Romantic Hotel

On the fourth day, when the candidates struggled to wake from their restless sleep, everyone clearly sensed that the hotel had changed.

The lights were dimmer than before, as if the power was insufficient, casting flickering and distorted shadows on the walls. The once-luxurious wallpaper began to show signs of dampness and peeling for no apparent reason, with occasional dark red, viscous liquid slowly seeping from the cracks, emitting an even stronger rusty smell than before. The cloying fragrance was almost overwhelmed by this bloody stench, blending into a nauseatingly sweet and fishy odor.

The living environment is deteriorating rapidly, like rotten fruit accelerating towards decay.

The broadcast blared, the mission instructions becoming colder and more undisguised: "Today's mission: Perform 'deep cleaning' on designated guest rooms. The roster has been distributed."

The candidates had to endure extreme physical and psychological discomfort while working in these rooms that resembled crime scenes, suffering immense mental torment.

"This isn't cleaning at all..." A random participant knelt on the ground, futilely scrubbing a human-shaped shadow that had seeped into the carpet fibers with a brush, his voice trembling with sobs and numbness, "We're... collecting corpses..."

Oppression and despair, like a black tide, silently soaked everyone.

Just then, an accident happened.

Near the stairwell leading from the second to the third floor, a random participant, whose mind was clearly scattered and whose eyes were wandering, suddenly stopped. He stared intently at a seemingly ordinary wall at the corner of the stairs, a childlike expression of confusion on his face.

"Stairs... How come there's a staircase going up here? And it's covered with a red carpet..." he muttered to himself, even reaching out his finger as if to touch it.

People around him followed his gaze, but there was only mottled wallpaper and seeping stains, nothing else.

"Hey! Wake up! That's a wall!" His companion (another random participant) who was closer to him saw this and his heart sank. He shouted sharply and reached out to grab his arm.

"No... Can't you see it? It's so beautiful... and there's light..." The bewitched candidate gently shook off his companion's hand, a seductive smile appearing on his face, and took a step toward the "wall".

The instant his foot touched the ground, amidst gasps of the crowd, the texture of the wall rippled like water, revealing a twisted, spiraling staircase seemingly woven from shadows and writhing flesh. The staircase emitted an ominous, dark red glow, extending upwards until its end disappeared into the thick darkness that even the hotel's dim lights could not penetrate.

Rule 4: There is no fourth floor in the hotel. If you see a staircase or elevator button leading to the fourth floor, immediately close your eyes and count to ten silently.

"Close your eyes! Close your eyes now!" someone screamed in terror.

But the candidate who was completely misled had already stepped onto the first "step".

The moment his body touched the surface of the "staircase," it was as if he had sunk into an invisible, viscous colloid. His movements became slow and sluggish, and the infatuation on his face was quickly replaced by a suffocating fear like drowning. His mouth opened in vain, but no sound came out.

"Damn it! He's been corrupted by mental pollution!" Youying cursed under his breath, instinctively wanting to step forward, but Bai Xu raised his hand to stop him.

Nearby, another random participant, who had previously tried to pull him back, saw his companion in dire straits and, in desperation, tried to rush over and pull him back: "No! We have to save him!"

"Don't go over there." Bai Xu's voice was calm to the point of being cold, and his arm blocked him like an iron clamp. "He's beyond saving."

The candidate who wanted to save the person struggled, his eyes bloodshot: "But..."

Before he could finish speaking, his companion, who had just stepped onto the stairs, was suddenly "lifted" upwards, as if sucked by an invisible giant mouth. His entire body was stretched and twisted in a way that defied the laws of physics, and in a flash, he was dragged into the dark abyss at the end of the stairs, disappearing completely. Only a few tattered pieces of clothing and a few dark spots that looked like bloodstains drifted down onto the empty ground where the wall had once been.

The eerie, fleshy staircase flickered twice before vanishing like a phantom, and the walls returned to normal, as if everything that had just happened was merely a collective hallucination. Only the lingering, even stronger stench of blood in the air testified to the brutal reality.

The candidate who tried to save the person collapsed to the ground, his face ashen.

Bai Xu released his grip, his gaze sweeping over the still-shaken crowd.

He did not use the "Eye of the Rules" to verify it because his intuition and experience told him that the rule was highly likely to be true, and it was not worth wasting a precious verification opportunity to confirm an almost obvious death trap.

Before everyone could recover from the chill brought on by the bizarre devouring incident, another team member's urgent and tense cries for help came through Bai Xu's communicator.

At the end of a long corridor on the other side of the hotel, a male "traveler" who was extremely agitated, with bloodshot eyes and drooling uncontrollably, blocked a group of candidates (including member B of the seventh sequence and two random candidates).

He hysterically waved his arms, roaring in a hoarse voice, and repeatedly pounded on a door next to him—a striking red door, the color of congealed blood!

"Open the door! Open this door for me! I know she's in there! That bitch! She betrayed me! I want to see with my own eyes what she's doing with that bastard! Open the door!!" The passenger's roar was filled with frenzied resentment.

[Rule 5: Rooms with red doors indicate that guests require absolute privacy; do not knock or enter for any reason.]

Rule 2: Passengers' requests must be given priority.

The two rules created a sharp and fatal conflict.

Member B (a member known for his caution and logical analysis) had cold sweat on his forehead, but his brain was working at a breakneck pace.

He stood in front of the red door, trying to calmly reassure the guest: "Sir, please calm down. This door represents the guest's need for absolute privacy, and we cannot disturb them..."

"Bullshit!" The agitated passenger grabbed Member B by the collar, spitting almost in his face with astonishing force. "You have to prioritize my request! My request is to open this door! Now! Immediately! Otherwise, I'll complain about you! And send you to see the manager right now!"

Complaints, managers, retraining—these words mean an immediate threat of death.

The immense pressure was palpable, not only weighing on member B, but also causing the two random participants behind him (let's call them A and B) to turn pale and tremble. A could barely stand, but B's legs were already starting to give way.

Despite the immense pressure, Member B's mind maintained a degree of clarity, proceeding with logical deduction: Rule Two seemed to have higher priority and more immediate punishment… The consequences of violating Rule Five were unknown, but the red door itself signified extreme danger… Opening the door directly was suicidal. Therefore, the key to breaking the deadlock might lie in the form of "meeting the passenger's request"—the passenger requested "opening the door" and seemed to want to "go in." But what if the door was simply opened, and it wasn't them who went in?

A ruthless but potentially effective plan took shape in his mind: find a way to open the door, and then push the manic traveler into the red room! Use the traveler's life to satisfy the demand to "open the door," while avoiding the fatal risk of entering himself, and perhaps even testing the dangerous nature of the red room.

Just as he was looking for an opportunity to whisper this risky plan to his companions and trying to create the conditions for its execution—

The random participant B behind him, who was almost paralyzed with fear, snapped completely in his mind under the influence of extreme fear and selfishness.

He didn't want to die, he didn't want to be complained about, he just wanted to get out of this desperate situation immediately! To hell with the rules and the analysis! He saw that Member B seemed to be still hesitating and "disobeying orders," while the manic passenger's patience had obviously reached its limit.

"It's all your fault! What are you dawdling for! If he wants to open the door, just open it for him!" Yi suddenly let out a sharp scream and shoved member B from behind with all his might!

The push was extremely sudden and forceful. Member B's attention was entirely focused on the frantic passengers in front of him and on devising a countermeasure. Caught off guard, he lost his balance and stumbled forward. In front of him was that blood-red door!

"You son of a bitch—!" Member B only managed to utter half a curse before his body slammed into the door.

The red door, the moment it was touched, silently opened a gap as black as ink.

Countless pale, swollen arms, stained with water and dark livid spots, shot out from the crack in the door like a swarm of piranhas that had caught the scent of blood, instantly entangling member B who was rushing forward!

In that split second, as his body was about to be dragged into darkness, a fierce and resolute glint flashed in Member B's eyes.

He endured the excruciating pain of being gripped and torn by those cold arms, and using the momentum of being dragged, he mustered his last bit of strength and aim, and suddenly reached out and grabbed the wrist of the random contestant B who had pushed him out from behind and was standing there in shock!

"Let's go together, you bastards!" Member B squeezed out his last words through gritted teeth, with a mad urge to take everyone down with him.

"No—!!!" Yi let out a bloodcurdling scream and struggled desperately, but member B held on tightly, and some of the arms that surged out from inside the door quickly wrapped around Yi.

Under the satisfied yet eerie smiles of the manic travelers, and under the horrified gaze of another random participant, A, Member B and Random Participant B, like two insignificant specks of dust swallowed by a giant maw of darkness, were abruptly dragged into the boundless darkness behind the red door by countless pale arms.

"Bang!!!"

The red door slammed shut, tight as if it had never been opened.

Inside the door, there was a moment of deathly silence, followed by a terrifying chewing sound that sent chills down your spine and froze your bones—a dense, viscous sound accompanied by the cracking of bones and the greedy sucking of food.

The maniacal look on the face of the previously agitated traveler had vanished, replaced by an empty yet satisfied expression, as if he had just enjoyed a delicious meal.

Without even glancing at the random participant A, who was slumped on the ground and almost fainted, he hummed some strange and distorted tune, then turned and swayed away.

On the other end of the communicator, Bai Xu, Hong Yuan, You Ying, and the others heard the static of the entire process, the final desperate scream, and the subsequent chilling silence and faint chewing sounds. They remained silent; no one spoke.

The seventh sequence, minus one more person.