Chapter 15
Li Mo’s arrival meant Yin Xiu was safe. As long as he stayed with Li Mo until dawn, he would make it through this ordeal.
But even after escaping the invisible presence, spending the night with another mysterious, eerie being still left Yin Xiu unable to relax.
“Looking for me?” Li Mo pushed open the door and stood there smiling. His figure blended into the darkness of the living room. Even though Yin Xiu couldn’t see him clearly, he could guess that Li Mo was smiling.
Yin Xiu slowly exhaled and sat up, briefly telling him what had just happened and explaining that he needed his roommate to fulfill his duties as such.
“Being able to stay in this room and watch you all night would be an absolute pleasure.” Li Mo sounded delighted, with no hint that he might refuse.
“There isn’t another bed in this room, and I’m not letting you sleep in mine.” Yin Xiu was on guard. He was already prepared to spend the night curled up in a chair.
But after entering the room and closing the door, Li Mo walked over to the chair and sat down primly, wearing his usual smile. “That’s fine. I’ll just sit here.”
Yin Xiu silently stared at him. The room was dark, and Li Mo’s figure was dark too, quiet and soundless, as if he didn’t even exist in the room. Yet Li Mo’s gaze rested plainly on him, without the slightest restraint.
Just think of it as punishment for accidentally triggering the rule. He hadn’t died, but enduring Li Mo’s stare all night was punishment enough.
Yin Xiu turned over and lay back down. To block Li Mo’s gaze, he wrapped himself up tightly in the blanket, but he could still feel Li Mo’s eyes roaming over him without anything to obstruct them.
It was late. Most viewers in the livestream had gone to sleep, leaving only a few who were staying up to see if anything else would happen tonight. Every so often, a few comments drifted by.
“Yin Xiu’s roommate seems so strange. Why is he sitting there without moving, staring at Yin Xiu?”
“He really is strange... He’s been sitting there for an hour, hasn’t he? He hasn’t moved once. I almost started wondering if there was a statue in that chair.”
“Doesn’t he sleep?”
“It’s more than just not sleeping... He’s sitting there without moving or speaking, wearing that same smile and staring at Yin Xiu. I’m getting the uncanny valley feeling. It’s kind of scary...”
“Yin Xiu’s roommate really isn’t an ordinary person. He’s so creepy.”
“By the way, something’s appeared in the living room...”
At the notification for this message, the players still awake immediately leaned closer to their screens. They saw a huge shadow slowly appear in every player’s living room, prowling around on patrol.
“What the hell is that? The thing that appeared in the living room before was invisible. Why can we see this one now?”
“No, no... Something feels really off, guys. This doesn’t seem to be the same thing as before!”
“Could this be the one mentioned in the instance rules?”
“Impossible... Then what was the thing from before? It was following the rules too, like quietly entering players’ rooms.”
“But this one has much more of an instance monstrosity vibe. It follows the instance rules and stays in the living room on patrol. It’s exactly what you’d expect from the rule about not going into the living room at night.”
“But the one from before...”
Someone thought it over for a few seconds, then suddenly understood.
“I think I might know the truth, guys!”
“Could it be that the thing from before wasn’t actually the monstrosity in the rules, but was imitating it?”
“Why do you say that?”
“I thought something was strange earlier. It could follow players into their rooms, which obviously meant it had found them. If it had found them and didn’t attack, wouldn’t that go against the rules?”
“It was clearly pretending not to see the players who stayed still, then deliberately following them into their rooms to help bring about the seventh rule.”
“That makes some sense, but there’s no evidence.”
But as soon as that question appeared, the screen immediately provided proof.
After making a full round of the living room, the monstrosity slowly shuffled its dark figure over to a player’s door and knocked.
“Who is it?” The player inside had been awakened by the knocking. Still half-asleep and groggy, he heard the familiar voice of his roommate outside.
“It’s me. Open the door.”
“What’s going on in the middle of the night?” Hearing his roommate’s voice, the player let down his guard and hurried out of bed to open the door.
But the instant the door opened, the shadow darted into the player’s room and stood motionless behind him.
When he opened the door and found the living room empty, the groggy player shivered and instantly woke up. Trembling, he didn’t dare look back at the presence behind him and immediately started calling for his roommate, just as the rules instructed.
Only after he had called for several minutes and stood frozen in the doorway for several minutes did his roommate slowly open his own door and come out.
As soon as the roommate appeared, the shadow behind the player vanished. The player rushed over with tears in his eyes, threw his arms around his roommate, then immediately dragged him into the room.
The player in the instance had been lucky enough to avoid death, but the people watching from outside broke into a cold sweat.
“You were right, man... You really are a prophet! Holy shit, this is the one in the rules! Its behavior makes perfect sense.”
“But what about the thing from before... What the hell was that invisible thing? Why did it imitate the monstrosity in the rules?”
“Since it appeared in the living room pretending to be the rule-following monstrosity, maybe it wanted to take its place.”
“No way... Wouldn’t players realize the first one was fake once they found out there was a second rule-following monstrosity in the living room?”
“I haven’t figured it all out yet. I don’t think it wants to kill any particular player. It could’ve killed someone in the living room, so there was no need to sneak into their rooms. It must have gone in there to fit the rules.”
“As for the appearance of a second rule-following monstrosity...”
The players in front of their screens were puzzled for quite a while. They couldn’t guess how the thing trying to take the other’s place would deal with this problem.
Then something new appeared on the screen.
As expected, the real instance monstrosity appeared in the living room outside Yin Xiu’s door. After wandering around, it obediently went over and knocked on his door.
But it only knocked once. Li Mo, who had been sitting in the chair without moving for an hour, suddenly stood up, strode to the door, and opened it. His face half-hidden in the night, he smiled as he reminded it, “Keep your voice down.”
His move instantly stunned a huge crowd of people watching the screen.
“What is he doing?! Why would he just open the door?! He’s the roommate, so he’s breaking the rules!”
“Uh, wait... He is the roommate, and he’s already in Yin Xiu’s room. Then... can the monstrosity still get in?”
“Wait! The neighboring screen has the answer! The monstrosity dragged the roommate into the living room and killed him! That’s the player who was fooled by the fake monstrosity earlier! His roommate was in the room too!”
“Then Yin Xiu’s roommate...”
Everyone held their breath as they watched the shadow at the doorway suddenly twist and reach out, grab Li Mo by the shoulder, and drag him into the darkness of the living room.
In the murky footage, it seemed that liquid splashed through the air. Then, from the pitch-black darkness came a scalp-crawling sound of chewing, nibbling and tearing at something as if it were devouring it.
“He’s dead, he’s dead... Yin Xiu’s roommate really was a newbie. He died on the very first night...”
“Ah, Yin Xiu’s going to have to clear the instance alone now. I wonder how he’ll react when he wakes up and sees his roommate dead in the living room.”
“He’ll be indifferent, obviously. He’s such a cold person.”
“Not necessarily. If Yin Xiu accepted him as a roommate, he must like him quite a bit, right?”
As the comments carried on, the sounds of chewing in the living room continued for several minutes before slowly stopping. It seemed the meal was over.
As everyone sighed over what had happened, a black figure calmly emerged from the darkness of the living room, returned to Yin Xiu’s room, and closed the door.
“?!”
“Yin Xiu’s roommate... is he still alive?”
“He... he’s covered in blood. No, wait... Why is he still alive? I clearly heard the sound of someone eating. Wasn’t the monstrosity eating him?”
“I mean... is it possible that he ate the monstrosity?”