Chapter 1 Eyes Shut and Open, It's Still Dark

With a blink of her eyes, the sky was still dark.

In the darkness, the faint light from the window seemed particularly noticeable, and Lu Xiaoyao could tell that the time was off.

The sound of rain pattering against the glass was still clear.

It sounded heavy; she wondered how long it had been raining.

"Youyou?"

In the darkness, Lu Xiaoyao tried to call out.

"Coming, wait a sec~"

Hearing her companion's normal response, Lu Xiaoyao relaxed slightly, and then a faint light appeared beside her bed.

She turned her head and saw Leng Youyou holding a candle, which stunned Lu Xiaoyao.

"Why a candle? Aren't we turning on the lights?"

As she spoke, Lu Xiaoyao reached for the bedside lamp, but obviously, she flipped the switch and nothing happened.

"The rain was too heavy and washed out the mountain lines. There's no electricity now. The boss gave us these candles, hung in a small cloth bag on the door."

Leng Youyou said, her expression somewhat solemn in the candlelight, and looked at Lu Xiaoyao again, saying, "We've slept for almost a whole day."

"Huh?"

"It's already past four in the afternoon, from when we fell asleep at midnight last night, until now..."

Leng Youyou finished speaking and took out her phone, which had a black screen and no power, and said, "It looks like the power went out last night. I didn't have time to charge my phone. I woke up, glanced at the time, and then turned it off."

"Ah, I think I have a power bank in my backpack."

Lu Xiaoyao rolled over in bed, sat up, quickly got out of bed, and took the phone power bank from her backpack and gave it to Leng Youyou. Then, she turned on her own phone, which she had been charging at the bedside last night.

Likewise, the battery was low, and there was also a shocking discovery.

"Oh my god?"

Lu Xiaoyao stared at the phone's signal bar, in disbelief, "How is there no signal! The mountain circuits were washed out, could the signal tower be broken too?"

She remembered that yesterday when she entered the game, they had signal when they came out of the old forest. There was no reason why this small roadside hotel wouldn't have a signal.

"Really?"

Leng Youyou charged her phone and turned it on, and there was no signal either.

"Let's go ask next door."

Realizing that something seemed wrong, and Lu Xiaoyao was awake, Leng Youyou mustered her courage and took Lu Xiaoyao out of the room and went next door.

Similarly, Hu Yue and Wang Wenfei, who had just woken up, had also lit the candles that the boss had previously placed at the door with a note attached.

Hearing Lu Xiaoyao and Leng Youyou's voices outside, they opened the door and let Lu Xiaoyao and the others into the room to exchange information.

Likewise, not much useful information was exchanged.

"By the way, the poster on the wall yesterday... did you tear it?"

Leng Youyou remembered the abnormality that she and Lu Xiaoyao had discovered yesterday. Hearing Leng Youyou's question, a trace of embarrassment flashed across their faces, and they did not deny it.

"Why did you tear that poster? Did you find anything?"

Lu Xiaoyao also remembered that last night they were too sleepy when they went upstairs and didn't immediately find Hu Yue and the others to ask, and if Leng Youyou hadn't reminded her, she would have forgotten about it.

"Well... maybe that poster is just an old thing from a long time ago?"

Hu Yue chuckled uncertainly, "If the boss wants compensation, how much will that poster cost?"

Leng Youyou + Lu Xiaoyao: "..."

·

Mingmei could see all the content of the conversation through the live broadcast.

It was true that the poster did indeed have clues, if she remembered correctly. As long as they tore the poster a little bigger, they would be able to see the dark red bloodstains behind the poster.

But their thinking seemed a bit skewed, so much so that now they were actually struggling with whether or not to pay compensation if she found out.

"If I don't mention letting them pay compensation, I'd be letting them down for thinking of me like this~"

Mingmei murmured, looking at the hotel's electronic map in the boss panel.

The map clearly showed four small light spots gathered in one room, while the other three small light spots were motionless in the opposite room, obviously not awake.

She could clearly see the distribution of all the players' rooms at the moment.

In addition, Mingmei herself also had the Lu Xiaoyao live broadcast provided by Guigui, and Mingmei felt that this was a huge advantage for her!

And besides these seven white small dots, there was also a small red heart mark that was different from the other light spots, and it was currently in the hotel's back kitchen.

Mingmei's eyes glanced at Mu Chen, who was cooking in the back kitchen, and the corners of her mouth twitched. She couldn't help but sigh in her heart about this setting: her uncle's operation was really coquettish~

So, when Mu Chen took on the boss role in the past, he saw himself like this?

She didn't know if Mu Chen had requested it on his own initiative, or if her uncle had done it this way from the start.

Fortunately, Mu Chen gave her more credit points directly as a player, and he was a Boss less often. Could it be that he was also ashamed by this panel?

·

Soon, Lu Xiaoyao and the other girls noticed that they hadn't made any new discoveries, so they set their sights on the boys in the opposite room.

They went out together to the opposite side and started knocking on the door. Lu Xiaoyao noticed that there was still a small bag hanging on the door handle, which contained candles and a note explaining the situation.

Obviously, the three people in the room were not awake yet and had not noticed the power outage.

Sure enough, not long after Lu Xiaoyao and the others knocked on the door and called out, in addition to the boys' responses, there was also a series of flustered "umms" and "ahs".

The girls: ??

This sound...

"Hey, be gentle, get off me!"

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'll get off right away... ah, get out! Don't touch me!"

"I, I, I didn't see... I'm sorry, I'm sorry, does it hurt?"

"Why don't you try?!"

The girls: 0.0 cat sublimates.jpg

About ten minutes later, the chaos in the boys' room ended, and Julian opened the door. He saw the girls at the door holding two lit candles, staring at him with bean eyes.

"Uh... s-sorry, we slept too soundly, and then we just woke up and found out there was no electricity, so we fumbled around in the dark to clean up a bit."

Julian quickly explained what happened in the room just now, his face full of embarrassment.

Who told them to forget that there was someone sleeping on the floor when they got out of bed in the dark, and as a result, they stepped on him and fell on him, almost squeezing the stuffing out of him.

Afterwards, another person repeated the same mistake, and the three of them fell together, shouting and cursing. This... wouldn't it leave a bad impression on the girls at the door?

While worrying about his image, Julian tried to appear calm and greeted them: "You... woke up so early?"

"Early?"

Julian was asked this question, and the strange expressions on the four girls' faces made Julian realize that something was wrong.

He turned his head and looked at the bit of light coming through the window in the room again. The sky outside was still dark and heavy, with endless rain. It didn't look like noon in broad daylight, right?

"It's almost five in the afternoon," Lu Xiaoyao whispered to remind him, "We've been asleep for a day, and I don't know when the rain seemed to break the mountain's circuits. The boss hung bags on the doors of our rooms, with candles and a note explaining the situation inside."

"Ah, is that so?"

Julian lowered his head and saw the package on the door handle. The other two boys also heard their words at this time and crowded to the door to ask about it.

"Ah? Is that so? Has this rain been falling for a day?"

"It's really a power outage? I'll go!"

"It's more than just a power outage, there's no phone signal either."

For a time, Wang Wenfei finally felt that the scene of the three big men stuck in the door frame asking questions was really strange, so she added:

"Since you don't know anything either, and it's getting dark, let's go downstairs and ask the boss about the specific situation."