Yu Sen shivered and looked around the corridor. Several rooms were open, and he guessed they were occupied by others who had been sent in like them. He faintly heard sounds of arguing.

Lin Jianchuan closed the door behind him and said, “I’m going to have breakfast. Do you want to join?”

“There’s breakfast?” Yu Sen was a bit surprised. This treatment was much better than the expired canned food they had in the zombie city last time.

Lin Jianchuan smiled, “I’m just guessing.”

…

But there was indeed breakfast. Although the food was as simple as the hotel’s decor, it was at least fresh and edible.

The dining room was small and clearly not well-maintained. The table had some grease stains, and the chairs were not missing any parts, but the paint was mostly worn off.

Yu Sen carefully observed that the layout of the entire hotel was completely different from the ancient mansion from last night. It had an additional floor but was much smaller in size.

Perhaps because they had gotten up early, there were no signs of the original residents around.

“Nan Ge, do you want some lean meat porridge? I’ll go get some and bring you a bowl,” Luo Yu said, pointing to the self-service food not far away.

Si Nan was just about to say “okay” when, unexpectedly, Si Xuanyang snatched his bowl, gave Luo Yu a cold glance, and got up to head toward the buffet: “I’m going too. I’ll get his food.”

Si Nan had a bite of food stuck at the edge of his mouth. Once he realized what was happening, he almost choked on it, staring wide-eyed in disbelief at Si Xuanyang’s back.

“This is the first time he’s served me food! Is the sun rising from the west? When I was a kid, if I threw a tantrum and asked him to serve me food, he would smash the bowl and tell me he didn’t care whether I ate or not.”

He then added, teary-eyed, “As expected, love accumulates over time, doesn’t it?”

Luo Yu gave an awkward laugh and mumbled, “Maybe.”

He could see it now—it wasn’t just his imagination. This Si Xuanyang wasn’t very friendly toward him and seemed to dislike him getting close to Si Nan. Every time, he would find a way to interrupt, making things awkward for him.

And Si Nan, being a bit slow-witted, couldn’t see any of this.

Luo Yu felt both powerless and frustrated.

Yu Sen thoughtfully watched Si Xuanyang’s back as he served the food, feeling a rare twinge of guilt.

But people are like that; when you’re playing a prank, if the target doesn’t react in a particular way or just goes along with it, it gradually becomes boring.

What made teasing Si Xuanyang so amusing was that every time Yu Sen thought that, given Si Xuanyang’s personality, he would start getting impatient or say something like, “Do whatever you want,” and storm off, Si Xuanyang’s subconscious behavior always intrigued him.

He would deliberately suppress his irritability and not show it. When facing some of Yu Sen’s actions, he wouldn’t abandon his principles, maintaining his distance, yet he wouldn’t sow discord in front of Si Nan. However, in some necessary or unavoidable situations, he would protect him without hesitation.

And now, he was even taking the lead, bravely confronting the “third wheel.”

These behaviors seemed contradictory, but upon closer inspection, they weren’t entirely without clues.

The more Yu Sen tried to “seek” out these clues, the more his twisted sense of humor grew like wild grass, completely uncontrollable.

He kept wanting to provoke, to explore where this person’s limits lay. The more he explored, the more he found it enjoyable, like an addiction.

Even he hadn’t noticed that his gaze lingered longer and longer on Si Xuanyang.

Guilt couldn’t stop him.

---

Gradually, more people entered the dining hall, their expressions cautious, and their gazes filled with a scrutinizing air.

Yu Sen didn’t care about this. Or rather, in his eyes, aside from Si Nan and Si Xuanyang, no one else was trustworthy.

Si Nan, because of their years of friendship, needed no further explanation. As for Si Xuanyang, ever since he helped him block a zombie attack in the last zombie city, Yu Sen had completely dismissed the possibility that “he might harm me.”

As for the others, that wasn’t certain.

Although there didn’t seem to be any benefit in harming others in these worlds so far, take the zombie city for example—using a teammate as a shield against attacks wasn’t something he hadn’t seen on TV.

So, while information exchange was naturally good, too much deep interaction wasn’t necessary.

At this thought, he glanced at Luo Yu. This guy was an exception. He dared to join them alone—who knew if he was too naive or had some ulterior motive.

But Si Nan seemed to like him a lot. For the sake of his friend’s bright future, Yu Sen was quite hopeful it was the former.

…

After eating to about eighty percent full, he had just put down his bowl when he saw Lin Jianchuan walking toward them.

Yu Sen wiped his mouth, his expression as lazy as ever: “What’s up?”

“Before coming to eat, a few of them took a brief stroll around the hotel and discovered a storage room on the second floor,” Lin Jianchuan said, seeing Yu Sen’s puzzled expression, and gestured with his hand. “It’s like the locker rooms in swimming pools, where you can store clothes. Some cheaper hotels have them too, where it’s safer to lock up valuables than leaving them in the room.”

Seeing that Yu Sen understood, he continued, “We’re planning to check if we can find any clues related to the mission. Do you want to come along? It’s less risky with more people.”

Really? Less risky with more people? How did you come to that conclusion? Yu Sen’s expression remained unchanged as he replied, “Sure.”

Although he didn’t agree with the “less risky with more people” idea, the current situation was unclear, and any useful information couldn’t be overlooked.

The group reached a consensus without any more words, quietly heading up to the second floor. As soon as they entered the storage room, Yu Sen felt uncomfortable.

This discomfort was both sensory and psychological. He couldn’t quite explain it, but if he had to, it was something about the room.

—It was too eerie.

Despite the bright sunlight outside and the fluorescent lights on inside, he felt like everything in this room was shrouded in a grayish-white haze, unclean.

The room wasn’t big, with rows of metal lockers lined up like soldiers. The aisles between them were just wide enough for one person to walk through. The lockers were stacked so high that they surpassed the height of the tallest person there, creating an oppressive atmosphere.

And there was no air conditioning in the room, yet somehow Yu Sen felt a creeping chill spreading, making his skin clammy.

He knew without touching that the surface of those lockers would be ice-cold.

It felt like a morgue on the third basement level of a hospital.

Yu Sen’s eyelids twitched involuntarily. He tugged on Si Xuanyang’s clothes and whispered, “Let’s not go too far in.”

Si Xuanyang nodded gravely. He was sensitive enough to realize that something might be off about this place too.

Yu Sen glanced over and noticed that Lin Jianchuan was also standing close to them, near the door of the storage room.

At this moment, the boy walking at the front knocked on one of the metal lockers, and the crisp sound suddenly rang out in the room.

The girl beside him jumped in fright and smacked him hard: “Wang Siyu, why are you so reckless?”

“Haha, Mi Xue, are you really this scared?” Wang Siyu seemed unconcerned. “Weren’t you the one who loved the haunted house at the amusement park the most, always dragging me there?”

“That’s different. This is the real deal…” Mi Xue’s face looked a bit pale. The others didn’t say anything, making the two of them stand out.

And in a place like this, she didn’t think standing out was a good thing.

“Don’t go touching things randomly,” she warned her boyfriend.

“Tch!” Being scolded by his girlfriend in front of so many people, Wang Siyu’s face turned a bit sour. He brushed past Mi Xue and quickly took a few steps inside. Suddenly, he exclaimed, “There are so many keys here!”

On the wall at the far end, there was an iron rack with hundreds of small black keys hanging on it. Looking closely, one could see that each key had a number on it.

Yu Sen looked at a nearby cabinet, which also had a number engraved on it, indicating that they corresponded to each other.

“Let’s open one and see,” Wang Siyu said, his face showing some excitement.

“That’s probably not a good idea,” Mi Xue hesitated, pulling him back.

“What’s the harm?” Wang Siyu’s tone grew more impatient as he felt his face was being lost repeatedly. “We’ve already come to a place like this, and you’re still following those ‘good citizen’ rules? Without using some special methods, do you think we can get out of here? Use your brain.”

Mi Xue’s face turned slightly red, and she awkwardly let go, allowing Wang Siyu to grab a key from the rack.

“0560, my lucky number, this one!”

Yu Sen watched him coldly as he walked towards the cabinet numbered 0560, pulling Si Xuanyang back a step.

Si Xuanyang followed him obediently, and softly asked, “Are you scared?”

“Yes.”

Si Xuanyang was stunned for a second, then silently took a step to block Yu Sen’s line of sight.

Yu Sen: “…”

He was scared, but he wanted to see it with his own eyes even more!

Fortunately, he was just a little bit taller than Si Xuanyang and also a bit taller than the people standing in front of him. By peeking over their shoulders, he could still be an onlooker.

Wang Siyu inserted the key into the hole, and the sound of the lock turning was especially clear in the quiet room.

“It’s open.” Wang Siyu raised an eyebrow proudly at Mi Xue and then pulled the cabinet door open.

A round head rolled out of the cabinet, landing on Wang Siyu’s foot.

“Ah—!”

Yu Sen didn’t see what the head looked like, but he was startled by Wang Siyu’s pig-like scream, causing him to shiver. His chin hit Si Xuanyang’s shoulder, and he unfortunately bit his tongue.

“Ow—” Yu Sen winced in pain and inhaled sharply.

“What happened?” Si Xuanyang quickly turned around, seeing Yu Sen covering his mouth with a visible trace of tension creeping onto his face.

“I bit my tongue!” Yu Sen was very close, fanning his hand in front of his face while sticking his tongue out towards Si Xuanyang. “Can you check if it’s bleeding?”

Si Xuanyang’s face suddenly flushed bright red.