Chapter 2776

As soon as it hit midnight, Shiler climbed back into the room through the window, and the alarm clock rang right on time, but this time, the entire right corridor only rang twice, and the entire 19th floor only rang four times.

That is to say, one of the people in Room 1901 and Room 1903 had a problem, and they were no longer judged as unpolluted, but were very likely already completely polluted.

Which one would it be?

But Shiler didn't have time to think about this for now; he knew that if his hotel was the past, the hotel where Peter was would be even more dangerous, and Peter's abilities were insufficient, so Shiler had to give him enough guidance, otherwise he would likely find it hard to survive.

The common point that could be found in the two hotels now was that alarm clock; Shiler found an alarm clock in his room, and Peter opened the door of Room 1903 and got an alarm clock from the toilet tank.

Jerome said the ringing of the alarm clock was a detection program, and it would only ring when there were living people staying in the room, but Peter also spent a night in that hotel, and he said he didn't hear anything at night, which meant that the 19th floor where he was didn't ring even once.

Then there was a problem, because in the entire floor, besides Peter, Jerome was also a living person, which meant that if this detection device was still working normally, the 19th floor should have rung at least twice, even if this Jerome had a problem, the alarm clock in Peter's room should have rung.

Shiler asked Peter to look for the alarm clock in the room; after Peter had just slept, he felt his mental state was good, so he followed Shiler's instructions and began to search the hotel room he was in, wanting to find that alarm clock.

However, he searched and searched but didn't find it; in the wardrobe where Shiler found the alarm clock, there was no trace of any alarm clock ever existing.

This was unlikely, Shiler thought, unless he had moved the alarm clock somewhere else himself.

Because he was the past on the timeline, all his actions would affect Peter's side; if he chose to leave the alarm clock behind, then Peter couldn't possibly not find it; if Peter couldn't find it, it meant he had moved the alarm clock somewhere else.

Why would he do that?

It was impossible to speculate now, but it was very likely because of some information he obtained in the following days, which meant that the Shiler of the following days thought it was better for the alarm clock not to be in the room than to be in the room.

But at the point in time where Shiler was, the detection device was still working normally, and only when the alarm clock rang could the safety of the room be guaranteed; if Shiler moved the alarm clock somewhere else, that unknown creature wandering in the corridor that brought the sound of the elevator might break in.

What made Shiler willing to take such a risk to move the alarm clock away and not let Peter come into contact with it?

There was another clue about the alarm clock, and that was that the person in Room 1903 chose to put the alarm clock in the toilet tank.

From the current situation, if Peter's time period was really the future, the possibility of the situation completely improving was too small; it was more likely that everything in that time period was an illusion.

The tall one and the short one in Room 1901 and Room 1903 were very likely already completely polluted, and it was precisely because of this that they didn't show any signs of struggle, but were completely controlled.

Following this line of thought, the short one in Room 1903, who was completely controlled, chose to put the alarm clock into the tank; this behavior must have been beneficial to him, which meant that not putting the alarm clock in the tank was disadvantageous to him.

Was the detection device still working normally?

The line of thought circled back; if the detection device was still working normally, why didn't Peter hear any ringing?

Shiler thought of another possibility, and that was that everyone on the 19th floor, like the short one in Room 1903, interfered with the alarm clock's work.

This was very possible; it was known that there were two forces in the hotel fighting each other, one desperately polluting the guests, and the other wanting to prevent the spread of pollution by setting up a detection device, which would start a cleanup program once it discovered deep pollution.

The result of the game between these two sides was clearly that the latter lost, because at the time period where Peter was, the hotel still had problems, only the peace had been restored on the surface, and the terrifying pollution was hidden deeper.

Since the side that created the pollution won, they must have had a way to make the established detection device ineffective, and the method might be like Room 1903, putting the alarm clock in the toilet tank.

Now 12 o'clock had passed, and there was still no ringing on Peter's side, and the alarm clock from Room 1903 was now in his hands, not in the tank, which proved that this alarm clock might already be completely broken.

Was the alarm clock afraid of water?

No, it might not be simple water.

Shiler had been thinking, the toilet in Room 1905 was broken, was it really just an accident? Whose toilet would spray water outward as soon as you pressed the flush button? How could it be broken like that?

A flush toilet didn't have a device to spray water outward at all; no matter how broken it was, it couldn't conjure up a powerful water-spraying device out of thin air; this couldn't be explained by a simple electrical fault.

Shiler could imagine, if someone came here unprepared and heard that the toilet in Room 1905 was broken, they might not touch it, but there was a certain possibility they would check it, and then there was a higher probability they would be sprayed with water.

There must be a source of pollution for the guests in the hotel to be polluted; the source of pollution polluted the guests in the hotel through some medium, and this medium was very likely water.

In the Cthulhu mythos, water was a very important imagery; let's put it this way, in any tabletop game, as long as it described someone dripping with water, don't hesitate, run quickly.

Although Shiler's target this time might be some Outer God, from the perspective of conspiracy arrangement, water was also a very useful thing; humans were naturally close to water sources and wouldn't have much defense against water, even if they were splashed with water from the tank, they would at most curse their bad luck and go change their clothes, and wouldn't think about disinfecting anything.

So the toilet was very likely a trap, just waiting for people to check it, and then spray them with water, so that they could be polluted.

Although he didn't know the specific situation in Room 1901 and Room 1903, Shiler guessed that these two guests might have also been tricked this way, and at this point in time, they might not have realized they were tricked.

This was the terrifying part of the Cthulhu mythos; its pollution of humans was more of a cognitive distortion; for example, in Room 1901, the head was already no longer on the neck, but he might still think he was fine and wanted to open the door to go out for breakfast.

Shiler immediately reminded Peter not to touch any device in the room that might spray water, but he knew it was actually a bit late, because after Peter entered Room 1903, he took the alarm clock out of the tank, and he had already touched the water at that time.

However, Shiler thought carefully and found some problems; if he were the mastermind behind all this, he wouldn't deliberately create a broken toilet, because there must be people who weren't the type to be nosy, and would stop touching it once they heard it was broken.

If water was the medium of pollution, then just wait for people to wash their hands or take a bath; generally, guests staying for two or three days would definitely wash their hands even if they didn't take a bath; taking a step back, wouldn't it be better to directly pollute the drinking water? Even if you don't wash your hands, you still have to drink water.

So Shiler guessed that the source of this pollution might not be able to pollute all the water, or that the water that could be polluted wasn't endless for him, and he had to save it.

It was similar to how sprinklers were always used in conjunction with smoke alarms; if you really wanted to prevent fires, the sprinklers would work 24 hours a day, ensuring that any spark could be extinguished, but that might affect normal life and waste water, so a detection device was installed to spray water only when smoke was detected.

The working principle of this pollution medium was very likely the same as these two things; it wasn't that whoever touched water was polluted, but that whoever did certain things would be sprayed by water.

For example, Shiler pressed the flush button of the toilet.

It was possible that when he didn't press the flush button, he could put his hand into the tank or even into the toilet without being polluted, and only the wave of water sprayed out when the flush button was pressed was problematic.

Shiler told Peter his guess, which also made Peter feel a little more at ease, and he also secretly increased his vigilance in his heart, vowing never to be nosy again, not to touch anything he didn't have to, and to walk around anything he could.

If, as Shiler guessed, the detection device was still working normally, then the most important thing for them now was to fix the alarm clock, but Shiler didn't choose to do so.

Because it was obvious that the 19th floor at Peter's time period was basically hopeless; everyone else didn't ring, but if your room rang once, everyone would know you were an ordinary person; if Peter was besieged, Shiler couldn't save him now.

Then Shiler began to think again, why on earth did he move the alarm clock out instead of leaving it in the room for Peter? This might be some measures he would take in the future.

Perhaps it was related to the ringing becoming less and less frequent.

Tonight, there were only two rings left in the corridor on the right side of the 19th floor, which meant that someone in Room 1901 and Room 1903 must have been completely finished.

And if the ringing in the right corridor and even the entire 19th floor became less and less, and finally only Shiler was left, then Shiler would definitely prefer to throw the alarm clock out, otherwise he would face the same situation as Peter, which was being targeted by these things on the 19th floor that were no longer human.

It was true that the detection device would act on things in the room after it couldn't detect the ringing, but at Peter's time period, the people in Room 1901 and Room 1903 were all fine.

This meant that the detection device must have started to fail at Shiler's time period, otherwise, with one room not ringing tonight, one person would definitely have been completely cleared, and Peter wouldn't have been able to see both of them at the same time.

By reverse reasoning, both people in Room 1901 and Room 1903 definitely couldn't be saved, otherwise, they couldn't have appeared in Peter's time period in a normal state.

No matter which one had a problem tonight, the other one would be soon, and it was definitely too late to save anyone.

So Shiler chose to give up decisively, intending to seek help from afar; Peter didn't know the situation in the left corridor yet; if the situation was good, there might still be survivors in the left corridor, so it would be better to pay attention to the two rings in the left corridor.

Only two of the 6 rooms in the left corridor had ringing, meaning the other four were also wiped out.

If Shiler were to guess which two of these 6 rooms had people in them, Shiler would definitely exclude 1913 first; this room was very wrong, and the possibility of living people inside was not high.

Then, based on his own speculation, the last three rooms to fall in the right corridor were 1901, 1903, and 1905, all odd numbers, which meant that it was possible that some paranormal phenomenon appeared according to the rule of odd and even numbers, and the odd-numbered rooms on this side had a higher survival rate.

Then the rooms on the left might also follow some rule; after excluding 1913, only two odd-numbered rooms were left, which were 1907 and 1909.