“Then, Yu Man…” Jiang Cheng paused before saying calmly, “She probably has been detained by the village head. Or she is dead.” It was common for teammates to die in the nightmare, but the culprits were mostly ghosts. NPCs being the culprit was rare. Chen Xiaomeng didn’t want to imagine Yu Man being captured by the villagers. She’d rather that Yu Man had died.
“Stop thinking so much.” Jiang Cheng’s voice drifted over. “If you have the time to think about others, why don’t you focus on yourself? No matter what has happened to Yu Man, that is not something you and I can change anymore.
“If you don’t want to end up like her, snap out of it. Find the clues and leave this place.”
Chen Xiaomeng let her guard down for a moment due to her empathy as a fellow woman. After a short hesitation, the determination returned to her face. “Let’s go.”
Jiang Cheng held the iron blade and was the first to crawl into the hidden door. Chen Xiaomeng followed behind him.
The space was very small. They had to bend over to keep moving. However, this was the reason why Jiang Cheng was not as nervous. He believed Lee Lu wouldn’t pick this place to set up the ambush.
After turning a few times, the path finally sloped upwards. Jiang Cheng counted the number of steps in his heart until they reached the end of the latter. There was a board above his head. The board was attached with a simple iron bar. Based on the number of steps, they should be on the third floor of the inn.
Both of them realised that behind this board would be the hidden room where Qian Jianxiu was. Everything hung in the balance.
Jiang Cheng put his hand on the bar and turned to look at Chen Xiaomeng. Chen Xiaomeng nodded to show that she was ready. After taking a deep breath, Jiang Cheng opened the board and slipped out. He quickly moved to allow the space for Chen Xiaomeng to crawl out. Chen Xiaomeng quickly followed.
At the same time, something dawned on Jiang Cheng. No wonder the boss came to Room 307 with the knife after he realized there was someone behind the hidden room door. He was not only suspecting them but also wanted to check if the hidden door had been exposed.
The bloody footprints disappeared in this room.
Chen Xiaomeng and Jiang Cheng split up to check the hiding spots like the bathroom and closet. They didn’t find anything.
They opened the room door. A single candlestand stood at the end of the corridor. The stand was fixed in the middle of the wall, meaning that its candlelight would have limited reach. Behind that wall was Qian Jianxiu’s hidden room.
Chen Xiaomeng frowned. The two of them carefully moved down the corridor. Chen Xiaomeng, who maintained a metre distance from Jiang Cheng, paid attention to their surroundings. In her mind, the rooms near them might open, and people might charge out at any moment.
They eventually reached the end of the corridor.
The wall was dark. Even with the candlelight, it was anxiety-inducing. Chen Xiaomeng swallowed nervously. Jiang Cheng found the gap on the wall. With a light press, the hidden door eased open slightly.
This made them sigh in relief. The thing that worried them the most was their inability to open this door. They had found all the clues. If all of their work were to go to waste because the door refused to open, they would die from pure anger.
Jiang Cheng latched his fingers onto the gap and pulled. The hidden door was heavier than he anticipated. He didn’t want to make too big of a commotion, so after widening the gap, Jiang Cheng carefully peeked through it.
The inside was dark. The white candle that Zhou Rong saw earlier was gone. He could only see some blurry, black silhouettes. Those appeared to be sets of furniture. He scanned the room. He noticed there was a pillar-shaped object leaning against the back of the hidden door. It was about half the height of a human.
As he focused on this thing, a glint flashed in the dark. At the pivotal moment, Jiang Cheng leaned back. Soon after, a dagger stabbed at the spot where Jiang Cheng’s eyes were earlier. If he were slower by a second, the dagger would have entered his eye socket.
After the failed attempt, the dagger slunk back. Then, the hidden door shut with a bang. Everything happened in mere seconds. When Chen Xiaomeng rushed over, the hidden door was closed, and the gap couldn’t be found anymore.
“Bastard!” Chen Xiaomeng kicked the door. The door was thicker than they thought. It didn’t even vibrate from the kick.
Jiang Cheng climbed up from the ground. Clearly, this was another one of Lee Lu’s schemes. The pillar-like thing behind the hidden door should be Lee Lu.
Jiang Cheng was wondering why Lee Lu, who had shown that she was extremely cautious, would leave behind a gap in the hidden door. It was another trap.
This time, the door was perfectly shut. It probably wouldn’t be hard to find the mechanism to open the hidden door but they lacked time the most.
A few seconds after the door closed, the thing that worried them the most happened.
Chen Xiaomeng and Jiang Cheng’s hearts skipped a beat.
The door… had appeared.
There was a dim purplish glow that flashed. The iron door appeared inside Qian Jianxiu’s hidden room. This game was, in a way, over. Lee Lu was the final victor. She undeniably had gotten all the rewards.
The only thing Jiang Cheng and Chen Xiaomeng could do was enter the hidden room and return to their world before the door disappeared. They could forget about the mission rewards. Their goal should be survival.
Just as they pondered how to reopen the hidden door, there was another loud crash.
It came from downstairs. It sounded like someone had burst through the front door. It was followed by many footsteps.
The blood-curdling scream almost shattered Jiang Cheng’s eardrums. That was the shout of the Little Ravine Village’s village head. If he hadn’t heard it in person, Jiang Cheng wouldn’t have believed the old village head could scream so loudly.
Clearly, he had discovered Qian Jianse’s dead body.