"Huh?"
Just as he was fiddling with the finger, trying to examine its cross-section...
Ai Shiping caught a faint glint of tal.
Under the reflection of his phone's flashlight, it sparkled with a brassy glow.
"Seems like... there's sothing inside?"
Could it be a key?
Ai Shiping had a sharp mind. From the fragnted hints in the barrage, he deduced that Ming Po had likely skipped a step in his progression.
He had found the essential item to access the second floor: the universal room card. But retrieving it required a key.
Ming Po had solved that problem with brute force, but Ai Shiping lacked that kind of physical stamina. A strategy that worked for Ming Po wouldn't necessarily work for him. Therefore, he still needed to find the key.
And it seed the puzzle of the first floor lay right in front of him.
The problem was...
How was he supposed to get it out?
The key was embedded extrely deep within the cross-section of the finger, completely replacing the bone. It was buried like a stubborn wisdom tooth with only its tip exposed. Under these circumstances, it would be impossible to pull it out without slicing open the surrounding flesh.
Ai Shiping checked his belongings.
A stack of talismans he hadn't used yet and didn't know how to use, a wooden sword, a bottle of water, and a bottle of cola. Besides that, he only had a mobile phone—he didn't even have a pack of tissues.
The wooden sword was entirely blunt. Slicing the finger open with it was impossible.
Suddenly recalling a hint, Ai Shiping tensed up.
"N-no way..."
But thinking about it carefully... the answer he had just arrived at was likely the truth.
Sharp tools would probably be very difficult to find. Judging from Ming Po's situation, the anomalies here could generally be resolved through physical ans. Because of this, the ga was unlikely to provide effective, sharp weapons for self-defense, as that would drastically reduce the fear factor.
For instance, if Ai Shiping were handed a pistol right now, he guaranteed he wouldn't be nearly as scared.
If he were given a fully automatic rifle with ample ammunition, the ghosts would be the ones trembling in fear.
Then he could show those ghosts what it ant to get instantly headshot the mont they peeked out!
Of course, that was just wishful thinking.
If the ga actually handed him a weapon, he would be even more worried—after all, Ai Shiping had played enough horror gas to know better.
Good news: you have a weapon.
Bad news: you have a weapon.
In horror gas, "getting a weapon" and "being able to run" were two highly unsettling milestones. It ant the situation was about to escalate to a point where "you need these things just to barely survive."
Since that was the case, considering the news report had ntioned "choking to death," and the doll from earlier had been spat out of a throat...
The answer was clearly hidden within the riddle itself.
Ai Shiping bared his teeth, helplessly steeling his resolve.
He placed the pale, severed finger into his mouth and bit down hard.
As blood burst past his lips, his teeth sheared through the flesh.
However, he couldn't taste any bone inside.
Even though it hadn't bled at all when he touched it, and his hands hadn't even gotten dirty...
When he bit down, the ladyfinger literally burst with juice.
The taste of rust instantly filled his mouth. He couldn't quite tell if it was the taste of blood or the taste of the key.
"Pah."
Ai Shiping didn't swallow the flesh and blood; he spat it all out.
He took out the water he carried with him and rinsed his mouth three tis in a row before the foul taste finally faded.
He grimaced. "I knew it. Why else would they specifically prepare so much water here? So it was for this?"
He had only bitten off half the finger, exposing the golden teeth of the key so it could be used.
Leaving the rest as a handle also made it easier to turn.
With that thought, Ai Shiping slipped the finger-key into his inner pocket.
This was likely the key to the security room. He just didn't know if it was ant to open the door, a desk drawer, or both.
He carefully investigated the dining hall again but found no other clues, nor did he find any other keys.
"I just hope it doesn't make look for fuses next..."
Ai Shiping sighed in resignation. "Let's hope this key can be used twice."
After all, if there was a second key, he had absolutely no idea where to even begin looking.
He couldn't possibly check every single room.
Even when the imperial court raided a ho, they didn't send just one guy to solo it.
When he ntioned "looking for fuses," he didn't an it literally; he was referring to the classic trope of fumbling around in the dark for items.
Generally, horror gas of this type relied on power outages to build a dark atmosphere. And to restore the power—whether to bring back the lights or activate chanisms—players had to collect scattered fuses hidden god-knows-where.
This kind of search wasn't like the "ladyfinger" puzzle which offered actual clues. It was just a blind, brute-force search designed specifically to make you nervously sweep through every single room.
After all, if you didn't carefully examine every detail of the rooms, wouldn't the developers' ti spent modeling them be wasted?
Ai Shiping stood at the entrance of the dining hall, slowly sweeping his flashlight across the room, doing his best to morize every detail—how many tables there were, how many chairs, the general layout, and so on.
He didn't know which items might be needed later, and he might not be able to co back. He could only use this opportunity to morize as much as humanly possible.
Three minutes later, having committed all the details to mory, he grabbed his water bottle, hugged the doll, held up his phone, and turned to leave, following the directions of the barrage.
Long after he left, a girl pushed open the restroom door and walked out.
She gazed into the distance, in the direction Ai Shiping had gone. After a long while, she let out a burst of clear, ethereal laughter.
She seed quite satisfied.
anwhile, on the other side.
Ming Po had already reached the second floor.
Ever since that bizarre monkey fiend appeared, he hadn't encountered any other jump scares.
No, to be precise, there actually had been so.
But elents like 'a sudden faint noise from nowhere, like marbles dropping on the floor', 'a strange gust of wind from behind while turning a corner', or 'the window ahead suddenly slamming shut on its own'—Ming Po had completely ignored them.
Because they were entirely aningless.
Now, if a room's door had suddenly slamd shut, that might have piqued his interest—it would clearly signify that the room needed to be explored.
These flimsy wooden doors couldn't stop him anyway, so shutting them was pointless.
Now that he had acquired the hamr and the screwdriver, he could forcefully pry open the locks even without a room card.
Ming Po felt a little nostalgic for Frankenstein. Under the enhancents of Frankenstein, he could have just kicked down these thin plywood doors with a single strike, saving himself a lot of effort.
'I feel like Detective is pretty useless,'
Ming Po grumbled internally.
Right now, he only hoped that the evolved form, the one where 'the detective directly shoots the culprit', would give him a pleasant surprise.
'We hardboiled detectives need to be able to fight, after all.'
'If you don't press a gun against the culprit's head, who is going to sit quietly and listen to your deductions!'
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