When the two left the bathroom, they headed straight back to the living room and found Xiao Ji, who'd gotten the stethoscope out of the chest the day before.
Yesterday Xiao Ji had opened three chests all in one breath. He was fortunate to not have immediately died. One chest had an item for the humans to use, one had a skill for Hako Onna, and one had been empty.
When Lin Qiushi and Ruan Nanzhu found Xiao Ji, Wei Xiude was sitting beside him.
Ruan Nanzhu explained the situation, indicating that the stethoscope could distinguish whether or not the Hako Onna was inside a chest. If they opened the chest after using it, then the risk would be greatly diminished.
Wei Xiude didn't say anything after, but Xiao Ji shot to attention.
"Really? This stethoscope's really that useful? Then we've hit the jackpot, we can just listen our way through."
"There must be a usage limit on this item," Ruan Nanzhu said. "You can go try it on a chest first."
After listening to their conversation, Wei Xiude still didn't speak up, acting as if he was just a bystander. Though he seemed harmless, nobody who made it to their tenth door was easy pickings—everybody was quite clear on this. Plus, all the newbies he'd brought along was telling.
Xiao Ji put on the stethoscope and picked out a random chest in the living room. Putting the stethoscope to the wooden exterior, he gave it a long listen before turning around and saying, "there's no sound inside."
"Try opening it," Ruan Nanzhu said.
"Why don't you do it?" Xiao Ji said. "I'm a bit scared."
He said he was scared, but there wasn't a single touch of fright on his face. Clearly, he just didn't want to shoulder the risk of opening the chest.
Ruan Nanzhu's lips curved up.
"Sure, I can do it, but if I open up an item, who gets to keep it?"
Xiao Ji said, "me, of course. I'm the one who picked this chest."
Ruan Nanzhu, lazily, "as if. I take all the risks and you keep all the benefits?"
Xiao Ji thought about it, and seemed to find Ruan Nanzhu's words logical. He got ready to open the chest himself, but Ruan Nanzhu suddenly thought of something.
"Wait. I want to give the chest a listen."
"Hm?" Xiao Ji was a bit thrown.
Ruan Nanzhu first pressed himself to the chest and listened for a while. And then he waved Lin Qiushi and Liang Miye over. The three listened around the chest for another bit of time, until Ruan Nanzhu finally got up and gave Xiao Ji a wave.
"Okay, open it."
At least Xiao Ji was brave. Among the newbies who'd entered, he wasn't in a bad condition, nor did he show any signs of pending emotional breakdown. After rubbing his palms together, he took hold of the lid of the chest and gave it a hefty lift—
The chest opened with a click, revealing the empty bottom. There was nothing inside.
"Empty." Xiao Ji was disappointed that they hadn't opened up any useful items.
"Come here for a second," Ruan Nanzhu said. "Come with me to the bathroom."
"Ah." Xiao Ji eyed Ruan Nanzhu up and down. "That's…not gonna work, right?"
Ruan Nanzhu, "I said come to the bathroom, not use it. Let's go."
Xiao Ji laughed and followed Ruan Nanzhu to the bathroom.
Lin Qiushi followed and very quickly understood what Ruan Nanzhu wanted to do. He saw Ruan Nanzhu bring Xiao Ji to a certain stall and point at the chest inside.
"Listen to that with your stethoscope."
This chest was the one that used False Answers just now to trick Lin Qiushi into opening it. If there were restrictions on the Hako Onna's motions, then she couldn't have left this chest in such a short amount of time. From the difference between these two chests, they had a lot of information to gain: first was what sounds came out of a chest with the Hako Onna inside, and second was the usage limit for the stethoscope.
Xiao Ji took out the stethoscope and, just like before, pressed the listening end to the wooden chest. Moments later, his expression changed and he swore a low, oh fuck.
"Heard something?" Ruan Nanzhu asked.
"Yes," Xiao Ji said. "There's a kid crying inside…"
He quickly stowed the stethoscope away, clearly unwilling to listen to more.
Ruan Nanzhu approached the chest and gave it a few pats, saying, "seems like she really is inside. If we find any key items, we can actually give them a try."
They had yet to find any items that could be used against the Hako Onna, however.
"Your stethoscope can be used at least twice. If you get a chance tomorrow, you can try using it a third time," Ruan Nanzhu said. "It's a really good item, congratulations."
"Hah, no need for that, I just got lucky," Xiao Ji replied off-handedly.
Wei Xiude had been standing quietly at the side this whole time. It was only now that he smiled and chimed in, "that's right, Xiao Ji's always been lucky. I would never have wanted to help him pass the doors otherwise."
"Thanks, Wei-ge," Xiao Ji answered with his own smile.
Though he was thanking Wei Xiude, there wasn't actually that much gratitude in his eyes. It seemed he wasn't an idiot either. After all, even though they were newbies, the group was at least of average intellect. They had parsed the fact that Wei Xiude had conscripted them as cannon fodder. It was just that they were less lucky this time around, and were encountering a door world beyond the average.
After confirming the stethoscope's usability, Ruan Nanzhu said he wanted to check out the second floor again next, so Xiao Ji and Wei Xiude left.
When they were gone, however, Ruan Nanzhu was still in no hurry to leave the bathroom. He approached the chest again, bending down and pressing his head to it to listen. Then he beckoned Lin Qiushi over.
"What is it?" Lin Qiushi asked.
"You try it," Ruan Nanzhu said. "Who knows if the stethoscope actually has special powers, or if it's just an amplifier. If it's only an amplifier…"
He paused, peeked at Lin Qiushi, and grinned.
"Then don't we have an even better one right here?"
Lin Qiushi laughed. "It can't just be an amplifier, right? Or I could just hear it all, what would the items be for?"
As he spoke, he too pressed his ear to the wooden chest—but the moment he made contact, he really did hear a soft sound…which, upon careful listen, sounded like a young girl crying.
The change in Lin Qiushi's expression gave Ruan Nanzhu his answer.
"What? You really can hear it?"
"I hear it." Lin Qiushi's eyes were wide. "…I really do hear it."
He checked again and again that this wasn't his imagination. He really could hear the sound from inside the chest.
"Fuck, this has gotta be cheating." Liang Miye had also heard their conversation from off to the side. "Then Linlin can tell what's in all the chests?"
"No," Ruan Nanzhu said. "There's a use limit on the stethoscope, so there might be one on Lin Qiushi too. It's still best to be careful. But at least…we have two tries per day."
Lin Qiushi left the chest. He asked, "can we tell when Hakobito are inside?"
"Probably yes, though we don't know what they'll concretely sound like yet," Ruan Nanzhu said. "With Qiushi, our safety factor's much, much higher."
Being sitting ducks was no longer a concern.
Lin Qiushi was quite impressed with Ruan Nanzhu. Who else would've thought to have him try this?
Once they had this confirmation, they headed for the second floor. When they got there though they heard hubbub from the study, as if there were a lot of people crowded inside.
Ruan Nanzhu went to the study to look. He saw some people crouched in front of the strongbox with their heads down, doing something.
"Are they trying passcodes?" Liang Miye asked. "Can that work?"
If they were bent on trying, of course they could do it. There were ten thousand possible combinations—if they counted two seconds per try, ten thousand tries was twenty thousand seconds, which in hours, came out to about five or so. They could get it done in an afternoon.
This was even the worst case scenario; under normal circumstances it would be faster, because it was basically impossible that it would take them the first try all the way to the last.
Ruan Nanzhu spoke slowly, "in their dreams."
The doors would never give them such a big loophole to worm their way through.
He called to the people in the study, "stop that. There's no way there's such an obvious loophole inside the doors."
"How do you know it won't work? Besides, it's pretty standard to try the safe access codes." The people in the crowd thought differently from Ruan Nanzhu. They continued, "and we've been at this for so long already…"
Lin Qiushi was about to take a step forward and get a better look inside the study. Ruan Nanzhu, however, pulled him to a stop.
"Don't go in."
"Why not?" Lin Qiushi asked.
Ruan Nanzhu, "bad feeling."
Practically the moment he finished saying this, there came a holler from inside the safe: "It's open!"
"What??" Liang Miye was stunned. "It opened, just like that? No way, right?"
Ruan Nanzhu's brow furrowed.
Though it seemed highly incredible, they both heard a click and saw the safe open from where they stood outside the door.
The people inside, upon seeing the safe open, even tossed taunting looks at Ruan Nanzhu over their shoulders, as if saying Look, didn't we get it open after all?
"Let's see what's inside."
The person testing the passcodes rubbed his palms together in excitement before pulling open the strongbox door. However, upon seeing what was inside, his expression instantly turned into one of pure terror. With a scream he made to run—but a moment later, a pair of thin, white arms reached out of that safe and caught him in a death grip. In an instant, they'd dragged him inside that small strongbox.
"Aaaaaah—"
The man being pulled in let out a single, dreadful scream before disappearing before everybody's eyes.
What had just been an energetic atmosphere in the study froze instantly, as if a block of ice.
Ruan Nanzhu approached the safe and gave the door a tug. He wasn't surprised at all to find that it had locked once again.
But coming from inside were horrible wails for help. They were coming from the person who'd just been dragged in.
"Help, help me, help me, please please you have to help me…"
As the despairing screams emanated out from within, everybody in the study was turning and running.
The number of Hakobito in the house now was up to three. The situation was getting steadily worse.
Frowning, Ruan Nanzhu said, "this is precisely why I don't like newbies."
Had it been veterans challenging the strongbox just now, they'd likely have stopped the moment he said something… No, veterans would never even have taunted the door's authority to such a degree, and done something like trying to force the safe open.
"Yeah, they've got no sense of deference, and each thinks they're the main character here," Liang Miye sighed, shaking her head. "They keep thinking they'll be the lucky ones, when in reality, they're just bystanders and cannon fodder."
The man dragged into the safe was still wailing. It was spine-chilling to hear.
Due to this incident, by the time Ruan Nanzhu had returned to the foyer the entire house was pretty quiet. The veterans were checking every corner of the mansion, and the newbies were huddled up and trembling like sheep in the living room. Some were even sobbing. Lin Qiushi spotted a man in his thirties inside the group…He seemed like he was reaching the end of his rope as well.
"Let's eat first," Ruan Nanzhu said. There was no point in comforting them at a time like this. "It's twelve."
"I don't have an appetite." There was a pitiful-looking young woman. "What do we do? Are we going to die here?"
Ruan Nanzhu glanced once at her.
"I don't know if you're gonna die here or not, but I do know people will die if they don't eat. Let's go, I'm hungry."
The three of them went to the dining room and found a table of steaming dishes and a group of pale-faced people. These were, for the most part, veterans. Not a single one of them had picked up their chopsticks, and were all silently watching the table of food before them without saying a word.
"What's wrong?" Ruan Nanzhu sensed something wrong in the air, and asked, "why aren't you eating?"
"We can't." Sun Yuanzhou seemed to have a good impression of Ruan Nanzhu, and so replied. "Why don't you give it a try?"
Can't? Hearing this Lin Qiushi blinked. He took a random seat, picked up some chopsticks, and got ready to eat, but then felt some force stop him—he couldn't reach the food in front of him with his chopsticks.
Ruan Nanzhu and Liang Miye too were met with the same situation as Lin Qiushi. It was as if some sort of wall had been put up in front of them, preventing them from accessing the food.
"No way…" Liang Miye's face had begun to go pale; she'd clearly surmised a very unfortunate possibility. "Tell me it's not what I think it is."
"The world of the doors indeed," Ruan Nanzhu sighed. "As if we'd get so lucky."
He'd thought they had plenty of time, but in reality, the door was nowhere as lenient as they'd imagined.
Ruan Nanzhu got up.
"Let's confirm it first."
He went to the living room and called for Xiao Ji.
Xiao Ji said, "but I'm not hungry yet."
"Just come take a quick bite," Ruan Nanzhu said.
Xiao Ji was confused, but still followed Ruan Nanzhu. He too sensed that something was wrong inside the dining room—when he sat down and picked up a mouthful of vegetables with his chopsticks, he saw the instant change in everybody's gazes, and jumped.
"Fuck, what are you all staring at me for?" He glanced at his chopstick, and immediately dropped the food. "There's poison in it?"
"No doubt about it, our guess is right," Ruan Nanzhu sighed.
The air in the dining room was deadly silent.
A bit on-edge from all the people staring at him, Xiao Ji let out a humorless laugh.
"What are you all looking at me for?"
"Can the food be shared?" Sun Yuanzhou asked. "Xiao Ji, feed me a bite."
"Ah??" Spooked by Sun Yuanzhou sitting right next to him, Xiao Ji jumped to his feet. "Man, don't be like that, I'm not interested in men."
Sun Yuanzhou gnashed his teeth.
"I'm also not interested in men! We can't eat the food, and you're the only one who can even use the chopsticks—"
Seeing that Xiao Ji was still clueless, Sun Yuanzhou picked up his chopsticks and decided to give Xiao Ji a practical demonstration.
At first Xiao Ji thought that Sun Yuanzhou was joking, because surely it was too absurd. But when he saw that everybody else's expressions were deadly serious, he realized this wasn't a joke.
"You guys mean that if you don't open a chest, you can't eat?"
"Yes," Ruan Nanzhu said.
"So why could we eat breakfast?" Xiao Ji asked.
Liang Miye made a joke that wasn't funny at all: "Maybe they were worried we'd have low blood sugar?"
"Hurry up and try to see if you can feed me or not." Sun Yuanzhou was a bit impatient. "I'm starving."
Xiao Ji, "…can I try on somebody else?"
His glance slid toward Ruan Nanzhu. Feeding a beautiful young lady, after all, was a far more joyous affair than feeding a rough and tumble old guy.
Sun Yuanzhou sneered, "you sure got a lot of shit to say."
Xiao Ji, "…"
Under the force of Sun Yuanzhou's glower, Xiao Ji unwillingly compromised. He picked up a bite of food in his chopsticks and began delivering it into Sun Yuanzhou's mouth. But before it could get there, Xiao Ji felt a blockage around the chopsticks in his hands. It should have been within easy reach, but he simply couldn't put the food into Sun Yuanzhou's mouth.
"Great." Seeing this, the group had irrefutable evidence to the truth of the hypothesis. Someone at the table blew a fuse, swearing in dialect: "This dick shite of a door, son of a cunt."
Lin Qiushi kind of wanted to laugh at his words, but it didn't feel appropriate. So he covered his mouth with a hand.
"What do we do?" Liang Miye was crumbling a bit. "If we want to eat we have to open the chests…Dammit, I knew there had to be a time limit."
And they'd thought the door was showing them mercy for once. Who'd have thought it had been lying in wait right here?
There was indeed a bug in this game. If players didn't open any chests, then the Hako Onna couldn't make her moves. With enough time, they could use one item on every single chest. They could even amass a lot of useful items.
For the Hako Onna to kill, after all, there was the necessary condition.
But the door was blockading off that potential path right now. It was also giving them a multiple choice problem: they could either get grabbed by the Hako Onna, or they could starve to death inside the mansion.
Xiao Ji had also understood his own peculiar position. He grabbed a bowl in a hurry and shoveled in a few mouthfuls of rice, mumbling, "I'm gonna eat first then, if you guys don't mind…"
Everybody's eyes on him were like they couldn't wait to eat him alive.
Liang Miye let out one long exhale before looking at Ruan Nanzhu.
"What do we do, Zhu Meng?"
Ruan Nanzhu, "what can we do? We're not eating then." Dropping the chopsticks, he got to his feet. "Let's go."
Lin Qiushi and Lin Qiushi followed him out the dining room. The other veterans gradually left as well. Somberness painted everybody's faces.
Xiao Ji also knew he was just begging to be resented, so after scarfing down all the rice in his bowl, he also quickly took off.
Lin Qiushi's group returned to their room. The three sat down in intense quiet.
"We don't eat today," Ruan Nanzhu spoke placidly. "We wait until Linlin gives some chests a listen tomorrow, and then eat."
Starving for one day wouldn't kill you, but opening up just one wrong box could mean your life.
"Didn't think there'd be this kind of limitation," Liang Miye said. "It's practically forcing us to suicide."
In the tabletop, there was no such issue of forcing players to open chests. It was only a game, after all, and to win the game, players would certainly go looking for and opening chests.
But it was different now that the game had become reality. What they would lose wasn't that tiny unimportant character role, but their own lives. If they had the option, who would put their own lives on the line? They'd all rather stay in the mansion for longer than take this kind of risk.
Now, however, with such a restriction, the door was forcing the players into activity.
All the veteran readily accepted this reality, but to the newbies, this was too cruel of a development.
Even on the second floor, Lin Qiushi could hear their wailing from the first. In between the wails were terrible cries: "I don't want to open the chests, I don't want to open them—I want to leave, let me out!!"
Somebody began to batter at the door, trying to escape from the mansion.
"Wei Xiude, Wei Xiude! You said you'd protect us!" Someone else had gone to find Wei Xiude, and spoke with a shaky voice. "What are we meant to do now!"
Wei Xiude calmed them down with some superficial comfort, saying things like there would definitely be a solution. As for what that solution could be, he wasn't likely to know himself.
But Lin Qiushi could tell he indeed wasn't in a rush. Xiao Ji was in his group and was in possession of a key item. They could open two chests per day, so he and Xiao Ji at least were saved.
This sudden rule plunged the entire mansion into chaos. By the time the dust settled, it was already evening.
Sun Yuanzhou gathered everyone on the first floor and called for a group meeting.
Everybody sat in dead silence around the table, listening to Sun Yuanzhou speak. "We've already come to this point. Does everybody understand now that this is a team effort?"
He slammed his hand onto the table.
"We have to work together, or we're all dying inside this door!"
Afte a long beat of silence, somebody spoke: "How do we work together?"
"We'll start by opening chests," Sun Yuanzhou said. "I won't force you. You can starve to death if you'd like."
But, after opening a chest, please stick a slip of paper on the chest to prevent repeats. They should also write what they found inside the chests on the paper.
"Okay," Ruan Nanzhu agreed, hands on his elbows. "But what happens if somebody lies?"
"Then we kick the liar out of the group," Sun Yuanzhou answered coldly. "The Hako Onna is annoying enough, we don't have the energy for infighting. I hope every single one of us can be dead clear on this point."