Surviving a Horror Game by Romancing the Boss - Chapter 2

The moment I stepped into the hall, Zhou Shuyue came stumbling toward me, her face deathly pale.

I caught her by the arms.

“What happened? Where’s Li Baiyu?”

The question seemed to call up some terrible memory. Her tears fell harder, and her words came out in broken fragments.

“Baiyu… I saw… in the room… His arm…”

I could more or less guess that something had happened to him.

When I followed Zhou Shuyue back to their room, I found Li Baiyu unconscious on the floor, one arm twisted like a length of rope.

The pain had clearly knocked him out.

Wang Yue came running at the commotion.

“What happened? What’s wrong with him?”

Still crying in fright, Zhou Shuyue explained, “I had just finished showering when Baiyu’s arm twisted itself into that shape right in front of me. There’s a ghost here. There really is! We have to get out of this place.”

Wang Yue looked shaken too. Zhou Shuyue was too distraught to be lying.

If she was telling the truth, then there was definitely something wrong with this hotel.

“We can’t leave his arm like that,” I said. “There’s a first-aid kit at the front desk. I’ll splint it for him.”

I found a piece of wood and some bandages and made a simple splint for Li Baiyu’s injured arm.

[Wow. At a time like this, he’s still worrying over a minor injury? What a saint.]

[Yeah? Well, I hope no one helps you if you get hurt in a place like this.]

[Say one more thing about my wifey. I dare you.]

Night had fallen by then.

None of our phones had a signal, so there was no way to contact the outside world.

We left the hotel and started down the mountain by flashlight.

Wang Yue carried Li Baiyu on his back and walked behind us, while Zhou Shuyue and I led the way.

The silence around us was terrifying. The only sounds were leaves rustling in the wind and Zhou Shuyue’s quiet sobs.

We walked for two hours without seeing the main road at the foot of the mountain.

The darkness was nearly absolute.

Suddenly, Zhou Shuyue stopped.

Her eyes widened. She pointed a trembling finger at a brightly lit building ahead, her voice unsteady.

“L-look. What… what is that?”

I followed her finger.

There stood the hotel.

We had walked for more than two hours, believing we were escaping, only to circle back to where we started.

[Love waits around every corner.]

[After all those twists and turns, it was you all along.]

[I’m dying.]

Wang Yue spat on the ground. “Fuck. We’re trapped in a ghost maze!”

“Ah!”

Zhou Shuyue was close to breaking. With a scream, she took off running down the mountain.

We couldn’t keep up with her.

Wang Yue had been carrying Li Baiyu for over two hours and was exhausted.

“Fuck this. I’m not walking anymore.”

We rested where we were. Less than ten minutes later, rapid footsteps came tapping down the path from uphill.

We looked up.

It was Zhou Shuyue.

She recoiled in terror at the sight of us and collapsed onto the ground. “How? How am I back here again?”

The hotel was the only light in the night.

Its open doors seemed to mock our stupidity and our futile struggle.

Unable to escape, we went back inside.

The moment we entered, however, it was obvious that the interior had changed. Everything looked older.

Wang Yue studied the furnishings with a grave expression. “I heard this hotel was renovated three years ago after several murders happened here.”

I found a newspaper on the magazine rack. The paper looked brand-new, but the date on it was from three years ago.

Inside was a missing-person notice.

Chen Shi, a student at A University, had disappeared on July 20, 2022.

The listed location was this very hotel.

The young man in the photograph had cold, striking features and a pair of dark, distant eyes devoid of emotion.

It looked like a student ID photo.

If I remembered correctly, the four of us were students at A University too.