When Cheng Tingyu and the other three entered the basement, the three people left on the first floor held onto the rope, waiting obediently for the others to return with the items.
Among the staff in the duty room, Yu Wenran had the most experience and also appeared the most composed.
She clutched the rope tightly with both hands, her eyes fixed intently on the entrance to the basement, straining to see what was happening below.
If it were in the outside world, no matter how dark the room was, one could still see a little by the light. But in the copy, those above couldn't catch any trace of the others moving below.
"Why has so much time passed?"
As he spoke, white vapor escaped from Yu Wenran's mouth. It was such a cold day, and with nothing to keep them warm, they should have been freezing. However, ever since their companion entered the basement, the overwhelming chill that filled the shelter had surprisingly lessened a bit.
Yu Wenran was calculating the time in his mind.
It's already been twenty minutes. According to the layout diagram on the notice, the basement isn't very large. It should take at most one or two minutes for someone to go down and retrieve the item.
...Could something have gone wrong down there?
At that moment, a sharp scream echoed from the basement.
Yu Wenran immediately reacted: "That's Xiao Sun's voice!"
Cheng Tingyu heard a scream behind him, almost inhuman in its agony.
According to the order, those following behind her should be Liu Xuehong and Sun Xiaolin.
Everything around was originally shrouded in a curtain of deep darkness, and the participants' flashlights could barely illuminate themselves. But the moment the scream rang out, that invisible barrier suddenly vanished. Cheng Tingyu, Li Junhui, and Liu Xuehong all clearly saw the corpse of Sun Xiaolin lying by the stairs.
His face was down, one hand stretched towards the exit, and there was a hole in his chest that went all the way through, so deep that you could see the organs inside. Strangely, though, there was almost no blood flowing from the wound.
Li Junhui instinctively wanted to check on Sun Xiaolin's condition, but Cheng Tingyu, who was a step behind her, quickly walked a few steps forward, pressed down on Li Junhui's shoulder, and forcibly stopped her.
Stopped by Cheng Tingyu, Li Junhui suddenly recalled the last sentence of the reminder note—"Do not turn back until you successfully obtain the key or the fuel."
Looking at Sun Xiaolin, who had clearly returned to the exit with his back to the others, Li Junhui felt a sudden chill rise up his spine.
Li Junhui almost walked stiffly to the wooden cabinet. The three of them silently took the key hanging on the wall and then removed the iron can marked "Contains Fuel" stored there.
Cheng Tingyu held the key in his hand and touched the fuel tank.
Two objects, both clearly made of metal, felt unusually warm and smooth to the touch. Holding them in hand, they imparted a strange sense of tranquility.
After firmly securing the heating supplies, Cheng Tingyu unhurriedly turned around and walked out of the basement step by step. As he passed Sun Xiaolin, he even freed up one hand to lift the man out of the lower level.
Seeing Cheng Tingyu's actions, the person had an added three parts of awe in their gaze.
——Yu Wenran couldn't help but think, if the level of danger wasn't a factor, this "Xiaolu" coming to the development zone to look for a job was quite fitting for her skills. She was clearly someone who could rely on her physical strength to pave a bright path to promotions and raises..
Yan Jiayu trembled as he said, "You, you brought Xiao Sun up here..."
Cheng Tingyu's actions left him with very mixed feelings. Yan Jiayu certainly didn't want his colleague's body to be left alone in the basement, yet he felt a certain fear about placing the body on the first floor.
Cheng Tingyu: "The situation in the basement is somewhat strange. We still don't know how long the fuel will last. If we need to go down there again during this time..."
She didn't finish her sentence, but everyone else understood what Cheng Tingyu meant.
Putting oneself in their shoes, the basement was already terrifying enough. If there were still a corpse left there, they might not have the courage to enter a second time.
Yan Jiayu: "So, should we put little Sun on the first floor?"
Cheng Tingyu: "After adding fuel to the furnace, the temperature on the first floor will rise, and the rate of decomposition of the body will accelerate. My suggestion is that we can first place him in the snowdrift outside the door."
Liu Xuehong hesitated, "Could there be any danger?"
Cheng Tingyu slowly said, "Since it doesn't explicitly state that placing items outside is forbidden, at least it's not an immediate death option. Moreover, the hint outside the door also mentioned keeping the cold-proof room environment tidy."
Her methodical approach made the others increasingly convinced that they had encountered a highly experienced expert in clearing game levels.
——With physical strength and experience, even without special abilities, it's definitely worth clinging to someone powerful.
Yu Wenran: "Since that's the case, let's all come over and lend a hand. We'll..." She closed her eyes briefly, then said, "We'll put Xiao Sun outside together."
When moving Sun Xiaolin's body, everyone noticed the severed piece of rope on his wrist.
Cheng Tingyu also raised the rope in his hand that had been cut, revealing a smile: "Perhaps there's something else in this shelter besides us."
Zheng Ruinan, who had always been inconspicuous, shrank back and whispered, "Are you saying there's someone else in the house?"
Cheng Tingyu shook his head: "I guess it's probably not a person, but some kind of entity that wants the guests' lives—it could be a monster, or it might just be some sort of abstract force."
No one disputed her conclusion.
If anyone still thought they had entered a simple snowfield survival game while outside, the events in the basement had clearly made them aware of the supernatural elements within this scenario.
Cheng Tingyu smiled, joined the others in carrying Sun Xiaolin's body to the snow, and buried it simply. Then they all returned to the insulated cabin and began distributing the bedroom keys and fuel.
The three people who went to the basement each took as much fuel as possible, a total of twenty-six cans. Everyone who went down to the first basement level took five cans, and the rest took three cans each. The two extra cans were temporarily stored on the first floor.
Yu Wenran took the initiative to add fuel to the stove on the first floor. She wanted to conserve the amount, but with just one pouring motion, a third of the fuel canister was already empty.
Cheng Tingyu had reason to believe that a can of fuel could only be used three times at most, which should also be a hidden restriction of the game.
The limitation on the number of uses didn't seem too harsh to Cheng Tingyu. After all, they had quite a lot of fuel canisters. If they really ran out later, they could all huddle together for warmth to save on consumption. Overall, it was more than sufficient.
However, the abundance of supplies might not necessarily be a good thing for the participants in the quest.
They had to survive in the cold-proof shelter for five days. If the instance didn't restrict participants on fuel, it likely meant there were other deadly traps ahead.
Yu Wenran asked Liu Xuehong for paper and pen, and carefully recorded the obtained clues.
What they currently knew was not much; they only understood that once they went against the information on the notice, they would encounter danger.
Li Junhui still remembered that lingering sense of dread. After coming out, the invisible terror that pervaded the air not only didn't dissipate but intensified. The ropes of the others had all been cut, which meant that the one who responded to her in the basement was not her companion at all.
She said, somewhat trembling, "When I turned back, I saw four balls of light."
Apart from her, there were only three other participants who came to the basement, which meant that the other light must have come from some unknown entity.
Zheng Ruinan: "Does that thing need lighting when it's in the basement?"
Cheng Tingyu blinked: "Not necessarily, I suspect that kind of power can create illusions in the basement."
After entering the basement, she felt a faint pain in her eyes, as if they were being suppressed to some extent.
Li Junhui had developed a certain level of trust in Cheng Tingyu after she helped him in the basement. Recalling the abnormal darkness in the basement, he nodded vigorously.
Cheng Tingyu said leisurely, "The basement is an area familiar to that kind of power, coupled with the ability to create illusions, and the act of cutting the ropes in our hands when no one noticed..." She smiled and continued, "If that kind of power doesn't want others to discover its existence, it is very likely that it can achieve that."
"The extra light clusters, the broken rope, the unreachable goal, all these are just adding psychological pressure on us."
Li Junhui also suddenly came to his senses.
At this point, she naturally understood the process of Sun Xiaolin's death.
He must have also seen the four beams of light flickering, realized the danger in the basement, then discovered the rope connecting him to his companions had snapped, and in a panic, ran towards the exit.
Li Junhui murmured, "...Breaking the rules of the cold-proof house will lead to death."
Cheng Tingyu smiled, "It's about to get dark soon. Let's divide the keys first."
In such a dangerous environment, no one wanted to separate, but they also hadn't forgotten the hint on the coffee table that said, "The bedroom is on the third floor, the bedroom is a place for rest, please go to the third floor when going to bed."
The rescue team comes by once every five days. They can't stay awake the whole time. If they sleep outside the bedroom, would that count as breaking the rules?
Yu Wenran hesitated, "But all the bedrooms in the insulated house are single rooms..."
Liu Xuehong was silent for a moment: "As long as we follow the rules, nothing should go wrong?"
Although everyone was reluctant to part from their companions, there was no better solution at the moment. Coupled with their fear of the rules, they ultimately followed Cheng Tingyu's suggestion and divided the keys.
Each key was labeled with a number. Cheng Tingyu's was number two. She had seen ten keys in the basement at the time, but only seven people had come together. Now, with one person dead, they only took six keys upstairs.
The others didn't want to spend too much time choosing keys, so they distributed them according to the previously drawn numbers. Since Sun Xiaolin no longer needed a room, the person with key number three became Liu Xuehong, room number four was assigned to Yu Wenran, number five to Zheng Ruinan, and number six to Yan Jiayu.
The chill in their bodies was dispelled by the stove, and through the window, they could see that it was already pitch dark outside. Zheng Ruinan and Yan Jiayu went to the kitchen and found something to eat—the food supplies were very simple: mainly compressed biscuits, supplemented by canned food, which was very friendly to guests who were not skilled in cooking.
After barely finishing dinner, Cheng Tingyu felt a sudden wave of weariness, and Yan Jiayu, who was sitting across from her, let out a big yawn.
At that moment, she heard a muffled groan of pain nearby.
Liu Xuehong clutched her shoulder, lying on the ground.
Yu Wenran was shocked: "What's wrong with you?"
There was no one around, and out of nowhere, I was attacked.
Liu Xuehong's face was covered in cold sweat: "I almost fell asleep just now..."
There was silence all around.
Yan Jiayu murmured, "I just suddenly felt very sleepy too..."
Cheng Tingyu stood up and made a decision: "In that case, let's go back to our rooms and rest."
As someone who had honed her skills in the grind of contemporary university life, she was confident in her ability to stay up late. However, judging by the current situation, having to return to her room to sleep at a certain time might be an inherent attribute of this particular scenario.
——Cheng Tingyu thought, if you don't consider the danger of the game, this cold-proof house actually has some educational significance in helping people regulate their routines.