Scenario One: Painted Skin — 8

Bludgeoned to death by the Skinner's massive hammer, Bu Jianhan had been reduced to a pair of emotionless pickled chicken feet, lying lifelessly at the bathroom respawn point.

"I'm such an idiot. I really am." He spoke with the dead calm of a man who had given up on life. "I knew a horror game wouldn't put in a meaningless sequence, that everything had to be a clue. I just didn't know that included putting the spawn point in the bathroom!"

He reached one pickled chicken foot down between his legs and into the recess behind the toilet. Sure enough, his fingers closed around a key.

[Item acquired: Rusty Snake Key ×1.]

So this was what it meant to hide something in plain sight.

Because the bathroom was where he had first logged into the game, Bu Jianhan had never searched it particularly carefully. All his attention had been fixed on Lin Eight as the man bustled around the kitchen cooking, and he had assumed the key to the opening sequence lay there.

His repeated deaths and all the ridiculous nonsense in the instance had only reinforced that assumption, causing him to overlook the importance of exploring the bathroom at the very beginning.

From his second run, he knew that after Lin Eight heard the noises upstairs, went up to investigate, and came back down, he would visit the bathroom to answer nature's call. Once Lin Eight flushed the toilet, the key would vanish, forever passing Bu Jianhan by.

That was why, even when Bu Jianhan later combed through every room—including the bathroom—in search of the basement key, he had never encountered this one again.

Without the Snake Key, he could not open the Snake door inside the Tiger room after the chase. Once the Skinner chased him into the Tiger room, his only way to avoid being caught and killed on the spot was to hide in the wardrobe.

But hiding in the wardrobe triggered another guaranteed kill: Lin Three's phone call.

Just as the Skinner was about to leave the Tiger room, Bu Jianhan's ringtone would go off and draw him straight back, leading to Bu Jianhan's death. The call was unaffected by his phone's battery level, too. Lin Three was already a restless spirit, after all; his call came by supernatural means.

In other words, if he failed to obtain the Snake Key, the instance was unwinnable from the start.

Heaven wanted him dead. It was no fault of his own.

Fortunately, this game had no death penalty. Apart from the fright inflicted on his tender young heart and a crushing sense of exhaustion, Bu Jianhan had suffered no serious ill effects.

He squatted in the bathroom for a short rest. Then, the instant Lin Eight went upstairs, he slipped out of the villa and began another run.

This time, he refused to let Lin Eight's round, snowy-white ass distract him. His eyes were keen as a wolf's, fixed on every clue. He would not allow the tragedy of his previous run to repeat itself.

This time, when Lin Eight turned around, Bu Jianhan finally got a clear look at the black mark running down his back.

It was not a tattoo at all. It was a zipper.

A goddamn zipper.

If he had noticed that detail sooner, he would not have been stumbling around blind while the Skinner toyed with him like a kite on a string!

Having already gone through the sequence once, Bu Jianhan knew exactly where every scare lay and where a high-intensity scare might pop up. Nothing could frighten him now. He raced through the story, and the moment he reached the chase sequence and hung up on Lin Xiao Ming, he drew a deep breath, refused to look back, and ran!

His practiced movements were almost painful to watch.

He climbed and crawled, scrambling and rolling through the piles of furniture. Several times the Skinner nearly caught him, only for Bu Jianhan to shake him off again. It was an escape from death in the truest sense.

Yet even though he did not stop to yell, "Lin Four, save me!" this time, the Skinner still caught up as he sprinted past Lin Four's room and tackled him to the floor.

One raw-red hand clamped around his arm, leaving a bloody print behind. The Skinner's lipless mouth, all exposed teeth, stretched into a man-eating grin that sent a chill crawling up Bu Jianhan's spine.

With no other choice, Bu Jianhan pulled out the claw hammer again, shut his eyes, and swung at the Skinner for dear life.

As expected, his wild barrage drove the Skinner back, but also allowed the creature to snatch the claw hammer away. Apparently, the item was destined to be consumed here. There was no possibility of keeping it from the Skinner and thus preventing him from smashing open the Tiger room's door.

Bu Jianhan decisively abandoned the hammer and took off running.

So what if he was unarmed? He had the Snake Key now. He had nothing to fear!

Survival came down to one word: turtle!

He opened the Tiger room, slammed the door behind him, and—even in the midst of the chaos—remembered to grab a spare battery before charging toward the Snake door.

Safe room, here I come!

Bu Jianhan lunged toward the stainless-steel door. Behind him came a tremendous pounding, each impact making the room and all its furniture seem to tremble.

[Friendly reminder: You need the Snake Key.]

His phone had already shut down because its battery was low. With no time to replace it, he swiftly retrieved the Rusty Snake Key from his inventory and, working blind, jammed it into the keyhole.

Perhaps because of all the rust, forcing the key into the lock proved extremely difficult. Bu Jianhan had to shove it several times before it finally slid all the way in.

"Bam!"

The room shuddered once more.

Why would the door not open? Growing desperate, Bu Jianhan seized the key's bow and gave it a hard twist!

At last, it turned!

—Snap!

Bu Jianhan: "...?"

He stood frozen, staring blankly at the key's bow in his hand.

The key had broken.

Maybe years of corrosion were to blame. When he twisted the rust-covered key with all his strength, it snapped clean in two. The broken bow remained in his hand, while the toothed half was wedged firmly inside the keyhole.

The door could no longer be opened.

In an instant, cold flooded Bu Jianhan from the crown of his head to the soles of his feet, leaching every trace of warmth from his body.

What kind of twisted mechanic was this? Was the Snake room really another dead end?

The pounding behind him grew more violent with every blow, like a roar demanding his life. Each impact brought Death one step closer.

Refusing to give up, Bu Jianhan pounded hard on the door handle.

[Friendly reminder: Perhaps another available item can open this door.]

Hope flared back to life. Bu Jianhan immediately opened his inventory and searched for any item he had not used.

A full can of gasoline... a lighter almost out of fuel...

Did it want him to blow the door open?

What kind of suicide mission was opening a door if he blew himself through it too?

The claw hammer had been taken, the keyhole was blocked, and he could not use another key... What item did he have left?

Bu Jianhan's gaze abruptly stopped on an inconspicuous little object tucked into a corner.

[Item name: An Unmentionable Little Card]

[Item description: Printed with a heavily pixelated image. Its owner apparently left it in the television cabinet. Perhaps its proper use isn't picking locks, but calling the number printed on it.]

Bu Jianhan was overjoyed. He pulled the unmentionable little card from his inventory and slid it into the crack around the door.

He fumbled the card into place and swept it downward, but failed to reach the latch.

At the same time, an exceptionally violent crash came from the door behind him.

"BAM—!"

The blow seemed to have punched a hole through the door. The whole thing was on the verge of giving way!

His hand shook so badly he nearly lost his grip. The flimsy card almost slipped through the crack and fluttered into the Snake room.

Bu Jianhan steadied himself. There was nothing to fear, he thought. The worst that could happen was starting over. He gripped the little card, pulled it out, adjusted it a little higher, and slid it through the crack again.

When he pushed down, the card caught against something.

He had reached the latch!

Bu Jianhan carefully tilted the card, adjusting its angle and depth, then pulled hard toward himself—

Click.

The lock opened!

At almost the same instant, a deafening crash sounded behind him as the Skinner smashed the other door open!

Bu Jianhan yanked the handle, finally wrenching open the Snake door that had stubbornly refused to budge. Without a word, he darted into the room right in front of the Skinner, threw his whole body against the other side of the door, and slammed it shut!

Clang!

The door sealed tight, leaving the Skinner outside.

Furious, the Skinner refused to abandon the hunt. He seized the hammer and struck the stainless-steel door dozens of times. But apart from an earthshaking din, his blows did no real damage to the Snake room's door, unlike the one in the Tiger room.

After venting his rage, perhaps he finally gave up on the futile effort, or perhaps the collarbone injury Bu Jianhan had inflicted left him unable to keep going. The Skinner gave a resentful howl and stalked off, cursing all the way.

Bu Jianhan did not lower his guard.

He pressed himself against the wall beside the door, ready in case the Skinner suddenly doubled back.

[Side Quest 2: Escape the killer's pursuit. (Completed)]

Only when the quest update arrived did Bu Jianhan's heart finally settle back into his chest.

First, he examined the little card in his hand.

[Item name: A Damaged Little Card]

[Item description: A little card whose edge was damaged through improper use. It can no longer fulfill its duty as a door opener. We told you before—its proper use isn't picking locks.]

Bu Jianhan: "..."

The system had designed all these stages, so why did he feel like it was making fun of him?

Judging from the item description, though, the card's door-opening function was single-use. His plan to exploit it on other doors was apparently a nonstarter.

Bu Jianhan casually stuffed the little card back into his inventory, stepped away from the wall, and took out the spare battery to revive his useless phone.

If his guess was right, the Tiger room outside was the villa's master bedroom, belonging to the Lin couple. It contained a large double bed, and he had even found an unopened box of condoms in the nightstand.

That meant the Snake room inside the master bedroom was probably either the en suite bathroom or a walk-in closet.

Bu Jianhan favored the latter. Although he could not see in the dark, ever since entering the room he had kept feeling objects hanging around him brush against his cheeks and shoulders.

Whenever he moved, he bumped into them. They felt soft yet resilient, with smooth surfaces. Apart from the clammy chill they sent through him on contact, they were almost pleasant to touch.

But if this was a walk-in closet, the little room seemed far too damp. Would clothes stored in this environment not grow moldy?

Still puzzled, he used his newly restarted phone to turn on the flashlight.

He looked up and froze.

This was a bathroom.

Under the stark white light, bloody handprints covered the white ceramic wall tiles. Reddish-brown grime had collected where the walls met the floor, and scattered bone fragments lay piled in the corners.

And the things hanging all around him, the things that had brushed his cheeks and shoulders, were several complete, bloodstained human skins.