Who was wearing a green hat?! Huh? Who was wearing a green hat?!
Qi Xu did not even have a girlfriend. Even if she wanted to wear a green hat, was there a place for her to wear it?! Qi Xu suddenly turned her head back, but she saw nothing. When she turned back again, those four people were staring straight at her with eerie smiles on their faces.
Most of their eyes and mouths were smeared upward, creating that uncomfortable feeling of black bars and mosaics seen in real life, now amplified to the maximum. This scene, which should not appear in the real world, made Qi Xu feel a little dizzy.
She took a deep breath to calm her mood and saw those things start whispering to each other again.
Their voices were very strange, like rustling sand, mixed with the static snow from a TV, piercing to the ears. Qi Xu frowned and continued forward to the front desk.
Before she reached the front desk, she saw someone there. She could not see clearly; it seemed to be sitting in a chair, blocked by the high front desk, with only the tip of a head exposed. When Qi Xu approached, the ghost stood up from the chair.
Unlike the previous four, it had a face.
Front desk staff in the country were mostly women, and this front desk was a lady. Qi Xu could not distinguish her appearance or age clearly, but she subconsciously guessed the front desk was around thirty. She looked quite pretty, at least standing out beautifully compared to that Inverted Hanging Ghost and the previous four.
Her style was just a bit old-fashioned.
Her permed big curls were tied into a high ponytail, with all the hair in front combed up, exposing a broad forehead. The ponytail was tied very high, making the scalp look tight. She wore an outdated red sweater, the style very old, like the kind Qi Xu’s grandma insisted on knitting for her as a child.
Her face had originally carried a smile, but the moment she saw Qi Xu, her expression stiffened. After a while, she cautiously asked, “Qi Xu, are you here to stay or to find someone?”
This ghost even knew her name.
Qi Xu was silent for a moment and did not take it to heart. It was normal for the ghosts to know her name since she had stayed in this hotel for two days, and Xia Zhiming called her name every day.
But this also meant that their little intimacies might be known to these ghosts too.
Qi Xu felt a bit embarrassed, her toes curling involuntarily inside her sneakers. Still, she spoke up and told the front desk her answer: “I’m here to find someone.”
“You… sigh, alright, alright, I’ll take you there. But stay calm. They just went in; nothing has happened. Maybe nothing is wrong, so don’t overthink it yourself.”
Qi Xu always felt the front desk’s speech was strange, but since she was willing to take her to Xia Zhiming, that was good. So Qi Xu nodded obediently: “Okay, lead the way.”
Qi Xu was a bit too obedient, making the front desk glance at her several times before taking a room card and key from the drawer and signaling Qi Xu to get ready to go.
Before leaving the front desk, Qi Xu heard those giggling whispers mixed with male and female voices again: 【Oh dear, how many times has she brought a man to the hotel? Qi Xu is so pitiful; the green hats on her head are piled sky-high.】
This time, Qi Xu could not hold back. She told the front desk to wait and turned back.
Qi Xu had gone to cause trouble. The first time she did not retort because she did not know the plot at the time; the big picture came first. If she let those voices affect her Ghost Domain exploration just because she disliked them, it would be losing the forest for the trees.
But now, with her over a thousand hours of horror game experience, Qi Xu saw the front desk as the important NPC, while those four were not even background.
They were like those followers jumping around the Stone Spirit in the temple fair instance; Qi Xu was not afraid at all! So she turned back directly and stood in the middle of the four ghosts. Clearly, they had not expected her to return; astonishment showed on those four faces crossed with black lines and mosaics.
The astonishment was so clear even the mosaics could not block it.
Qi Xu stood in the center, took a deep breath, and said loudly with full vigor: “What kind of hero are you talking behind someone’s back! Those who gossip after death turn into long-tongued ghosts! I know better than you what she did! Pfft!”
After saying that, Qi Xu oiled the soles of her feet and slipped away fast. Her courage only supported her that far. This time, Xia Zhiming had not even given her the copper coin sword; she had no confidence and only dared to say that much.
After saying it, Qi Xu felt happy, a smile appearing on her face. When she returned to the front desk and looked at the dumbfounded front desk, her voice was still particularly excited: “Let’s go! Charge!”
“Ah… okay, okay.”
The front desk led Qi Xu toward the elevator. But Qi Xu looked at the elevator and chickened out: “How about we take the stairs instead?”
Horror movie rule: do not take unfamiliar elevators; you might encounter all sorts of weird things. If this ghost tricked her into a high-speed drop from the elevator, her body would smash to pieces. Then she would truly be dead beyond death.
Even during the day these past two days, Xia Zhiming had taken the stairs with her, not the elevator. No matter what, following Xia Zhiming was always right!
The front desk was stunned for a moment but still advised: “It’s on the fourth floor, and the stairs are especially dark. Are you sure?”
“I’m sure.”
Good grief, specially set on the fourth floor!
Qi Xu was very firm, leaving the front desk with nothing to say. She could only lead her to climb the stairs. While climbing, Qi Xu kept worrying if a ghost would pop out, but fortunately, it was safe.
They passed the elevator shaft through the stairs and reached the fourth-floor corridor. Qi Xu still felt her legs a bit soft. Arriving at this similar scene, she could not help thinking of that hanging ghost from before and its face-hug kill. That was really scary, but luckily she had run away.
To guard against that ghost still hanging from the ceiling, Qi Xu carefully looked around front and back before following the front desk to room 4404. Yes, 4404. The nearby room numbers were no longer starting with 83 as Qi Xu was familiar with, but directly with 44.
Chinese people were particular about such numbers; hotels would never easily use them. Even on the fourth floor, rooms would start with 84. Rooms like 04 were even skipped entirely. Some budget office buildings had no fourth floor, jumping from 3 to 5.
Even if it sounded like self-deception, covering one’s ears to steal a bell, it made guests and office renters feel much more at ease. After all, everyone really disliked 4.
Now it was great—not only 04, but starting with 44, just short of stamping “I want you dead” on Qi Xu’s forehead. Qi Xu comforted herself: Don’t get mad, don’t get mad. Get angry and make yourself sick—no one to take your place.
She followed cautiously behind the front desk, every step careful, but the front desk’s hand was too fast. They had not reached 4404 yet; just at 4414, she clicked open the door. If Qi Xu had not kept an eye out and noticed the room number on the card in her hand beforehand, she might have thought this was the room with “Xia Zhiming.”
And yet she still said: “We’re here, this is it. ‘Xia Zhiming’ is in here.”
Qi Xu stayed in place, not moving. The door to 4414 was only ajar a crack. Even without seeing inside, sounds leaked out, very clear.
Drip, drip sounds endlessly, like a faucet not fully turned off at midnight, water drops constantly hitting the sink.
Qi Xu listened for a while and said to the front desk: “That’s not right. Isn’t the card in your hand for 4404?”
The front desk froze: “Ah, is that so? Then I remembered wrong. Let’s go further ahead.” But she did not close the door to 4414, just led Qi Xu forward. As they turned and walked a bit, the drip sounds became clearer. Qi Xu suddenly turned her head back.
The door crack was still open; there was indeed something fishy.
The instant Qi Xu turned, she saw a man squeezing half his body out from the door crack. His hand gripped the wall by the door firmly, and that hand was particularly shocking. His wrist pressed against the wall, blood dripping continuously from the pale wrist, falling straight onto the carpet.
Logically, with such thick carpet in the hotel, there should be no sound, but the drip was especially clear, drilling straight into Qi Xu’s head.
Even more terrifying, the man glared wide-eyed, lips pale, glaring at Qi Xu with resentment, as if he had a deep grudge against her.
Qi Xu guessed who this was: the man from the second day during the daytime investigation with Xia Zhiming, lying on the ground with a pool of blood at his wrist. A victim harmed by the hotel seemed to have turned into a malicious ghost, abetting evil.
“No, no, it can’t be him. Xia Zhiming said there were no signs of turning into a ghost.”
She muttered softly to herself, psyching herself up, repeating Xia Zhiming’s words over and over. To her, Xia Zhiming’s words were like an imperial edict.
Xia Zhiming said he had not turned into a ghost, so he had not; it was just an illusion from the ghosts of Vivid Red Hotel!
As she psyched herself up, the front desk ahead opened the wrong door again. Another man emerged, dead in some bizarre way in Vivid Red Hotel. Qi Xu said nothing, just reminded repeatedly: “We haven’t reached 4404 yet. Don’t open the wrong door again.”
“Sorry, I get confused sometimes. Next one definitely won’t be wrong.”
She said that, but the doors kept opening wrong. Each time Qi Xu turned back, she saw men in various eerie poses clinging to door frames and walls, staring at her with extra resentment.
It’s fine! No problem!
When they reached 4406, the front desk opened wrong again.
When speechless, people really laugh. Qi Xu could not take it anymore. She stepped forward and snatched the key from the front desk’s hand: “Can you even open doors?!”
The front desk was also stunned, her movements stiffening.
And Qi Xu continued: “If you can’t open it, let me do it!”
