PTYS Chapter 23

The room was pitch black. Upon entering, Chen Kaijie couldn’t even see the shadows of those in front of him. Even more eerie was the fact that he couldn’t sense the presence or hear the voices of his companions, which made his heart race.

“Miss Xiao, Lin Hai?” he called out tentatively, but there was no response.

Despite entering just seconds apart, nobody replied.

Chen Kaijie could clearly hear his own breathing becoming heavier, and all the muscles in his body tensed up. The darkness was overwhelming, and he couldn’t see a thing. What was going on?

As he turned his head in the darkness, groping around, he found himself face to face with a man whose face was half missing. In the pitch-black room, this face was bizarrely clear.

The left eye socket was empty, showing only bone, and the lower jaw exposed its teeth. The man grinned at him, the stench of rotting flesh infiltrating Chen Kaijie’s breath.

The sudden, close encounter was indescribably shocking. Chen Kaijie’s heart nearly stopped, his pupils contracted violently.

Even the strongest of minds couldn’t withstand such a shock. He screamed uncontrollably, “Oh my god!” and jumped back, losing all composure as he scrambled away.

“Ah! Ah!”

“Stay away! Mommy!”

Inside the room, the five girls watched the four men act as if possessed, rolling and crawling on the floor while screaming.

Although Wang Yushan and the others didn’t know what had happened, the scene was terrifying enough in this haunted scenario. They hardly dared to breathe.

When the men finally came to their senses, almost wetting their pants, they noticed the five women staring at them with varying expressions. Despite the dim surroundings, they could clearly see their environment, and the ghost that had terrified them was nowhere to be found.

The atmosphere was extremely awkward.

Shen Qingqiu watched the spectacle, smiling for a change. “What did you see to get so scared?”

Chen Kaijie was the first to recover, quickly standing up and adjusting his clothes. Taking a deep breath, he still felt embarrassed as he asked, “Didn’t you see a ghost behind you when you came in?”

When they described their experience, Wang Yushan and the others quickly checked behind them but saw nothing.

Xiao Muyu couldn’t help but smile slightly. Shen Qingqiu noticed this smile and raised an eyebrow in amusement.

“Just mentioned how malicious the system is, and it proves it right away,” Xiao Muyu remarked, glancing at the four men with a hint of teasing in her eyes. “It probably scared you because you were dawdling.”

“Pfft.” Although still frightened, Zuo Tiantian couldn’t help but laugh. It was true.

“Stop laughing. Otherwise, not only will these men lose their courage, but they’ll also lose face,” Shen Qingqiu added, delivering another verbal jab.

“Ha!”

This time, the laughter came from the men themselves, making Chen Kaijie’s face turn blue. He turned and cursed, “You still have the nerve to laugh!”

“What’s with that expression?” he grumbled, looking at their stiff, pale faces.

“They’re not laughing,” Xiao Muyu’s voice was heavy, and those four words made everyone’s hair stand on end.

Chen Kaijie’s throat tightened as his eyes immediately became wary and fearful, searching the direction from which the voice came.

Shen Qingqiu quickly positioned herself back-to-back with Xiao Muyu, the two of them cautiously surveying their surroundings with great tacit understanding.

At that moment, a shadow floated past them, causing Wang Yushan to close her eyes and cover her mouth in fright, shivering. The others quickly followed the shadow with their eyes, only to find the door had locked itself. A row of glowing green numbers appeared there.

The initial digits were all zeros, forming a six-digit sequence.

The mechanical voice inside the room spoke once more: “The condition to clear this round is to leave the room! Method one: open the combination lock. Method two: wait for fifteen minutes until the door opens automatically.”

Rather than feeling relieved, the group felt even more anxious after hearing these conditions.

Fifteen minutes might seem like an easy wait compared to opening a six-digit lock, but could it really be that simple? How agonizing could those fifteen minutes be?

Reality quickly gave them the answer.

With a sudden swoosh, a cold wind blew through the room. “Whoosh,” and candles lit up in a circle, casting a dim glow around them. In the candlelight, they could clearly see they were surrounded by mirrors.

The room was large, over a hundred square meters, with mirrors covering the walls. Reflected in these mirrors were their fearful, panicked, shocked, and serious expressions, with no blind spots.

Those who were standing farther away trembled and moved toward the center, all nine people standing back-to-back in the middle with nowhere to escape.

“It-it’s starting to write,” Su Jin’s voice was taut, as if the string of a bow about to snap.

Of the twelve reflections in the mirrors, nine mirrored their actions and expressions exactly, but then they all raised their hands, revealing eerie smiles. Their fingers were bloody as they began to write “Bloody Mary” on the mirrors.

“Bloody Mary?” Lin Hai cried out in panic, then realized and shouted, “Don’t let them finish writing!”

He rushed over to frantically wipe the mirrors, the same way they had stopped it before.

Xiao Muyu didn’t move. She kept her eyes fixed on the combination lock, speaking urgently and low, “It’s useless. If it were that simple, there wouldn’t be a fifteen-minute setting.”

It was indeed useless. They watched helplessly as the words were written out completely, a feeling of powerlessness making them want to collapse.

“The combination is six digits, and it’s numbers. This matches the hint from the meeting room. Could it be our room numbers?” Shen Qingqiu quickly added, her eyes scanning the mirrors.

Some began kicking at the glass, trying to break the mirrors, but it was still futile.

Nine blood-red “Bloody Mary” inscriptions were written on the mirrors, like a demonic curse.

Then, the figures in the mirrors began to crack, like breaking glass, with blood seeping from the cracks. A hand suddenly reached out from a mirror, bending towards them. They were coming out.

Only fifty seconds had passed!

Xiao Muyu couldn’t afford to worry about anything else. She rushed to the door, starting to input the code.

Behind her, women’s screams and men’s curses of fear drilled into her ears.

Just as she entered the first digit, a hand grabbed her clothing. The hand was icy, sending chills through her body even through her clothes, raising goosebumps.

But before the hand could do more, it was kicked away by someone. Xiao Muyu didn’t even look back, as if confident someone would handle it.

Shen Qingqiu, frowning, kicked the female ghost away, sending it crashing into the wall. She looked at the approaching cracked bodies and commanded the others sternly, “If you keep screaming and just hide, you’ll be torn apart.”

Chen Kaijie’s mind was clear despite the chaos: “Miss Xiao, try the room numbers. Everyone else, hold them off. They’re just a bunch of rotting flesh, no need to be scared!”

Xiao Muyu’s forehead beaded with sweat, her mind racing. Six digits, six rooms: 4311, 4312, 4314, 4315, 4317, 4318. These were the room numbers from the first game. Taking the last digit, the sequence should be 1, 2, 4, 5, 7, 8.

She forced herself to stay calm, her hands steady and methodical.

The figures emerging from the mirrors weren’t just nine but twelve, implying that there were originally twelve people in the first game, three of whom didn’t make it out.

Their movements were slow, but they weren’t human. They felt no pain and weren’t easily beaten back, their grotesque appearance making them hard to handle.

Wang Yushan, Zuo Tiantian, and others with weaker nerves couldn’t even look, blindly kicking and pushing, causing chaos.

“Is it done, Muyu?” Shen Qingqiu called, her voice tense.

The final digit was entered, but the door didn’t open.

“142857 isn’t right,” Xiao Muyu said, her face grim.

Chen Kaijie, having just punched out an approaching “Xiao Muyu,” paused and said, “It’s not 142857. Our sequence was 758241.”

Xiao Muyu hesitated, then quickly understood. The mirror image meant the sequence was reversed. She took a breath and began inputting the reversed sequence.

Shen Qingqiu stood behind Xiao Muyu, kicking away anything that approached, not moving an inch.

But her face grew increasingly worried. She noticed these things were getting stronger with time.

Worse still, Xiao Muyu had more bad news.

“It’s still wrong.”

“How is that possible? There are no clues here. A six-digit combination, with ten digits available, without a hint, it’s impossible to guess, let alone pick the right six digits. The room numbers are the most direct clue,” Shen Qingqiu said, her actions not stopping but her thoughts clear.

“Maybe 43 is also a clue. We have two groups, four room numbers overlap,” Chen Kaijie suggested quickly, his mind agile.

Xiao Muyu’s memory was exceptional. Each team had six doors; their team successfully got five people out, while Chen Kaijie’s team had four. The overlapping rooms were 1, 4, 2, 8. She quickly combined the numbers into 431428.

The lock’s light turned red, emitting a buzzer sound. Wrong!

The group was at their breaking point. Shen Qingqiu quickly ran through every number she saw in the meeting room: calendars, countdowns—too many numbers.

Suddenly, she thought of the books. The math books were significant; this challenge involved numbers.

“Muyu, could the books have the password?” Shen Qingqiu shouted, using Xiao Muyu’s name again in urgency. Xiao Muyu seemed accustomed to it by now.

“9, 15, 23, 25, 30, 33?”

Xiao Muyu immediately recalled the six numbers Shen Qingqiu had once teased her with. But she frowned slightly—those numbers didn’t directly translate to a six-digit code.

Shen Qingqiu performed an over-the-shoulder throw, smashing a ghost woman to the ground, then kicked her away.

In moments of high tension, Shen Qingqiu’s mind worked even faster. She thought over those six numbers repeatedly. They couldn’t be the order of the books; it must be…

An idea struck her. After a quick calculation, it still aligned with those six numbers. This fateful coincidence bolstered her confidence.

“8…”

As she uttered the first number, Shen Qingqiu snapped a ghost’s arm. This ghost was a woman, and as her sleeve slipped, a red number briefly flashed on her wrist—a 9. Shen Qingqiu was momentarily stunned but quickly kicked the ghost away.

“5…”

The second number!

As time passed, the creatures became too strong for ordinary people to handle.

The others, especially the weaker girls, struggled in vain to fend off the creatures.

“7…”

Shen Qingqiu grabbed a mirror image by the collar, using the leverage to flip herself over, wrapping her left leg around another ghost’s neck. Using her core strength, she slammed both creatures to the ground.

“1,” the sound of the monsters hitting the floor coincided with Xiao Muyu dialing the digit. She couldn’t help but glance at Shen Qingqiu.

Xiao Muyu already guessed how Shen Qingqiu derived the numbers, but she didn’t stop her. Shen Qingqiu had turned the code into a battle cry.

“4…”

Chen Kaijie and the others watched in awe. They had never seen a woman so fierce.

Their distraction allowed another Chen Kaijie to rush at him. He hastily kicked it away.

Unlike Shen Qingqiu’s effortless kicks, Chen Kaijie’s leg went numb from the impact. His doppelganger only staggered back a few steps and continued towards the door.

Chen Kaijie desperately tried to stop it, but the creature suddenly snarled, its bloodied mouth opening wide, revealing jagged teeth. Terrified, Chen Kaijie turned to run but was grabbed and thrown aside.

The impact left Chen Kaijie disoriented. The others were also tossed around like ragdolls.

“2…”

“Miss Xiao, hurry, please!” Lin Hai screamed in pain, his hand scratched by one of the creatures.

A final soft click sounded. The code lights flashed. The door opened!

Author’s Note: The second game round ends. Can the experts guess why the password was this particular sequence? This game will open up emotional storylines, though the characters may not realize it’s an emotional connection.

Xiao Muyu: This woman is strange. I’ll never be involved with her. Shen Qingqiu: This woman is interesting, but just entertaining.

Then one day, Xiao Muyu realized there was already a strong connection between them.