Chapter 1376: The Lame Butcher and the Cleaver
This time, the sound appeared outside the door again, louder than before. Footsteps paced back and forth outside before fading away.
The recorded knocking sound could lure the killer from the restaurant, but using a pebble to knock on the door didn't work?
Xu Huo hesitated briefly, then opened the door and attached a micro-monitor to the door panel.
The monitor functioned normally, its main surveillance range covering the warehouse ahead, also capturing Door 42, part of Door 99's panel blocked by cargo boxes, and a section of the corridor on the right.
Probably because accidents had been frequent in this area for a while, no one had approached it for a long time, and the players in the nearby rooms were staying put obediently.
It wasn't until early morning that the door of Room 42 quietly opened.
Zhou Donghe slipped out silently, releasing several mosquito-sized instruments. After they dispersed, he turned and walked toward the restaurant. His figure disappeared from the monitor's edge, but soon, a figure emerged from the shadows of the warehouse, heading straight for Room 42. After using a prop to destroy the traps Zhou Donghe had set, he opened the door and slipped inside. At the same time, the number plate on the door changed to 63.
"Thump! Thump! Thump!"
The garbage cleaner approached again. Appearing in the monitor's view was a woman in a green raincoat, only her chin visible. She "thumped" her rubber bucket onto the ground, her bony hand reaching toward Xu Huo's door. The next second, the monitor, which had shifted its angle, rolled into a pile of destroyed small robots, dolls, toy cars, and other monitors.
The raincoat cleaner left. Not long after, footsteps and striking sounds rang out again, this time circling the warehouse, as if systematically checking the cargo boxes. Soon, voices and sounds of a fight emerged, but neither lasted long.
About an hour later, things gradually quieted down outside.
Xu Huo sat at his desk, writing a new time on a piece of paper.
From the current situation, the store closed at eight. Around eight-thirty, the raincoat cleaner would start moving in the restaurant, along with someone responsible for hunting players. During this time, there were also sliding rail activities, lasting about an hour.
Then, after midnight, the raincoat cleaner reappeared, followed by another hour of hunting. During this period, whether or not anyone slipped up, someone would come to search.
As for the knocking sounds and temporary cleaning times, they were irregular. Although the conditions for "knock kill" weren't fully understood, it seemed random. In other words, as long as no one knocked or made noise, there was a two-and-a-half-hour interval between the peak activity periods of the restaurant killer.
Of course, this didn't mean they only moved at fixed times. It was also possible that because the restaurant was large, they kept moving continuously but hadn't approached this area.
A two-and-a-half-hour interval meant this period was relatively safe. Opening the door wouldn't attract the killer, and players could go out and move around. However, they had to be careful—leaving the room risked losing it.
The next raincoat cleaner activity was two hours later. Xu Huo opened the door and stepped out. He used a small prop to change the door number to 72, then activated a silencing item and headed toward the restaurant.
His room wasn't far from the restaurant—just around the corridor. But unexpectedly, after walking the entire length of the corridor, he still didn't see the restaurant. Instead, a small warehouse appeared at the corner. Many boxes were open, filled with fresh vegetables and fruit. Several boxes had been knocked over, and some areas still had damp water stains.
Probably some unlucky person hiding in the cargo boxes had been found.
No bodies were visible, but he did discover two players still hiding there.
Prop disguises might not last long, and the hunter's activity period wasn't short. With such a small space, catching people was too easy.
Xu Huo continued forward. The next corridor was piled with miscellaneous items. Bloodstains scattered on the decorations hadn't been cleaned, old and new layers overlapping, making the seemingly valuable items look mottled and worn. It also made the few props mixed in among them less conspicuous.
Probably toys left behind by players... He bent down to pick one up, but at that moment, a chill wind swept toward the back of his head!
By reflex, he ducked. A rusty cleaver grazed the back of his skull and struck the ground. Then, a voice whispered like a breath: "As expected, using bait catches the little mouse!"
"Cat's Triple Life Loan" activated automatically, allowing Xu Huo to maintain his bent-over posture and forcefully roll twice to the side, dodging the cleaver as it swung again.
As he retreated, Xu Huo got a clear look at his attacker. The man was about fifty, wearing a dirty waterproof apron, holding a cleaver in each hand. When he straightened up, his right leg, clad in a rubber boot, seemed stiff, and his footsteps on the floor were especially loud.
Noticing Xu Huo's gaze on his leg, the butcher-dressed man's expression turned vicious. He swung both cleavers, hacking apart the cargo boxes in the warehouse. His movements were completely unaffected by his limp. In a short time, he forced Xu Huo into a corner several times, each cleaver strike capable of breaking through three layers of "Flower Bloom" petals!
"Boom!" Separated by a defense prop, Xu Huo was sent flying by a strong impact force from the man's prop, crashing into a pile of broken cargo boxes.
As he went in, the two people hiding inside shot out, fleeing toward the corridor without looking back. But at that moment, the butcher pulled his hand through the air. The sound of a whetstone came from ahead, and a curved knife hanging from an iron chain in midair pierced through one person's chest to his back, lifting him up before disappearing into the darkness!
The other player was terrified. He turned to run the other way, but the butcher threw one of his cleavers, splitting his head open like a melon!
Both players died instantly. Seizing the moment the butcher was distracted, Xu Huo leaped into the corridor, dodging the flying curved knife again, and stabbed "All Things Want to Cut Everything" into both walls.
This wasn't enough to buy time, because the butcher, without bothering to clean up the bodies, slapped the wall. The peeling wallpaper stripped away the tangent lines.
"Boom!"
"Boom!"
"Holder's Demise" and "Backstab" activated simultaneously, striking the butcher's forehead and back. But neither prop caused fatal damage. Especially "Holder's Demise"—before it could pierce the butcher's forehead, an invisible barrier deflected its force, only managing to punch a bloody hole in his forehead without penetrating the skull.
Several streams of blood flowed down his forehead. Tasting the blood, the butcher pulled out another cleaver embedded in the wall. His figure vanished from the corridor instantly. But when he rounded the corner, he only caught a glimpse of a closed door at the end of the corridor.
(Chapter End)