Chapter 2783

If the elevator could be moved, then it was very likely that the elevator shafts on the 18 floors below weren't all in one location; if Shiler wanted to go down to the lobby, he might have to stack them like building blocks and align the locations of all the elevator shafts.

But wanting to leave the 19th floor was simpler; either align with the elevator shaft on the floor above, or align with the elevator shaft on the floor below; as long as one floor was aligned, at least he could take the elevator to leave the 19th floor; if he was lucky, he might be able to leave a few more floors.

Shiler chose to align with the elevator shaft below, because the vast majority of the hotel's functional buildings were at the bottom, and the upper half of the entire hotel building was almost all guest rooms, without too many things to explore.

More importantly, it was easier to align with the one below, because many rooms could be excluded through some techniques.

It was well known that the water on most high floors was pumped up from the bottom, but the pumping capacity in this era was limited; generally speaking, it couldn't be pumped directly to 30-something floors, and even if it could reach a high water pressure, it wouldn't be very good, and the water flow would be very weak, almost unable to shower.

So many high floors would add a pressurization layer in the middle of the floor to re-pressurize the water pumped up and transport it to the upper floors.

But no matter what, the middle floors didn't produce water; water was transported up through water pipes, and the principle of water pipes and elevator shafts was the same; if it was cut off in the middle, then the water definitely couldn't come up.

That is to say, as long as there was water in this room, it proved that the water pipe below wasn't cut off, which also proved that the elevator shaft couldn't be at the location of this room, because there definitely couldn't be water pipes in the elevator shaft; as long as it was at a certain location, it would affect the operation of the water pipes.

Of course, it was also possible that the location of a room below was moved, and the place was emptied, leading to the water pipe breaking, but a place without water didn't necessarily prove that the elevator was there, but a place with water definitely proved that the elevator wasn't there.

So looking at it by elimination, there shouldn't be an elevator shaft below this room of Shiler's; the water in Gordon's room, which Shiler had entered, was also normal, which proved that the elevator shaft wasn't there either.

Combined with the water in the hotel that had been argued before, although it wasn't necessarily all manifested through the toilet, pollution must be transmitted through water.

This could also be reverse-deduced that the rooms where the polluted guests were located were likely to have water, so basically, the rooms where the guests were confirmed to be polluted could be excluded; in this way, there weren't many rooms left.

Before midnight, the ones with suspicion were 1900, 1913, 1902, 1904, 1909.

Of course, before executing this plan, Shiler had already basically judged that 1900 and 1913 weren't likely to be the location of the elevator shaft below, and even if they were, Shiler couldn't put the elevator there; he still had to let the two monsters come out to jam the machine.

Then the only ones left with suspicion were 1902, where he had seen an eyeball before, 1904, which had half a footprint at the door, and 1909, which Shiler hadn't gone to see.

1909 was excluded first; still the same sentence, Shiler needed the monsters in the left corridor to collide, and 1909 was too close to the place of collision; Shiler was shaken until his eardrums bled just by standing in the middle, so if he went to change the door number there, it was basically impossible to rush into the elevator alive, so he excluded it even if he didn't want to.

Excluding 1909 so easily was actually also because Shiler used more clues to lock onto 1904.

The door numbers on the doors of Room 1900 and Room 1905 were swapped, and the two rooms also swapped locations; and before swapping locations, 1900 was directly opposite 1904.

Shiler had speculated before that such a swap was very likely because someone didn't want 1900 to face 1904; if someone wanted to not be disturbed by the monster in Room 1900 when entering 1904, it made sense.

The one that finally played the role of the final word was of course the half footprint at the door of Room 1904; before seeing the water-stained footprint left by Jerome through Peter's field of vision, Shiler didn't dare to make a bold speculation, but after seeing that footprint, Shiler knew that Jerome had an accomplice.

That's right, that footprint shouldn't have been left by Jerome himself, but should have been left by some accomplice of his at this time point.

Shiler guessed that the elevator couldn't travel between two time points, and wanting to break through the constraints of the existing time point required adopting some special methods, and so far no one had found this method.

Logically speaking, if he saw two identical footprints, he would definitely guess that the other party had been here.

But Jerome's situation was very special; precisely because this footprint was exactly the same as his, Shiler would judge that there was an accomplice of his at this time point, because in "Cat Getan", Jerome had a twin brother, who was the most dangerous criminal in this city of Cat Getan, the Joker Jeremiah.

If there were no accidents, the investigator who chased little Bruce around in little Bruce's mouth wasn't Jerome, but his nemesis Jeremiah.

It was just because these two people looked exactly the same, it was very likely that they shared an identity at certain times, which made people unable to find out their true identities.

Speaking of the Joker, Shiler knew him too well; if you didn't treat this as a script of the Cthulhu mythos series, but turned your eyes back to American comics, then the Batman and Joker law must be useful.

Little Bruce could have time to send messages to himself thousands of miles away, so there was no reason not to go find the Joker; don't look at how they were usually nemeses, when something really happened, the first person Batman thought of was still the Joker.

Now Batman was really in trouble, the Joker couldn't be indifferent; it wasn't difficult to find this hotel; he wasn't like Shiler, who was an outsider and had to rush over after receiving the message, so he definitely arrived much earlier than Shiler.

If Jerome was at that time point, then Jeremiah must be at this time point, so Jerome would ask questions like whether there was a delay in communication between Peter and Shiler, because the two of them also had a teammate at different time points, and the communication between the two might not be efficient enough.

And if Jeremiah was at this time point, then Shiler still believed his research results; as the Joker, he had genius criminal intelligence, and as an investigator, he could chase little Bruce around; since he left a footprint at the door of Room 1904, Shiler chose to believe his judgment.

As expected, the Joker was right again; the elevator shaft below was indeed below Room 1904.

And just because the Joker was one step ahead of Shiler, Shiler suspected that he might have already straightened out the location of the elevator shaft below, and the elevators on most floors had returned to normal operation.

But this also brought up a problem; the elevator was normal, so people who entered the elevator could press the floor, and people outside the elevator could also press the floor; Shiler stared at the lit button of the 13th floor, feeling somewhat conflicted.

He wanted to go to the restaurant on the 7th floor, but he would definitely arrive at the 13th floor first, but what would come in when the elevator door on the 13th floor opened was really hard to say, but Shiler had no way to make the elevator not stop at the 13th floor.

The elevator descended very fast, and in the blink of an eye, it began to decelerate; Shiler also made a decision; at the very second the elevator stopped completely, Shiler bowed his body slightly.

Ding!

Just as the elevator door opened a crack wide enough for an adult male to pass through, Shiler rushed out without even looking, and the first second he stepped out of the elevator, he turned right and stuck to the dark wall on the right.

With a swish, Shiler saw bright light shine in the elevator door, almost illuminating this entire floor; the elevator, which originally had only four metal walls, seemed to have suddenly turned into a magnificent glass palace, and every wall was subdivided into countless reflective surfaces of glass, on which were reflected Shiler's figures.

Shiler moved inside a bit more, letting the light not shine on him; the elevator door closed slowly, the light became weaker and weaker, and the figures reflected in the countless glass shards also gradually disappeared.

The elevator left.

Shiler knew he had made a correct choice; staying in the elevator was seeking death, but one wave hadn't settled when another rose; although he had dodged the danger in the elevator, he was now on the 13th floor and had to wait for the next elevator to arrive.

Bang!

A loud noise came from the end of the right corridor; Shiler felt this noise was a bit familiar; after thinking back, he discovered that wasn't this the movement of the monster in Room 1913 slamming the door?

Bang! Bang bang!

Three more consecutive sounds, getting closer and closer, and the sound was getting louder and louder; the last sound sounded like the door was about to be smashed.

Shiler couldn't care about much either, and rushed toward the elevator, pressing the buttons frantically; at this time, the elevator panel showed that the elevator had already reached the 7th floor and was returning.

Bang!!!!

A door was smashed.

Shiler didn't choose to look back, just stared quietly at the elevator panel; heavy footsteps came from behind, swish... swish...

The sound of metal chains being dragged was getting closer and closer; Shiler felt his heartbeat speed up, but this wasn't because he was nervous, but because some indescribable, unspeakable atmosphere enveloped him.

Swish... swish... swish...

The footsteps stopped right behind Shiler.

Ding!

The elevator arrived.

Shiler closed his eyes slowly, judged the degree of the elevator door opening by hearing, and then stepped into the elevator with one foot, didn't turn back to press the button, but stretched out a hand to grope for the location of the button and pressed the close button.

During the whole process, he neither opened his eyes nor turned around, until the elevator door was completely closed; when Shiler turned around, he was still closing his eyes.

The elevator began to descend slowly.

Suddenly, swish!

Shiler stiffened abruptly; that thing had followed him into the elevator.

Now he absolutely couldn't open his eyes, because the metal walls of the elevator were reflective, and that thing couldn't be looked at directly at all; looking at it for one second would definitely result in his eyeballs exploding.

But just standing like this wasn't a way either; this thing not attacking him must have a reason; either the elevator was restricting it, or it was attracted by something else, or it might be both.

Now Shiler had two choices.

The first choice was to take advantage of this monster being restricted by the elevator, Shiler would open his eyes directly to see its true face, and have a head-on collision with it; the second choice was that the next time the elevator door opened, Shiler would run away.

Shiler sighed in his heart; still the same sentence, he was a civilian staff member; asking him to fight these monsters for three hundred rounds was still a bit too advanced—he prepared to run.

But running was also a big problem; if this monster chased him out, without the elevator's restriction, it was hard to say whether Shiler's current health bar could hold up for one hit.

Shiler took a deep breath; he suddenly had a new idea, which was to pray that a certain Batman nemesis had good luck and wouldn't be run into head-on by him.