Chapter 17 Clues in the Restrooms

When Ruo Yu and the other two girls came out of the women's restroom, Brother Jue and the other three boys had already been waiting at the door for more than a minute.

"So? Any gains?" Feng Bujue asked.

"We didn't find any items, but... there seems to be a hint," An Yueqin replied.

Before she could finish speaking, Xiao Ling added, "There were three graffiti drawings on a wall in the women's restroom—the first was a tic-tac-toe game halfway through, the second was a Tower of Hanoi game, and the third was rather strange… It looked like a shapeless pattern made up of many curves, with unclear meaning."

"Did you all memorize those three patterns?" Feng Bujue asked immediately.

"We definitely remember the first two," Ruo Yu replied this time, "But that third one... only Xiao Ling could fully memorize it."

"Oh... okay." Feng Bujue nodded. "Since you've all memorized them, let's go."

"Hey? What about your side?" Seeing Brother Jue turn and leave, An Yueqin quickly asked.

"I've naturally memorized everything about our side as well, but to save time, I suggest we talk as we walk," Feng Bujue replied, already pulling Xiao Tan alongside him towards the second floor.

Seeing this, the others didn't say anything and quickly followed. An Yueqin, holding the other "activated flashlight," consciously walked to the back of the group to cover their rear.

"The situation in the men's restroom is similar to yours." After only walking two or three meters, Brother Jue began his explanation. "We didn't have any graffiti, but behind the doors of the three squat toilet stalls, there was a line of text written on each..." He paused, then continued, "The first stall had 'Beware of the pool' written on the back of the door; the second had 'Watch your step'; and the third had 'Do not run in the hallway.'"

"Hmm..." Just as Brother Jue finished speaking, Xiao Ling said, "Guild Leader, have you noticed that the information hidden in the two restrooms might be..."

"That's right." Feng Bujue interrupted before she could finish. "That information consists of 'important hints' about each room." He paused briefly, then added, "The tic-tac-toe graffiti in the women's restroom is clearly an allusion to the 'nine-square grid' concept; the nine-square grid puzzle appeared in the music room, and only 'San Qian Yuan' can solve that puzzle, and because San Qian Yuan is a girl... the clue appeared in the women's restroom."

"Oh! I understand now." Hearing this, Xiao Tan interjected, "According to what you said... that 'Beware of the pool' in the men's restroom is a reminder about the sink in the biology lab; the biology lab puzzle must be solved by me... that is, 'Ze Tian,' and Ze Tian is a boy, so the clue is in the men's restroom."

"Yes." Feng Bujue responded, "That is to say, after we came out of Classroom 2-A, the best course of action should have been to go to the restroom first. If we had seen the clues in the restroom before entering the biology and music rooms, then we could have solved the 'seat number' puzzle more leisurely, and Xiao Tan could have avoided being injured by the monster." He shrugged and said, "But... it's not too late now. After all, our team is relatively strong. Although we didn't follow the best route, we didn't suffer too much loss. We just need to pay attention from now on."

"Then... based on this reasoning, can we deduce this..." Ruo Yu seemed to have thought of something else at this moment. She looked at Brother Jue and said, "In the subsequent scripts, we will have to solve the puzzles of at least four more areas, and these four areas must be solved by you, me, Xiao Ling, and Gui Xiao, respectively, using some unique skill."

"Yes." Feng Bujue replied, "That kind of development is very likely."

"If that's really the case, then we don't have much time left," Gui Xiao added in a timely manner. "Even counting the classroom at the beginning, we've only explored two and a half areas so far... and already one person's flashlight has run out of power. If we continue at our current pace, the lighting equipment probably won't last until the last room."

"Don't worry, I've already considered this," Feng Bujue immediately responded. "From this moment on, let's speed up our pace and explore two more areas. If the situation looks bad at that point, we'll return to the biology lab and use the alcohol and gauze on the lab tables to make a few torches. That way... we can probably last another half hour or so."

"Oh... you've thought of that." Hearing this, Gui Xiao felt a little more relieved.

As the group's conversation continued, they happened to reach the bottom of the row of stairs.

Xiao Tan, leading the way, didn't think much. He simply raised his flashlight and shined it upwards, looked up, and prepared to step up the stairs.

However, at that instant...

"Wait!" Brother Jue, standing almost side-by-side with Xiao Tan, suddenly reached out a hand to stop him and quickly added, "Something's not right..."

In this gloomy and oppressive environment, the phrase "something's not right" itself was a factor that could make people feel afraid...

"Wh... what?" Xiao Tan withdrew his foot and stammered.

"Look carefully..." Feng Bujue turned his head and gestured with his eyes towards the stairs in front of him. "There are footprints on the stairs."

"Eh?" After being reminded, Xiao Tan quickly noticed it too. "Oh! There really are!"

Indeed, there were footprints on the wooden stairs, but... you had to shine the light directly on them and look at them from a certain angle to see them clearly.

The width of the stairs was about 1.2 meters. On each step, there was a footprint, and the footprint had no sole texture. Only the outer circle of the "outline" remained, looking like "hollow" prints.

"It seems... this is what 'Watch your step' was hinting at," Feng Bujue said. "Not in the room, but on the stairs, heh..." At this point, he couldn't help but smile. "Unforeseeable~"

"Then... how do we solve this puzzle?" Gui Xiao, following behind him, asked casually.

"Isn't it obvious? Just follow the footprints on the stairs and step on them all the way up," Feng Bujue said.

"Oh... I'll just follow... eh?" Gui Xiao instinctively wanted to respond, but he felt something was wrong halfway through. "Why is it me going up first?"

"Nonsense, since this is a puzzle corresponding to the hint in the men's restroom, it must be solved by a boy," Feng Bujue replied. "Xiao Tan, playing Ze Tian, has already completed the dissection puzzle in the biology lab, so the only ones left are you and me."

"Then what are you basing your judgment on that it shouldn't be you going up?" Gui Xiao asked again.

Upon hearing this, Feng Bujue immediately raised a leg, suspended his foot over the footprint on the first step, and pronounced a word in what he considered to be a very standard English pronunciation: "Look."

Gui Xiao stared intently, narrowed his eyes, and said, "Tch... because you have big feet?"

"My feet aren't big, but they're definitely not as small as some people who are less than 1.7 meters tall," Feng Bujue could add personal attacks to perfectly normal conversations without even thinking, which was truly a talent.

"Stop talking nonsense! I haven't finished developing yet!" Gui Xiao retorted fiercely and took a few steps forward, turning on his flashlight again. "Alright, alright... no time to mess around with you, we need to hurry."

For the sake of the overall situation, Gui Xiao didn't argue with Brother Jue and immediately started acting.

Squeak—

This was the sound of Gui Xiao's foot stepping on the first step... It was the kind of sound that only a wooden board that could be broken at any moment would make.

Of course, although the sound was scary, the step didn't actually break.

"Damn... the layout of these footprints is pretty sharp..." Gui Xiao had just wanted to take the second step when he realized that the position of the left footprint on the second step was actually to the right of the right footprint on the first step. "Are we supposed to dance a Yangge while going upstairs?"

Although he was complaining, that was the situation... If he retreated now, he didn't know what would happen, so he could only bite the bullet and finish the path ahead.

Thus, Gui Xiao began his step-by-step journey of stepping on the stairs.

After only a few steps, Gui Xiao noticed that... the outline of the footprint was almost perfectly aligned with the size of his foot. This made him feel uncomfortable all over, but it also proved that Brother Jue was right: he had to solve the staircase mechanism.

One step, two steps...

Gui Xiao had good balance. Even though the distribution of footprints on the stairs had a deliberately difficult feel, he still steadily stepped on each footprint.

After walking twelve steps, Gui Xiao arrived at a corner connecting two sections of stairs.

There were no footprints in this area, so he stepped directly onto it. The moment both his feet landed on this flat surface, the twelve steps he had just stepped on made a strange "creaking" sound.

Immediately afterwards, a faint wisp of black smoke rose from the stairs, and with that faint smoke... the outlines of the footprints on the stairs also disappeared.

"Hmm..." Seeing this, Feng Bujue muttered, "After you stepped on them, it seems like you can walk on these stairs as you please."

With that, he raised his foot and took two steps up to test it, but nothing happened. There wasn't even the "squeak" sound anymore.

Now that was clear, everyone no longer hesitated. A dozen seconds later, all five members of the team had reached the corner of the stairs.

"Okay... then I'll continue up." After everyone was in position, Gui Xiao stepped forward again to step on the second half of the stairs.

Squeak—squeak—

Just like the first half, the stairs were still making noise as Gui Xiao broke the mechanism.

Having gained some experience, he walked a little faster this time. After a few steps, his line of sight exceeded the height of the second floor. At this time, if he looked straight ahead, he could see the corridor on the second floor.

And Gui Xiao... did raise his flashlight and looked up.

If he hadn't looked, it would have been fine, but one look almost scared him into rolling down the stairs.

"Hey..." Perhaps he was too frightened, but Gui Xiao didn't even shout this time. He simply shined his flashlight on what he saw and said in a crying tone, without turning his head, "Do you guys remember the guy we saw outside the window in Classroom 2-A..."

Feng Bujue, standing behind, had already seen the abnormality from Gui Xiao's trembling back. Hearing this, Brother Jue instantly reacted: "You saw it?"

"Yeah..." Gui Xiao's "yeah" was accompanied by an extremely obvious tremor. "He's now lying on the ground about a meter away from the last step, in a crawling position... and looking at me with a grim smile."

"What's your condition?" Feng Bujue continued.

"My legs are weak, I might kneel down or fall down the stairs at any moment," Gui Xiao didn't like to beat around the bush, so he said whatever was on his mind.

"Can't be? You've already seen him, what's there to be afraid of?" Feng Bujue said at this moment.

"That's what you say..." Gui Xiao replied, "But there's a big difference between 'seeing' with a data perspective and seeing it like this..." He explained, "The former is like looking at a dot matrix diagram, while the latter is like watching a horror movie."

"Then just look at the horror movie as a dot matrix diagram," Feng Bujue drawled.

"I don't have your ability..." Gui Xiao expressed his helplessness.

"Then just think of it this way..." Feng Bujue said, "The worst-case scenario right now is nothing more than this—he suddenly pounces on you as you walk past; that's no different from being attacked by a normal monster, right? At that time, you block if you can, fight if you can, die if you have to... what's the big deal?"

"The way you put it... really is... a big help!" The third part of Gui Xiao's sentence was almost shouted, indicating that he had once again reached a state where fear turned into anger.

"Although I don't want to interrupt your chat, I think it's best to remind you..." At this moment, Ruo Yu, standing next to Brother Jue, suddenly interjected, "Gui Xiao, young friend... there's not much battery left in your flashlight; if you go up in one go now, there's a chance you can use the light to push back or suppress that monster; but if you continue to stand there and stare at the monster, by the time the flashlight goes out, I'm afraid it'll come down before you go up..."

"Ah—"

Before Ruo Yu could finish speaking, Gui Xiao shouted and stepped precisely on the footprints on the stairs at an extremely fast speed, climbing step by step.

Obviously, Ruo Yu's words had worked...

This tells us that one of the ways to force a person to face their fear is to use a pressure that frightens them even more to force them to act.

Just five seconds later, Gui Xiao reached the end of the stairs, and as he approached, the monster actually retreated...

With each step Gui Xiao took forward, the expression on the monster's face changed, and finally... the grim smile turned into twisted fear.

Finally, when Gui Xiao stepped on the last footprint, the monster screamed miserably under the close-range illumination of the light, and instantly turned into a black gas and dissipated.

When Gui Xiao's feet landed on the corridor on the second floor, all that remained on the ground where the monster had crawled was—a pair of shoes.