Chapter 642: Room 22
Sixth floor.
From the moment the pink-haired girl stepped onto the sixth floor, her Fire Dragon Sword had transformed into a Fire Dragon circling overhead.
Last time she came here, she was on the sixth floor. This time, it was the sixth floor again.
Could there be some kind of rule at play here?
Before the girl could dwell on it any longer, the door to Room 8602 swung open.
The room was brightly lit, and as the door opened, a lively atmosphere flooded out.
That was right—a lively atmosphere.
The room was a riot of colors. A lavish chandelier of stained glass hung from the ceiling, and the space itself seemed far, far larger than the room from before.
This wasn’t a single room—it was a banquet hall.
It looked like high society was throwing a grand party.
Well-dressed people glided across the dance floor in the center. The women flitted about like butterflies weaving through a garden of flowers, while the men buzzed around like bees drifting among blossoms.
The tables were piled high with every kind of delicacy: chocolate, cake, roasted chicken, prawns, all sorts of seafood—everything imaginable.
When the girl saw that food, she was completely dazed.
This beautiful scene had played out countless times in her dreams.
And now, it had all become reality…
The girl swallowed hard, her grip on the Fire Dragon Sword faltering.
So much delicious food…
If she had never tasted it before, it might have been easier to resist.
But these were the very delicacies etched into her memory.
She knew exactly how they would feel on her tongue, what kind of exquisite thrill they would send through her taste buds.
“Fair lady, may I invite you to join this feast?”
“With your presence, this banquet would surely become even more unforgettable!”
At that moment, a man in a tailcoat stepped forward, extending a courteous invitation to Sun Xixi.
Sun Xixi looked up, and when she saw the face of the tailcoat man, she froze for a moment.
Because the man before her was also one-eyed.
One eye was covered by a white eyepatch; the other was blood-red.
Stitched onto the white eyepatch was a rose, giving him an air of eerie flamboyance.
And that face…
It was a perfect match for the one-eyed man in her memories!
Even the facial structure was identical.
The only difference was that this face lacked the unshaven stubble from those days long past.
His hair was clean and neatly combed, as if carefully styled.
And he was polite.
Very polite…
Sun Xixi’s face darkened. The Fire Dragon roared.
With a furious bellow, the blazing dragon lunged at the one-eyed man before her.
The one-eyed man was startled and scrambled backward.
The Fire Dragon swept through everything. The fine tableware, the exquisite food, the opulent crystal chandelier—all were shattered and melted under the dragon’s onslaught…
When the scene before her dimmed once more, turning cold and damp.
An old man with disheveled hair struggled to lift his head and look at Sun Xixi.
The old man’s hair was long—streaks of gray and white dragged along the floor, mingling with the grime.
His face was covered in wrinkles, so many that they had nearly hidden his eyes.
Below his waist was a candlestick.
That’s right—a candlestick.
This was an Anomaly formed by fusing a human body with a candlestick.
“How… did you figure it out?”
A hoarse voice spoke.
The girl let out a cold snort. “He… would never have been that polite!”
Without another word, the girl formed a sword seal with her fingers and lightly pointed at the decrepit Anomaly before her.
Amid a shriek of agony, the Anomaly disintegrated into nothing.
All that remained on the ground was a candlestick.
The girl picked it up, a flicker of joy crossing her face. There was Anomaly Energy hidden inside the candlestick—it might be a Wonder.
But no matter how she tried, she couldn’t sense any information from the candlestick.
Fifth floor.
Iron Lion was still frantically smashing down doors.
The tremendous noise echoed endlessly through the entire fifth-floor corridor.
“Hey, hey, hey, Iron Lion, you still haven’t opened that door?”
Dantai Bie’s voice crackled through the earbuds.
Iron Lion was breathing heavily as he answered in a rumbling tone, “No!”
Logically speaking, given Iron Lion’s strength—even without transforming—there weren’t many doors in this world that could withstand his brute-force demolition.
But this was a Rule Zone, and some doors might be governed by rules that prevented external force from breaking them.
Dantai Bie tried to offer a suggestion. “Iron Lion, some doors don’t just open inward—they could open outward too. Why don’t you try pulling it open?”
Under normal circumstances, most hotel doors opened inward. Outward-opening doors weren’t common, even rare.
But since he hadn’t managed to open it after all this time, trying another approach couldn’t hurt.
Iron Lion didn’t think twice. He grabbed the doorknob and pulled.
“Creaaak~~~”
The door to Room 8502 slid open as smoothly as water flowing.
Iron Lion stood there, stunned for a full ten seconds.
“Hey, Iron Lion! Iron Lion! You still alive?”
Dantai Bie’s noisy voice buzzed through the radio, snapping Iron Lion back to reality.
“I’m still alive!”
“Is the door open?”
Iron Lion grumbled, “It’s open…”
Everyone who heard what had just happened: “…”
“Hey, Iron Lion, what’s inside the room?”
Iron Lion squeezed through the doorway, slightly warping the frame in the process.
It seemed that once the door was opened, the rule here had been nullified.
After a long pause, Iron Lion’s voice finally came through again.
“There’s nothing in this room of mine!”
“Can any of you open the next room?”
Chen Ye asked, “Can’t open it?”
“Can’t open it!”
“I can’t open mine either!”
Some of the faster ones had already dealt with whatever was in their second room.
And a few lucky ones found their second room completely empty.
“Chen Ye, what do we do now?”
Chen Ye thought for a moment before replying. “Wu Zehui, Ding Dong, and Number One haven’t finished their second rooms yet. Maybe once they’re done, we can open the third room!”
Just then, Wu Zehui’s voice came through the Bluetooth earbuds.
“Old Sun here has already sent that demon’s soul scattering to the wind! I’m done over here too!”
The punk girl, Number One, used her longbow’s bowstring to slice the pitch-black thing in front of her into several pieces.
As a Hunter, she wasn’t limited to just archery. The Hunter Sequence also had its own close-combat technique—archery combat arts.
As the punk girl’s short, ear-length hair whipped through the air, she finished off all the Anomalies in the room.
She pressed a hand to her Bluetooth earbud. “I’m good over here!”
Ding Dong felt that the Anomaly in her second room was trickier than the one in the first.
Though it took a bit of effort, she managed to handle it.
Panting, she reported her completion.
The group began pushing forward toward Room 03.
Each floor had twenty-three rooms in total.
Some rooms were completely empty.
Others held Anomalies that were harder to deal with.
Moreover, as the room numbers increased, the Anomalies deeper in became more troublesome and more difficult to handle.
But Haosheng Hotel was only on the outskirts of Xi City. According to the Silent Council, most of the Anomalies on the periphery weren’t particularly strong.
So far, the Anomalies the group had encountered at Haosheng Hotel seemed to follow that rule.
The group advanced quickly.
Since Chen Ye and the others had arrived early, they had plenty of time. By the time five in the afternoon rolled around,
the group had reached the second-to-last room: Room 22.