Chapter 63

On the pillow, the notebook lay quietly, maintaining its original position without any reaction.
However, in a place unknown to Gu Yi'an, the aura enveloping the Hanged Ghost intensified once more.
The Hanged Ghost froze.
What had it done wrong? Why was the Ghost King exerting pressure on it again?
Huh?
Her Highness's smile seemed a bit cold.
The Hanged Ghost's small brain began racing with thoughts.
It seems the Princess Consort has grown suspicious of the Ghost King.
Why would the Princess Consort suddenly doubt the Ghost King?
Where was the Ghost King exposed?
The Hanged Ghost immediately thought of the Ant Factory.
The problem lay with that gift!
Having figured this out, the Hanged Ghost pretended to know nothing and said, "Princess Consort, Rakshasa and I were also involved in this gift. That ball was something we chopped up out of resentment. How dare it harm Lord Lu? We felt it was our duty to turn it into a meatball."
"Of course, subduing that ghost was mainly the Ghost King’s doing. We didn’t dare take credit. But this gift does contain a bit of our sentiment too."
The more the Hanged Ghost spoke, the more it felt its excuses were falling apart, there were just too many holes in its story.
It glanced at Gu Yi'an, then at the notebook.
It chose to give up.
The Hanged Ghost turned its back.
"Princess Consort, this humble one knows nothing, dares say nothing."
The Hanged Ghost played dead.
Seeing this, Gu Yi'an was both amused and annoyed.
For the moment, she let the Hanged Ghost off and addressed the notebook, "Are you sure you still want to keep pretending?"
The Hanged Ghost had already defected. Would the notebook continue its act?
As it turned out, the notebook was quite clear about the reality.
Right before Gu Yi'an’s eyes, the knife marks on the notebook visibly healed, and it quickly swelled back to its original size.
At this point, Gu Yi'an noticed a doubt she had overlooked all along.
The knife marks just now were so fine, how could she have genuinely believed they were knife wounds? She had even carefully examined the miniature version of the notebook’s marks, noticing one end was deeper and the other shallower, despite it being such a tiny book.
What had she been thinking?
Gu Yi'an shifted her gaze elsewhere.
The two novice female players had finished washing up and were sitting on the edge of their bed, watching Gu Yi'an and the notebook with great interest.
Soon, they noticed Gu Yi'an’s gaze.
The two female players guiltily averted their eyes.
Gu Yi'an looked back at the notebook on the pillow.
The notebook had already opened on its own, displaying a sentence on the page:
"Sorry, I was wrong."
It wasn’t the bold, flowing script from before, but carefully written characters, stroke by stroke, with all the sharp edges softened.
The notebook's attitude of admitting its mistake was too good.
Seeing this, Gu Yi'an didn't know what to say to it anymore.
It seemed she had nothing to say.
If she had to say something, it was that she had been frightened by the notebook's earlier injuries, only to find out that it had actually been lying.
Based on Gu Yi'an's understanding of the notebook, it had genuinely protected her last night, it just hadn't been injured.
It was good that it wasn't hurt.
Noticing that Gu Yi'an was ignoring it, the notebook resorted to its old trick.
"Ying."
A massive character took up the entire page.
Seeing this, Gu Yi'an was speechless.
Maliciously acting cute was shameful.
Did it think she would let it off the hook just like that?
Gu Yi'an calmed herself and said lightly, "Don't fake injuries like that again in the future."
Injuries were too worrying. She had to make this clear to it, it couldn't do this again.
Gu Yi'an watched as the previous characters on the notebook faded away, and a new line of text appeared on the ruled paper.
"I won't make you worry again in the future."
If something like this happened again, she would... well, she couldn't really do anything about it.
Gu Yi'an couldn't think of any way to punish it.
She watched as another line of text appeared on the notebook.
"I'm in your 'future,' right?"
Gu Yi'an fell silent.
She still remembered the thought she'd had earlier.
Yes, it was.
She had to admit that.
Gu Yi'an didn't answer the question.
She closed the notebook.
Half an hour later, in the hotel's first-floor buffet restaurant.
Gu Yi'an and the two female players met up with the three male players.
The two experienced players, Dai Qi and Uncle Wu, had heavy dark circles under their eyes, as if they hadn't slept well at all.
Only the newbie male player was full of energy.
The newbie male player energetically waved them over and, after the three of them had taken their seats, said, "Did you female players not encounter any ghosts last night? Let me tell you, they all came to our side. We ran into quite a few ghosts last night."
Uncle Wu glanced at the newbie male player and said to Gu Yi'an and the others, "Last night, he woke us up by screaming about a ghost in the TV. By the time we looked, he had already unplugged the TV. There wasn't a trace of any red-dressed female ghost."
The newbie male player said, "I learned from Senior Gu. Unplug the power first, and it won't come out."
Uncle Wu looked at Gu Yi'an, identifying the culprit. "So it was you who taught him. This reckless fool went around cutting off the mediums for every ghost he saw afterward and almost got himself killed."
The newbie male player chuckled sheepishly at this.
Dai Qi, the experienced player who had remained silent until now, spoke up. "Little Gu, did any of you three encounter any ghosts?"
The two newbie female players shook their heads. They had fallen asleep and slept straight through until morning without seeing any ghosts.
Gu Yi'an said, "There was one, the ghost from the previous room who liked to act out dismemberment scenes. He tried to attack me, but my companion took care of him."
The two female players were stunned.
Gu Yi'an hadn't told them about this.
They were only finding out now.
Gu Yi'an realized this too and explained apologetically, "Because the ghost was already dealt with. There are no ghosts in our room, so I forgot to mention it. Sorry."
Gu Yi'an's attention at the time was entirely focused on the damaged notebook. After the matter was resolved, the three of them arrived at the restaurant, and she had no further opportunity to privately inform the two female players about the ghosts that had appeared at night.
The two female players were not unaware of Gu Yi'an's condition that morning.
They quickly said, "It's fine, we were just surprised to suddenly learn about it. Thank you, Senior Gu, for protecting us."
They weren't foolish; by observing the mental state of the three male players, they could tell that they had avoided many ghosts by staying in the same room as Gu Yi'an.
Everyone had heard Gu Yi'an mention earlier that her companion had dealt with the ghosts, and they understood that the "companion" she referred to was actually the ghost she kept.
Uncle Wu glanced at Gu Yi'an again. "If Little Gu had been there, our night would have been much easier."
Gu Yi'an, being a ghost keeper, likely had a ghost by her side that was more powerful than the ones they had encountered the previous night.
The novice male player said, "Uncle Wu, if you hadn't knocked me out, I could have helped you too."
Uncle Wu let out a deep sigh in front of everyone.
Some things were better left unsaid.
Dai Qi said, "Last night, we encountered a TV ghost, a phone ghost, a bathroom ghost, and one under the bed. It seems the ghosts we encountered were all from that hotel. They left marks on us and followed us here."
Gu Yi'an agreed with this speculation and added, "Do you remember one thing? Last night, the female employee led us into the room and stayed for a while before leaving. She knew there were ghosts, yet she dared to enter the room, turn on the lights, and linger."
"Are you suggesting that those ghosts were deliberately released by them to attract enthusiasts of the supernatural?" Dai Qi asked.
Gu Yi'an replied, "That's a possibility. The hotel might have someone specialized in controlling the ghosts. Our every move is also under their surveillance. Not just through hidden cameras, when we left that room, the door at the end of the hallway opened, and someone was watching us the entire time."
Hearing this possibility, the novice male player shuddered.
He said, "If that's the case, then aren't they just waiting for people to come and die every day?"
Gu Yi'an nodded.
"Yes. There will always be plenty of curious people. They won't realize that some of it is actually a carefully crafted death trap set for them."
The female player Xiao Ling, listening to their discussion, proposed another possibility. "Could it be that the ghosts in that room have conditions for targeting people? Maybe a person has to stay in the room for a certain number of minutes before being targeted? That would explain why the female employee wasn't worried."
Dai Qi nodded approvingly at her.
Everyone was now only discussing, and each player needed to actively participate.
As for the truth of the matter, it remained an unsolved mystery.
After discussing for a while, Uncle Wu suggested that everyone should eat first, and only then did they each take some food and sit back together.
Halfway through the meal, Dai Qi said, "The submissions I sent to major video websites were rejected."
Uncle Wu glanced at him and said, "Didn't we agree that everyone would go to different internet cafes and post at different times? To avoid them tracking us down too quickly."
Faced with Uncle Wu's questioning, Dai Qi replied, "It's too time-consuming. Those ghosts are chasing us so closely and only left during the day. It's not that they can't stay here during the day, they just want to slowly torment us to death. We can't afford to waste time."
His words made some sense.
Uncle Wu didn't argue further.
Dai Qi said, "So it seems our plan to expose everything at once won't work. I also called the law enforcement agencies in this world. They asked for my address, but I didn't give it. We need to find smaller websites that the hotel's backers can't reach, as well as other forces."
Everyone had anticipated this, knowing it wouldn't be easy to expose the crimes, so they weren't too disheartened by the news. They continued eating their breakfast.
Dai Qi went to the hotel front desk to get a charger and returned.
Then, he suddenly said, "Someone privately contacted me on a video platform."
Hearing this, everyone turned to look at him.
The novice male player asked, "Is it someone from the hotel warning you?"
"No. It's someone else."
Dai Qi looked at the other players and said, "This matter will be quite shocking. Those of you eating, swallow your food, and if you're holding anything, put it down."
He was so serious, and after yesterday's interactions, everyone knew he wasn't the type to exaggerate, so they cooperatively set down what they were holding.
Dai Qi said, "The person who contacted me claimed to be a player."
Uncle Wu was astonished, "A player in this kind of The Game of the Gods?"
Dai Qi said, "He said he is a Silent One."
The novice hint for this round of The Game of the Gods was "Silent One."
Gu Yi'an understood and said, "He is indeed a player in The Game of the Gods. If I'm not mistaken, he should be a player who survived from a previous round of The Game of the Gods, or perhaps several rounds ago."
In Gu Yi'an's third game, although she successfully cleared it, she only achieved a false ending, while her companion's game continued.
In The Game of the Gods, if you don't achieve a perfect clearance, it never truly ends.
She immediately confirmed the person's identity as a player.
Gu Yi'an glanced around and noticed the novice male player's somewhat confused expression.
She casually explained, "The game 'Silent One' has likely had many rounds. Each round has new players. Only when one round of players fails will a new round of players appear. The game with the novice hint 'Silent One' will only end when that hotel collapses."
Upon hearing this, the three novice players roughly understood the meaning of Gu Yi'an's words.
Uncle Wu said, "Isn't this person a ready-made helper? We can ask him to assist us. He arrived in this world earlier than us and must know much more about the various forces and the hotel's backers than we do."
Uncle Wu paused mid-sentence as a realization struck him. "The reason this round is so difficult is because no one from before ever cleared it, right? They died there, and now we're suffering the consequences. No wonder there are so many ghosts."
As he spoke, Uncle Wu yawned, exhaustion weighing heavily on him.
Dai Qi checked his phone and addressed the group, "This veteran player told me that the only way to survive in this world is to become a silent one, to never speak up and forever remain silent about this matter."
"We can only be silent ones," Dai Qi repeated the words he'd read, his tone devoid of emotion.
Most players' expressions darkened upon hearing this.
Only by staying silent could they live?
The female player Xiao Ling asked, "Does that mean if we don't report that hotel, the ghosts will spare us? Can the hotel staff control those ghosts?"
Dai Qi gave a slight nod. "Based on what he said, it's likely the possibility Little Gu suspected."
The hotel staff might truly be able to control the ghosts.
Xiao Ling sounded unwilling, "Do we really have to follow his advice and become silent ones to survive?"
Gu Yi'an calmly stated, "No, he's wrong."
"The moment he chose silence, he became trapped in this world. He can't go back. His initiative in contacting us this time was deliberate."
Facing the group's gazes with composure, Gu Yi'an continued, "He can no longer remain silent. He wants to return, and we hold the evidence."
"He will choose to cooperate."