# Chapter 746: Mirror Hotel
This person had half a face left, covered in blood and barely recognizable, but the clothes hanging on them could still be identified. They were one of the players who had come to the Corpse Hotel with Liu Chengyi on the first night. Liu Chengyi hadn't lied—the person had indeed gone missing.
Casually picking up an object, Xu Huo pushed aside the fabric on the corpse and carefully examined the bite marks left behind. He found that they didn't match human teeth at all; instead, they looked like the tearing bites of a large wild beast.
Could there be mutant animals being kept in the Corpse Hotel?
Before he could move away from the corpse, a faint scraping sound suddenly came from outside, like something approaching from the end of the corridor, accompanied by heavy breathing in the intervals.
Xu Huo's brows furrowed. He immediately put on the Invisibility Cloak and took out the potion "Mind-Blowingly Good Stuff," opening a small crack to slowly release the stench.
A dark figure appeared at the doorway.
Because the corridor lighting was dim, the light coming from the corner stretched the shadow long, allowing a glimpse before it even reached the door—the thing had its forelimbs on the ground, an enormous head, and looked somewhat like a lion. Especially when it reached the door, its breathing suddenly became heavy, clearly different from an ordinary wild beast.
The stench from the room continuously poured out. The beast outside the door snorted heavily twice before turning and leaving. However, just before it left, whether due to irritation from the olfactory stimulation or something else, it suddenly slammed a claw into the wall!
Several sharp, hook-like claws directly pierced through the wall, tearing four gashes from top to bottom like ripping paper. They withdrew only after a moment, and in the darkness, patterned fur flashed past the freshly made gaps.
Hearing the footsteps outside, Xu Huo grabbed the String and prepared to approach the door. But what he never expected was that the beast would turn back and suddenly pounce at the wall!
Half the wall, along with the door frame, was torn apart. Xu Huo, who had just reached the doorway, barely escaped being knocked down along with it by running fast!
In the flash of dodging and evading, he also got a clear look at the "beast's" appearance. Its body was covered in animal fur, but its physique was at least twice that of an ordinary male lion. Not to mention standing up, even with all four limbs on the ground, it reached the height of an adult's shoulder. It was no surprise that a single pounce could knock down a wall.
But unlike its body, its head looked like a newborn rat—not a single strand of hair, and its skin was covered in crack-like patterns. Its eyes were especially large, bulging like balls, and when its mouth opened, there were soft membranes connecting both sides, allowing it to open to an astonishing angle.
However, the most bizarre thing about this "beast" was the face-like things hidden beneath its fur—eyes and noses all present, even showing half-real, half-fake expressions as the monster moved!
After just one look, Xu Huo immediately realized that these were real human faces on the monster's body. Of course, these faces couldn't actually be alive, but transplanting human faces onto an animal was already beyond ordinary perversion.
He wasn't sure what state this monster was in, but it emitted a rotting smell.
After dodging one attack, Xu Huo retreated into the corridor. With the cover of the Invisibility Cloak and the potion, he stood still right next to the monster. Even the slightest movement might attract its attention, so there was no need to take that risk.
The monster that had knocked down the wall found nothing. It walked into the room, lazily gnawed on the corpse a couple of times, then swished its tail and headed back to the corridor. There it stopped again, suddenly turned, and exhaled toward where Xu Huo was standing.
The smell of blood and rot rushed toward him. Between the man and the beast, there was only a palm's width of distance. Those amber eyes locked onto Xu Huo's eyes, staring as if they could truly see him, holding the gaze for a long time.
Xu Huo's heart raced for a moment but quickly calmed down. He softened his breathing, didn't avoid or dodge, and made no unnecessary movements.
After about ten seconds, the monster finally turned its head and walked along the corridor into deeper darkness.
The elevator in the corridor opened and closed. Confirming it had gone to another floor, Xu Huo breathed a sigh of relief. After putting away his props, he went to knock on the door of the adjacent room.
Xiao Ling and Yu Guangnan, who had been hiding behind the door, hurriedly pulled it open and dragged him inside, lowering their voices to hiss, "Are you looking for death? What if it heard you?!"
"Unless you don't move at all, that monster can hear sounds anyway," Xu Huo said. "You're both safe and sound—it didn't attack you?"
Yu Guangnan looked at him with admiration. "The monster only seems to attack people who come out and move around. As long as the door is closed, it's fine."
"That's what another player I met when I came in told me."
"How many people are still here?" Xu Huo pointed outside. "I saw a corpse earlier. That thing doesn't look like it would save food. If it didn't finish eating, it's probably not hungry. There can't be many survivors either."
"If it's just ticket players, there aren't many," Yu Guangnan said. "The three who came to the Corpse Hotel with us—I saw their bodies. But there are also people who came in before us, upstairs."
As he spoke, he quietly walked to the window, pulled a thin thread hanging down from above, and after a moment, someone poked their head out from above.
The person looked panicked, exhausted, with dark circles under their eyes. They had probably been trapped here for several days. When they saw Yu Guangnan, their attitude wasn't good either. "I told you, there can't be too many people in the room..."
Before they could finish, they suddenly stared at another person who had appeared by the window, unable to hide their shock. "It's you!"
"What a coincidence." Xu Huo also recognized the other person. It was none other than Peng Fengnian, who had once cooperated with him in the Skinner's Instance. Back then, before Peng Fengnian left the instance, he had given Xu Huo a paper phone, and they had used it to contact each other once.
In the game, the chance of players from different districts meeting again in a second instance was extremely slim—not only because of the vast number of instances, but also because of the high player mortality rate. Seeing an "acquaintance" inevitably made one feel that this game world wasn't entirely filled with endless despair.
Peng Fengnian, however, was overjoyed. Without a second word, he climbed down from above and enthusiastically shook Xu Huo's hand. "Fate, fate! Who would have thought we'd meet again? After all these instances and all these players, you're the only one I truly admire!"
Peng Fengnian was a player from District 009. Xu Huo had previously thought about using the paper phone to contact him, but he hadn't expected this guy to be so unlucky as to already be trapped in an instance.
"Judging by your appearance, you've been trapped here for quite a while?"
Peng Fengnian sighed gloomily. "Five days. I've barely slept in these five days... Did you see the thing wandering around the hotel?"
Xu Huo nodded. "The monster doesn't attack players hiding in rooms. Haven't you found a way to leave?"
"Can't find one. Can't get out," Peng Fengnian said dejectedly. "This is a Mirror Hotel."