Chapter 2773

This might be the worst outcome.

Because this meant all previous speculations about the conditions of the two hotels were wrong; it was possible these two hotels had no sequential temporal relationship at all, but were merely two different spaces.

However, Shiler believed things weren't that simple; the two hotels absolutely could not be independent of each other. The communication issue Jerome raised also corroborated this — since Jerome, as an ordinary person, had a way to communicate with people in the other hotel, it proved there must be some connection between the two hotels that even ordinary people could discover.

Shiler still believed this connection was time, but exactly how they were connected, he had no time to ponder now; he had to deal with the situation before him first.

Although the plan had hit a snag, Shiler didn't panic. In truth, Shiler wasn't a very arrogant person; he wouldn't bet everything on a single conjecture of his, so even in the current predicament, he still had a way to turn the tables.

It was known that the paranormal phenomena inside the room currently could not affect the outside of the room, and besides the walls, Shiler guessed these paranormal phenomena probably also could not affect the corridor.

Because he had moved swiftly earlier, throwing out all the small items in the living room that could become airborne, right now the living room only had a sofa and a TV cabinet left; there weren't many other obstacles.

Although this floating sofa and TV cabinet looked eager to move, Shiler could completely rush into the room in an instant, open the door, and then rush into the corridor — that would also count as leaving the room.

The problem was the corridor might not be safe either. After all, when midnight arrived, that mysterious monitoring rule would activate. Although Shiler had the alarm clock on him, if he ran head-on into the entity detecting contamination, the outcome would likely be grim.

So merely rushing into the corridor wouldn't work; he couldn't stay in Room 1905, but he also had to find another room.

Then which rooms were available as options? In reality, Shiler had almost no choice, because right now he only had the key card for Room 1905; other rooms couldn't be opened without a key card, except for one room — Room 1913.

The door to Room 1913 was originally open, so the best choice appeared to be for Shiler to immediately rush out the door into the corridor, and then rush into Room 1913 before the monitoring rule took effect.

But Shiler didn't intend to do that.

He was very certain Room 1913 was definitely a trap, not entirely because of the number 13, but more because this series of plans had gone too smoothly.

Shiler wasn't Batman, nor had he reached the point of instinctively suspecting the whole world, but he still had the necessary vigilance. As he'd said before, if the paranormal entity in the room wanted to kill someone, there was absolutely no need to manipulate furniture to throw things around; it must have a special reason for doing so.

Shiler hadn't entered the bathroom yet, so he didn't know if there were any killing moves in there, but there was also a possibility: the opponent was throwing furniture around chaotically to force him out of the room, then let him encounter danger in the corridor, and then rush into Room 1913 to take shelter.

If a ghost was controlling the hotel now, Shiler might not make such an assumption, because ghosts don't have that high an IQ; chaotic brainwaves often make them choose direct attacks rather than intricately laying a trap. Only an Outer God would do this.

Nyarlathotep is considerably intelligent and cunning; he is more insidious than almost all humans, and he has considerable patience, is good at disguise, good at deception. Against such an opponent, one must assume the most malicious motives without hesitation.

Or rather, killing humans might not be Nyarlathotep's goal at all; he deceives humans to toy with them, he enjoys the pleasure of manipulating humans, so he is even more likely to set up such a scam. Shiler absolutely wouldn't fall for it.

Shiler had another method.

Right now he was standing with his feet on the lower window sill, hands gripping the upper window sill, but the wind was strong now, and even with his small windward area, he had to grip very tightly to stabilize his body, and this obviously couldn't be maintained for long.

Shiler was currently positioned at the far right side of the window. The hotel window was a sliding window, two panes total. The left pane could slide to the right, and earlier, to throw things out, Shiler had already pushed that pane over — meaning the right side now had two layers of glass, while the left side was open.

Shiler stood at the far right, with only one foot on the window sill, half his body outside the window. From inside the window, basically only a small half of his body could be seen, so the furniture hadn't moved.

Shiler very carefully shifted his hands and feet to the left — meaning he let his body return to the window opening, as if he could no longer maintain balance and wanted to let his other foot touch down as well.

Because the window wasn't very large, Shiler couldn't see the situation inside the window now, but he could hear a faint sound. As expected, the sofa had already flown up.

Precisely because the paranormal phenomena in the room might be intelligent, he understood a very simple principle: even if it couldn't affect the outside of the room, the laws of physics were enough to kill a person.

Shiler had already given it a demonstration earlier. When he threw things out the window, he didn't just reach his hand out; he stood at a certain distance from the window and threw things directly outward.

The moment the objects were thrown out, they left his control, but inertia kept them flying along their original trajectory.

So the paranormal phenomena inside the room didn't need to control the sofa outside the room too; it only needed to throw the sofa at the window. Even the moment it left the window, the sofa left its control, but inertia would be enough to knock Shiler down.

The sofa made a buzzing sound, as if some force was gathering power. Shiler continued to tentatively reveal more of his body.

Whoosh—Bang! Crash!

The sofa flew at the window at extreme speed. Half the sofa slammed out with a bang, the right half of the glass shattered in response, but Shiler wasn't knocked down. The sofa also got stuck on the window frame and couldn't move.

This was the result of precise calculation. With the sofa protruding at this angle diagonally, it was destined to get stuck.

The sofa's backrest was higher than the window frame, and an ordinary sofa, no matter how much force was applied, couldn't directly smash through the hotel wall. So logically, the sofa shouldn't be throwable out.

But Shiler was standing on the right side of the window. For such a long sofa to aim and shoot at him, it would have to adjust its angle, and it was precisely this slight adjusted tilt angle that allowed the sofa to just pass through the window frame, but not completely pass through, so it got stuck.

But Shiler's situation was also very dangerous now. The instant the sofa rushed out, both his hands directly left the wall and he dodged to the right, leaving only one foot on the window sill.

Such a situation was obviously impossible to stand firm in. Shiler was about to fall immediately, but during the fall, he adjusted his body posture, letting himself fall to the left. As he fell, he just happened to collide with that small half of the sofa protruding out.

One hand instantly grabbed the sofa backrest. Shiler twisted his body back, barely stabilizing his figure.

Now, a sofa protruded out the window, a small section outside. Behind the sofa stood a man, gripping the sofa backrest, flipping over the sofa without much effort.

Most of the sofa was inside the window. According to the lever principle, this external section was just barely enough for a sofa that could seat a person to bear a large force. At least bearing Shiler's weight was no problem. After flipping over the sofa backrest, Shiler nestled inside.

This had many benefits. For instance, he didn't have to stand there all night. Also, the wind would just happen to blow on the sofa backrest, barely reaching Shiler at all. He could just stay here for the night.

Shiler tightened his trench coat. Fortunately, this season wasn't very cold. Sitting here for a night like this was nothing. Anyway, there was nothing to do, so he started studying that alarm clock.

From the outside, this alarm clock looked completely normal with no abnormalities visible. Currently, only the battery compartment could be safely removed. Shiler gently pried the battery compartment cover with his hand and found it opened very easily.

But very unsurprisingly, there was no battery inside the battery compartment. After all, the sound that rang out wasn't the alarm clock's sound, but the elevator's sound, so whether the alarm clock had a power source or not didn't matter.

By the light of his phone, Shiler suddenly discovered there was something in the battery compartment. He reached in and pulled hard, discovering it was actually two strands of hair.

They were two long black hairs. The hair quality looked good; the owner must have taken meticulous care of it. Shiler observed carefully — these weren't broken hairs, but shed hairs. The end near the follicle looked unhealthy.

This was actually very abnormal. Because normally people have rougher tips, while newly grown hair is smoother. This situation could only mean that in the recent period when this hair grew, the owner was sick, or something was wrong.

Shiler continued looking inside the battery compartment, but there was nothing else inside. These two hairs didn't look like they extended from inside the alarm clock, but rather looked like they had been specially placed into the battery compartment.

Shiler wrapped the two hairs in a sticky note, then took out his phone. He wanted to see if there was a signal outside the hotel. But upon turning it on, he found there was a signal, but the signal was chaotic. The phone screen began flashing some messy patterns.

Shiler put his phone away again, wanting to use the communication device to ask about Peter's situation. But as soon as he opened the chat window, he discovered Peter had sent a message and a photo.

In the photo, the living room window seemed to have undergone some changes. Shiler enlarged the photo and saw many friction marks on the outer edge of the window frame.

Shiler lowered his head and saw the exact same marks on the section where the sofa had rushed out.

So, I am the past???