Chapter 79: The Sound of the Hammer

Yusheng had only said that the extra rooms on each floor were dangerous and to stay away the moment they appeared. He never mentioned how to actively enter one.

He probably never expected the Upstairs Team to find themselves in a predicament where they had to enter the extra room.

"Jiang Yang, don't you have a Key that can open any door..."

Zhao Zhenjia remembered Jiang Yang mentioning this Supernatural Item before.

Jiang Yang stared at the blank wall past Room 524.

"I do have such a Key.

"But the problem is, you need a door to open a door.

"Right now, Room 525 simply doesn't exist. Even an omnipotent Key can't open what isn't there."

Suddenly, Lan Zhu started sprinting in the opposite direction, running away from them.

Gao Tian asked instinctively, "Where are you going, Lan Zhu?"

Lan Zhu glanced back at him as she ran.

"If you run a hundred laps between the Third Floor and the fourth floor, the extra room will appear!"

Gao Tian asked in surprise, "Who told you that?"

He subconsciously wondered if she had obtained some special Supernatural Item.

Lan Zhu said, "No one.

"I just made that rule up!"

Watching Lan Zhu's figure recede into the distance, Gao Tian didn't even bother trying to stop her. She had lost her mind again.

With every passing second, the threat of death hanging over Xia Ta inside Room 525 grew. She might already be dead, leaving the Upstairs Team waiting outside in vain.

Right when the situation was already critical, things took a turn for the worse.

At the end of the corridor, Jiang Yang slowly turned his head. With a bewildered look in his eyes, he muttered inexplicably, "Who?"

"What?"

No one knew who he was talking to. Both Zhao Zhenjia and Gao Tian were baffled.

Jiang Yang looked toward the other end of the corridor, his gaze growing increasingly distant, as if the missing Xia Ta were no longer important. He pressed a finger under his nose in a shushing gesture.

"Quiet.

"Don't you hear it?

"The sound of a hammer smashing against the wall is coming from this corridor."

Those words struck their chests like a sledgehammer.

They naturally remembered the third rule Yusheng had written down—the most important one.

"If the sound of a hammer striking the wall appears in the corridor, leave immediately."

Immediately. Right now. This rule superseded all others.

With the sound of the hammer present, their team truly had to evacuate. But doing so would mean abandoning Xia Ta on the fifth floor.

Even if she managed to survive the Children's Home, what awaited her in the corridor would be an even more terrifying Rule-Based Horror.

This was no small matter. Zhao Zhenjia's expression changed.

"Are you sure? Why didn't I hear anything?"

Jiang Yang's senses were indeed sharp. Normally, the team would trust him unconditionally.

Gao Tian immediately dropped to the floor, trying to use the ground to pick up this unheard sound. However, he still heard nothing.

The corridor was dead silent, save for Lan Zhu's footsteps as she finished her lap and came running back from the distance. There was no sound of a hammer striking.

He began to suspect that Jiang Yang might have misheard.

Seeing the doubt on both their faces, Jiang Yang turned grave.

"Trust me, the sound of the hammer has started...

"It's just that it is still very far away right now. There is a long distance between us.

"Perhaps we still have a little time to wait for Xia Ta."

Gao Tian said, "Let me pull you into the Mirror World first. We can see if we can hide from the Rule-Based Horror in there.

"No matter what, it's safer than waiting outside."

An ethereal female voice rang out.

"Didn't I tell you to return to the Third Floor and stand by?

"Honestly. Since you heard the hammer, why haven't you retreated? Are you eager to die?"

Click.

A door opened.

The sound of a door closing.

At the end of Room 524, a door was pushed open out of thin air, and a figure slowly stepped out. The door shut behind her and instantly blended perfectly into the wall, vanishing without a trace.

This extra Room 525 had appeared for only the blink of an eye before disappearing completely. But what stunned Gao Tian more was Xia Ta walking out of the room.

She was covered in blood, her face thoroughly exhausted. Her right arm seemed broken, swaying like a toy, but Xia Ta's willpower was like steel. She paid the snapped arm no mind. Her left hand gripped a glass container swarming with strangely writhing black specks.

You couldn't see what was inside without getting closer.

"Sister Ta!"

At the other end of the corridor, a panting Lan Zhu arrived. The moment she saw Xia Ta come out of Room 525, she was stunned by her own fabricated rule.

"I didn't expect the setting I added to be so useful.

"I haven't even finished a hundred laps. I only ran the first one, and 525 opened by itself."

Looking at Xia Ta who had seemingly returned from the dead, Zhao Zhenjia had a lot he wanted to say. A thousand words reached his lips, but only one sentence came out:

"It's good that you're back. Everyone is waiting for you."

Jiang Yang didn't say anything. This wasn't his first time executing a mission with Xia Ta. It also wasn't the first time Xia Ta had suddenly gone crazy, plunging alone into the depths of a zone to eliminate the greatest threat.

This term's Apartment manager was actually a rather unreliable person who acted on her own whims. Jiang Yang was long used to it.

Xia Ta's gaze landed on Gao Tian.

"Thank you, classmate Gao Tian.

"Before I was dragged into the Children's Home, your sudden reminder gave me inspiration, letting me figure out its Killing Rule and the only path to survival."

Gao Tian said, "What kind of rule did that strange room have?"

He really couldn't figure it out. A large, empty room full of toys, with no other ghosts in sight, not even a person. Xia Ta sat inside and started playing with the toys. How was that a path to survival?

Xia Ta just said calmly, "Ah, it's a long story. It's not convenient to talk here; let's talk downstairs.

"I also paid a bit of a price and lost an arm."

In fact, from then on, she never spoke again about what happened in the Children's Home or how she solved it.

She raised her left arm, showing off the glass container in her hand:

"After I found the path to survival and defeated the dirty things in the room, they were sealed into this container and completely imprisoned.

"They used to be my parents, but they are no longer.

"The vengeful souls of the children who died in the fire have also been completely laid to rest by me.

"The Children's Home incident is completely over. There will be no new victims to become accomplices of the fifth-floor ghosts in the future."

The Children's Home incident, which led to the total annihilation of the Apartment residents seven years ago, was solved by Xia Ta single-handedly.

She spoke very lightly, as if it were nothing worth mentioning at all.

"We have to hurry back to the Third Floor and the second floor to deal with the aftermath.

"When I went deep into the Children's Home, I found more than twenty beds meant for living children. But there wasn't a single child lying in them.

"This means that while we were coming upstairs, the living children of the Children's Home also moved out in full force, going down to the Third Floor and the second floor to look for those residents who don't know the truth yet.

"They hold absolute trust, believing the inside of the Apartment is completely safe. When facing these children who have lived in the Children's Home for so long, full of resentment and malice, I'm afraid even adults would find it hard to resist."

Xia Ta didn't mention that there was an even more important reason why the Upstairs Team had to retreat immediately—

In the distance, a low, heavy hammering sound echoed. Thump, thump. Although the source of the sound was very far away from them, its terrifying pressure was immense. The walls of the entire corridor had already started to tremble slightly.

In the corridor, the sound of locks engaging came from behind countless doors, as if the original inhabitants of this floor, who had never shown their faces, were deathly afraid of the hammer's appearance.

Was it here? The most dangerous of Yusheng's six Rule-Based Horrors.

Jiang Yang's perception was proven right once again; he hadn't made a mistake.

Just now, Zhao Zhenjia and the others had subconsciously wanted to refute Jiang Yang, only trying to find an excuse in their hearts to stay here and continue waiting for Xia Ta.

Now that Xia Ta had returned, there was no need to stay on the fifth floor.

"Go from here. Go down the stairs."

Under Xia Ta's lead, the group hurriedly arrived at the stairwell.

But just as she was about to step down with her first foot, Xia Ta suddenly stopped. She frowned, as if she had discovered something:

"Wait, don't go this way first."

Lan Zhu, who arrived right after, almost stepped down with one foot but was forcefully pulled back by her:

"What are you doing? Did you twist your ankle?"

Jiang Yang, standing at the edge of the stairs, also immediately noticed something was wrong:

"The stairs have turned into 14 steps.

"There is something wrong with the stairs here. Yusheng's fourth rule has been triggered again."

Under normal circumstances, the stairs only had 13 steps. If the stairs became 14 steps, it meant this staircase was temporarily unusable, and they had to leave immediately.

Gao Tian was not at ease and counted them again. It really was 14 steps.

Xia Ta was truly meticulous. Having just experienced a life-and-death crisis in the Children's Home, every step she took upon returning to the corridor was cautious, her insight into any strangeness around her razor-sharp.

Behind them, the sound of the hammer smashing against the wall grew closer and closer, deafening everyone's eardrums. Some indescribable great terror was about to arrive.

"Follow me into the Mirror World. We'll return to the Third Floor from the Mirror."

The situation was urgent. Zhao Zhenjia slammed the full-length Mirror down. Gao Tian reached one hand into it, preparing to pull himself in first, and then let everyone in the team go in one by one.

Boom—

That distant hammer heavily smashed into the wall once again. A massive shockwave swept through the entire corridor, as if a small hurricane had detonated. The few people standing in the corridor were blown so hard they could barely remain standing. The only full-length Mirror was instantly blasted into countless specks of stardust by the shockwave, shattering until only residue was left on the floor. It could no longer serve as the entrance to the Mirror World.

What was even more terrifying was Gao Tian's arm that had been inserted into the Mirror World. Because of the entrance's destruction, with a sharp crack, his arm separated from his body, blood spraying wildly.