Chapter 2778

"In this process, I passed countless mirrors and glass, and I am sure I saw myself, but I didn't realize the abnormality at all, until after the alarm clock rang today, some thoughts that didn't belong to me filled my mind."

"I began to realize that I had been eroded, and what I saw and heard might not be real, but I still retained a trace of sanity; I hoped to be able to leave the room."

"Why?" Shiler asked.

"I don't know; I don't know if this is my thought, or even if I have ever had such a thought; I feel that thing has always been in my brain."

Gordon became somewhat absent-minded again; Shiler kept calling his name, letting his sanity gradually return a little; Shiler told Gordon his speculation, but concealed the part related to Peter.

Because no one knew if the current Gordon was still Gordon.

Shiler didn't save Gordon because he trusted him that much; he just wanted to save this police chief's life first; if there was a turning point later, maybe the pollution could be cleared.

"Tell me about the method you told me earlier to leave the 19th floor." Shiler looked at Gordon and said.

"That might not be what I told you." Gordon was clearly even less trusting of himself than Shiler was, and he said: "I might have been controlled, and what I told you was a method that would definitely lead to death."

"You just tell me, I have my own judgment."

Gordon had no choice but to swallow his saliva and began to say: "This is the result of my research over the past few days; I discovered that every night at 12 o'clock, something will walk out of the elevator, but it doesn't only come to the 19th floor, it also goes to other floors."

"When the elevator opens, there is a ding sound, which shows that the elevator has resumed operation; I think perhaps we can follow behind it and enter before the elevator door closes."

"Why not rush in front of it?" Shiler said: "We could take advantage of it patrolling the corridor..."

"No." Gordon shook his head and said: "The elevator door will close after it comes out, and we can't open the door by pressing the button, so we can only rush into the elevator at the very moment it returns to the elevator and the door opens."

"But that would be like being a turtle in a jar."

"So we have to gamble." Gordon said: "Our speculations are about the same; I also think that is a pollution detection device; since it won't act on things that haven't been polluted, as long as you ensure you haven't been polluted, perhaps you can coexist peacefully with it."

Shiler began to ponder; it had to be said that what Gordon said had some truth; if the thing outside was a pollution detection device, as long as you were sure you hadn't been polluted, it might not act.

But this was actually hard to say, because the Cthulhu mythos itself was chaotic, and it wasn't really some rule-based horror story; moreover, there wasn't even a visible rule now, and everything could only rely on one's own guesses; if you guessed wrong, you would be completely passive.

According to Shiler's observation, there was only one way to leave the 19th floor, which was the elevator; this elevator had to be taken no matter what; if that thing really acted on him, there was no other way, he could only fight it head-on.

But he definitely couldn't win; this had to start from his origin.

The Bishop was actually a "corpse collector."

When the first priest was killed in the church, he became more convinced that there was no God in this world, and thus, the Bishop was born.

In the back garden of the church, by God's side and under His feet, he carved out a cemetery that belonged to him.

When the blood of the jumping live fish ran dry, no longer so full of vitality, and no longer beautiful, they would find rest in the Bishop's kingdom of God, quietly decaying in a place no one knew.

Shiler said to everyone who asked him why he never had time on weekends: "Sorry, I'm going to thank God."

Then he added silently in his heart: "Thank God for never existing."

He was the one among all the personalities on the magic side who was closest to being pathological; for a long time, he worked with hunting and abuse.

But this didn't mean he had the strong aggressiveness of the pathological personality; he was just a researcher, and asking him to fight the Cthulhu-style monsters for three hundred rounds was still a bit difficult for him.

But Shiler had his own ways.

He asked Gordon his last question, "Have you seen other living people on this floor?"

"Do you mean living people like me?" Gordon smiled self-deprecatingly and said: "I only know that there should be someone living in Room 1904, but I don't know how he is now; when I was scouting in the corridor, I saw him walking back and forth in the room, but he seemed to have never left the room."

"There are people living in Room 1904?" Shiler was a bit confused; the elevator sound only knocked twice over there; if there were people in Room 1904, were those two knocks for 1904 and 1905?

But it wasn't strange either; from Gordon's description, before the alarm clock rang today, he didn't have any abnormal outbursts, and even he himself didn't realize he had any abnormalities; that might mean the judgment criteria were much stricter than Shiler imagined; the people in Room 1901 and Room 1903 might have all been judged as polluted.

But if that was the case, why hadn't they been taken out yet? Could it be that they had already been taken out, and he just didn't notice because he was busy coming to Room 1907?

Shiler returned to his room; he had to organize his thoughts carefully and find a way to survive from these messy and scattered clues.

Everything was so strange.

When all the clues were put together, Shiler suddenly realized something—this might all be a carefully woven trap.

First, when Shiler explored the first round, he discovered the situation of the people in Room 1901 and Room 1903, and when the first night arrived, Shiler heard the sound of the elevator.

Immediately after, the person in Room 1903 gave a setting, which was that the alarm in the room must be made to ring, and only in this way could one guarantee one's own safety.

Then Jerome on Peter's side explained this setting, which was that the ringing was a detection device, and only when the people in the room were not polluted would the ringing sound.

Furthermore, by deducing that he wasn't polluted because there was ringing in his own room, one would then think that the ringing sounded 5 times on the 19th floor, which meant there were 5 living people on the entire floor.

In fact, there were very obvious loopholes in the entire investigation, which was that all these settings were spoken through people's mouths.

When one person said it, people might doubt it; when two people said it, people might choose to believe a part of it; when three people said it, people would verify it with each other; everyone was saying the same thing, which greatly increased the credibility.

And if these three people were not only of different identities but also in different states, and perhaps even in different time and space, their testimonies verified each other, so people couldn't help but believe it.

One person prepared the fishhook, one person hung the bait, and another person cast the rod; Shiler was too familiar with the process of fishing.

And the short one, Jerome, and Gordon were afraid that they were playing these three roles.

Think carefully, the short one in Room 1903 was obviously wrong; he didn't even have feet, just a voice attached to the door; anyone could see something was wrong, and might not fully believe his words.

But Jerome was hard to distinguish; he stayed in another hotel, Shiler couldn't see him in person, and he behaved very much like a normal person, but this was the biggest abnormality, because in the hotel where Peter was, everyone looked like a normal person, so Jerome, who was just as normal as them, might also be just as terrifying as them.

And when it came to Gordon, it was almost indistinguishable from the real thing, because first, once the ringing in the right corridor decreased, people would find it hard to distinguish whether Room 1901 had a problem or Room 1903 had a problem, so it was inevitable that they would turn their thoughts to the fact that there were still two living people in the left corridor.

And once they felt that there were two living people in the left corridor, and saved Gordon in Room 1907, then they would definitely feel that Gordon was one of the living people, because Gordon was saved by themselves; people naturally trusted the fruits of their own labor more.

The short one mentioned the ringing, Jerome explained the ringing, and Gordon added the setting that one wouldn't be killed if not polluted; the clue chain was very complete.

All these settings pointed to one path—as long as you were sure you hadn't been polluted, then you would definitely be able to follow behind this detection device and leave the 19th floor via the elevator.

But from beginning to end, there was no evidence for this setting about the ringing; it was all one person saying it and another saying it; as for the alarm clock that existed in the room, Shiler had never truly seen it ring either.

This made good use of the weaknesses of human psychology; first, it was the power of public opinion, people following the crowd; the more people who said it, the greater the credibility.

Secondly, if both the righteous and evil sides emphasized the same point of view, people would be biased toward one of them, feeling that one side's point of view must be correct, and wouldn't think that neither side was right; this was the principle used by the double agent.

What truly made Shiler realize this was a trap was Gordon.

Before asking what was wrong with Gordon, one must first ask, why Gordon?

Gordon appearing here was the biggest problem in itself; there were so many lunatics and villains in Cat Getan, why was it this police chief?

Bruce knew Gordon, and Shiler also knew Gordon; there would definitely be no shortage of people in this city who knew this police chief; Gordon was just that excellent; as the last ray of light in a dark city, countless people trusted and followed him.

Even if others didn't know he was Gordon, when they saw the police uniform on him, they would be more likely to believe what he said; after all, in the current Cat Getan where horrors emerged one after another, you were a hero as long as you were willing to put on this police uniform, even if it was just to take black money, and the vast majority of people understood this truth.

So people relied on their own intelligence, spent a lot of energy and physical strength, and finally found such a police chief; it was almost like finding a piece of driftwood in the vast ocean, and there was no reason not to believe and rely on him.

The long-term fear, loneliness, and lack of response during this period would make people truly become a fragile baby, almost crying out loud in a desperate gamble just to attract the mother's attention.

And at the moment the mother responded, they had no reason to think about whether the person holding them up now was a mother or a monster; as long as she could comfort them, it was enough; for ordinary people, this was simply an unsolvable trap.

And Gordon also gave a most fatal setting, continuing the foreshadowing from before, but going even deeper, which was that the existence patrolling in the corridor wouldn't attack people who hadn't been polluted.

Although he had clearly stated that this was a gamble, every single clue was pointing to the fact that as long as you gambled, you would definitely win, because you met all the conditions for winning money, and no gambler could refuse this.

Of course, this sounded too much like the groundless suspicion of a persecution delusion; after all, Shiler didn't have any evidence for these speculations either.

Just thinking of this, Shiler suddenly remembered again that, in fact, he had evidence; although it couldn't be counted as very reliable, it was much more powerful than the evidence provided by this group of people.

It still had to start from Room 1905.

It was said before that the means taken when Room 1905 rioted didn't look like they wanted Shiler's life at all; it might be constrained by some rule and couldn't kill directly; Shiler still insisted on this point of view now.

But this didn't mean this room didn't want to kill; it couldn't do it itself, so it would definitely try every means to force people to commit suicide.

There seemed to be two paths for suicide; Shiler guessed before that the room wanted to force him to the bathroom, and now it seemed it might be because the water in the bathroom was polluted.

The other path was naturally jumping off the building; this went without saying, jumping down was definitely death.

But there was also a hidden third path, which was the one Shiler had conceived before but hadn't adopted—rushing out of the room door at the fastest speed and rushing into the corridor.

But this was the path most likely to be taken by normal people and also the simplest one; whose reaction wouldn't be to open the door and escape when furniture was flying to hit them?

If Shiler hadn't guessed wrong, the room wouldn't let people escape so easily; it would definitely drag it out until midnight, the purpose of which was to let those who rushed out face the existence in the corridor directly.

The room wanted to kill, so the fact that it laid out such a simple path just proved that meeting the mysterious existence head-on was equivalent to suicide.