An Ling’s voice was quite loud, and since it was a woman’s voice, it easily attracted the attention of those nearby.
They heard what An Ling said and immediately began to observe, the survivors who had formed temporary teams searched for their own teammates.
Sure enough, that bald brute was missing!
The most urgent task now was to get to the bottom of what had happened. Qin Xiao faced the crowd, using the dim light of the Emergency Lamp to scan each survivor’s face.
“Does anyone know which Room he’s in?”
His cold, magnetic voice reached everyone’s ears. The bald brute had no teammates; he had come to the manor alone.
All the survivors present were afraid of him, and basically, none had spoken to him.
“He’s in the Room at the far end of the Fifth Floor.” At this moment, a man with Gold-rimmed Glasses replied to Qin Xiao.
Qin Xiao didn’t say anything and turned to head upstairs, with An Ling and Chen Rui immediately following.
The survivors all knew the others were seeking the truth, so they tacitly followed as well.
Now it seemed the one who had just screamed was indeed that bald brute.
At the Staircase Corner, An Ling casually took the Emergency Lighting off the wall to use as a flashlight.
There were fewer Rooms on the Fifth Floor than on the Third Floor or Fourth Floor, only sixteen in total, and the bald brute’s Room was at the very end of the hallway. There were two Rooms there, but the door to the other Room was open and empty.
The group arrived outside the Room, with Qin Xiao at the front. He turned to glance at An Ling. “Prepare yourself mentally.”
Click!
The door opened, and the light shone into the Room. Qin Xiao was the first to step in, and An Ling quickly followed.
A strong smell of blood assaulted them, causing An Ling to furrow her brows, her heart growing more and more uneasy.
The bed was messy, but empty.
Everyone immediately fixed their eyes on the private Bathroom.
Qin Xiao pushed open the door, and the scene that greeted them made their stomachs churn; almost everyone instinctively covered their mouths.
“Ugh…”
In an instant, everyone started vomiting. All those present were ordinary people, with no one having any special profession or having dealt with dead bodies before. The bloody sight before them was just too much to take.
The bald brute lay on the ground, eyes wide in terror, blood flowing everywhere. There was a huge, jagged tear on his abdomen, so irregular that his internal Organs were spilling out.
Qin Xiao showed no expression. He glanced at An Ling and was surprised to see that, unlike the others, she wasn’t throwing up.
Very few people could see such a gruesome scene for the first time and not retch.
But what they didn’t know was that An Ling wasn’t vomiting because her shock had overridden her physical reaction, making her instinctively treat the bald brute’s corpse as that of an animal.
If it were an animal’s corpse, who would vomit at that?
An Ling was completely shocked, because the wound on the bald brute’s abdomen was identical to the one she had seen on the sika deer before!
She couldn’t explain it; after all, she had asked Qin Xiao, and he hadn’t seen the sika deer.
It was that Monster, that Monster had followed them to the manor!
An Ling was now certain that it wasn’t a Beast, but something that wanted to kill all living things, perhaps even intelligent, and loved to rip open bellies—a maniac!
Qin Xiao frowned as he stepped into the Bathroom, seeming very worried that the blood might stain his shoes.
He crouched down to examine the wound, but couldn’t tell how it had been inflicted.
The target had been ripped open, probably for the Organs inside.
Just as he was about to investigate further, Chen Rui’s voice sounded behind him.
“It’s the Pancreas. His Pancreas is gone.”
Hearing this, Qin Xiao checked again and, sure enough, found it to be true. He couldn’t help but look at Chen Rui with newfound respect.
It seemed Chen Rui was more than just a timid burden.
“Can you tell what caused this wound?” Qin Xiao turned to look at Chen Rui, and An Ling also cast a questioning glance.
Chen Rui shook his head. “I don’t know. But at least I can be sure that no existing Beast could possibly cause a wound like this.”
Qin Xiao stood up. It seemed there was no useful information here, so the three of them led the group back to the Lounge on the first floor.
Since they couldn’t get anywhere by examining the corpse, their only lead was the Warning left behind the door.
“Who heard knocking on their doors last night?” Of the three, Qin Xiao was the most intimidating. After all, he was currently the strongest in the Lounge, so naturally it was up to him to ask.
The survivors were stunned by the question. Some immediately looked surprised and started telling Qin Xiao about their experiences.
But a large number had gone straight to sleep upon entering their Rooms, so they couldn’t say for sure whether there had been any knocking.
As a result, most dismissed the so-called Warning with a sneer.
They believed the bald brute’s death couldn’t possibly be related to those few sentences written by the door.
“If you ask me, if there’s really a Monster in this manor, it must be those two who brought it in.” A survivor muttered under his breath, but everyone still heard, and soon people started whispering about An Ling and Chen Rui.
But none dared to speak too loudly, not with Qin Xiao standing there.
Ever since those two arrived, no new survivors had come. There had been a lot of survivors before.
Chen Rui looked pleadingly at An Ling, but she said nothing, just lost in thought.
The deer she met on the first day must have been attacked by the Monster. Could it really have followed her into the manor?
Had she indirectly caused this man’s death?
Seeing An Ling’s silence, Qin Xiao seemed thoughtful, perhaps guessing she knew something. “Don’t overthink it. He was just a murderer—he deserved to die long ago. What does it have to do with you?”
Qin Xiao said this openly, and everyone immediately fell silent, not daring to gossip further.
That’s right, with a murderer dead, wasn’t their own situation better?
“Is the Warning really useful? We’re only allowed to take five types of Food each time, but I packed a whole backpack and nothing happened to me.”
A survivor asked with some confusion, putting down his Storage Backpack to take out some Food.
But when he took out the Food, he was dumbfounded. “How can this be?!”
The Food in his hand was already rotten, smelling foul and moldy inside, completely inedible.
Immediately, all the survivors began rummaging through their Storage Backpacks for Food, and sure enough, everything they’d taken out from there was like this—all rotten!
An Ling and the others also took out the Food from their Storage Backpacks that they’d gotten yesterday to check, and just as she expected, the Food was perfectly fine.
And now, they could put it into her Storage Backpack.
“Why is your Food still good?” Someone cried out, staring at the Food in their hands.
“Because we followed the Warning.”