Deep in the Living
Chapter 388 - 376 The Little Boy

Chapter 388: Chapter 376 The Little Boy

The tungsten filament bulb flickered unsteadily in the hallway.

The so-called Regent Hotel was located on the top floor of this old building, without an elevator, only accessible by narrow stairs.

Step!

Stepping onto the last step,

the cold white light simultaneously seeped in, spilling onto the squad members.

The hotel lobby was right in front,

the solid wood counter also had the words "Regent Hotel" pasted on it, while the light tubes on the ceiling buzzed constantly due to the ballasts.

Strangely,

the hotel owner seemed to have known in advance they would come, already walking out from behind the counter and standing straight in the center of the hall.

Black hair still hung down in front,

as the group appeared, his right arm raised horizontally, perpendicular to his body, pointing towards the hotel passage.

"I’ll go take a look."

As usual, Yu Ze walked at the forefront, approaching the strangely shaped hotel owner.

The eyes behind the sunglasses were lined with Five Emperor Coins, collecting all information in the environment, even capturing the flow of the Fear Entity.

As he moved within two meters,

Bzzz bzzz bzzz~

An electromagnetic sound came from the owner’s waist.

It was a cassette tape player hanging on his waist, inexplicably pressing the play button without anyone touching it, emitting a pre-recorded sound.

"Officer, I just heard cries for help from one of the rooms! I was too scared to go and confirm it, so I leave this matter in your hands."

As the playback ended,

the hotel owner turned around in a stiff motion, pointing to a keychain on the counter, which could open all the rooms in the hotel.

Yu Ze leaped forward and grabbed the keys.

Then he approached the entrance of the hotel passage the owner pointed to, with icy white light still spilling onto the tiled surface, no carpet laid out, no suspicious substance related to red.

"Another incident has happened; your sparrow really comes in handy, countryman! Gather some corner coins, and even if you need to spend money to take a bus, you won’t feel bad.

I haven’t perceived any clown factors yet; has your sparrow reacted?"

"No."

"Then we can focus on the incident, but the incident ahead seems to have some timeliness; we need to quickly find the hidden culprit.

Considering the location where the note was discovered, we just need to search the guest rooms facing towards the street.

I’ll open the door! Youzhen and countryman, be ready to move from behind any time."

"Received."

Youzhen and Luo Di replied almost simultaneously, seemingly the exploration action leadership had shifted to Yu Ze.

Arriving at the first guest room door,

Yu Ze didn’t use any knocking or verbal explanation, directly used keys to open the door quickly. In his eyes, since the hotel owner viewed them as police, this kind of forced door-opening was reasonable.

No smell of blood, no anomaly.

The "normal guest" with hair covering their face laid on the bed like a dummy, doing nothing but slightly turning their face towards the door.

Then it was the next guest room.

Continuing with the same procedure, until the sixth guest room door opened.

The light inside flickered unsteadily,

blood stains were clearly visible on the ground, refracting bright red color under cold white light.

Following the blood stains, one would find a body lying in a pool of blood, with the scalp completely stripped, the flesh and blood blurred, it seemed they arrived a step late.

However.

Inside the bathroom door made of plastic and frosted glass, the sound of running water was heard, and the bathroom light was also kept on, it seemed the killer hadn’t left the crime scene, even washing the blood off their body inside.

Although the bathroom door structure seemed simple, perception could not penetrate inside.

This belonged to a Corner event, simulated by the ubiquitous Fear Entity event, seemingly the Fear Entity was suppressing their senses, trying to recreate the prototype of police coming to catch a criminal event.

Yu Ze’s hand was already on the bathroom door, the two behind were also ready for the kill.

Click!

The door lock twisted open,

the team rushed inside in an instant.

The overflowing bathtub continually seeped water outside,

a drowned female body faced down, floating on the water’s surface.

At the same time,

Click!

The room door closed, all the lights went out.

Yu Ze immediately lit the talisman paper as a light source, and as the pale yellow light dispelled the darkness, the female corpse still floated on the bathtub’s surface, with no anomaly.

But...

The bathroom mirror beside the team reflected four people.

The previous "guest" who lay in the pool of blood with the scalp completely stripped, now stood at the very back, holding a sharp knife high.

"Get down!"

Yu Ze shouted,

the two behind him simultaneously lowered their bodies,

while he swiftly turned around, mimicking gunfire with his fingers, even simulating the gunshot sound with his mouth.

Bam!

A pebble flew out from between his fingers, instantly piercing through the opponent’s brain gate. This time it was truly dead, falling onto the cold floor, blood spreading.

Yu Ze adjusted his clothing casually, "Since the Fear Entity wants to recreate the incident, let’s cooperate and act, maybe we’ll receive extra cooperation rewards afterwards. Speaking of which, this kind of superficial incident was really simple."

Youzhen looked at the lifeless body on the ground, discovering it not only had its head pierced but also had a talisman paper stuck on the brain gate, preventing any form of corpse transformation.

"The superficial layer is indeed simple, otherwise we wouldn’t dare to assign newcomers to operate here. While simple, the rewards are also minimal.

Executing events here isn’t worth it, you’d get just a few corner coins at most.

In deeper areas, a single event yields ten times or even a hundred times more, completely different in magnitude.

However...Yu Ze your thinking is correct, fulfilling the event’s needs by embodying the character may provide extra clues."

During their conversation,

Luo Di squatted on the ground, searching the body, unfortunately finding no useful clues.

"Countryman, let’s go~ Now that the event has concluded, let’s report to the hotel owner, maybe we’ll get unexpected information or clues about entering deeper regions from him."

"Mm."

The team, while leaving the bathroom, stepped on clean areas of the floor as much as possible to avoid blood contamination.

After all, the blood was bright red, and without fully understanding the clown’s abilities, it was best not to let oneself be tainted with a color the same as the red balloon.

The guest room was closed following the previous blackout.

When Yu Ze reached out to the doorknob, preparing to leave the room where the murder incident occurred, he found the door lock completely stuck, unable to turn.

It seemed the internal lock structure was entirely jammed, no matter what was done it wouldn’t work.

Looking at the problematic door lock, Yu Ze sniffed a scent of something amiss. This unease had nothing to do with the incident itself, but with the closed [door] ahead.

Checking the fingernails,

The nail almost cut his palm, just realizing he forgot to file them after trimming last night, leaving a sharp protrusion on the fingernail.

An ominous foresight.

With this thought,

Yu Ze stopped trying to open the door, turned towards the guest room window, ready to exit through it.

Swoosh! The curtain lifted.

Both Yu Ze and the others’ expressions turned extremely grim, outside was not the street night scene, but blocks of completely sealed concrete bricks.

Left with no choice but to return to the door,

building up force,

a palm strike.

The shattered door lock flew out along with several screws.

Unfortunately, outside was no longer the Regent Hotel, but a dusty, dimly lit corridor, they felt like they entered a residential building somewhere.

This place wasn’t deserted,

at the corner of the corridor’s end,

a little boy was scribbling on the ground with chalk, the sound of chalk scraping the ground was clearly audible.

Seemingly feeling the gaze, the little boy lifted his head, and the obvious harelip structure on his face was revealed.

Upon seeing the harelip,

Youzhen was stunned instantly, the just restored exploration state immediately disturbed, falling into inexplicable fear, pores contracting, muscles twitching.

"Impossible...this is clearly a superficial layer...why did you come looking for me..."

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