Fatty had no idea what changes the skeleton might undergo. He had only just glanced at the pool when Gu Mian shoved him into a nearby cabinet.

The cabinet was indeed a bit cramped. Being stuck inside made him feel dizzy, almost to the point of suffocation.

The others quickly hid in the cabinets as well.

Chu Changge was stuffed next to Fatty, with an electric chainsaw Gu Mian had given him for safekeeping. He was now prying the door open a crack to look outside.

They saw Gu Mian by the poolside, adjusting the skeleton, seemingly trying to get it into a suitable position.

After a fairly short time, they saw Gu Mian finish his adjustments, then leap into the pool with the skeleton on his back.

The instant Gu Mian jumped into the pool, Fatty suddenly felt a tremor beneath his feet.

In the darkness, he glanced, somewhat bewildered, at Chu Changge nearby.

Chu Changge also had a puzzled expression on his face, clearly having felt the strange tremor too.

Surely this event can't be planning to kill the Doctor with a sudden earthquake. If the tower collapses, the event's heart will be gone. Fatty thought.

Meanwhile, Chu Changge was frowning, as if pondering something.

He opened his mouth slightly, as if to say something, but then the water in the pool stirred. He closed his mouth and looked towards the pool instead.

At the same time, everyone in the cabinets heard footsteps coming from outside the room, suggesting their pursuers had begun to climb the stairs.

Given their pace, that group would enter the room before long.

Truth be told, Gu Mian had never seen such a deep pool before.

Because the surface of the pool was covered with a layer of white steam, its depth was impossible to gauge from above; one could only tell by getting in.

This pit was at least three or four meters deep. He was convinced that if anyone used this pit as a bath, they would very likely drown.

For a moment, he began to question the structural design of this tower. What kind of high-rise building could have a three or four-meter-deep pool in one of its rooms?

Yet his doubts only lingered for a short while before Gu Mian shifted his concentration elsewhere.

The skeleton was pressed firmly against Gu Mian's back. Once in the water, it seemed to cling even more tightly—whether due to psychological reasons or not. It no longer felt as dry and bony as before; it even seemed to have filled out a little.

The riddle required one to observe the changes in the skeleton after jumping in with it on one's back.

So, Gu Mian would have to pull the thing off his back and see what changes it had undergone.

As he pondered this while reaching back to pull the object off, Gu Mian suddenly noticed something at the bottom of the pool.

The room was pitch black, and it was even darker underwater, yet Gu Mian's sharp eyes discerned something at the bottom.

There seemed to be a shiny, ring-sized object, which even illuminated a small area around it.

Gu Mian observed it for a couple of seconds, then made another horrifying realization.

That... that's...

He stared intently at the bottom of the pool, which appeared very coarse, pitted and uneven.

Upon closer examination, he could even make out other objects of various colors, though their colors had now turned extremely dull and were almost merging with the bottom of the pool, making them undetectable without a keen eye.

Those look like... clothes? Human clothes.

Immediately after, Gu Mian saw a terrifying face, ashen grey, blending with the pool bottom.

It was rooted at the bottom of the pool. Its eyes and mouth were wide open, as if trying to let out an unwilling cry, but the face had become as rigid as clay and couldn't make a sound.

Surrounding this face was a dense array of what appeared to be human carvings: incomplete arms, twisted legs, and grotesque heads.

If Gu Mian hadn't braided the little girl's hair before and entered the green room that digested corpses, he might have scoffed at whoever was bored enough to sculpt such things at the bottom of the pool. But he *had* braided that girl's hair and *had* been in that room.

Gu Mian knew: the densely packed figures at the bottom of the pool were all players' corpses.

How... did they die here?

At this moment, he suddenly felt a different sensation on his back, as if he could hear the sound of flesh and blood growing.

At the same time, a pair of bloody, mangled arms wrapped around his neck from behind.

Following that, Gu Mian felt a bone-chilling coldness coming from his back, which instantly spread throughout his body.

Simultaneously, a cold voice came from behind him, "The twenty-fourth."

...

At this time, Chu Changge and his group were hiding in a cabinet, staring intently at the pool.

Just now, they seemed to have heard some sounds coming from there, but the sounds quickly vanished, plunging the room into an eerie silence, broken only by the distinct sound of footsteps from outside.

Night of Roses was placed in the corner of the cabinet. Guigu, careful not to crowd him, was trying to maintain a small space for the injured man.

Han Shan, however, found the leisure to converse with Chu Changge, "It seems you always let the Doctor do the dangerous stuff."

In the dark, Chu Changge glanced at him, "Maybe what you consider dangerous isn't as dangerous for others."

As they finished speaking, the footsteps outside grew louder. The group seemed to quicken their pace, resulting in a THUD, THUD sound on the staircase.

Everyone in the cabinets became quiet.

Before long, the THUD, THUD sound reached their door, accompanied by the whispers of a few people. The voices were too soft to discern.

Fatty held his breath, peering out of a crack and fixated on the door.

Sure enough, the people outside did not miss this room. With a BANG, the door swung open, and more than a dozen people surged in.

Perhaps it was just an illusion, but Fatty felt the ground shake a few times when these people kicked the door in.

He couldn't help but consider the possibility of this 'heart' collapsing.

And this time, those inside the cabinets could finally hear the conversation of the people outside clearly.

"They must be hiding in one of these rooms. We just need to search them one by one," a burly man's voice rang out.

Fatty sized up the burly man, then himself. Concluding he wouldn't stand a chance in a fight, he shrunk back further.

These people searched thoroughly, not even sparing the undersides of tables, basically leaving no stone unturned.

The cabinet they were hiding in was in a corner, but that wasn't much help. Soon enough, the group began searching the nearby area.

Pi Peng ordered a few people, "You, you, and you, go check over there."

He was pointing in the direction of the cabinets.

Fatty couldn't help but worry. He began considering the feasibility of four of them, one injured, fighting more than a dozen people.

While several men searched near the cabinets, Pi Peng himself wasn't idle. He stopped by the pool in the middle of the room, furrowing his brow. "Could someone be hiding in here?"

The burly man walked over. "Having a pool in this room is suspicious. It's probably the site for some riddle, maybe even haunted by a water ghost. We'd better stay away…"

Pi Peng nodded in agreement. "Hmm, you make sense."

He hesitated before adding, "But what if someone is really hiding in there?"

"We can wait here for a bit," the burly man replied. "If they're really down there, they'll suffocate if they don't come out. Let's move away from it for now. I think this place is creepy; there's definitely nothing good inside."

Pi Peng nodded in agreement. "Alright, then we'll wait here for a while."

With that, he took two large steps back, apparently wary of a ghost suddenly crawling out of the pool.

Meanwhile, the individuals searching were getting closer and closer to the cabinet where Chu Changge and the others were hiding.

Fatty was still worried about Gu Mian. Staring at the pool, he silently prayed. Doctor, please don't stick your head out at a time like this.

Guigu, still straining to maintain that small space for Night of Roses, glared at Fatty as if to say, If you have that much free time, you should worry about yourself!

Next chapter will be updated first on this website. Come back and continue reading tomorrow, everyone!

If you find any errors ( broken links, non-standard content, etc.. ), Please let us know < report chapter > so we can fix it as soon as possible.