An Ling was startled by the sudden shout. Now she was like a mute forced to swallow bitter herbs—unable to voice her grievances.
To avoid unnecessary trouble, she decided it was best to leave quickly.
She returned to her room. The mark left by the dagger piercing the door was still clearly visible. Then, she opened the bathroom door.
Sure enough, it was just her eyes playing tricks on her.
The corpse of the bald brute was still there, and the massive wound on his abdomen had started to rot, releasing a pungent stench.
“It seems I was overthinking it. Just a coincidence,” An Ling muttered, then immediately stepped over the man’s corpse and headed for the staircase.
There weren’t many survivors living on the fifth floor, but the girl’s scream just now had alerted some people on the fourth floor. They poked their heads out to see what was happening outside, yet none of them dared to leave their rooms.
Here, selfishness was the only sensible way to survive. Who would go looking for trouble without reason?
An Ling shot them a glare, and those survivors immediately slammed their doors shut.
As for the girl who had just screamed, no one knew where she had run off to.
“That’s her! She’s a hidden lunatic! I saw her kill someone with my own eyes just now!” A female voice and the sound of numerous footsteps echoed from the staircase below. It sounded like a group was coming her way.
No doubt, anyone daring to wander around at this hour must be one of the newly arrived survivors from this afternoon. They probably didn’t understand the warnings of this place yet.
An Ling had no intention of dealing with them. She headed straight downstairs. Coincidentally, both groups met at the third-floor landing.
She saw the girl who had run away earlier, now cowering timidly behind several men.
The crowd stared at one another, momentarily dazed by the sight of the white-haired girl before them. The leader turned his head uncertainly and asked, “Are you sure she’s a lunatic?”
The girl met An Ling’s gaze but didn’t dare speak. She could only keep nodding.
“If that’s the case, let’s grab her first and sort things out later!”
“That’s right! We can’t have a lunatic like this in the manor. She’s a huge risk!”
Though the two spoke righteously, the lecherous grins at the corners of their mouths betrayed their true intentions.
An Ling made a snap decision and dashed upstairs, determined to teach this group a lesson.
She drew an arrow, nocked it, and pulled the string in one smooth motion. With a swish, her arrow shot down from above, piercing a man’s palm and pinning it to the wall.
“Ahhh!” Several men screamed in agony in the stairwell. An Ling hadn’t aimed to kill, but she wasn’t about to let them off easy.
Thump, thump!
She put away her compound bow and slowly walked downstairs. Gazing at the survivors whose palms were nailed to the wall, she felt not a shred of pity.
They kept wailing, blood slowly trickling from their wounds, every face twisted in pain.
“You lunatic!”
An Ling ignored them. The girl had long since run off. She returned directly to her room.
After closing the door, she could still hear the cries and pleas for help from those survivors at the stairwell.
But with each passing moment, the sounds grew fainter. No survivor dared leave their room now.
She didn’t have many arrows left. An Ling thought she should be sparing with them, or perhaps collect and reuse them if necessary.
She’d had plenty of sleep during the day. Tonight, she couldn’t afford to relax her guard again.
As she mulled over her next move, time slipped by unnoticed.
Before she knew it, it was ten o’clock—lights-out time. From this point on, no one could leave their room unless the manor lost power.
Sizzle… zzzt…
Before she could turn off the lights, the whole room plunged into darkness. An Ling’s right hand hovered in midair, stunned.
“Power’s out? Why so early?”
An Ling immediately slung her backpack over her shoulder and prepared to leave the room. At the same time, Qin Xiao and Chen Rui reacted as well. Seeing the survivors pouring out of their rooms, she froze.
The third-floor rooms were almost full now. That meant many new survivors had arrived today.
Some of them probably still had no idea what was going on, while others were simply following the crowd. But soon, they would all experience the manor’s horrors firsthand.
An Ling followed the others towards the first-floor hall. Along the way, she glanced up the stairwell and noticed that the survivors she’d shot earlier were gone. She didn’t know whether they had managed to escape or had already met their end.
Qin Xiao saw the arrows above. His eyes narrowed, and he gave An Ling an inadvertent glance.
Soon, they reached the hall. Everyone had gathered here, including the men with wounded palms.
By the faint light of the emergency lamps, everyone immediately began checking whether anyone in their group had disappeared.
“Thank goodness, looks like this was just a sudden incident.”
Someone let out a sigh of relief. In the manor, nightfall was practically a death sentence. Only their rooms could offer even the slightest sense of safety.
Still, something felt off to An Ling. She glanced around at the assembled survivors and realized there were nearly forty people here.
In other words, with just a dozen or so more arrivals, the manor would reach full capacity.
“Wait, where’s that woman?”
An Ling froze. With so many survivors, not a single person noticed her absence?
That girl had experienced death firsthand. Plus, as a female, she should have left a strong impression on the group—her absence should have aroused suspicion.
She hadn’t even settled the score for being framed!
An Ling strongly suspected that the girl was a disguised survivor.
With this afternoon’s batch of newcomers, the number of women in the manor had increased. Was that why nobody noticed the missing girl?
“Yingying, I want to go to the restroom…”
“I’ll go with you.”
Hearing this exchange, An Ling was taken aback and looked over. She saw two girls preparing to go to the bathroom.
Fools. Nothing usually happens when you stick with the crowd, yet they insisted on going off alone to use the restroom. Were they just handing themselves over?
An Ling shook her head to herself. No matter where you went, there was never a shortage of idiots.
But the screams she expected never came. The two girls actually returned safely.
Zzzt!
A burst of static sounded, and the hall lights flickered on. But before anyone could celebrate, the lights went out again the next second.
Things went from bad to worse—even the emergency lamps failed this time.
No one dared move a muscle. The darkness was absolute, not even a hand in front of one’s face could be seen. If any enemy lurked within, things could get very ugly.