The moment he heard the door creak open, Bai Wan’s expression darkened.
Just as he’d feared — as the dungeon progressed, the constraints on the ghost were growing weaker.
Now... it had learned how to open doors.
For players, that was lethal.
The pale-faced ‘Chen Weiyu’ slowly stepped through the doorway, her eyes brimming with a murderous, maddened gleam. A cold, oppressive aura filled the room, thick and suffocating.
But just as ‘Chen Weiyu’ entered and was about to unleash her carnage — She froze.
The room... was empty.
Two doors down, in Room 104 — Lin Xi’s room. Bai Wan, Liu Tong, and Zhang Wen were huddled together, nervously listening to the noises coming from the next room.
“Shit... that ghost really can open doors now. That’s terrifying. How did you guess it, Bai Wan?” Zhang Wen exhaled sharply and turned to the strange young man with the photo frame on his back.
“I just had a hunch,” Bai Wan said coolly. “During the day, she pretty much dropped the act. If she couldn’t use human disguise to kill anymore, then odds were... she’d gain new powers at night. Especially now that we’re near the endgame.”
The moment Bai Wan heard the ghost opening the door, his heart nearly stopped.
He’d trapped it in a wall for over two days — no doubt he’d racked up plenty of aggro. It was almost guaranteed to come looking for him tonight. And facing a ghost that had evolved into unknown territory? Staying in his own room was way too risky.
So once 'Chen Weiyu' entered his room, they executed the plan they’d agreed on earlier:
Slip away quietly... and hide in Lin Xi’s now-vacant room. Use the empty room as bait, test the ghost’s behavior and analyze the new mechanics.
Bai Wan glanced at the clock.
Midnight, exactly. Looks like the ghost’s kill sequence triggers after the twelve o’clock mark.
“Well, the good news is, the ghost still can’t tell whether a room is occupied or not. Otherwise it wouldn’t have taken the bait,” Liu Tong murmured, frowning. “The bad news is... it can open doors now.”
Which means... nowhere is safe anymore.
Of course, it can’t just open every door at once. Otherwise, they’d all be dead already. There must be some kind of limit. The question is—how many times per night can it open a door?
If it is twice... they are still in danger tonight.
Still, hiding in Lin Xi’s room is a bold move.
Liu Tong turned to look at the jittery youth beside him.
It was a clever trick. The ghost wouldn’t expect anyone to hide in the room of a confirmed dead player. That blind spot made it perfect.
And it all hinged on one thing: the assumption that the ghost couldn’t detect if someone was inside. Their previous encounters seemed to confirm that. Otherwise, it wouldn’t have resorted to eavesdropping.
By that logic, hiding in Room 104 was the optimal move.
Liu Tong had figured out Bai Wan’s logic the moment he suggested the idea. He might look like a lunatic. But in reality, the kid was razor-sharp. People ... they were the ones who would make it far in the Paranormal Game.
Meanwhile, Bai Wan’s brain was working overtime. All the clues, all the events, all the rules—he was putting them together like a chessboard. He was enjoying this, just like he had when playing Chinese chess as a kid.
“Bro, can I borrow your phone real quick?” Bai Wan asked suddenly, turning to Liu Tong.
“What for?” Liu Tong asked, puzzled.
Bai Wan held up the phone with a sly smile, “I’ve prepared a little gift for our ghost. Hope it likes it.”
Then... he dialed a number.
A phone rang out from the next room.
Liu Tong and Zhang Wen both paled.
Bai Wan...is calling the ghost?
Inside the room, 'Chen Weiyu' was about to leave when a sound rang out from the cabinet behind her.
“Let’s play Honor of Kings,” it said.
She froze mid-step. That voice—it was hers, it was Chen Weiyu’s.
Bai Wan smirked, still holding the phone, eyes narrowed toward the adjacent room. Earlier that day, he’d secretly recorded ‘Chen Weiyu’s’ voice and set it as a custom ringtone.
If the ghost’s kill mechanic worked by hearing a voice at midnight, triggering a kill...
Then what would happen... if the voice it heard was its own?
“Checkmate,” Bai Wan murmured with a smile.
Inside the room, 'Chen Weiyu’s' face darkened. Her left hand extended toward the cabinet...
But then her right hand snapped up—and clutched her own throat. Her left hand recoiled, her eyes blazed with vengeful fury.
If she opened the cabinet and found a phone, the kill sequence wouldn’t trigger — because her mechanic and rule only applied to living targets.
But she’d heard her own voice. And that triggered the mechanism. So now she had to kill the voice’s “owner.”
But if she opened the cabinet and saw the phone... the mechanic would deactivate. However, she couldn’t.
It was a perfect paradox, like Schrödinger’s Cat. Until she opened the cabinet, she couldn’t observe if it was a phone or not, even if she knew it was a phone.
After Bai Wan explained it all, Liu Tong and Zhang Wen sat there in stunned silence.
Just one word came to mind:
So everything was a trap? Everything from the start — designed to lure the ghost into a kill loop?
Then, Bai Wan suddenly dashed out of the room, sprinting straight toward the ghost.
Wait…Liu Tong had a thought and quickly followed. Zhang Wen ran after him.
Bai Wan reached the doorway and saw 'Chen Weiyu' immobilized, strangling herself. He yelled out worriedly, “Don’t be afraid. Big Brother’s here to save you.”
And with that, he slashed his hand across the air.
Door: Vanish. The doorway shimmered—and turned into a solid wall.
The immobilized ‘Chen Weiyu’ could only stare at her good Big Brother, eyes full of grudging hatred...as the exit vanished from view.
Liu Tong and Zhang Wen stood stiffly, staring at the scene in front of them.
The ghost... got walled again? That... that power just now. Did he really turn a door into a wall?
Bai Wan let out a long breath.
Done. Now all that was left was to wait for the system notification.
Surely they weren’t going to push out a 3.0 patch, right? That’d be shameless even by this game’s standards.
The system reluctantly sent a new message.