"What do you need help with? I'll do everything I can to assist you."
The strange object was completely honest now. For some reason, as soon as it saw the dog chasing and biting them, it didn't even think of resisting; it just wanted to flee without looking back, as if it were an instinct.
But it remembered that it had never been chased by a dog even when it died, so why was it so afraid of dogs?
"How did you change the color of the door? Paint? But why didn't I smell paint?"
Bai Yuze wasn't in a hurry to state his request; instead, he asked the other party a question first.
"There's a special pigment water here. It doesn't have a pungent smell. Its only drawback is that it fades when it encounters other liquids."
The strange object confessed everything. At this moment, the roaring and howling from a distance made it shiver slightly.
"Is that so? Can you get me a bucket of it? I want blue."
The strange object nodded and then left.
Upon hearing Bai Yuze's request, Yukino asked, puzzled.
"Are you trying to mix yellow and blue to make green? Is that reliable? Why don't we just look for a green door directly?"
"Finding a green door directly is certainly possible, but the problem is we don't have a key. And isn't manually creating an already open green door simpler than finding a key?"
Yukino was stunned. She hadn't thought it could be done that way. She suddenly wanted to pry open Bai Yuze's head to see how many tricks he had inside.
"You can't be bound by the rules. You have to expand upon the given rules. For example, if the residential building prohibits pets, what if I put a Necklace on my own head, then turn around and report the strange object for keeping me as a pet? Wouldn't they explode?"
Yukino: ...
Yukino said Bai Yuze was quite a character...
Soon, the strange object returned, carrying a bucket of blue pigment liquid.
Bai Yuze took the wooden bucket. He first opened a yellow door, then directly splashed the blue pigment onto it. The yellow and blue mixed, turning green.
And the spatial structure inside the room also changed.
This scene left Yukino utterly bewildered.
"Let's go, why are you standing there?"
Bai Yuze called out to Yukino, then stepped into the green door.
Inside, it was relatively bright and clean, unlike other rooms which were dark and damp.
The furniture was simple. There was an iron chain on the table, and next to the chain was a slip of paper.
Bai Yuze reached out and touched the handwriting on the paper. It didn't fade, and the handwriting was the same as Yang Peng's. The paper was slightly old.
"This indeed looks somewhat like 'Yang Peng's' handwriting, but why hasn't this slip of paper been corrupted?"
Bai Yuze was a bit confused, but to clear up his doubts, he still read the content on the slip of paper.
"Hello, dear player, I'm glad you found this note in such a desperate place. I have some words I want to convey to you. Sometimes a single sentence can be incredibly beneficial, even if it only has a few words."
"2. Please ignore the children in the basement; they do not exist."
"2. It is not allowed to entrust them with tasks, but it can be forgiven in the basement."
"3. Resistance has curbed their arrogance and brought us hope, so do not stop your steps."
"4. For those who move forward, there will always be obstacles on the path. Please arm yourselves and meet the enemy."
"5. Have you lifted the mattress? You will find what I wish to entrust to you."
"Where is hint one? Why does it feel a bit chaotic? Is it because it has no value that it hasn't been corrupted?"
Yukino fell into thought, looking at the new hints Yang Peng had given. She felt that some parts of these hints were problematic, and some lacked logic.
"I think I understand why this slip of paper hasn't been corrupted."
Bai Yuze took a deep breath. If it weren't for Yang Peng's reminder, he wouldn't have suspected that guy until now.
"Why?"
"Because the previous hints left by Yang Peng were too obvious, so the residential building would gradually corrupt those slips of paper.
To solve this, Yang Peng came up with a new method: an acrostic."
"Acrostic? Please... disobey... resist... Front Desk...?"
"Not just that. Do you see those Arabic numerals? Find the corresponding characters and form a sentence: 'You've got the wrong person.'
Put together, it's 'Please disobey the Front Desk, you've got the wrong person.'"
"Does that mean the Front Desk is fake?"
"He never explicitly answered that he was the Front Desk. Because he always helped us solve problems, we subconsciously assumed he was the Front Desk."
"But we did receive help from the Front Desk, didn't we? The note in room 107 mentioned 'the Front Desk's help,' didn't it?"
Yukino immediately thought of the note left by the guy who called himself the "Boss" in the cabinet of room 107, which mentioned the phrase "the Front Desk's help."
"That's true, but you have to understand that the word 'help' has no time limit.
For example, if the real Front Desk left a key before he died, helping us open something, that still counts as the Front Desk helping us. His death doesn't negate his help to us."
"Looking at it this way, I originally thought the Front Desk just had a privacy habit, but every time before opening the door, I could always hear some movement, like the sound of clothes rubbing..."
Bai Yuze's mind was a bit jumbled. He sat on the bed and took a few deep breaths, trying to calm himself down.
"So what do we do now? Is Yui Yuigahama in danger?"
Yukino felt a sense of despair. The truth was getting closer, but the danger was also increasing.
"No, Tuanzi won't be in danger. He still needs to use Tuanzi to exchange things with us."
"What things?"
"The dog! His main purpose is to make us bring the dog up there, and he can use Tuanzi to threaten us, preventing us from reporting him."
Bai Yuze carefully analyzed the connections between the rules, trying to find a way to resolve this crisis.
The strange object outside the door yawned. As everyone knows, yawns are contagious.
So Yukino also subconsciously yawned.
And it was this yawn that reminded Bai Yuze of something.
"Do you remember how long it's been since we rested?"
Upon hearing Bai Yuze's question, Yukino immediately began to recall when they last rested.
Suddenly, she too was stunned.
"Apparently, ever since you got that cleaver, we haven't rested!"
"That's right. It seems the power of this Town-Suppression Strange Object is even stronger than I imagined."
The residential building would affect the emotions of those who didn't sleep or rest.
But those holding the Town-Suppression Strange Object and their allies were exempt from this negative effect.
"No wonder Tuanzi was fine even after staying up all night before, terrified of the male corpse reanimating. So the male corpse considered her a companion!"
The male corpse and Yui Yuigahama were in the same room, so from the beginning, Yui Yuigahama and the male corpse were roommates, meaning they were allies, and thus she received the protection of the Town-Suppression Strange Object.
Therefore, when the monster knocked on the door, the male corpse would pull out a surgical knife to scare away the monster, essentially protecting Yui Yuigahama.
"So, looking at it this way, when the male corpse was chasing you and Tuanzi, Tuanzi had no need to run at all."