Chapter 8: The Fifth Floor

Returning to his room and picking up the candle, Zhou You stepped out through the door for the third time.

The bone-chopping knife, meat grinder, and branding iron sat right in front of him, but he still had no intention of touching them. After all, he had not yet explored the fifth floor, so he planned to investigate it first.

After all, unless absolutely necessary, no one in this world would willingly carve open their own body.

After searching through his clothes for quite a while, Zhou You found a box of matches in his jacket pocket, relit the candle, and headed toward the staircase.

One step, two steps, three steps, four steps. All the way to the fourth floor, the candle showed no change whatsoever.

But the moment he stepped onto the stairs leading to the fifth floor again, the previously gentle flame suddenly flickered.

Then, as if fuel had been poured onto it, it began burning with extraordinary intensity.

Yet Zhou You did not immediately start running.

Instead, he turned around and looked behind him.

The deformed hand and face had already emerged from the couplets, but unlike last time, they seemed completely unable to see Zhou You despite his close proximity.

Instead, they drifted about aimlessly in confusion.

“Looks like this thing takes effect immediately, and it really can completely block the perception of those couplets on the fourth floor. As for whether it’ll work on the Landlady as well, forget it, I can think about that later. Right now, the most important thing is...”

Looking at the hollow face, Zhou You took a deep breath, filling his lungs with dusty air.

Then, abandoning the calmness he had displayed moments earlier, he sprinted toward the fifth floor with all his strength.

The staircase, less than ten metres long, vanished behind him in an instant.

The fifth floor was the attic of the apartment building.

There was only a single door, secured by a heavy old-fashioned padlock.

Zhou You inserted the key he had borrowed, no, picked up from the Landlady into the lock.

After several attempts, he finally managed to release the mechanism that had nearly rusted solid.

The padlock hit the floor with a heavy Bang!

Zhou You did not care whether the noise would attract the Landlady.

By the time she arrived, the candle would be nearly burned out anyway. At that point, being killed by the thing on the fourth floor or being killed by her would not make much difference.

He then shoved open the old wooden door.

Accompanied by a piercing creak, the route to freedom finally revealed itself before him.

But immediately afterward, Zhou You froze.

No, it was not because he had encountered some hopeless scene, such as finding no escape route at all.

In fact, if it really had been a dead end, given his personality he would have spat at it, raised a middle finger at the page, and searched for another solution.

The reason he froze was something else.

He saw corpses.

And not just one.

There were many.

A great many corpses.

Right before Zhou You’s eyes, layers upon layers of human bodies hung from the attic ceiling.

At first glance, there were at least a hundred of them.

Every corpse had its chest cavity completely cut open.

All the internal organs were gone.

Only shrivelled flesh and skeletal frames remained.

Moreover, whatever preservation method had been used, very few had rotted.

Nearly every face had been frozen at the moment of death.

Fear.

Begging.

Despair.

Anger.

Mental collapse.

Even with Zhou You’s mental fortitude, being stared at by so many dead eyes made every hair on his body stand on end.

Without question, all of them had been tenants.

Tenants who could not pay their rent and had been dissected alive by the Landlady before being dismantled and sold piece by piece.

Among the corpses, Zhou You even spotted several figures noticeably shorter than the others, their faces still youthful.

What kind of...

Zhou You closed his eyes and silently bit his lip.

But very quickly, he suppressed those unnecessary thoughts and continued his work.

The candle was almost burned out.

Time was running short.

Zhou You stepped into the attic.

Yet the instant he crossed the threshold, his expression changed once more.

A strange smell flooded into his nose.

It felt like rotten eggs left beneath the blazing sun for three days.

Along with it came slight dizziness and a sense of oxygen deprivation.

Having grown up in the countryside, Zhou You immediately recognized what it was.

Methane.

And not a low concentration either.

It seemed to have accumulated from the decomposition of some of the corpses.

Fortunately, it remained barely within tolerable limits.

Making note of this, Zhou You used the faint light filtering down from above to examine his surroundings.

The corpses occupied most of the space.

However, scattered piles of miscellaneous junk could still be seen in the corners.

At the far end was the exit he had been waiting for.

A broken skylight built into the attic roof.

Unfortunately, there was no ladder beneath it.

The only way to reach it would be to gradually stack debris and corpses higher and higher until they formed a path to freedom.

By Zhou You’s estimate, the work would require roughly eight minutes.

That sounded short.

However, once the conditions of “having only one arm” and “needing to come out periodically for fresh air” were added, the required time would increase to more than twenty minutes.

Almost exactly the amount of time needed to sprint here and completely burn through three candles.

Suddenly, Zhou You laughed.

“Should I say it really deserves to be called a beginner instance? The solution is ridiculously straightforward. And it matches my earlier deductions perfectly.”

Afterward, he said nothing more.

Glancing at the candle, which had burned down almost to its base, he chose not to wait for it to burn out completely and simply blew it out.

The next moment, an incredibly shrill roar erupted from the fourth floor.

In only a few seconds, those deformed hands had already climbed into the attic.

Like something enraged and humiliated, they seized the calm-faced Zhou You and dragged him down by force.

Bang!

Blood and flesh exploded outward.

“You died.”

“But your death had some value.”

“The path to escape has already been revealed to you. Leave the haunted building created by the Landlady, and you will receive a reward.”

“Since the player is still in the beginner period, you may use 10 points...”

This time, however, Zhou You did not wait for the female voice to finish speaking.

He simply waved a hand and told her to be quiet.

Then he said nothing more and immediately chose to enter the instance once again.

Whether by coincidence or not, when he arrived at the save point this time, the first thing he saw happened to be the three tools of self-mutilation.

The story had now been explored almost completely.

Under normal circumstances, there appeared to be only one way to clear the stage.

Cut off his own arm.

Use the branding iron to stop the bleeding.

Endure the excruciating pain while making two more candles.

Then escape through the skylight.

Games were usually like that.

No matter how you played or what shortcuts you found, you ultimately had to follow the script written by the creator to reach the ending.

But...

Zhou You had never liked following the rules when playing games.

Besides, compared to intricate schemes and elaborate plots, he actually preferred simple and direct door-kicking tactics.

So he suddenly raised his head and asked the empty air.

“Excuse me, I’d like to ask something. If I cut off my arm here and clear the game, will the injury carry over into reality?”

Several seconds later, the female voice sounded beside his ear.

“Dear player, all damage and losses suffered within the game will be restored upon completing the game. Please do not concern yourself with pain or disability. Feel free to play according to your own wishes.”

It was a very obvious answer and hint.

Yet Zhou You did not follow the path she expected and use the three self-mutilation tools.

Instead, he picked up the candle and suddenly smiled.

“Is that so? Then as you wish, I’m about to start playing entirely according to my own ideas.”