After coming out of Room 205, Gao Hai found an opportunity to tell Kaguya and Maki about the second corpse under the bed in 205.
Therefore, at this moment, upon hearing the wooden stick fall and the sound of the main door slowly creaking open, Kaguya Shinomiya knew very well that standing in the hallway right now was likely a grotesque male corpse, one half of its body twisted and contorted, as if it had been disassembled and then pieced back together.
Back in Room 205, had that thing been hiding under the bed the whole time, watching them as they searched the room?
The key question now was which way it would go.
Before leaving the room, Gao Hai had deliberately mentioned room number 210 precisely to mislead it. But this misdirection was predicated on the assumption that the thing possessed a certain level of cognitive ability and lacked any special means of tracking.
Thump—
A heavy footstep echoed in the hallway.
The direction it was moving in... was toward 210.
Kaguya silently breathed a sigh of relief.
For Kaguya Shinomiya, who was accustomed to viewing problems with rationality, the most terrifying things were undoubtedly those that were completely unpredictable and incalculable, acting without adhering to any rules. And everything she had faced before this had possessed such characteristics.
But now, a bizarre corpse of unknown origin had been successfully misled by Gao Hai's words, choosing 210 as its direction of travel.
This meant that the threats existing within this apartment were not all incomprehensible monsters. At the very least, they could be fooled, they could fall for tricks, which meant she could use this fact to devise more strategies, more strategies that might just work.
Creeak—
She heard the sound of Room 210's door being opened.
The thing that had come out of 205 had already entered 210.
Kaguya Shinomiya turned her head back to look at Gao Hai, who was standing guard at the junction of the hallway and the living room.
She held up one finger, then three fingers, then switched to two, repeating a few gestures in this alternating pattern. Across from her, Gao Hai also raised his hand and made a few similar gestures.
This was a method of mutual alert and communication that Kaguya and Gao Hai had agreed upon. Every few minutes, she would turn back for this silent exchange with Gao Hai. Although its effectiveness couldn't be guaranteed, if Kaguya were to be attacked by something with mind-corrupting powers again, Gao Hai should be able to notice the abnormality. At that point, he would put on earplugs, rush to Kaguya's side, bring her into the living room, and shut the door to isolate the source of contamination. If that didn't work, they would then consider using the wall clock to turn back time.
With so much information currently unknown, this was the best course of action the three of them could come up with on the spot.
In the kitchen, Sun Dajun and Miwa Maeda were still sitting on the floor, leaning against the refrigerator. Across from them was Green, who, despite his outwardly arrogant appearance, had been so terrified after learning what was in the fridge that he wanted to bolt on the spot.
Maki, standing guard in the living room, was sorting through the letters and manuscript papers she had found, trying to find valuable clues within them.
From the writing, she could tell that these items all belonged to a man named [Lin Wenfu]. He seemed to be a little-known magazine contributor, writing useless feel-good essays and short pieces every day to earn just enough money to get by.
It appeared that one night, after falling asleep, he woke up to find himself in Room 205.
According to the text recorded on these papers, his life here was aided by the other survivors. Xusheng from 309 was the leader of the survivors. From the 1st to the 3rd floor, there were a total of nearly 20 people living in this apartment building. The one who had been here the longest seemed to be that man named Xusheng; he had already lived in Shirakawa Apartments for over five years. The reason this place could transform from a hopeless deathtrap into a home where survivors could find joy amidst suffering was all thanks to Xusheng's efforts.
However, this man named Lin Wenfu had a melancholic personality to begin with. Coupled with being trapped in Shirakawa Apartments, he was unable to live like a normal person and had to stay one night in the apartments every two days, which led to his girlfriend breaking up with him. As a result, he grew to resent this place even more and was thus unwilling to record much about the apartment.
"What the hell? I finally find some intel, and this guy didn't want to write because he was in a bad mood..."
Reading this, Maki was exasperated, grinding her teeth with the urge to rush out the door and beat up that spectacled male corpse. Hmm, just a thought, of course; she wouldn't actually dare to do it.
However, these intermittent records eventually took a different turn.
[Sanchez]
This name appeared in the last few pages of the documents Maki had collected.
There were only two entries about him. The first was just a short record: [A foreigner came out of Room 109 today. He said his name is Sanchez. He was originally supposed to be in 206, but the kitchen floor in 206 collapsed, so he was moved to 109. This person seems mentally unwell. I don't think he's going to like this place.] That was the entirety of the content.
The second document that mentioned this Sanchez was the third-to-last document Maki found.
[Sanchez opened the door to 304.]
[He missed his daughter so much, but Shirakawa Apartments is too far from his hometown. With the three-day limit, he could only see his daughter for a very short time even if he tried his best. His family isn't well-off, and to be honest, neither are we. Ever since being trapped in this place, those of us who had normal jobs and incomes have had to make sacrifices due to this damned place's restrictions. Even if you asked us to help him with money, we couldn't come up with much.]
[Xusheng stopped Sanchez, he didn't let him walk into 304.]
[I heard that even if people who walk in there can walk back out, they are no longer themselves.]
[They will shatter, they will disappear, and in the end, they become ghosts that no one can see, forever wandering the apartment, trapped in a cycle of endless suffering until they forget everything.]
[But Sanchez said he had to enter 304. He said the root of everything was in there, that he could change everything, that he could save us all.]
[Is there really such a good thing in this world?]
Amidst the ink spots, the entire entry was left with many smudged marks.
Although the text seemed indifferent, Maki could see from the brushstrokes the extremely complex emotions of the person writing this note at the time.
Next was the second-to-last document, a document with only two sentences.
[Xusheng is dead.]
[We can't leave the apartment anymore.]
Beneath the messy writing, Maki couldn't imagine what thoughts Lin Wenfu had when he wrote those two sentences.
Maki raised her head and looked at Gao Hai, who was guarding the doorway.
She felt an urge to call him over, to have him bring Kaguya so the three of them could look at these records and analyze them together.
But Maki quickly remembered that Kaguya and Gao Hai were currently on high alert, guarding against the hallway outside the main door, guarding against the corpse of the man who had likely written these very records—a body that had now become a vessel for some terrifying entity.
So, after a moment's hesitation, Maki lowered her head once more and turned to the last document she had found—a single sheet of letter paper that had been scattered under the desk in Room 205, stained with dark red blotches.
[Don't go near the window, you can't go near the window! Don't look outside! Don't look! Don't look!!!]
The almost completely deranged text sent a chill down Maki's spine as she read it, creating a sense of unease for reasons she couldn't explain.
[Don't trust anyone! Don't trust anyone! Don't go into anyone's room!]
[Everyone's gone mad! Everyone is different from before! They're all mad! They've all gone mad!]
[I'm a good boy, I will be obedient, I will stay at home quietly, I won't be punished, I'm a good boy, I'm not mad I'm a good boy I'm not mad, I, am a good boy I'm not not I'm not I'm not mad I'm not mad I am a good boy a good boy (the words 'good boy' were written here for nearly half the length of the paper, each character penned with impeccable neatness)]
[Trust no one, don't trust anyone (this was written at the very bottom of the paper, the handwriting extremely messy)]
[You can't trust anyone, not after being separated once, not even once is okay.]
[Don't go to the 3rd floor, the 3rd floor isn't here, don't go.]
[Can't get out of the 1st floor, I can't get out, no one can get out, we were always meant to live here, why would we want to leave (the messy handwriting slanted from the bottom of the paper up to the middle, with some characters overlapping the repeated 'good boy' text, requiring a great deal of effort for Maki to decipher)]
[No one can be trusted.]
[Don't trust anyone.]
[Don't trust anyone.]
[Don't trust anyone.]
The handwriting began to repeat again, growing more and more chaotic, almost becoming a frantic scrawl.
If it weren't for the fact that Maki had studied cursive script and possessed a deep mastery of Chinese calligraphy—to the point where she could decipher a traditional doctor's prescription at a glance—she likely would have had no way of understanding what was written.
This repetition continued all the way to the bottom of the paper.
However, one of the sentences was not finished, and the ink marks at the edge of the page seemed to extend onto the back.
So Maki flipped the letter over.
[Don't trust anyone.]
The handwriting was still messy, but for some reason, it was easier to read than before, as if a mad person was gradually calming down.
[Didn't I tell you not to trust anyone?]
The next sentence wasn't a complete repetition, just a bit strange. Why was it written as if in dialogue with someone?
[I said, don't trust anyone, everyone is untrustworthy, no one can be trusted!]
As if she could actually see someone yelling at her, the handwriting gradually became messy again.
[No one can be trusted, not even me.]
[Don't trust me, you can't trust my words, no one can be trusted.]
[Why did you trust me? Why did you trust me?]
It wasn't until she saw the final line of blood-red text that the girl, in a daze, suddenly remembered that when she had just picked up that letter, the back had clearly been blank, with nothing written on it at all.
Rustle—
The somewhat stained letter fell to the floor, revealing its empty back.
The girl, her forehead soaked with cold sweat, nervously turned to look around. Only after confirming that nothing new had appeared in the room did she manage to catch her breath, though her little heart was already pounding uncontrollably.
In this place, things that defied common sense truly happened one after another.
But, thankfully, she had finally found some clues of at least some value.
Sighing, Maki collected herself, then stood up, intending to go tell Kaguya and Gao Hai about the intelligence she had found.
BOOM!
The next moment, a violent tremor shook the entire apartment, causing Maki, who had just stood up, Gao Hai, who was guarding the door, and Kaguya, who was in the hallway, to all be thrown to the ground.
________________________________________
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