"Where'd he go?"
"What happened?"
The dorm room door was half open. Liu Kang stared down the empty corridor and drew in a sharp breath.
The male assistant wasn't exactly a coward—but he certainly wasn't timid either.
"What did he see out there by himself?"
The same question echoed through everyone's minds. None of them knew why the assistant had fled in a panic. Unless this was some pre-planned skit, it meant something had gone seriously wrong.
"Kang-ge, your buddy there—his nerves aren't exactly made of steel." Lan Dong stood beside Liu Kang, confusion filling his eyes. The lot of them had been hiding inside the dorm the whole time. The assistant could have simply knocked on the door for help. So why had he bolted down the opposite end of the corridor?
Was the fear so overwhelming that it had completely hijacked his brain, stripping away all rational judgment?
Or was whatever had terrified him standing right at the dorm doorway?
A layer of goosebumps crept up the back of Lan Dong's neck. He glanced left and right but didn't spot anything horrifying.
"His phone is still here." A-Li was just about to pick up the assistant's phone when he suddenly noticed a sheet of paper lying beside it, stained with blood spots. "Look at this!"
He picked up the paper. A few lines were scrawled across it in a hasty hand—Behind one of the mirrors in the East or West campus, there's a hidden passage. You can use it to leave the campus. But after we left, we discovered…
"Why are we getting hints when we haven't even cleared the game?" A-Li held the paper up. "Could this information be deliberately misleading us? Mirrors are something you need to watch out for in a lot of places—especially after dark. You'd be better off not hanging around mirrors too much."
"The sacrifice of Kang-ge's assistant wasn't entirely without value. At least he's given us one crucial piece of information." Lan Dong took the note. "The haunted house owner has been watching us the whole time, ready to strike at any moment. The information on this white paper is probably genuine. We're livestreaming to the entire internet—the haunted house owner can't afford to tamper with game hints. His business still needs to operate and turn a profit, so if he deliberately used hints to lure visitors into danger, it would definitely destroy his reputation."
In front of the cameras, Lan Dong delivered his analysis with polished logic, trying to steer everyone's attention elsewhere.
But he had underestimated the impact the assistant's disappearance had on everyone present. Even in Liu Kang's livestream chat, the screen was flooded with question marks.
"Keep this note safe. During the rest of our exploration, whenever we see a mirror, we'll all go over together and try pushing on it." Liu Kang forced himself to remain calm. It was the first time he had ever heard his assistant scream like that—as though his very life were under threat, as though he were on the verge of death.
"Since we've got the hint, there's no point doing the other two games. Let's head straight for anything related to Teacher Bai—find the art studio and regroup with Bai Buhui and the others." Lan Dong didn't dare let his guard down anymore. After all, in a matter of seconds, a living, breathing adult had simply vanished into thin air. It was genuinely terrifying.
They hadn't witnessed the assistant's disappearance. They didn't know the cause. And it was precisely that unknown that gnawed at them even more.
"Let's move."
A team of six had now become five. Under the gaze of so many livestream viewers, Liu Kang had no choice but to keep up a relaxed front.
They pressed on along the pitch-black corridor. Strange sounds drifted through the abandoned male dormitory from time to time—something like a rat scurrying through a gap, or perhaps something brushing against wall plaster that was barely clinging to the surface.
The dim lights overhead cast pale glows on the doors lining both sides. Occasionally, names written in red ink could be seen on the walls.
"This area seems to be all student dorms. Teacher Bai probably lives somewhere else." Lan Dong and A-Li walked at the front. When they reached the end of the corridor, they were surprised to find a staircase descending deeper into the building.