Chapter 192: You Must Follow the Rules When Taking the Elevator
All the elevators had closed behind them after they got out, and since the elevators had lights, turning them on again would be very conspicuous. If someone had been dragged away in the chaos, the players present should have noticed something.
Therefore, the most likely possibility was that these fifteen people had never gotten off the elevator at all.
"Hey, if you're not going to drink that, could you give it to me?" The flower-selling girl walked up to Xu Huo, interrupting his train of thought, and put on a flattering smile.
Xu Huo glanced at the burly man leaning weakly against the wall in the corner and casually handed over the drink from his pocket.
The flower-selling girl hadn't expected him to give it so readily. After thanking him repeatedly, she trotted back to her companion, had him drink it, whispered a few more words to the burly man, then returned to Xu Huo and handed him three capsule-like items. "I really didn't mean to harm you earlier. Consider this my apology."
Xu Huo took them, and the game immediately prompted:
【Energy Capsule: Legend has it that on a looping path, travelers will encounter a flower-selling girl (or possibly a young man). If you don't buy her flowers, you will walk this path endlessly.】
【Note: Replenishes 1% energy. Limited to one capsule per day.】
Xu Huo put away the capsules and nodded at the flower-selling girl.
Outside, the sky was growing dark. This floor had no way to recharge, so everyone took turns using flashlights, making the indoor lighting poor.
After resting, Kang Hong spoke to Xu Huo. "Are we really going to the thirteenth floor later? Since the spiders on this floor were all killed by someone, staying here should be the safest, right?"
The flower-selling girl stared at a small spider crawling near her feet and suddenly said, "It seems to have grown a bit."
Xu Huo killed the spider with a single sword strike and said calmly, "Besides the cultivation tanks, the bellies of those big spiders are also full of eggs. It probably won't be long before they hatch. If the elevator comes, it's best to go down."
He didn't mention the other reason. This instance was clearly not as simple as just fighting monsters floor by floor. Ninety hours, fifteen floors, fifteen elevators, a capacity of thirteen people, and a total of one hundred and ninety-five people—these numbers had to correspond to some hidden rule.
The fifteenth floor had no danger, so logically it should be the safest. But the elevator doors had bloodstains on the outside, indicating that in a previous instance, someone had returned to the fifteenth floor. The reason was unclear, but the elevator and the fifteenth floor were definitely not safe.
Staying on any floor might trigger an instance trap.
He glanced toward the elevator, walked over, pried open a gap in the door with his sword, then borrowed two phones from Kang Hong and the others. He turned on the flashlight and video recording, wrapped them with tape, and lowered them through the gap.
"Boom! Boom!" The man-eating flowers in the elevator shaft slammed against the elevator doors, causing the tape to shake but not break.
Xu Huo continued lowering it, but around the eleventh floor, he suddenly encountered a strange force and immediately cut the tape.
"Is there something else down there?" Kang Hong asked nervously. "Should we try again?"
"Try again," Xu Huo nodded.
Kang Hong and the tall woman handed him another phone. Xu Huo took only one, stuck some spider silk on the phone and tape, turned on only the camera function, and lowered it down.
This time, the phone passed the eleventh floor safely. Xu Huo continued lowering it until the estimated length reached the tenth floor, then retrieved it.
Removing the tape, he played the video.
The elevator shaft had no lights, and it was almost impossible to see anything in the darkness. But as it passed the eleventh floor, a faint red light flashed in front of the lens.
"Did something just pass by?" Kang Hong said hesitantly.
Xu Huo rewound the video and froze it on that red light, frowning slightly. This wasn't a man-eating flower but a mutant animal. Although its figure was unclear, judging by its size, it wasn't large.
It was moving in the elevator shaft, but the video captured no sound, indicating it was extremely agile.
Something like that couldn't stay in the elevator shaft forever. So when the elevators weren't running, the doors on other floors might not necessarily stay closed.
If the elevator doors on other floors could open, then the mutant animal should be able to move between floors along the outer wall of the building.
The fact that over two hundred people had moved from the fifteenth floor to the fourteenth without attracting the mutant animal was noteworthy.
"That mutant beast has a very high energy value," the flower-selling girl said quietly. "A normal person's energy value usually fluctuates between sixty and eighty. An Evolver can reach three hundred. Those two man-eating flowers earlier had an energy value of only twenty each, but the thing in the video reached five hundred."
Xu Huo turned to look at her.
The flower-selling girl smiled awkwardly. "Yours is pretty high too."
So exchanging a bit of her energy shouldn't be a problem, but unfortunately, he hadn't fallen for it.
Xu Huo didn't pursue the earlier matter but instead asked, "Is this your trait? Can you use it on plants and animals?"
The flower-selling girl was taken aback. "Plants and animals can't understand human speech, so how could they buy..."
Before she finished, she realized she had been tricked into revealing information. She stopped and changed the subject. "Mr. Xu, I've already apologized for what happened before, and you accepted my apology. Can we just drop this?"
Xu Huo waved his hand. "I was just wondering if coercive selling counts as a transaction."
The flower-selling girl fell silent, seemingly pondering the question.
"Creak!" At that moment, Gu Yu's group had also pried open a gap in their elevator door to check the shaft, but their method was much cleverer than Xu Huo's. One player used a handkerchief prop to tie a high-intensity flashlight and hang it above the elevator shaft, then used a phone to record.
The man-eating flowers weren't sensitive to light. When the elevator door first opened, they slammed against it a couple of times before retreating.
"There's nothing there," Zhang Biao said, looking at the video. Modern phone pixels were decent enough that zooming in could even give a rough view of the man-eating flowers below.
Since they were all on the same floor and could hear each other, Gu Yu spoke to the people beside her and then walked over to Xu Huo with her phone. "Let's exchange information."
"Alright." Xu Huo handed her his phone and took hers.
From the video, the man-eating flower was about ten meters tall, with a slender vase-shaped body. The flower, stem, and leaves were all flesh-colored. Below the flower were connected thin tubes that twitched from time to time.
He paused the video, zoomed in on a certain spot on the shaft wall, and saw a row of dot-like marks.
After a moment, he handed the phone to the flower-selling girl. "How much energy does this man-eating flower have?"
"Around one hundred fifty," the flower-selling girl said.
"Equivalent to two adults," Xu Huo nodded slightly.
Gu Yu and the others also watched the video Xu Huo had captured. Although they couldn't clearly see what the flashing red dot was, it proved that more than one mutant species was active in the elevator shaft.
"Since there's something there, let's film it again," Zheng Liang said.
The other players didn't object. Dai Wenqian added, "Hang the flashlight up and leave the phone outside to record."