She was a university student, and a streamer with a modest but loyal following on her platform of choice.
Just a few hours ago she had been in her cozy little rented room, beauty filters blazing, singing and dancing in front of a camera while her fans showered her with attention.
Her life was supposed to be easy.
Comfortable.
After graduation she would probably sign with an MCN agency, go full-time as a streamer, make money, buy pretty clothes and bags, and occasionally visit trendy restaurants with friends to take photos for her feed.
Not this.
Not being trapped in some godforsaken place, liable to die like a background character in a horror film at any moment.
She squeezed her eyes shut, but the image from dinner forced its way into her mind regardless — those mannequins seated around the table, their eyes hollow and vacant, as though they could swallow a person’s soul whole.
That effect, that… that uncanny valley feeling.
It was horrifying.
Somehow more deeply chilling than any straightforward scene of gore would have been.
Compared to that inhuman wrongness, being alone in her room had actually started to seem almost bearable.
“Hah… hah…”
Xiao Hui’s breathing was ragged.
She could hear her own heart slamming against her ribs — thud, thud, thud, thud — like it was trying to punch its way up through her throat.
She didn’t dare think about what would happen if someone broke a rule.
Wrench, that muscle-brained idiot, had nearly gotten himself killed — and would have, if the Student hadn’t reacted fast enough to stop him in time.
The consequences of what might have happened didn’t bear imagining.
The Student…
At the thought of that codename, Shido Makoto’s expressionless face floated into her mind.
From the moment they had entered this wretched place, that boy had been unnervingly calm.
In the face of the blizzard, in the face of the rules, in the face of those mannequins in the dining room — he hadn’t shown so much as a flicker of panic.
Cool.
Rational.
Quick to act.
While everyone else was still paralyzed with fear, he was the first to make a call and the first to move on it.
He was the one who had proposed using codenames.
He was the one who had stopped Artist from touching the oil painting.
He was the one who had led everyone into the dining room, and he was the one who had seen through the trap at dinner.
He was like… like a seasoned veteran player shepherding a party of total beginners through the tutorial.
What if this wasn’t his first time?
The thought surfaced in Xiao Hui’s mind. This chapter is updated first at g.com.
It was a real possibility.
There was no other way to explain how someone who looked to be around high-school age could possess that kind of psychological fortitude.
And then there was the man going by Programmer — still frightened, clearly, but at least capable of keeping his thoughts logical.
He could be counted on, to a degree.
As for the rest of them…
Wrench was all brawn and no brain — the type who created more problems than he solved.
Artist hadn’t stopped trembling since they arrived.
Utterly useless in a crisis.
And then there was the middle-school girl going by Shirogane…
She seemed calm enough, and she had even shot down Wrench’s idea about everyone bunking together, but she was still just a little girl in the end.
Xiao Hui had a gut feeling that Shirogane’s composure was nothing more than a brave face — that deep down, she was just as terrified as anyone else.
Having worked all this out, Xiao Hui felt her thinking sharpen into something almost strategic.
If she wanted to survive, she needed to latch on to the strongest person available.
And the strongest person in this group — by a significant margin — was undoubtedly the boy called Student.
Programmer was a distant second.
First thing tomorrow morning, she was going to stick to those two like glue for the entire day.
Wherever they went, she went.
As long as she stayed close to them, her odds of making it out alive would be so much better.
Xiao Hui had a fair amount of confidence in herself, on that front.
She was pretty, and she had a good figure — the two greatest assets in her career as a streamer.
Men, regardless of age, were visual creatures at heart.
It was just a fact.
The Student looked cold and distant, sure, but he was still a red-blooded boy his age.
If she made the first move — played up her vulnerability, leaned on him a little, acted soft and helpless — he could hardly shove her away, could he?
And once that connection was established, when danger came, he would naturally protect her first.
The thought took a little of the edge off her fear.
Planning for the future — even a future as uncertain as this one — gave her something to hold onto, a thin thread of calm to pull herself back from the brink of panic with.
She even began mentally rehearsing what expression she should wear tomorrow, what tone of voice to use when she spoke to the Student, calibrating exactly how to convey the right degree of fragile helplessness without making it look calculated.
And then, in the middle of all these wandering thoughts, something in the room moved.
“Click.”
A sound.
Barely audible.
Xiao Hui’s body went rigid in an instant, and the heartbeat she had only just managed to slow came crashing back in full force.
What was that?
Was it… was it a mouse?
Yes.
Had to be a mouse.
Old houses like this always had mice.
She told herself this as firmly as she could, but her ears had already betrayed her, straining involuntarily to catch any smallest sound the room might give up.
Silence.
A dead, absolute silence.
Nothing — only the wind outside the window that never let up, and the sound of her own heartbeat growing steadily louder.
Had she imagined it?
She waited a long time.
No strange sound came again.
Maybe she really was just so strung out that her mind was conjuring noises that weren’t there.
Xiao Hui let out a long, slow breath.
She could feel that her back was already soaked through with cold sweat.
She shifted her position, trying to find a slightly more comfortable way to lie — and froze again the moment she moved.
A thought had just struck her.
That “click” from a moment ago — where exactly had it come from?
It had sounded like… like it had come from under the bed.
The instant that thought took shape, Xiao Hui felt her scalp prickle so sharply it was almost painful.
She suddenly remembered — when Programmer and the others had entered their rooms, they had each made a point of checking under the bed.
She had thought it was a bit excessive at the time.
Now, looking back on it, the memory made her blood run cold.
Could it be… could there be something under there?
No.
Impossible.
Hadn’t the maid said so?
After ten o’clock, the rooms were safe.
The rules could not be broken.
She repeated that to herself over and over again, a silent incantation.
She couldn’t bring herself to open her eyes.
She couldn’t bring herself to roll out of bed and look.
All she could do was pull the blanket tighter around herself.
Time stretched out in the boundless dark, each second drawn into something that felt like a century.
Xiao Hui had no idea whether she would still be alive by morning.
Right now, she felt a regret so acute it was almost physical — regret for ever having become a streamer.
If she had just been an ordinary student, would she have been spared?
Would none of this have ever found her?
She thought of her parents.
Tears welled at last and slid from the corners of her eyes, soaking into the pillow.
“Mom… Dad… I want to go home…”
She curled tighter on the bed, pulling the blanket around herself with all her strength.