Outside the window, dark clouds were everywhere and the wind was blowing wildly. The mottled leaves were blown into messy shapes, as if the tree was about to rise from the ground in the next second.
Lightning struck, illuminating this eerie hotel that stood alone in the wilderness.
Baili Xin was wearing a silk pajamas, leaning lazily on the back of a chair, looking around.
This is the lobby of the hotel. There are seven people, including him, sitting around a round table. Each of them has a piece of paper and a pen in front of them.
An old man, a high school boy, a middle-aged man in a suit, a girl in a floral dress, a young man with tattoos and a buzz cut, and a young man in a surgical gown.
Everyone's eyes were filled with confusion and fear.
I feel confused because I don't know why I am here.
The horror was because there was a large rattan suitcase placed in the middle of the hall.
The suitcase was open, and inside it lay a long-haired woman with a pale face and her limbs folded in an extremely twisted posture.
The woman was wearing a red dress, and there were obvious five-finger pinch marks on both sides of her neck, and her body also had varying degrees of bruises and corpse spots.
He must have been strangled to death.
Everyone looked around the strange room and the strangers around in panic. When they saw Baili Xin, everyone's eyes were filled with amazement, and even the fear on their faces was diluted a lot.
Baili Xin looked to be only about twenty-one or twenty-two years old, with stunningly beautiful features, yet without any femininity.
He was tall and handsome, and his every move revealed a lazy aristocratic temperament. He could attract all attention just by sitting there leisurely.
The slender black eyes were like the sea water covered with a layer of mist, mysterious and unpredictable.
Perhaps he had just been woken up, the young man lazily leaned back in his chair. He lowered his eyes, his thick black eyelashes trembled slightly in the air, and there were some ripples at the end of his eyes. The dim light swept down, shining on his soft flaxen hair, shrouding it in a hazy golden light.
Absolutely beautiful and pure.
It looks like a stunning work of art displayed in a museum, or like an ink fairy walking out of a scroll.
Ding!
While several people were distracted, a sudden prompt sound suddenly appeared in everyone's mind.
The next second, an electronic sound rang out.
Welcome all players to enter the immersive escape game. I am the service system that will accompany you until the end of the game. This round is a warm-up game. After clearing the level, you can enter the first trial task. After completing the trial task, you can enter the game lobby.
The background story is posted below.
One rainy night, seven strangers were trapped in a hotel, where you found a female corpse, and the murderer was among you seven.
Conditions for passing the level: Find the murderer and fill in his/her name on a piece of paper. Those who fill in the name correctly win the game and get points as rewards.
Friendly reminder: Points can be used to redeem game props.
The player with the most votes or who fills in the wrong form will be considered to have lost the game, and the player who loses the game will be punished.
The time limit is 24 hours. Please do not leave the hotel during the game, otherwise it will be regarded as a foul and the offender will be punished.
Punishment: beheading.
The game process has been synchronized to the novice area of the game live broadcast room. I wish all players a happy game.
The electronic sound stopped abruptly.
The radio in the hotel made a rather old-fashioned "crackling" sound. "Here is a missing person notice. The following are the characteristics: female, thin, about 165cm tall, long hair, 20 years old, wearing a red dress when she disappeared, with a history of mild mental illness. Anyone who finds her please call 01-xxxxx, there will be a generous reward."
The announcer's voice was icy cold. Suddenly, thunder roared outside the window. The girl in the floral dress covered her head and screamed, "Where the hell are we? I was in the office just now. Are we being kidnapped?"
However, her question obviously had no effect, and all she got in response was a group of confused faces.
No one knew how they got here, and everyone looked unhappy.
The man in the suit looked around and took a deep breath. "How about everyone tell us how you got here? Even if we were kidnapped, we can know why we encountered this if we get some information."
The cold electric sound just now came from above their heads, but when he looked up, he saw that there were no wires above his head except for the triangular beams that were about to fall apart. Even the lights that illuminated the hotel were old-fashioned kerosene lamps.
Seeing that no one was paying attention to him, the man in the suit continued, "Since it was me who proposed it, I'll go first. My name is Zhou Guang, and I'm a lawyer. I just finished a court session today, and I was driving home a second ago."
After the man in the suit finished speaking, the air fell silent again.
He licked his dry lips awkwardly, looked around and fixed his sight on the girl in the floral skirt. Just as he was about to say something, he was interrupted by a roar.
The tattooed man slammed the table and said, "Fuck, kidnapping! If it was kidnapping, would we be sitting here peacefully? Which kidnapping on TV doesn't involve tying hands, legs and covering faces?"
Everyone looked at each other.
"Are you guys stupid?" The man with tattoos casually pulled out his phone from his pocket. "If you have any problems, call the police. Don't you know how to call the police?"
Zhou Guang was stunned for a moment.
Cell phone? It's still there? Why didn't he think of that
Not only Zhou Guang, but even the old man who had been sitting there, the girl, the man in surgical gown, and the high school boy took out their cell phones from their pockets.
After a while, five mobile phones were placed on the table, and the signals in the upper right corner all showed a big "x".
"What kind of remote mountain forest is this? There's not even a signal." The tattooed man threw his phone on the table. "I can't get through. Don't waste your energy."
The hope that had just been ignited by the crowd was extinguished again.
"My name is Sheng Gudao, and I'm a university teacher who has been retired for many years." Just when people thought the atmosphere had returned to freezing point, the old man spoke up, "Before coming here, I was practicing calligraphy."
"Also, I'm not the murderer."
The old man moved his right sleeve towards the middle of the table, revealing his ink-stained cuff.
His hands were shaking. “I have Parkinson’s disease. I can’t even hold a pen. How can I kill a young woman and stuff her into a box?”
Two people spoke one after another. The girl in the floral skirt spoke first, "My name is Li Cancan. I'm 25 years old and I'm interning at an information company. Before coming here, I was working overtime at the company."
After she finished speaking, she added: "I am not the murderer either."
High school boy: "My name is Xia Chi, I'm a student, I just finished the college entrance examination, I have never killed anyone."
The man in surgical gown was still wearing bloody medical latex gloves. When it was his turn, he quickly took off the gloves and forced a stiff smile. "My name is Liang Xi. Yes, I'm a veterinarian. I was cutting the balls of a male cat when I came. This blood is cat blood, not human blood! I didn't kill the human."
Although the introductions were very sloppy, at least I knew their names and occupations.
In the hall, only the man with tattoos and the good-looking young man were left without an introduction.
The man with the tattooed arms said irritably, "My name is Yang Hao, I'm in the capital circulation business, I'm too lazy to kill people."
Li Cancan repeated, "Fund flow?"
The man in the suit pursed his lips and explained, "It's what people commonly call 'loan sharking'. I've fought a few cases like this before. Loan sharks always like to give themselves a good and dignified name."
The tattooed man glared at Zhou Guang and said, "That's something we both agreed to. What's the problem?"
"You are the murderer, aren't you?" Retired teacher Shengu Dao paused and said, "Isn't it common for debt collectors to kill debtors who can't pay back the loan sharks they borrowed?"
Everyone looked at the man with tattoos.
The man with the tattooed arms was not happy. He glared at Shengu and said, "Don't spit blood on me, old man. Which eye of yours saw me kill someone?"
The tattooed man tapped the tabletop vigorously with his fingertips. He anxiously took out a soft cigarette from his pocket, lit it, and then held the cigarette between his index and middle fingers and cursed at the old man: "If you say one more word, I might really kill you."
White smoke rose from the cigarette butt into the air.
The old man turned pale and trembled without saying anything, but everyone's expression changed and they looked at the man with tattoos with suspicion in their eyes.
There was no other sound in the hall except the whistling outside.
The girl covered her nose and said, "Um, can you put out the cigarette?"
The man with the tattooed arms glared at her and said, "This is Huazi!"
Then, he swept his fierce eyes around, "What are you looking at? Are you suspicious of me? Just wait, I'm going to call the police right now. It's the 21st century, how could there be places without signal coverage?"
He snorted coldly, picked up his phone, walked to the window, and suddenly pushed it open.
In an instant, strong winds blew in from all directions.
The kerosene lamp was blown all over the place, and the shadows of the people were reflected on the wall, like a group of alien creatures with bared fangs and claws, howling restlessly.
The wind was blowing loudly near the window, and the man with tattoos was trying to find a signal on his mobile phone. The cold wind blew in through the window, causing Li Cancan to shrink her shoulders.
Seeing this, the man in the suit was about to close the window, but the man with tattoos suddenly shouted, "Come here quickly, there's a signal!"
I saw his left hand holding the phone stretched out of the window, "Fuck, just a little bit more."
He held the cigarette in his mouth, and the burning cigarette butt was particularly bright in the strong wind.
He then swore something incoherently, his eyes fixed on the screen.
Upon hearing this, the man in the suit, the old man, and the veterinarian quickly stood up and came behind the man with tattoos, and found that the signal was jumping back and forth between one grid and "x".
Several people's eyes suddenly lit up.
He was right, there really is a signal here!
No matter who locked them up in this hellhole, as long as there is a signal, they can dial the emergency number and the police will definitely be able to find them based on the location!
"I advise you not to get too close to the outside." Just as everyone was overjoyed, a voice came from behind them.
The voice was slightly hoarse and lazy, as soft as a Persian cat that had just woken up.
Everyone turned around and saw the gorgeous young man in pajamas standing up and dragging his chair back a few centimeters to avoid the wind. "The system just said that leaving the hotel will be punished."
The man with tattoos on his arms was still leaning against the window with one hand, and most of his body was already leaning out.
Although he didn't believe the young man's words, he was still amazed by the young man's beauty. The man with the tattooed arms couldn't help but soften his voice: "Little beauty, are you worried about your brother? Don't be afraid, your brother will protect you."
A strong wind was blowing outside the window, blowing the tattooed man's clothes to the ground.
The man with tattoos held up his phone, grinning and looking at Baili Xin with malicious eyes, "When I rescue you, you must thank me. I'm not afraid of these ghosts, and didn't it say to leave? My feet are still in the house, so I'm not leaving..."
Before he finished speaking, a cold light suddenly flashed before his eyes.
Ding! The player has been found to have violated the rules of the game and has been punished. Penalty: beheading.
A round head fell from mid-air, and the next second, the body of the man with tattoos fell headfirst outside the hotel under the influence of gravity.
Once again, we remind all players to abide by the rules of the game and not to leave the hotel.
Everyone stared blankly at the scene that suddenly happened before their eyes.
The air was dead silent.
The expression of the man with tattoos was very strange, half of it was a lewd smile, and half of it was filled with fear of death.
The two expressions intertwined together, making his entire face look hideously distorted.
On the corpse on the ground, the neck was neatly cut off by something, and blood spurted out along the neck!
The first one to come to his senses was the man in the suit. He quickly closed the window with trembling arms and sat back in his seat first. The others also returned to their seats in a daze after a while.
After a few seconds, Li Cancan finally broke down and cried, "What the hell is this? I just don't want to go to work, but compared to this, I would rather go to work."
The expressions on the faces of the other people were not very good either.
The man with tattoos had just demonstrated to them with his own actions that the ghost voice was not a bluff at all.
They may have really fallen into some weird game that cannot be explained by science, and this game is more harsh than they imagined. It cannot tolerate others taking advantage of text loopholes to play tricks on it!
So what the system said just now was true? There really is a murderer lurking among them? !
In an instant, the people who realized this felt their scalps tingling, and when they looked at the people around them, their eyes were filled with vigilance.
"My name is Baili Xin," the beautiful young man said when everyone was about to collapse, "I am... an administrator. I was sleeping before I came here."
The young man's voice still had that lazy tone, and he looked listless.
He leaned back in his chair, his dark eyes calm, as if he had neither surprise nor fear at all about the strange things happening before his eyes.
Infected by the young man's calmness, the emotions of the panicked people gradually calmed down.
Li Cancan stared at Baili Xin's slender neck: "Is your last name Bai?"
Baili Xin: "No, my surname is Baili, and my given name is Xin, the same as King Zhou Di Xin."
Everyone suddenly realized.
Perhaps it was the benefit of living a long life, the old teacher was the first to calm down and said in a deep voice, "Perhaps the murderer is the man with tattoos who just died. I remember his name seemed to be Yang Hao."
"I just doubted him a little bit, and he rushed to the window in a panic. If he wasn't guilty, why would he be so anxious? He just said he was looking for a signal. Is it possible that he saw that the murder was exposed, so he used the excuse of looking for a signal to observe the terrain, but in fact he was looking for the right time to escape?"
This one sentence made everyone's heart rise to their throat again, even Li Cancan stopped crying.
Li Cancan: "Yes, the old man is right. Yang Hao is too suspicious. And didn't the system just say that this is just a warm-up game? It must not be difficult. The murderer should be Yang Hao."
After thinking about it, several people found Yang Hao more and more suspicious.
"But we can't jump to conclusions without direct evidence," Liang Xi licked the corners of his dry lips nervously, "The system says that those with the most votes and those who filled in the wrong numbers will be punished."
"If, if we fill it in wrongly, we will end up like Yang Hao."
The scene fell silent again, and the feeling of oppression squeezed everyone's nerves in the stiff air.
"Can I check the time on your phone?" A lazy voice came from the old teacher's side. "I didn't bring my phone with me when I went to bed."
The old teacher broke free from his fear and looked up to find that Baili Xin had been standing behind him without him knowing when.
Baili Xin is about 185cm tall. When the other person looked at him with his jade-like eyes, the old teacher even vaguely saw stars in them.
Because of Parkinson's disease, Shengudao's hands were shaking. He turned on his phone and raised it upwards. "It's 20:18 Imperial time now."
Baili Xin looked at the phone screen calmly.
China Mobile is written in the upper left corner, the signal and battery level are in the upper right corner, and there are two rows of time display in the middle of the screen.
20:18 Imperial Time
2025/09/16
Baili Xin then asked the others: "Are you at the same point?"
The others looked at their phones and nodded in unison.
Baili Xin's long eyelashes trembled slightly in the air, hiding the expression in his eyes. He said nothing more, but walked straight to the body.
Everyone got goosebumps at the thought of spending 24 hours with this corpse in the hotel.
Just when everyone was afraid to move, Shengudao stood up tremblingly and walked behind Baili Xin, "The corpse won't lie, let's take a look at the corpse for any clues first."
Elder Shen's face turned pale, but he still forced himself to look at it for a while. "There are two handprints on the neck of the corpse. The handprints are slightly larger, so we can rule out Li Cancan, who has a smaller palm."
Li Cancan let out a long sigh.
Baili Xin continued, "Also, the handprints were very dark in color, and the victim's neck was a little deformed, which shows that the murderer must have been very strong."
Zhou Guang, the man in a suit: "Then Mr. Shen is ruled out."
Of the seven suspects, only five remain.
Shengudao looked at it for a while and then returned to his seat. "I am old now and my observation skills are not very detailed. This is all I can see."
Not long after, Baili Xin also left the body. He walked around the hotel lobby and then sat back in his seat.
His lazy eyes swept over everyone, but now they were as sharp as a steel knife: "I know who the murderer is!"
Five pairs of eyes looked at Baili Xin almost at the same time.
Outside the window, a flash of lightning flashed, followed by a loud bang!
Amidst the lightning and thunder, the sky seemed to have a hole in it, and heavy rain fell down, making the windows rattle, as if countless invisible hands were knocking on the doors and windows, impatiently trying to invade the hotel.
The kerosene lamp flickered a few times, and the room became dim and bright, burying half of Baili Xin's body in the darkness.
Baili Xin tapped the tabletop lightly with his index finger, making a rhythmic tapping sound.
Li Cancan's eyes swept over Baili Xin's hands. His five fingers were white with distinct joints. The length and thickness of each knuckle were just right, making it impossible to look away.
The swaying light cast a shadow on Baili Xin's face, and his thick eyelashes cast a shadow, covering the expression in his eyes.
Zhou Guang asked anxiously: "Who is the murderer?!"