The girl named Xi Hong Shi first replied, "I'm B-rank, what about you?"
"I'm A-rank, Nan Jiang Zi, and you?"
Nan Jiang Zi displayed his screen.
"S-rank, a real big shot!"
Ding Xiang's name and appearance were a complete mismatch, and her appearance was also a stark contrast to her demeanor; she was a truly contradictory person.
"How long have you been playing?"
Nan Jiang Zi replied expressionlessly, "One month."
"One month to reach S-rank?" Xi Hong Shi stared at him with surprise for a good few moments before tentatively asking, "Are you... a lurker?"
Nan Jiang Zi nodded, still expressionless.
This caused the other two to look at him with even more awe.
"Jiang Nian, what about you?"
"D-rank."
The two immediately froze.
Having a D-rank player in the team was universally acknowledged as a burden, no matter the team composition.
However, this mission required the team to be complete and to accumulate five points to be considered finished. No matter how unwilling they were, they couldn't show it too obviously.
Ding Xiang hesitated, "Well, if we encounter danger, remember to hide well and protect yourself."
After all, most of the time, people could barely protect themselves, let alone others.
Zhu Nian replied with amusement, "Okay."
After wandering around here, she was more certain than ever that this place was where that person was located.
It wasn't like being in a specific place, but rather being everywhere.
They were heading towards the remaining objective, and by their calculations, they should have arrived by now, but their screens still showed they hadn't.
Xi Hong Shi wondered, "Why haven't we arrived after walking so far?"
The surroundings were all guest rooms, and the corridors and stairs were all visible at a glance; it was impossible for them to have taken a wrong turn.
"Let's walk a bit further."
Nan Jiang Zi spoke. Due to his status as a big shot, the other two agreed. Zhu Nian had no objections and silently followed.
After walking for a few more minutes, Nan Jiang Zi suddenly stopped and looked at the neatly arranged guest rooms around them, saying grimly, "We're walking in circles."
"They're all perfectly square, how can we be walking in circles?"
Nan Jiang Zi squatted down, examined the floor carefully, then stood up. "The corners at the staircases are 90 degrees, and the guest rooms are about 2 degrees. We've passed two staircases. It looks like we've been walking in a straight line, but we've passed over 120 guest rooms. This translates to us having turned more than halfway around."
The expressions of the other two immediately turned serious.
"No wonder we haven't arrived after walking so far. Damn it, this damned game has changed again."
"What do we do now?"
Nan Jiang Zi looked at the candlelight in the corridor, stepped forward, and took one down. He said to the three of them, "There's a change in angle, which means this is just using subtle changes and the influence of candlelight to alter our subconscious. As long as we can walk a path that corrects the altered angles, we can reach it."
He said this and walked at the forefront, holding the candle.
The other two quickly followed.
Zhu Nian looked at the pure wooden walls, noncommittally, and also followed.
After walking a bit further, Xi Hong Shi suddenly asked, "Why haven't we seen anyone at all?"
The group stopped.
The inn was quite large, but with so many people, they were group 162, with five people in each group. Even if they were the last group, that amounted to 810 people. How could they not have encountered a single person?
In a place like this, once a creepy atmosphere was created, it would never dissipate.
Ding Xiang echoed, "With so many people, we should have bumped into at least a few, right?"
After a moment of silence, Nan Jiang Zi reminded them, "This is a horror world, anything can happen. Perhaps right now, there are only us in this inn."
His words did not comfort them; instead, they made them even more frightened.
But they couldn't stop; they could only keep walking.
That objective had not changed from the beginning.
After walking for another half hour, Nan Jiang Zi made a turn at an intersection before a "correct" turning point. After winding their way through more than forty guest rooms, they finally approached the remaining team members.
A guest room.
The doorplate read "[444]".
In a place like this, such a number naturally caused fear.
Nan Jiang Zi stepped forward and knocked on the door.
From inside came a boy's question, laced with excessive nervousness and panic, "Who, who is it?"
"We are members of group 162, we've come to find you."