บท 3703: Chapter 2826: Phantom Murder Room (16)
Directly confronting the mysterious presence in the corridor was definitely not an option, even if Jerome really was Jerome and Gordon was Gordon, under these circumstances, they didn't even know if their words were being manipulated, so they were utterly untrustworthy.
But if not using Gordon's method, there seemed to be no other way to get out of the 19th floor, Shiller thought carefully, after dawn would probably be his last chance.
Without a doubt, there would be fewer and fewer sounds in the room, no one knew what would happen if the sounds disappeared completely, and Shiller couldn't be sure if the thing controlling the illusions in the room would become enraged the next night.
His Sanity Points wouldn't decrease, but he still had health points, just a glance at the thing on Gordon's neck had left Shiller's head buzzing to this moment.
So, it was best to resolve things during the day, Peter couldn't be delayed too long, Shiller couldn't find clues on his side, depending on him would be fruitless.
Soon, Shiller waited until dawn, the corridor was still quiet, but there was no movement from rooms 1901 and 1903, Shiller suspected that the situation in these two rooms had deteriorated to the extreme, meaning they had completely lost their sanity, becoming puppets of something.
But it was just as well that they made no noise, less interference for himself, Shiller thought, he had already decided not to investigate what was in the rooms because whatever was there now was untrustworthy, it was better to focus on the corridor.
Shiller stepped out of the room and took a good look at the corridor, but there was nothing noteworthy here, you could find a similar corridor in any hotel in the world.
There were no superfluous decorations on the corridor, the pots and artificial flowers placed around were ordinary, no paintings on the walls, the carpet was firmly fixed to the ground, un-liftable, the wooden doors looked to be of good quality, but they also bore no decorative wreaths.
Shiller observed for a long time, and in the end, he turned his attention to the room numbers, the only clue he had yet to use so far, and the only clue that had little to do with the thing in the corridor and the elevator.
This precisely demonstrated that the clue might be important.
It was known that the door plate of room number 1900 had been swapped, so which room's number had been exchanged with it?
In fact, Shiller had already determined this, as he had previously removed the screws from the door plates in the left corridor and, observing the screw holes, confirmed that all the screws were only screwed in once, meaning that all the door plates on the left side had not been swapped, even including the suspicious-looking room 1913.
The rooms on the right side also had no signs of screws being entered a second time, so the answer was clear, the only one Shiller hadn't taken apart and observed the screw holes was room 1905.
Just to be safe, Shiller unscrewed one of the screws from his own door plate, indeed, the hole in this screw was messy, clearly twisted twice.
It seemed that room 1905 and room 1900 had swapped door numbers, but the question was, who swapped them and why?
Since he didn't want to explore who else was in the rooms, Shiller set aside the first question and instinctively felt that the second question was key.
Looking at the hotel corridor's structure, the smaller the number, the closer to the elevator, this was a rule applicable to both sides, if the numbers of room 1900 and 1905 were swapped, then this rule was broken.
Moreover, Shiller felt it wouldn't make sense for a corridor to have room 1905 next to room 1901 followed by 1903 and 1904, that would be too strange.
Shiller stood in front of the door and observed the door plates carefully but could indeed see no clue, he knew that to understand the deeper secret of the door plate, he had to conduct an experiment.
Shiller prepared to take down a door plate.
Last time he attempted this, he then found the wooden door started to age rapidly, but what ultimately would happen, he hadn't seen, it was time to pick an unlucky one for an experiment.
Shiller's gaze wandered between rooms 1903 and 1901, he was a bit inclined to choose these two rooms, but in fact, they were not that important either, Shiller thought it over, crossed the elevator area, and came to the left corridor, standing in front of room 1913.
The room had been very enthusiastic towards him from the beginning, its door wide open, inviting him in, if so, it surely wouldn't be stingy to contribute itself for Shiller to experiment.
Shiller took out a small knife and began to unscrew.
To unscrew forcefully, the door definitely couldn't be open, so Shiller simply closed the door, but as soon as he closed it, a few seconds later, there was a knock from inside the door.
"Thinking of knocking now? Too late!" Shiller said as he unscrewed, "Don't you know that a person should lock the door when going out?"
Perhaps provoked by that remark, the thing inside began to ram the door, Shiller braced firmly against it, and he was quick, the screw was off in a few seconds, the thing couldn't even ram a second time, and the door plate of room 1913 was already in Shiller's hands.
As soon as the door plate was taken down, the room began aging at the fastest rate, Shiller stepped back a bit, the aging accelerated, and then the entire door and wall merged into one and completely disappeared.
Shiller approached again and touched the wall where the door had been, there was no flaw, it was as if there was never a room there, this place had always been a hard, cold wall.
Shiller stepped back to the elevator to check out the layout of the corridor on the left, where a room was missing, which was indeed odd. He then made his way to where room 1913 used to be and discovered that four screw holes remained on the wall.
Could the door number be reattached? Would room 1913 then reappear?
Shiller didn't attempt it because the moment he removed the door number, he had felt that the entity inside the room had already stepped back a few paces, gathering momentum to ram the door. To put the room back now, it was hard to say whether it wouldn't burst through the door, so it was better to keep the door number for now.
First, Shiller brought the door of room 1913 back inside, then he started to examine rooms 1905 and 1900.
The disappearance of room 1913 along with the door number implied that the door number might very well be the essence of the room. If that was the case, then whoever swapped the door numbers didn't just swap the numbers; they actually switched the positions of the two rooms.
The difference lies in the fact that if only the door numbers were switched, the room Shiller was staying in, supposedly room 1905, would actually be room 1900, meaning it's possible someone intended for Shiller to move into room 1900.
But if the door number moved along with the room, then the room Shiller was staying in, room 1905, was still room 1905. It had simply switched places, moving from near the elevator to the end of the hallway, opposite room 1904.
But what was the meaning behind such a switch?
Initially, Shiller thought that maybe someone wanted to move room 1905 further from the elevator since Little Bruce had specifically marked room 1905 on the coordinates he gave, indicating that the room was special; it would not be unusual for someone to interfere with it.
But then he thought it might not be necessary; the elevator didn't pose any clear danger, and even the monster that came over on the elevator hadn't shown any inclination to charge into the rooms. If one were to check the nearest room every night, then no matter how far away room 1905 was moved, the danger would remain the same, rendering such an action meaningless.
Thus, Shiller considered the opposite possibility: could it be that someone wanted room 1900 to be closer to the elevator?
However, since there were no clues related to the elevator, and it had been calm so far, all conjectures linked to the elevator were somewhat irrational.
Standing in front of room 1905, Shiller pondered another possibility: if room 1905 and room 1900 had switched places, then the original room 1900 should be here, opposite room 1904.
Could it be that someone didn't want room 1900 to be opposite room 1904?
Shiller felt he had grasped a key point. If it was someone from room 1904 who had changed the door numbers, it all made sense.
Like room 1913, room 1900 also appeared abnormal on this floor, indicating that room 1900 might also contain danger that could threaten the room opposite it. Therefore, someone had switched the door numbers of the two rooms to prevent room 1900 from facing their own room.
But what was the danger in room 1900?
So far, Shiller had not seen any danger from any room spill out into the hallway. Could the occupant of room 1904 believe that the entity in room 1900 would burst out?
Because only if that was the case would room 1904 be the first in line, giving the occupant a motive to change the door numbers.
After thinking things through, Shiller came up with a good idea. He decided to take down the door number of room 1900 and put it in the location of room 1913, given that it was currently vacant.
As for what kind of anomaly this would trigger, Shiller was quite curious. Hopefully, it would reveal something unusual so that he could deduce more clues.
Shiller swiftly removed the door number of room 1900, took the number to the former location of room 1913, and nailed it into the screw holes there.
A grey-white door slowly appeared, gradually merging with the door number as though it had never been removed, boldly marked with "1900".
Room 1900 remained silent, showing no changes even after being moved to this new location. Shiller waited a while and noticed nothing amiss, so he returned to his own room.
But he didn't just sit idly by. He connected with Peter's communication device, assuming that if he was at a past time point, switching the door numbers would certainly result in a change for Peter.
After receiving Shiller's message, Peter pushed open his door and glanced into the hallway, noticing quite a few people heading out for breakfast. However, the far right end of the hallway seemed still.
Peter tiptoed over and, standing at the central elevator's position, looked towards the end of the right corridor. His eyes widened as he said, "It's really room 1900, PhD, this is so strange."
Then Peter's gaze shifted slightly to the side as if he saw something else odd. He turned back, staring at the room opposite 1900, and with some confusion said, "How come there's a 1913 room here too?"
"What?"
Shiller focused on the message Peter sent back. Peter had recorded a video for him. The first thing that appeared in the frame was, of course, room 1900, but as the camera panned back, the room opposite room 1900 bore the door number "1913".
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