Volume 7: Days of Stargazing at the Inn
Stone Butch, Golden Retriever
He was once a defiant young courtier.
Lou Jingmo said softly, “The fingers don’t belong to the old Chinese doctor.”
Because all ten fingers were still properly attached to the old Chinese doctor’s corpse.
Then whose hand was this?
Shen Maomao cautiously walked over to Van Gogh and saw the other hand he had placed in front of himself.
That hand had nothing left but a bare thumb. The rest of it was a bloody, mangled mess, flush with the palm.
A shudder of fear ran through Shen Maomao. “Has he completely lost his mind?”
“He has,” Lou Jingmo said. “Don’t disturb him while he’s finishing his painting. Be careful, he might attack you.”
Shen Maomao nodded repeatedly.
Golden Retriever deliberately touched the old Chinese doctor’s corpse. As expected, the body once again dissolved into dust. From within the pile, he retrieved a room card with the character “口”1 written on it.
“It’s really for the emergency exit?”2 Shen Maomao said in surprise.
Lou Jingmo replied, “What’s the use of just having the room cards? We need to know what doors they open.”
This was well beyond Shen Maomao’s area of expertise.
The three of them slipped out of Room 303 without a sound. Shen Maomao, who was the last to leave, gently closed the door. She gave the number plate—303—a deep look, her heart as still and placid as an ancient well.
Next up, the only room left on the third floor was the most dangerous one: Room 318, home to Xiaobao and his family.
Xiaobao has a new ball now. He shouldn’t want another one, right?
But there were no guarantees. After all, children were always fickle, loving the new and tiring of the old.
Shen Maomao silently gave herself a pep talk. She, Shen ‘King of Kids’ Maomao, could even coax a little ancestor into a good mood. A kid like Xiaobao shouldn’t be a problem… right?
In any case, what was to come would come. The three of them stood at the entrance to Room 318, fully prepared to flee at a moment’s notice.
Shen Maomao raised her hand, about to knock, when she suddenly seemed to remember something. She slammed on the brakes, turned her head, and whispered to Lou Jingmo, “If we’re looking for corpses… shouldn’t we be on the first floor right now?”
Golden Retriever slapped his own forehead. “That’s right… The other body is still at the entrance to the first-floor bathroom.”
The thought had only just occurred to Lou Jingmo as well. She explained, “Corpses usually disappear on their own, so I’d forgotten about it.”
Shen Maomao backed away quickly, putting distance between herself and the dangerous door. “Should we go check the first floor first?” she suggested.
“My intuition tells me that the second floor is very dangerous right now,” Lou Jingmo said.
Shen Maomao had the same feeling. When the elevator had briefly stopped on that pitch-black, gloomy second floor where all the room doors were open, she had felt an inexplicable, hair-raising dread, as if she would be torn to shreds by monsters lurking in the deep darkness the moment she stepped out.
The human trafficker had been dragged away and killed right before their eyes. The image had left a dark shadow on both her and Golden Retriever.
Under normal circumstances, you couldn’t have paid Golden Retriever to go down to that floor. But now they were caught between a man-eating second floor and the “Iron Wolf” Xiaobao behind them. No matter which they chose, the probability of death seemed to be the same.
There was nothing to agonize over, then. They might just have to face both.
The three of them got on the elevator. Other than the sound of its operation, there was nothing else to be heard. Shen Maomao was a little nervous and took the initiative to start a conversation. “Um… why do the corpses turn to ash as soon as Golden Retriever touches them?”
Golden Retriever didn’t understand either. “And all this stuff in my head… It’s too weird. I feel like I’ve suddenly been given a God’s-eye view of everything.”
Lou Jingmo said, “Perhaps it’s some kind of setting determined by the author. It’s very likely that Golden Retriever is the protagonist.”
“So suddenly?” Golden Retriever asked.
“It’s not that sudden,” Lou Jingmo replied. “Do you remember what happened shortly after you entered this instance?”
“You mean… when I was captured and tied to an iron bed?”
Lou Jingmo nodded. “It’s possible that at that moment, your persona overlapped with that of the real-world author.”
Golden Retriever wanted to ask more, but the elevator had already come to a smooth stop on the second floor. He quickly shut his mouth, staring intently at the door alongside Shen Maomao.
The elevator doors slid open automatically, revealing a face pressed right up against the glass. The sight scared Shen Maomao so badly she stumbled back a step, nearly letting out a scream.
The person outside took two steps back, a smile blooming on his face. The curve of his lips widened as the elevator doors opened fully. To Shen Maomao, it was as if she were seeing the God of Death beckoning to her.
The person outside the door was none other than the Seer Tycoon.
The Seer bowed politely to them. “Did I frighten you? My apologies, I was standing too close.”
The Seer managed to survive on the second floor. Could he be the final boss?
Before any of them could respond, the Seer spoke again. “You are now the only living people left in the entire hotel. How does it feel?”
It feels quite honorable. It would be even better if we could live to the end.
Shen Maomao pursed her lips and tried to find fault. “What about that guy… and that other one, and you. Aren’t you all still alive?”
The Seer said, “They’re alive, but what’s the difference between their state and death?”
That was true. Someone like Van Gogh probably wouldn’t even try to escape if he saw the white light of the exit.
Shen Maomao then asked, “Are you here to finish us off now?”
The Seer shook his head. “I won’t lay a hand on ladies. But the one next to you… I’m keeping him.”
Shen Maomao’s head immediately snapped toward Golden Retriever.
Golden Retriever’s face was a complete blank.
Shen Maomao turned back to the Seer and declared, “Actually, he’s a girl, too!! He’s just flat-chested!!”
The Seer: “…”
Lou Jingmo: “…”
Golden Retriever’s features were delicate, but he didn’t look particularly feminine. Moreover, his clothes and style were all masculine. Only Shen Maomao could tell such a blatant lie with her eyes wide open, forcibly labeling him a girl.
Golden Retriever himself was quick on the uptake. He immediately spoke in a high-pitched voice, “Actually… I’m a stone butch3, you see…”
Shen Maomao: “…”
While they were talking, Lou Jingmo tried pressing the ‘close door’ button, but the elevator didn’t react at all. It was obvious that as long as the tycoon was here, they weren’t going anywhere.
Lou Jingmo stopped and asked him, “Why do you want to kill him?”
The tycoon raised an eyebrow. “Because the main personality is about to die.”
So that was it. No wonder the world had suddenly started to collapse—it was because the original author was on her last legs!
Everyone present was a character in a novel, a figment of the author’s imagination. And perhaps due to the author’s mental state, these imagined characters had been mistaken for herself, thus becoming her other personalities.
Golden Retriever’s sudden knowledge of everyone’s situation was likely a form of “awakening,” in preparation to replace the main personality.
Evidently, the Seer’s awakening had occurred much earlier than Golden Retriever’s.
“The main personality is growing weaker and weaker,” the Seer said. “This place will soon be sealed off completely. Before that happens, I need to get rid of all of you. Otherwise, history will only repeat itself.”
Lou Jingmo activated her mouth-cannon4 function, stating with conviction, “Why won’t you kill us? Is it because the original author is also a woman?”
Shen Maomao: “?? She’s not a man??”
Oh… right. Both of them had only said ‘tā’; they never specified whether it was the ‘he’ character or the ‘she’ character.5 She had been the one to jump to conclusions.
The Seer nodded. “Yes.”
Lou Jingmo continued, “You don’t actually want to do this, do you? Otherwise, you wouldn’t be wasting your breath on us here.”
The Seer nodded again. “That’s right. I’m afraid killing him would dirty my hands.”
Golden Retriever remained silent.
“We don’t belong here,” Lou Jingmo said. “We’ll be leaving soon, so we won’t get in your way.”
Shen Maomao: “!!” Is it really okay to tell him something like that so directly?! And the excuse is so half-baked, there’s no way the Seer would believe it, right?!
But to her surprise, the Seer actually believed it. He stared fixedly at Golden Retriever for a while, making him tremble, before suddenly breaking into a smile. “I hope you keep your word.”
The moment he finished speaking, the elevator doors began to close. Through the shrinking gap, they saw the Seer turn and walk back into the depths of the darkness.
Golden Retriever let out a sigh of relief, his legs so weak he had to lean against the mirrored wall.
Shen Maomao looked at the mirror and, for a fleeting instant, thought she saw the phantom of a woman.
“There are only three of us left now,” Lou Jingmo said. “If we find the remaining fragments and then the door, we should be able to leave.”
Shen Maomao snapped back to reality. “Which door do you think is the exit?”
“Whatever it is, you’d better pray it’s not the Observatory.”
Otherwise, they would have to swim up a mountain in the snow.
That would be too difficult.
But the good news was that the final boss had given up on hunting them, so they didn’t have to be so frantic anymore.
The three of them stepped out of the elevator and went to the first-floor bathroom, surprised to find that Xiaobao’s father’s corpse was actually still there. From it, they obtained a new room card.
As usual, Golden Retriever immediately handed over the card. Lou Jingmo flipped it over and saw that the front of this card was also black.
Shen Maomao guessed, “The room card for the emergency exit spawns randomly from any corpse? And the useless ones are all black?”
Far too many corpses had gone missing in this instance. Did they have to find every single one?
“Let’s rule out the first floor first,” Lou Jingmo said.
The trio didn’t split up. They circled the first floor together several times, even steeling themselves to check both the men’s and women’s restrooms thoroughly. They found no other bodies.
That left only the second floor.
None of them, including Lou Jingmo, actually wanted to go up there. But the situation had progressed to this point, and it was out of their control. No matter how reluctant they were, they had to go.
The three returned to the elevator, and Lou Jingmo pressed the button for the second floor.
The elevator arrived at the second floor. The number ‘2’ on the display flickered once, but instead of stopping, the elevator continued its ascent.
Shen Maomao: “?? What’s going on? It’s not letting us go there?”
One after another, the three of them stepped out of the elevator. For once, Lou Jingmo looked a little exasperated. “Truly a psycho.” She was talking about the Seer; that guy was so unpredictable.
Shen Maomao thought for a moment and suggested, “I just remembered… we still haven’t checked the bathroom and the shower room across from it on the third floor…”
Lou Jingmo waved a hand, issuing a command. “Let’s go.”
Because red potion had been mixed into the toilet tank, the entire third-floor water supply had been contaminated. As a result, they hadn’t been back to the third-floor bathroom in a long time. They had no idea if anything inside had changed…
With that thought, Shen Maomao yanked open the bathroom door. A huge cloud of dust was instantly disturbed, making them all choke and cough as if the place hadn’t been cleaned in eight hundred years.
The door was pushed fully open, revealing a clean, fan-shaped area right in front of it. The rest of the floor was covered in a thick layer of ash, imprinted with rows of chaotic footprints.
The author has something to say:
Seer: You’re not a real stone butch at all.
Golden Retriever: I was once a defiant young courtier6.
Seer: I see. You are a true stone butch.
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