Upon receiving this message, Shiller rushed to the bathroom in his room without stopping. He had known the toilet was broken, but he didn't have time to fix it. However, the fact that Peter found a clock in the tank of the toilet in room 1903 meant that it was very likely that the toilet hadn't broken by accident.
Using a small knife, Shiller pried open the joint of the toilet tank lid and took off the lid, but didn't find anything unusual with the tank. He then turned back to the bedroom to get the clock, hesitating whether to throw it in.
Throwing it in now could result in two possibilities. Either there really was something wrong with the toilet, and the alarm would immediately go off, most likely attracting that inexplicable, noisy creature, or there was nothing wrong with the toilet and the problem was with the clock. After being thrown in, it would simply stop ringing, and there would be no sound from Shiller's room tonight.
The guest in room 1903 mentioned that the sound was similar to a dormitory manager's inspection. Only if the clock in your room went off would it mean someone was there, preventing any paranormal phenomena from occurring.
So, if Shiller were to toss the clock into the tank and it didn't ring tonight, and if what that short fellow said was true, that peculiar creature might come in, or some other paranormal phenomena could occur in the room.
While Shiller was pondering, Peter suddenly sent over a message. He said, "I heard noises, that person might have come back."
"Hide," Shiller said. "Go to the bedroom and get into the closet. He's not likely to go out just once today; he'll definitely go out for dinner."
Peter acted quickly, dashing into the bedroom. He opened the wardrobe and stepped inside, and the next second, the outside door to the living room opened.
This wasn't a movie scene—if Peter could see the short one through the wardrobe crack, then the short one could definitely see him. So, he didn't even think of looking to see who had come in. But Peter was very clever; he made a video call, sharing audio and visual feed with Doctor Sophocles.
Listening carefully on the other end of the phone call, Shiller realized something was wrong. It wasn't the short one who had come in, because Peter had shared audio and visual feeds with him before, and Shiller remembered the sound of the short one's footsteps, which weren't like these.
It was Jerome who had come in. Shiller theorized that the guy had left in the middle of the night and didn't know what he had gone off to do. Assuming the hotel on that side was fairly normal, it was possible that Jerome had snuck in some petty theft, maybe even getting a door card.
But why did he want to enter room 1903?
Jerome was also searching for something in the room.
He was about to reach the bathroom, and Peter said nervously, "I didn't have time to tidy up; the lid of the tank is still open. He's bound to realize someone..."
"But not necessarily someone else," Shiller said very calmly. Despite the current tense situation, with Peter unarmed and Jerome's menacing approach, Shiller didn't believe he'd come without a gun. If the two encountered each other, Peter could be at a great disadvantage.
Yet he calmly analyzed, "You're a complete variable to him. His easier conclusion would be that the person living in room 1903 realized they were being followed, so they hid certain items in advance. That's the more logical explanation."
"But he smiled at me yesterday."
"That might not have been a smile meant for you," Shiller said. "It could have just been for the guest in room 1905; he hasn't really seen you."
Peter's heart settled a bit, but his heartbeat was still fast, especially since Jerome had already barged into the bathroom. He clearly discovered something was off with the tank and was definitely searching for something.
Peter looked down at the clock in his hand. Was this the key? If Jerome didn't find it in the bathroom, would he open the wardrobe?
Jerome came out of the bathroom, and his footsteps grew nearer, indicating he had found nothing in the bathroom he decided to thoroughly search the bedroom.
"What do I do, PhD?" Peter, true to his moniker Spider Man, was not nervous or afraid at this point, completely tensed his muscles, ready to strike fatally at whoever opened the wardrobe.
But just then, another set of footsteps came from the door—it was the guest from room 1903 now.
Peter heard clearly as the person outside inhaled sharply, and with a creak, the wardrobe door opened, and a shadow darted inside.
Jerome and Peter stared at each other, wide-eyed in the wardrobe.
Spider Man seemed to always have a cursed fate with the Joker, and this curse always manifested at the most inopportune moments. At that instant, both Peter and Jerome were shocked, and as they were about to exclaim in surprise, they swallowed their voices back.
Indeed, it was quite the coincidence—two thieves successfully meeting in the wardrobe, but due to the current situation, neither could attack nor communicate with each other.
The hotel rooms weren't very large, speaking in a low voice was useless, so neither of them could talk now.
Jerome saw the clock in Peter's hand at first glance and seemed somewhat surprised, raising his eyebrows at Peter.
Peter quickly caught on, took out his phone from his pocket, and waved it at Jerome. Jerome also pulled out a phone, but their devices were clearly from different eras.
Peter was using a state-of-the-art communicator issued by the Spider Legion, a compact hexagon projector, while Jerome's flip phone, obviously cheap, suited the era they were currently in.
Peter operated his projector to display a series of numbers—clearly, his mobile number. He waited for a moment, and sure enough, a message came through.
"Who are you? How come you're here?"
After discovering the ability to communicate, Peter didn't rush to reply but instead immediately relayed everything to Shiller. Realizing they could communicate with Jerome, Shiller didn't hide anything either and bluntly asked,
"What's going on with this hotel?"
"It seems you've found out," Jerome replied, "This hotel has a big problem, but what exactly the issue is, I'm investigating."
"You can't fool me." Shiller had Peter reply to Jerome, mercilessly tearing apart his placation and saying, "You haven't told any lies, you've just blurred some facts, but I have clues that will interest you; how about we exchange them one by one?"
Jerome seemed to be shocked once more by the frankness of the other party. He looked up at Peter and squinted his eyes, feeling that the young man before him didn't seem like the type to say such things.
But he still nodded. Opportunities to communicate weren't plentiful, and Shiller didn't delay any further, having Peter send over the first question, "What's the deal with the person in Room 1903?"
"He's been contaminated," Jerome answered, appearing to demonstrate sincerity, he added, "He's been eroded by the Evil God."
Shiller then recalled his earlier speculation: if Peter's timeline was before his own, then Jerome was likely investigating the hotel due to abnormalities, and during his investigation, some people became contaminated, but not seriously, possibly even unbeknownst to themselves.
By the time it reached his own timeline, all the abnormalities had burst forth, hence the hotel had become so terrifying and eerie.
Jerome quickly posed his question, "Are you in another hotel?"
Clearly, he had realized that he was not communicating with the young person in front of him, and he might well have encountered a similar anomaly.
Shiller didn't intend to deceive him and said, "Yes, I'm in another hotel."
"Which room are you in?"
"Sorry, but it's my turn now. What's the purpose of the alarm clock?"
"It responds to a certain existence," Jerome said, "You can think of it as a detector, to activate, detect, respond."
"Detect what?"
"I'm sorry, but it's my turn now. Which room are you staying in?"
"1905." Shiller didn't opt to lie, guessing that Jerome had a profound understanding of the place, so if he mentioned another room number, the other party might find a way to verify.
For a long time, there was silence on the other end of the communication, far beyond the expected duration, making Shiller certain that there must be something special about Room 1905.
"Good luck to you," Jerome said, "No one can leave that room alive, not even in death."
"It's my turn now. What does the alarm clock detect?"
"Contamination," Jerome replied tersely.
Shiller had already suspected as much, and Jerome's confirmation only made him more certain. To some extent, the person in Room 1903 wasn't wrong; it wasn't that the alarm clock would sound if there were living people in the room, but rather it would sound if the people in the room weren't contaminated.
So if the alarm didn't go off, it meant that the person in that room was contaminated, and the terrifying entity might directly erase everything in the room without a bell, and even the hotel itself might expel those things.
This was a defense mechanism, Shiller thought, likely prevalent throughout the entire hotel, activating at midnight every day to eliminate any danger.
But the one problem was, although bells sounded in the odd-numbered rooms, the person in Room 1901 had already rushed to the front, and the person in Room 1903 was only heard and not seen. Could these two also count as uncontaminated living people?
Then Shiller thought that detecting contamination might not be about the presence of contamination but the extent of it. The individuals in Rooms 1901 and 1903, although peculiar, still seemed communicable, which might be why they could escape judgment.
The alarm in Room 1900 sounded too, meaning there was someone in that room as well, so it was possible that the person in Room 1900 intentionally switched the door numbers. Adding the people from Rooms 1901, 1903, and Shiller himself, exactly four living people were on the right corridor, with exactly four bells sounding.
Two bells rang on the left corridor, indicating there might be two more living people inside. But why did the number of living people exactly match the odd-numbered rooms? Could one only survive in the odd-numbered rooms?
Shiller wasn't certain, but he didn't ask this question. Instead, he changed the subject and asked, "How can one leave the 19th floor?"
"The hotel you're in can't be left," Jerome responded promptly and even went into detail, "Once the number of responses from the bells is less than ten, that floor can never be left."
As expected, it was some sort of detection mechanism, Shiller thought. Some presence in the hotel was eliminating the supernatural, and it even had a broader perspective, sealing off completely once the number of living humans fell below a certain threshold to minimize the danger.
And Jerome asked a question that Shiller hadn't anticipated, "Can you communicate in real-time with this silly kid in front of me?"