Evening arrived, and Bai Yuze was the first to move, yanking the door open.
Zhu Daqiang, who had been outside the door, was gone. Bai Yuze didn't say much, only subconsciously tightened his grip on the Molotov cocktail in his hand.
"He disappeared. Is he regenerating in a room?"
"It looks like we need to speed up."
The three of them grandly arrived at the door of room 205, intending to push it open, but found the iron door unmoving.
"What should we do? Are we just going to wait for him to finish regenerating?"
Yui Yuigahama asked worriedly, but Yukino beside her looked calm.
"You must have a way, right?"
Facing Yukino's question, Bai Yuze was about to say something when Yukino suddenly interrupted him.
"Stop talking nonsense. I know you have the key to this room."
"Uh... okay."
Bai Yuze couldn't help but scoff at himself. He had thought Yukino was relying on him, but it turned out he was the clown.
As the key was inserted, the iron door of room 207 slowly opened, like someone hiding under a blanket in winter unwilling to leave.
The room was pitch black, and they couldn't see what was inside.
"Zhu Daqiang, I know you're in there. How about we talk?"
Bai Yuze shouted a few times inside, but there was no response.
"Not there? Then I'll go talk to Yuan Xing. You know you didn't kill Yuan Xing, right?"
"I'll only count to three... 3... 2..."
"Alright, come in."
"Okay."
Hearing Zhu Daqiang's response, Bai Yuze grinned, then lit the Molotov cocktail in his hand.
With a graceful fiery arc, room 207 instantly became warm.
"Ah!!!"
Zhu Daqiang's heart-wrenching scream came, but Bai Yuze calmly threw a few more Molotov cocktails.
"Zhu Daqiang, I just thought about it. Your room is too dirty, so I'm cleaning it up for you."
"Why are you doing this? Can't we cooperate?"
Zhu Daqiang asked with a heart-wrenching voice, full of unwillingness and surprise.
"Heh, cooperation also requires a cooperative attitude. Your room is pitch black; who knows what would happen if I went in?
But I'm not a bad person. I didn't close the door, did I? Why don't you just come out of the room?"
Bai Yuze's voice was like a devil's whisper, breaking Zhu Daqiang's psychological defense.
Zhu Daqiang knew he couldn't go out no matter what, but the instinct for survival had already made him stop thinking.
He ran, he roared, flames erupting from his body.
The three of them quickly moved aside, and Zhu Daqiang, after rushing out of the room, plunged into room 206. The flames on his body ignited the bed in room 206, but incredibly, as soon as Zhu Daqiang left, the flames in room 207 disappeared.
Seeing this, Bai Yuze casually threw a Molotov cocktail into room 206, then closed the door and locked it with the key.
"Quick, time is limited. That iron door won't hold him for long."
At Bai Yuze's command, the three entered room 207, and in less than a minute, room 207 was turned upside down.
"Nothing, Xiao Ze. Do you think he hid that thing on him?"
Yui Yuigahama shouted anxiously, she could feel that the iron door of 206 was at its last gasp.
"A kitchen knife, where could he hide it?"
At this moment, Bai Yuze's brain was working at top speed.
Suddenly, he looked at the monitor on the table. He picked up the monitor, then raised his foot.
Bang!
Bai Yuze kicked the monitor apart, and the kitchen knife fell out of it.
"So it was hidden here. Everything inside was hollowed out by him. Let's go quickly now."
Yui Yuigahama exclaimed in surprise.
"No, not yet. We're currently stealing, and we'll be punished by the rules."
"Ah? So what do we do now?"
"Wait a minute... What time is it now?"
Yui Yuigahama quickly pulled out her phone to check the time.
"It was 7:50 before we came, and it's 8:30 now. I remember the clock said 8:50 before we arrived, so it should be 8:30 now."
"Tsk, time is almost up. Now we can only see if Zhu Daqiang can come out quickly."
With time so tight, a few drops of cold sweat appeared on Bai Yuze's forehead.
Bang!
The iron door of 206 was rammed open by Zhu Daqiang. He was charred all over, and his gaze instantly locked onto the three of them.
"You three bastards, I'm going to tear you to pieces!"
Zhu Daqiang had lost his mind at this point. He stepped onto the corridor, and the sticky sound of the corridor intertwined with Zhu Daqiang's heavy panting.
"Should we close the door?"
Yukino asked this question as she walked to the iron door, but Bai Yuze stopped her.
"No, don't close the door. This isn't our resting place after all, and who knows what might happen if we close the door.
But there will be a good show in a bit. If you're interested, you can choose to watch."
"A good show?" x2
The two girls said in unison, but their question was answered the next moment.
Suddenly, a long-limbed monster appeared behind Zhu Daqiang. Zhu Daqiang wanted to say something when he saw the monster, but he missed his chance.
Rip!
The fat and sturdy Zhu Daqiang was as fragile as a piece of paper in front of the long-limbed monster. The monster directly tore Zhu Daqiang in half, and this time, Zhu Daqiang's body gradually became transparent. After a while, only a mass of black gas remained on the ground.
The black gas seemed to have consciousness and wanted to escape, but before it could react, it was sucked into the monster's mouth.
"Um... do we really not need to close the door?"
Yui Yuigahama's voice trembled slightly; tearing a corpse in half alive was a bit too grotesque.
"No need, but you can give it a bag of the candy in your pocket. We still need its help."
Hearing Bai Yuze's hint, Yui Yuigahama quickly threw out the white sugar from her pocket. Due to her nervousness, she even forgot to tear open the packaging.
The monster outside the door seemed to recognize the white sugar. Its arm, about the height of an adult, allowed it to easily pick up things from the ground.
It held the bag of white sugar above its head, tore it open with a hand the size of a human head, and opened its large mouth to catch it below.
A bag of sugar was quickly eaten. It stood still, as if savoring the intoxicating taste.
After seeing the monster calm down, Bai Yuze took out Yuan Xing's knife.
"Alright, Zhu Daqiang's matter is settled. Now it's time to talk about our business, don't you agree, Yuan Xing?"
Yui Yuigahama saw Bai Yuze talking to himself and couldn't help but say to Yukino.
"Xiao Ze isn't sick, is he? What do you think, Xiao Xue?"
"Hard to say, let's observe first."
Yukino didn't understand Bai Yuze's behavior either. The two girls' gazes, like they were looking at an idiot, made Bai Yuze a bit awkward.
"Playing dead, are we? Just you wait."
After Bai Yuze finished speaking, he picked up the kitchen knife, looking determined to chop something down.
Just as the kitchen knife was about to touch Yuan Xing's knife, Yuan Xing's voice sounded.
"Wait!"
"Oh, playing dead? How are you alive again?"
Yuan Xing ignored Bai Yuze's teasing. At this moment, he only had one question: how did Bai Yuze see through his disguise.
"Can you tell me how you saw through my disguise? I'm attached to the knife, and I have both hearing and sight. I've been monitoring your every move. How did you know?"
"You mean that? I didn't know before, but now I do!"
Yuan Xing: ...
Crack!
The knife that Yuan Xing had transformed into was chopped in half by Bai Yuze with the kitchen knife.
A mass of black gas also emanated from the knife, but it was quickly absorbed by the monster outside the room.
Bai Yuze lied about Yuan Xing's question. When Zhu Daqiang and Yuan Xing were fighting, Bai Yuze realized that the knife in his hand was fake. Therefore, when Tuanzi asked him a question, he thought of a plan. He first deliberately explained his and Yukino's plan to Tuanzi, especially the matter of passing messages via notes.
As for why Tuanzi asked the question "really" about the way out, it was because Bai Yuze folded the note in half. One half said, "Something is listening above, cooperate."
The other half was a "drawing," and Bai Yuze faced the side with "words" towards Tuanzi, while his fingers covered the words "above." This resulted in Tuanzi seeing "Something is listening, cooperate."
This was also why he gave Tuanzi a thumbs-up after their conversation ended.
So, from Yuan Xing's perspective, Bai Yuze was just fiddling with the note and hadn't written any new information. Thus, the two completed their silent communication right under Yuan Xing's nose.
Since Tuanzi had heard about his and Yukino's experiences, she instantly understood Bai Yuze's goal, which was to have her ask him about the "true way out," as both Weird were interested in this matter.
To prevent Yuan Xing from escaping, he deliberately stated his conjectured way out, aiming to solidify Yuan Xing's belief in his "lamp under the dark" idea.
But he also admired Yuan Xing's courage to play such a dangerous game. If Zhu Daqiang hadn't said, "Where's your broken knife? Can't you condense it anymore?" Bai Yuze wouldn't have suspected the knife.
But since he chose a risky plan, he had to be prepared for the consequences of failure.
Risk and reward coexist.
Bai Yuze thought about Yuan Xing's actions.
Perhaps this was a case of being too clever for his own good.