Chapter 44: Gathering Information

Knock knock.

He knocked on the door, but there was no response inside.

Lin Ye twisted the doorknob; the door was not locked.

He pushed the door open. The room inside resembled a standard hotel room, but it was enclosed with no windows.

Lin Ye searched the room thoroughly but only found some clutter, nothing else of note.

He stepped out into the corridor; nothing had changed. Both sides were still blocked off by doors.

Just as Lin Ye was about to open another door, a system prompt suddenly popped up in front of him:

“Oh?”

“Doesn't feel like anything changed.”

He opened the door again and found himself facing a blood-red corridor. The lights had turned into a glaring red.

Moreover, Room 1346 was no longer at the end of the corridor but in the middle, with Room 1179 directly opposite.

Lin Ye immediately shut the door and waited a moment before opening it again; Room 1179 was still opposite.

His sharp spiritual energy sense gave him a vague sense of danger, but he didn’t know where the threat lay.

Lin Ye stepped into the corridor, closed the door behind him, waited a few seconds, then re-entered Room 1346 and shut the door.

Opening the door again, the blood-red corridor and Room 1179 remained outside.

After several attempts, Lin Ye gave up on the plan of leaving the corridor through Room 1346 and decided to open the next door.

He walked a full circle down the corridor. This blood-red corridor matched the previous corridor’s layout, with 32 rooms total, and one room at each end.

After confirming there was no Room 1904, Lin Ye tried to memorize the room numbers as best as he could and finally chose to open Room 966 at the corridor’s end.

He still couldn’t figure out the room arrangement rules; opening the room in the same position might provide clues.

Knock knock.

He knocked on the door; again, there was no movement inside.

Lin Ye twisted the doorknob; it still wasn’t locked.

Swish!

A red shadow flashed past. Lin Ye relied on his perception and instinctively stepped left to avoid it.

But it was too late. His right shoulder and right hand vanished instantly, and blood sprayed onto the wall.

Swish!

Before Lin Ye could steady himself, another red shadow flashed by, pulling his body into the room.

In his last moment of consciousness, Lin Ye only saw the door automatically closing and the reddish-brown walls.

Lin Ye woke up on the bed, staring at a familiar ceiling.

The torn pain and the powerless sensation of death lingered faintly in his mind.

“What the hell was that thing?”

Lin Ye got dressed and sat at the edge of the bed, waiting for the overseers to open the door.

“What to do? Two deaths per two doors. If I can’t find the pattern, with this death rate, even if I had a thousand simulation attempts, I might never find Room 1904, let alone figure out how to leave with the suitcase.”

“Do I just wait an hour and check if the yacht changes?”

“But the captain mentioned ticket checks by the crew. Other dangers might appear.”

The overseers opened the door and saw Lin Ye already dressed.

“Time to go?”

Lin Ye preemptively asked.

“…Yes, please proceed.”

Though he looked down on these D-Class personnel, facing one who was about to die, the overseer instinctively softened his voice.

Lin Ye followed the overseers downstairs. The process was the same as last time; they boarded the yacht again.

But this time, before boarding, Lin Ye grabbed the child’s right hand, reasoning that it would look more like a family.

The child did not resist, and seeing this, the woman also held the child’s left hand.

The three of them approached the corridor they had entered before. This time, Lin Ye suggested exploring other areas first, and the two companions agreed.

They circled the deck and discovered six entrances leading into the yacht’s interior. Besides these, there were some more dangerous paths accessible by jumping or climbing to balconies of certain rooms.

But all those rooms were sealed, and the windows were opaque, preventing observation inside.

Lin Ye led the two back to the previous entrance. This time, he planned to test if the room changes were random, what type of randomness it was, and spend an hour hiding in a safe room to gather information.

Of course, if he and the two companions could enter the same corridor, he might explore more rooms since having partners was the best aid in investigation.

However, the moment they stepped into the corridor, Lin Ye’s hands went empty, and the two companions vanished into thin air as if they had never existed.

Lin Ye couldn’t tell how they disappeared, nor did he notice how the corridor behind him had changed to Room 407.

“Looks like I have no choice but to wait.”

The room numbers in the corridor remained unchanged. Lin Ye reopened Room 1346 at the end.

He closed the door and reopened it; outside was still the red-glowing corridor.

The room numbers in the corridor, including Room 966 at the end, were the same.

This time, Lin Ye did not continue exploring other rooms but returned to Room 1346 to wait an hour and see if anything changed.

He had no intention of wasting that hour. He planned to practice using spiritual energy shield with Zed’s body.

The simulation world’s air contained spiritual energy, with varying concentrations depending on the area. The yacht’s spiritual energy concentration was very high.

But having spiritual energy and spiritual power alone wasn’t enough to activate the spiritual energy shield.

Spirit, spiritual energy, and the physical body were inseparable for a spiritual energy being.

All three had to cooperate to successfully use runes.

Zed was just an ordinary person, so Lin Ye couldn’t use spiritual energy shield with his body, at least not at his current level.

Therefore, Lin Ye decided to absorb spiritual energy for this hour, strengthening Zed’s body at any cost, then try to gather more information.

The hour passed quickly. Lin Ye completed two basic spiritual energy cycles. Although his physical improvement was limited, with preparation, he could barely use a thin spiritual energy shield layer.

Inside the room, Lin Ye did not sense the yacht moving, nor could he sense the corridor’s status. There was no peephole on the door; without opening it, he had no way to obtain information.

Without much hesitation, Lin Ye prepared the spiritual energy shield and carefully opened a crack in the door.

A brown eye pressed against the crack, locking eyes with Lin Ye through the gap.

A smiling attendant wearing a uniform stood outside the door.

“Hello, please show your boat ticket.”