Wen Shichun's hand, which was holding the doorknob, hesitated for a moment.
There was a ghost outside.
Listening carefully, after the room door closed, the hallway seemed to have become extremely quiet.
Apart from Yue Cheng's voice, he could hardly hear any other sounds at all.
This was clearly not a normal phenomenon.
"Brother, don't make a sound."
Don't make a sound.
And after Yue Cheng said this, no more sounds could be heard in the hallway.
…
"From seven in the evening until five in the morning."
"Be sure to maintain silence."
The grinning face of the ghost butler seemed imprinted in his mind.
Going out now would probably only cause more trouble.
Or it would be an act of suicide.
Wen Shichun withdrew his hand. As he turned around, he pressed the switch on the wall to his right. The lights embedded in the ceiling flickered a few times before illuminating, making the bedroom slightly brighter than before.
He stood still for a moment.
Yue Cheng said it was temporarily safe.
This statement was somewhat unsettling.
There was also the dream from before.
It still felt a bit strange now.
Perhaps it was because he had looked at the records on Lin Zhe's phone this morning.
That's why he dreamed about his experiences after falling asleep at night.
But Wen Shichun felt that wasn't the only reason.
The commotion he and the killer had just made was not small; he wondered how his teammates in the other rooms were doing.
Now the entire mansion was as quiet as a cemetery.
He needed to hurry and see what exactly happened.
Wen Shichun's gaze fell on the flour-covered carpet.
In the bedroom, aside from his own footprints, the others naturally belonged to that pervert. But for now, he could only see a trail of footprints leading from inside the room towards the door.
Wen Shichun took a step, following the bloodstains and footprints back to the bedside. Only then did he see another set of footprints belonging to the same person, but heading in the opposite direction.
Wen Shichun looked at where this trail of footprints first appeared.
It wasn't far from the window, directly facing the bed.
It had appeared out of thin air.
That ghostly thing had materialized out of thin air in his bedroom.
That was certain; otherwise, when it fled, it wouldn't have stepped on those thumbtacks by the door only then.
But it wasn't a ghost.
Wen Shichun thought of the quilt that had fallen onto the carpet when he woke up last night.
In the alternate space, the quilt had also fallen onto the carpet.
The exact same spot.
But the computer tower he had smashed in that space remained intact upon returning to the real space.
Objects in the real space would have corresponding images in the alternate space, but the reverse wasn't necessarily true.
Wen Shichun's gaze settled on the spot where that vile thing had first stepped after entering his room tonight.
In an instant, all sorts of information about that locked room flashed through his mind.
That scumbag used the computer inside it to monitor their every move. The messages he sent on that computer also appeared on the screen in the alternate space. If time flowed at the same rate in both the real space and the alternate space, Yin Chu himself should have been sitting in that locked room at the time. That's why, after Wen Shichun struck him in the alternate space, there was no trace of a second person in the bedroom when he woke up.
The position where his quilt had fallen last night clearly showed it had been deliberately pulled onto the floor.
It was even somewhat obvious and intentional.
Yin Chu had entered his room last night.
Before that person pulled him into the alternate space.
Only after that did this person return to that locked room and use the chat software to send messages to Wen Shichun, who was in the alternate space.
However, there was no foothold outside that room's window.
Without unlocking the front door, it was impossible for anyone to leave that room and enter another.
When Wen Shichun looked up again, his gaze met the dark space beneath the bed.
The high-level players in the team had speculated that the alternate dimension might be a skill used by the boss in this dungeon to hunt players.
If this skill wasn't just for pulling players into the alternate dimension, could Yin Chu be using it to move through his own self-established dimension to anywhere he wanted to go?
After reaching a destination within the alternate dimension, he would then exchange his real-world self with his alternate-dimension self.
Thus avoiding any disturbance.
...
The alternate dimension had disappeared several times, each time after Wen Shichun had severely injured Yin Chu within it. But just now, when he had stabbed Yin Chu repeatedly in the real world, Yin Chu hadn't used the dimension to escape; instead, he had dragged his body toward the door.
This pervert—could it be that no matter which side he was injured on, he could no longer use this skill?
Thinking of this, Wen Shichun's gaze shifted to the computer on the wooden table in the room.
Injuries sustained in the alternate dimension might disappear upon returning to the real world.
Just like the computer, which remained unchanged.
Yin Chu had been struck several times by Wen Shichun inside the dimension, yet he was still fine.
He continued to move as usual.
But this wasn't the case for players.
Bo Ya had died in the alternate dimension.
It seemed there were indeed many inequalities between players and the dungeon.
However—
Wen Shichun's gaze lowered slightly, looking at the large amount of blood on the floor now.
These real wounds should be enough to trouble him.
If injuries rendered him unable to use his abilities, then this pervert shouldn't be able to use dimensional teleportation for the time being.
Thinking of the blood gushing from the other's chest, and the large amount of blood spilling into the air, he probably couldn't cover it all with just his hands.
And then there were those thumbtacks Yue Cheng had scattered outside his door.
Yin Chu was seriously injured.
As for Yue Cheng... when had this questionable individual scattered those thumbtacks outside his own door?
Inside the room.
Wen Shichun's expression remained calm, though his delicate eyelashes fluttered slightly.
If that person hadn't known something would escape from his bedroom, those thumbtacks...
They probably weren't meant for him, were they?
Wen Shichun looked coldly at the clock on the wall. It was only two in the morning now. Perhaps because of the earlier dream, he'd had the illusion that much more time had passed.
The current time was still within the period when ghosts and monsters killed.
Yue Cheng had just said there was a ghost outside.
Yet he stood outside the door and exchanged several sentences with the person inside the room.
The other party had already violated the rule of "must remain silent between 7 PM and 5 AM." Would this person be in danger?
Wen Shichun was now standing by the wooden chair near the window.
This position was far from the wooden bed. He now felt some resistance toward that space under the bed, instinctively keeping away from that patch of darkness.
The Specter Detector lying quietly at the head of the bed was probably his only comfort now, reminding the person in the room that there were no ghosts here.
—It was just a dream.
But when certain images uncontrollably flashed through his mind, Wen Shichun's brow still furrowed slightly.
Finally, the white-haired youth took a few steps back to the bedside. His body slowly bent down, one knee touching the floor, his right hand resting on the edge of the bed.
Wen Shichun lowered his head, crouching half-kneeling before that darkness.
...
Up close, the space under the bed wasn't completely covered in darkness. Under the room's orange-yellow light, a thin layer of light seeped into the darkness from the three side edges beneath the wooden bed. Except for the middle and the area near the headboard against the wall, its perimeter could only be described as dim.
But the space under the bed was quiet. There was nothing inside.
As if no one had ever hidden there begging for help.
Wen Shichun gazed at the darkest spot, his eyes lingering there for several seconds.
Then he rose and walked back to the wooden chair.
***
The second-floor corridor was eerily quiet.
After Yue Cheng closed the door to Wen Shichun's bedroom, the outside seemed to enter another space entirely.
Yue Cheng's eyes fell upon the still-bleeding invisible man.
The figure appeared utterly disheveled, yet one could still sense a vicious glare emanating from somewhere in the air.
Yue Cheng produced a card from his hand and stepped slowly towards the invisible man.
"The esteemed ruler of District 5, hiding inside the body of a B-level dungeon boss... must be quite inconvenient to operate, right?"
As Yue Cheng spoke, his tone lilted upwards, carrying a hint of bizarre delight. Yet his words seemed almost considerate:
"So restricted, isn't it?"
The young man's gaze fell once more upon the bloodied holes in the invisible man's form. Seeing the other in such a miserable state, Yue Cheng thought to himself that if they didn't take some emergency measures soon—if this translucent body happened to kick the bucket right there—then their group of players would truly have been carried to victory by Wen Shichun.
Yue Cheng was delighted: "Look at you, how did you end up like this?"
His tone held a hint of pity, wildly contradicting the joy in his eyes.
The invisible man seemed to let out a disbelieving laugh at these sarcastic, veiled words, snorting a strange sound. This 'B-level dungeon boss' had now given up on stopping the bleeding, letting the blood continuously spill from his body.
Yue Cheng observed for a moment, then raised an eyebrow.
"Is this boss' body some kind of monster?" To still be alive after all that.
Yue Cheng tilted his head as he spoke.
"Likewise," the invisible man finally spoke, returning the compliment. But then it added, "You cannot kill me inside the dungeon."
For an Administrator to intervene and manipulate a dungeon boss was a violation, but the person opposite him also bore a similar violation. In other words, the other party had better not act rashly.
Upon hearing this, Yue Cheng raised an eyebrow. That sounded rather like a threat.
Speaking of which, the invisible man's tone suddenly softened slightly, as if seeking comfort. "Besides, you are about to die."
The invisible man let out a soft chuckle. The player from District 4 before it had already violated the dungeon rules.
It said slowly, "From seven in the evening to five in the morning—you must maintain absolute silence."
