[3 hours 20 minutes remaining until the end of Day 3]
[1 hour 20 minutes remaining until nightfall on Day 3]
The woman's voice appeared and vanished in a short amount of time.
But for the three people present, the appearance of this thing was undoubtedly a very bad sign.
The anomaly from 304 had begun to spread, and it was now tracking them.
"Why did she appear out here? Shouldn't she be inside 304?"
Maki couldn't quite understand the reason for its appearance.
"It might be because we took something that it thinks we shouldn't have. Since we've seen this one, the other is likely to show up as well. Let's go, we need to move carefully. There's no telling what we'll run into next."
As he spoke, Gao Hai reached up and tugged at the collar of his slightly damp clothes, pretending that everything was fine as he continued forward.
Merely getting close to that female anomaly had caused his clothes to become soaked with boiling water, inflicting intense agony upon him.
As the curse he bore gradually deepened, the intensity of the contamination from those beast-like [Parents] seemed to be growing stronger. It was as if his very existence was slowly shifting toward the poor girl's position, becoming like her, tormented and abused by the power of her [Parents].
Come to think of it, everything I've seen, heard, and felt has been from[her]perspective. And the final stage of this curse is my execution, using her method of death, forcing me to experience the same pain. It's like through this curse, I'm being forced to live her life, to experience her existence.
The problem now is that, for the moment, I'm the only one in this condition. But Maki and Kaguya are already showing signs of being cursed. Will they reach this stage too? If so, how much time is left until that happens?
These questions with no clear answers left Gao Hai somewhat unsettled.
"If only we could use that key to get directly into 309."
Maki sighed under her breath.
"It's best not to entertain such fantasies. We've already tried. That key can't open critical rooms like that. Our current situation is already the best we could hope for. The only problem left is finding the place." Kaguya, for once, was being more talkative, earnestly cautioning Maki.
"Yes, yes, great-auntie. Hmm, there seems to be some kind of sound up ahead, be careful..."
Maki had just replied when she noticed some unusual movements.
The three of them hid once again. Soon, they heard the sounds of a commotion approaching from the distance.
[Come on, who's afraid of who? Hit me! You're a coward if you don't, hahaha!]
[Are you fucking blind? What's the big idea, throwing a bottle at my door?]
[I'll throw it wherever the hell I want! So you wanna fight, huh? Come on, come on! Scared, are you? Hahahaha—]
A man reeking of alcohol was shouting curses.
His angry neighbor, however, didn't dare to approach, because he knew this man would actually get violent and didn't care about the consequences.
Even if the police were called, unless someone was seriously injured in a fight, it would just be considered a mutual affray. And this man never accepted mediation; once he was at the police station, his goal was to get both parties sent to the detention center. The man's thinking was simple: the detention center was a convenient place to hide from his debt collectors for a few days. But for his neighbors, who had jobs and families to support, this obstinate bastard was utterly repulsive.
Another reenactment, another residual echo of the past.
This time, however, Gao Hai was no longer the only one who could hear these things.
"Those voices just now... Hai-kun, after you were cursed, have you been hearing things like this all along?"
Maki turned to look at Gao Hai. The distorted voices didn't seem to have affected her much. In contrast, having now personally experienced what Gao Hai was going through, her concern for him immediately deepened.
"Will the next stage involve boiling water, or are there other stages in between?"
Kaguya's face was a little pale, but she quickly composed herself and turned to ask Gao Hai.
"Something like that. In any case, be careful from now on. It's not a pleasant experience."
As Gao Hai spoke, he glanced at the two girls' slightly bulky school uniforms.
To deal with the various effects of the curse, both Maki and Kaguya had padded their clothes with multiple layers of paper towels and cloth towels. This way, when the curse that made boiling water appear out of thin air struck, they could use these absorbent materials to soak up as much of the water as possible and remove it from their bodies quickly, thereby reducing the severity of the burns and slowing its effect.
However, they would only know how effective this measure truly was when the moment finally arrived.
[Just ignore that family. As long as that disgusting guy doesn't do anything too outrageous, just let it be.]
[He's just disgusting to look at. How can people like that exist in this world?]
More and more residual echoes were surfacing, as if taking that toy outside had activated the memories of this twisted place.
[That whole family should just die. His wife is disgusting too. A couple of days ago she secretly picked vegetables from 303's patch, and when she got caught, she trampled the whole garden!]
[And what about their daughter, is something wrong with her...? She acts like an idiot all day long, jumping in fright if you just ask her a question. And then her mom actually yelled at me just for talking to her daughter. She's completely insane!]
Voices of disgust, expressions of disgust, actions of disgust. No matter what feelings they started with, they all turned into the same revulsion in the end.
[Who cares. Last time, that young guy from 309 tried to look out for their daughter, and you saw what a scene they made. They practically forced him to move out.]
[Sigh, I just wish those debt collectors would stop banging on doors in the middle of the night. One time they even got the wrong door and knocked on mine.]
All the voices pieced together bit by bit, assembling what had happened in the past, forming a corner of the apartment's history.
Faced with that repulsive couple, whom everyone feared getting involved with, the initial conflicts gradually gave way to complete disregard from everyone else. They started pretending the family didn't exist, turning a blind eye to whatever happened. Once something becomes a habit, it starts to feel natural. For example, everyone knew the family's daughter was constantly being tormented, constantly being abused. But what did that have to do with them? Was there really any benefit to getting involved?
Only one newcomer, a young man trying to make it in the big city, who had moved into this old apartment building to save some money, couldn't bear to see the child's suffering and decided to act.
But his kindness only brought him endless trouble, eventually forcing him to move out. After this clear example, no one was willing to get involved with that family's affairs anymore. It even reached a point where the other tenants' children learned from the adults' attitudes, ignoring, insulting, and even bullying the child.
Everything was sliding into the abyss.
The light gradually vanished without a trace.
Or perhaps, it had never existed at all.
There was just one moment when she had the illusion, the moment she thought things might actually change.
"Hah..."
Gao Hai had already taken off his shirt and was moving around bare-chested.
The burns on his body had multiplied. His skin was red and blistered, or in some places, entire patches of flesh were scalded raw.
Although the total number of injuries wasn't yet as extensive as it had been in the second loop, covering his entire body, the pain Gao Hai was enduring was already severe enough to start affecting his movements.
"Still no good..."
Kaguya took a deep breath and removed the badge. The Rescue Team uniform that had almost fully formed on her body dissipated, revealing the school uniform she wore underneath.
"Are we still missing some condition? Or is that door really so well hidden that we can't find it even after searching this area back and forth so many times?"
Nearby, Maki was also panting. She had worn the badge once before, holding out until she could no longer bear it, but to no avail.
Perhaps they could find the entrance to 309 by wearing the Rescue Team badge and having the uniform form on their bodies. This was one possibility Gao Hai, Maki, and Kaguya had considered, and it was the reason for their attempts just now.
But the results were not ideal.
Even with the Rescue Team badges on, they still couldn't find the location of 309.
During the process, they had also tried to replicate the tactic Gao Hai used on the first floor, attempting to immerse themselves in the role of rescuers and call for assistance, but no Rescue Team members responded.
In contrast, they had encountered the two [Parents] wandering this area many times.
And each time, the distance between those two things and the three of them seemed to be gradually closing.
Even when they put a great distance between them, it wouldn't be long before those two things would slowly wander back into their vicinity.
It was as if they had some way of locating them, some method of sensing their position.
Perhaps it's because we have that thing in our possession?
At this moment, there was about half an hour left before the light completely disappeared and the dark of night set in.
Nearly an hour of exhaustive searching had yielded no results.
At one point, Kaguya even came up with the idea of using the blood key to open a door connected to one of the main entrances on the first floor, to see if that could summon the Rescue Team. However, not only did this attempt fail to open the door, but it also attracted the [Parents], forcing the three of them to flee in disarray.
It seemed that because of the great conflict between the first and third floors, forcibly opening a door to the first floor from the third would only attract the attention of the anomalies.
Gao Hai had expected things wouldn't be this easy, but now, facing a dilemma with no apparent solution, he had to admit he was getting a little anxious.
"Wearing a Rescue Team uniform allows entry to 309, because Xusheng was the Rescue Team's captain. After the entire apartment became a horror story, he was connected to the Rescue Team anomaly and maintained his sanity for a long time until Sanchez ruined everything... Tsk, the first floor is the Rescue Team, the third floor is the source. Maybe because we're on the third floor, it's hard for the Rescue Team on the first floor to reach this place. If only there was a way to connect the third and first floors..."
"Based on my experience from the last loop, if the degree of transformation is high enough, it's possible to summon the Rescue Team directly on the third floor. To break through the opposing forces of the first and third floors and make the Rescue Team appear here, there needs to be an almost fully transformed individual present. But this requires immense willpower. I think I'm the only one who could possibly do it, the only one who can retain self-awareness while on the verge of complete transformation."
After some serious thought, Gao Hai proposed this idea.
"I disagree. We leave together. Now is not the time for some heroic sacrifice."
Maki immediately expressed her absolute opposition without a moment's hesitation.
"I also disagree. We haven't reached the point where we need to sacrifice someone yet. We need to think again, there must be a clue we've overlooked."
Although Kaguya's personality was cold, she also chose to object at this moment. She wasn't truly heartless, after all. As long as they still had options, she couldn't bring herself to completely give up on Gao Hai's life.
"Alright... then let's keep this as a backup plan for now."
Gao Hai nodded slightly and said no more.
He had genuinely considered whether he should just put on the badge and try to forcibly retain his consciousness to summon the Rescue Team while undergoing complete transformation.
But the existence of his reset 'cheat' meant that if he sacrificed himself, the end result would inevitably be starting everything over from the beginning, rendering it completely meaningless.
So, I have to think of another way.
What if I have that Miwa Maeda wear the badge and let her be completely transformed, then have her summon the Rescue Team members?
No, that won't work. Summoning Rescue Team members requires a certain degree of active consciousness. A fully transformed member would definitely head to the first floor. Even if I also wore a badge, I might not be able to command them. The risk is high and the chance of success is low. It's not worth trying for now.
Is there really a clue that has been overlooked? Something we can use now, that we need to use, but have missed?
Clues...
Xusheng's message pointed to 109, and the key to 304 found in 109 led us to Sanchez's last words, and finally to where we are now.
These clues and pieces of information were all interlinked, genuinely paving a path to survival for them. It made no sense for a problem to arise at this final, crucial step.
So, the clue they haven't used is... the cassette tape?
Something that had been long forgotten suddenly surfaced in his mind.
"Open a door, a door to a room with a cassette player. We overlooked the tape. The mediation tape between the residents of 309 and 304, there might be a clue hidden inside it," Gao Hai said urgently to the two beside him, having come to a sudden realization.
Maki and Kaguya seemed dazed for a moment, but then they understood. Kaguya almost immediately walked to a nearby door, inserted the blood key into the lock, and opened it with a light twist. Meanwhile, Maki pulled the stack of cassette tapes Gao Hai had given her from her backpack and followed Kaguya, ready to enter.
Beyond the opened doorway was a room clearly located on the second floor, its floor covered in a shallow layer of water.
For a moment, none of them recognized which room it was, as its furnishings were quite different from the other rooms they had visited. This room contained an old radio, and in a glass cabinet in the corner were musical instruments like a suona and an erhu. On a table sat a small cassette player.
They walked into the room and closed the door.
Before Kaguya could even get the cassette player, the door behind them burst open, and the old man's corpse from Room 201 leaped out.
If Kaguya hadn't reacted in time and thrown out a Blood Puppet, letting the fleshy puppets entangle the old man, one of the three would have certainly been injured.
"So this is Room 201, the one we didn't explore because the corpse was too active? Tsk, come to think of it, except for this loop, we never had the Obsession Items to explore this place before. I subconsciously wrote it off as a dead end..."
Gao Hai muttered, only now realizing where they were. He couldn't help but think of Lao Guo and that female spy.
If those two hadn't been morons dead-set on causing trouble, and had instead led the newcomers through the game like proper veterans, they wouldn't be in such a mess right now.
But grievances aside, now that they had the cassette player, the focus returned to the information on the tape.
Since the Blood Puppet couldn't hold the second-floor corpse for long, the trio decided to return to the room where the others were. They left the room, with the last person out retrieving the Blood Puppet. They slipped out the door before the old man's corpse could get up, and the person outside shut the door again. Then, they reinserted the blood key into the lock, knocked gently, and only opened the door after getting a response, thus returning to the room where Sun Dajun and the others were hiding.
"How did it go? Did you find anything?"
asked Green, the most anxious and afraid of being abandoned.
"Be quiet. We have an important clue here. We need to confirm its contents."
As he spoke, Gao Hai moved a table to the center of the room. Kaguya stepped forward, placed the cassette player with a tape already inserted on it, and pressed the play button.
No sound, no movement.
"Is it broken?"
Kaguya paused, not quite understanding what was wrong.
"Did you forget to turn on the power?"
Maki looked at it for a couple of seconds, then glanced quizzically at her electronically illiterate great-auntie.
"Well... it seems I'm not particularly adept with this kind of old-fashioned electronics."
Kaguya cleared her throat, lightly brushing off the embarrassing moment. Gao Hai had already picked up the cassette player, found the power button, and turned it on. Unsurprisingly, although the device had been in the Shirakawa Apartments for at least a year or two, its battery was still fully charged, and it immediately began to play the tape.
Screee—
The first thing that came out was a stretch of chaotic, meaningless static.
Then, after the noise had lasted for several seconds, the sound of a middle-aged man clearing his throat began to emerge from within.
[This is the XX Police Precinct. The time is... (after a standard official statement) We will now conduct a mediation session for both parties. So, who would like to state their case first? One side speaks, then the other. No interrupting, no shouting. Let's all try to be civil, nice and civil, alright? We should strive to turn conflict into friendship. That's the harmonious way, right? So, let's have this young man here speak first...]
The opening words from the middle-aged man were drawn out, tinged with a slow, deliberate bureaucratic tone that was somewhat irritating to listen to.
But then, after the middle-aged man's voice faded, another, younger man's voice followed, causing Gao Hai to look up in slight surprise.
That voice... could it be...?
________________________________________
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