As they neared the 8th floor, Xu Dengming glanced at Ji Zizai and finally spoke the first sentence since the game officially started: “Let me press the button next time.”
Ji Zizai nodded slightly, signaling their mutual understanding.
After all, according to the rules of the game, Ji Zizai needed to reserve the chance to press the button for herself at least once.
Zhao Yilang was staring intently at the items in his hands, his left hand nervously grabbing his hair, as if the key to clearing the level was hidden deep within his scalp: “Two flyers, two flyers from different floors… so which one should I choose?”
Meanwhile, Lin Yunhui, a student, paced back and forth anxiously, probably trying to force her brain to think faster through self-induced agitation.
Unable to hold back, Lin Yunhui murmured, “Since they’ve given us the flyers, the clue must be on them.”
She squeezed the flyers tightly in her hands, her gaze darting back and forth across the text on the paper.
Her nose was almost touching the surface of the paper as she whispered the contents out loud, not even skipping punctuation marks, desperately trying to find the answer.
After reading through the flyers several times, Lin Yunhui’s eyes suddenly lit up. She lifted her head, speaking in a daze: “I think… I might have discovered something.”
Zhang Zhiqun immediately asked, “What did you discover?”
Lin Yunhui pointed at the flyer in her hand and said, “These two sheets are from the third and seventh floors. The one from the seventh floor is more wrinkled, and the one from the third floor is newer.”
Her tone carried clear uncertainty.
“The older one has probably been in my hand for a longer time. Following the principle of first come, first served, shouldn’t I go to the seventh floor first?”
Zhang Zhiqun didn’t want to contradict her, but he said, “But the two flyers in my hands look almost the same in terms of their condition.”
He spoke in confusion, “Could it be that the rules for different passengers are different?”
Just as no one had come to a definitive conclusion, the elevator doors slowly opened.
At this moment, the elevator was eerily silent.
Everyone’s gaze was inevitably drawn to the door, each person eager to know what awaited them on the eighth floor, yet all fearful of seeing something beyond their expectations.
A second later, someone let out a soft sigh.
The light inside the elevator was dim enough, but outside, it was pitch black, as though a curtain had been drawn over their eyes.
The passengers could see nothing, hear nothing, as if they were not on a floor in a shopping mall but in an endless, dark sea.
Zhao Yilang swallowed nervously, his voice trembling: “What… what’s going on?”
He asked again, “I can’t see anything. Can you guys see anything?”
Ji Zizai shook his head and replied, “No.”
Xu Dengming gently pressed her finger to her eyes.
Outside the elevator, the scene was just as terrifyingly dark, with the limited light from the elevator barely illuminating about thirty centimeters before being swallowed by an inky void.
Since even her [Observing Eye] couldn’t gather more information, she could only assume that the passengers inside the elevator couldn’t see what was outside.
This was just like the previous “Happy Heaven” arcade, where the game world had unbreakable rules.
Five seconds passed, and the elevator doors slowly closed as no one had exited.
As per their prior agreement, Xu Dengming reached out and pressed the “B1” button.
Zhao Yilang stammered, “Why not press B2?”
Xu Dengming replied, “I haven’t been to B1 yet. I want to take a look.”
Then, she asked, “Who’s turn is it next?”
Everyone in the elevator knew the truth: to survive in the game, they had to take turns pressing the elevator buttons to avoid violating the third rule of the game.
But now, when Xu Dengming asked, no one immediately responded.
The desire to survive made everyone want to delay their turn as much as possible.
If the first round of button pressing ended without finding the right floor, the later you pressed the button, the more time you could buy to stay alive.
Lin Yunhui’s lips moved as if she wanted to say something, but suddenly, Dou Wenju spoke up:
“I’ll do it next.”
Dou Wenju raised his head, a trace of arrogance still on his face: “Anyway, my floor is already decided.”
Zhao Yilang couldn’t help but argue, “None of our floors are confirmed. Only yours is. Don’t you think that’s strange?”
Dou Wenju shrugged.
“Didn’t you all just discuss whether the rules for different participants in the same game could be different?”
He added, “It’s definitely possible.”
Lin Yunhui fixed her gaze on Dou Wenju without blinking, her voice barely above a whisper: “Have you ever thought about why only you…”
Perhaps because he was about to leave, Dou Wenju glanced at the others and began to explain seriously: “It’s not just me. Sometimes in this game, there are individuals who get lucky.”
He then smiled slightly, with a hint of malice.
“Actually, some of you could be lucky too. After all, someone already discovered the loophole in the rules — the game doesn’t officially start until the preparation time ends. As long as you seize the opportunity, passengers can ignore the elevator rules and forcibly take someone else’s flyer.”
Upon hearing this, Zhao Yilang suddenly looked up, his face as pale as a sheet.
It finally dawned on him: those two flyers from the same floor weren’t meant for Dou Wenju’s benefit—they were for everyone’s benefit…
The thought made his heart feel like it was soaking in sour, cold leftover soup.
He was so close to confirming his target floor!
But now, with the preparation time over, according to the rules, passengers couldn’t conflict with each other.
The rules of the game seemed to be deliberately leading them toward despair.
In his desperation to survive, Zhao Yilang forgot about the risks of a chaotic struggle and his lack of combat ability.
All that remained in his heart was regret and frustration.
Lin Yunhui bit her thumb, and after a moment, she suddenly gasped in realization: “I think I understand!”
Her voice grew more urgent: “Since the flyers can be stolen, it means we can change our target floors.”
Her words clearly reached everyone’s ears.
Zhao Yilang finally understood, his voice trembling: “You mean, we can exchange the flyers during the preparation time?”
Lin Yunhui nodded: “Most people have flyers from different floors, but if we combine them, we can get the right ones.”
Zhang Zhiqun spoke rapidly, as though someone were chasing him: “Can we start exchanging now?”
Lin Yunhui hesitated: “I… I’m not sure, but voluntarily exchanging flyers definitely doesn’t violate the rule against attacking each other…”
Suddenly, Zhang Zhiqun stepped forward, grabbed Lin Yunhui’s wrist, his voice excited: “I think it’s possible! It definitely is!”
Startled by Zhang Zhiqun’s loud voice, Lin Yunhui quickly pulled her arm back, warning him, “Don’t forget the first rule…”
Seeing Zhang Zhiqun acting strangely, Ji Zizai took a step forward, trying to hold him back.
But just then, the lights in the elevator flickered and went out completely, and the entire elevator shook violently.
The sudden shock was so unexpected that even Xu Dengming, who was standing against the wall, almost lost her balance.
She quickly reached out to steady herself, crouching down and lowering her center of gravity to avoid falling.
The lights were out, and everything around them disappeared from view.
Even though Xu Dengming activated her [Observing Eye], she still couldn’t see anything.
Perhaps it was because her vision had been deprived, but Xu Dengming’s hearing had become more sensitive than usual.
The sound of heavy objects falling, the low groans of other passengers in pain, all reached her ears one after another, mixed with the frantic cries for help from Zhao Yilang and others.
—And there was another indescribable sound, a breath that seemed to be right beside her ear.
There were only six people in the elevator, and Xu Dengming clearly remembered that there was no one beside her.
The elevator continued to shake as it moved, and after the initial panic, the voices of the passengers gradually faded away.
In the unusual silence that enveloped her, Xu Dengming realized that something was wrong.
The sound of breathing wasn’t coming from just one place.
The eerie presence didn’t remain only by Xu Dengming’s side; the entire elevator was growing colder.
The new scenario hadn’t blocked Xu Dengming’s personal bag, and as her right hand tightened, an old, dark red pipe with a rusty hue appeared in her grip.
The air seemed to carry the faint, metallic tang of rust.
Zhang Zhiqun had long been shaken off by Lin Yunhui.
Earlier, concerned about breaking the rules, he had refrained from pursuing any further, creating distance between himself and the others.
However, at that moment, Zhang Zhiqun began to regret it.
He felt that he should not have moved too far from the others.
An intense instinct told him that something strange was currently pressing closely beside him.
That something had breath.
The exhaled air was so close that Zhang Zhiqun could feel it on his face.
The smell was damp, cold, and salty, like decaying fish from the sea.
Zhang Zhiqun’s body trembled uncontrollably.
He instinctively reached for his pocket.
There were no weapons in his pocket, only a wallet and a set of keys.
The elevator continued to shake, and the surrounding darkness was thick and pure, evoking the deepest fears buried within the heart.
If Zhang Zhiqun could have seen himself at that moment, he would have noticed that his face had drained of color, the dark circles under his eyes standing out sharply against his pale skin.
He gripped his keys tightly, ignoring the pain in his palm from the sharp edge, and pointed the key’s pointed end outward.
In that moment, the ordinary keys felt like a dagger, providing Zhang Zhiqun with the faintest sense of security.
“Whoosh—”
The breath grew even closer, now tinged with hunger and madness.
Zhang Zhiqun’s face twisted in sheer panic.
He suddenly spun around, clutching the keys, and with all his might, thrust them in the direction of the breath.
“Ah—”
Time passed, though Zhang Zhiqun was unsure for how long.
***
Finally, the B1 floor arrived.
As the electronic chime sounded, the elevator’s lights flickered back on.
The overhead lights were calm and silent, as if the darkness just now had been a mere hallucination born from the passengers’ overwhelming fear.
Lin Yunhui shakily stood up.
She glanced at the indistinct B1 floor outside the elevator, then turned back to the inside and trembled, asking, “Uh, where’s Zhang Zhiqun?”
No one could answer Lin Yunhui’s question.
All she was met with were confusion, fear, and silence.
When the elevator reached the B1 floor, Xu Dengming noticed that all the strange breathing sounds had disappeared.
And, though it could have been a trick of her mind, she faintly heard an indescribable cry of anguish at the same time the breathing ceased.
Xu Dengming furrowed her brows slightly and spoke slowly, “I suspect that Mr. Zhang may have violated the rules, and that’s why he’s been punished by the scenario.”
Lin Yunhui thought for a moment and cautiously asked, “Are you saying that his grabbing my hand earlier had a negative impact?”
Xu Dengming replied, “It might not just be because of that.”
In Xu Dengming’s thoughts, Zhang Zhiqun’s grabbing of Lin Yunhui’s wrist was likely the reason the elevator plunged into darkness, but the darkness itself hid another challenge.
Earlier, Xu Dengming had already taken out the old water pipe.
She could sense the direction of the breath, yet she suppressed the urge to attack, never striking out at the unknown creature.
After all, Xu Dengming hadn’t forgotten the first two rules of the elevator scenario—passengers must not cause harm to others, and they must not damage the elevator itself.
She pondered whether the entity behind the strange breathing could also be a passenger.
When the lights had first gone out, some of the passengers had made sounds, but the creature didn’t attack.
It merely got closer, pressuring the passengers psychologically.
Xu Dengming’s mind formed a hypothesis: the rules in the scenario might apply to the creature too.
Only when a passenger lost their composure due to extreme fear and actively attacked the creature would they incur punishment from the scenario.
When the elevator finally arrived at the B1 floor and the lights came back on, all the passengers had made it through the crisis in the dark, except for Zhang Zhiqun.
Xu Dengming thought back to the gray-black mist she had seen earlier and suspected that something had gone wrong with Zhang Zhiqun’s state.
Tftc!