*Ding*

Jian Sheng did not feel any headache when the notification panel appeared. But he knew he should be careful not to make any noise. Hopefully, the seeker was in the right corridor at the moment and stayed there.

He slowly opened the wardrobe and the mouldy clothes were the same patterns as the ones from room 101. Maybe the placement of the clothes was also reversed, but he did not place much attention to those clothes to begin with. So he did not know, and neither did he cared. He just wanted to hurry up and finish this crazy game of hide and seek.

After collecting the 3 fragments in room 201, he opened the door a little and glanced outside. It was still as dim and quiet as before, there were no 8 legged arachnid or thousand-legged centipede walking around outside looking for him. And he did not have a headache as well, this was a good sign.

He quietly walked out of room 201 and entered room 202. He needed to hurry it up before the seeker comes over to find him. He also needed to find Wilbert as well. Time was quickly running out for him. He has less than an hour to find Wilbert.

Jian Sheng continued collecting fragments while searching around to see if Wilbert was in the rooms. He went through the rooms and nothing happened until he was collecting the fragments in room 403.

*Ding!*

The sound of the lift was loud. It sounded so loud in the pin-drop silence of the corridor. Although Jian Sheng wanted to take a peek out the door, the lift was at the opposite side of the gap on his side. He could try to peek if he was on the other side since the door opening was facing the lift. But it might also allow the seeker to see him too.

For now, Jian Sheng was thinking of places to hide if the seeker enters the room. While he was still in mid-thought, the sound of a door banging open rang out. The seeker was looking for him, and it was entering the rooms to check.

Jian Sheng looked around the room. He could not move the furniture since all the rooms have the same placement of furniture. The wardrobe is also not a good hiding spot since there will be no place to run if the seeker opens it. The bathroom doesn't have enough space to hide a person.

The sound of banging doors came closer every minute. The banging soon rang 5 times. That meant the seeker should either be in room 406 or 405.

Jian Sheng looked around and suddenly had a crazy thought. He lifted the mattress up and used his fingernails to tear a line at the bottom. His fingernails broke a few times and were bleeding but he ignored the pain. This was because he started to have a slight headache and the pain was on his right. This meant the seeker was in room 405, which was the room beside the one Jian Sheng was in right now.

Jian Sheng kept tearing and there was finally a hole. He tore it and climbed into the hole full of feathers. He tried his best to breathe silently, even though there was a strange smell in the mattress, it was the only place to hide in his opinion. His headache was also getting worse, meaning the seeker was coming closer.

Jian Sheng tried to move his arm up to cover his mouth when he suddenly hit something in the feathers. He looked down and saw that the thing his hand hit was actually another hand. He bit his tongue to avoid screaming out. 'There's someone or something else in the mattress!'

Jian Sheng held his breath and waited. Even though there might be something in the mattress with him, he could not afford to be caught by the seeker. The headache was getting more serious by the second.

Jian Sheng was looking at the timer on the mission panel. Every second ticked by like it was minutes. His chest hurt from not breathing, and his headache was not doing him any justice either. He tasted iron in his mouth from his tongue due to being bitten down hard. Although it was not hard enough to be bitten off, it still caused a wound to appear on his tongue.

The door of the room was banged open loudly.

*Thump Thump Thump*

Jian Sheng could hear the heavy footsteps of the seeker. He did not truly know if that was the sound of the seeker's footsteps or his own heartbeat. 'The seeker should be quite large from the sound of its footsteps.'

*Creak Crack*

The sound of the wardrobe door being opened and broken sounded in the room. The sound of rummaging was heard after the door of the wardrobe was broken. Then heavy footsteps appeared again and were walking towards the bathroom. The footsteps soon left the bathroom and walked past the bed and towards the balcony.

Jian Sheng was still holding his breath. He kept his eyes on the timer and only a few seconds had passed.

His lungs were burning and he felt like he had been holding his breath for more than a minute now. His record of breath-holding during high school was a whole 6 minutes and 37 seconds without distractions, but every second felt like minutes at the moment.

Soon, the sound of footsteps left the balcony, and walked out of the room. The sound of a door being kicked open sounded once more. His headache also slowly eased up.

'The seeker must have left the room to look through the other rooms. It should have already looked through the right corridor. So when it finishes looking through the left corridor and still couldn't find me, it will probably do another search. I still have around 20 minutes.'

Jian Sheng did a quick math to calculate the timer on the mission panel.

_________________

Mission: Hide and Seek

Condition:

Condition 1: Find Wilbert

Condition 2: Hide from Seeker

Condition 3: Collect soul fragments ( 53 / 50 )

Condition 4: Finish all conditions above before time limit.

Time Limit: 3 hours ( 9533 / 10800)

Reward:

Reward 1: Instant clear for S. Hotel main mission

Reward 2: Unlock status window

Reward 3: +3 Status point

Failure:

Punishment 1: Locked in a time-space where the host needs to hide from the seekers for 24 hours.

Punishment 2: A random skill will be deleted.

Remark: The host has complete "Condition 3". Please hurry up and find Wilbert while avoiding the seeker to win the game. Good luck.

________________________

'I can stop collecting fragments now. It takes time for the crystal to suck it in so I'll just focus on finding Wilbert from now.' Jian Sheng waited a few more seconds and another door being kicked sounded. The seeker has moved on.

Jian Sheng crawled out from inside the mattress and flipped it over. He was curious about what was inside the mattress, but he also knew time was a luxury at the moment. He looked at the mattress for a while and curiosity won over him. He started to tear the hole open larger and started digging the feathers out

Soon, a black sleeve with a white cuff appeared. Jian Sheng touched it and it felt like a body. Jian Sheng digs a bit more and soon, the back of a person was seen in the mattress. He flipped the body over and it was a female wearing a Victorian-style maid uniform.

The room looked like it had been abandoned for a long time, but this body was not decomposed. Jian Sheng put a finger under her nose and confirmed that she was not breathing. However, she looked like she was just asleep instead of dead.

Jian Sheng looked at the time limit and there were only less than 15 minutes left. He quickly offered a silent prayer and asked for forgiveness and walked briskly towards the door. Since the rooms are all the same, it's safe to say every room's mattress hides a dead maid in them.

The door was not shut properly after the seeker left. All the other rooms were the same with the doors left ajar. He peeked out and saw the doors towards the right were mostly open. This meant the seeker was further down, so he quickly walked into room 404 and looked around for Wilbert.

He kept going in and out of rooms while on the lookout for the seeker. Soon, he went through all the rooms but still could not find Wilbert. 'Is that guy in the lift? Or is he invisible? He's not in any of the rooms.'

Jian Sheng was frustrated since he searched through every room but Wilbert was still nowhere to be found. The only place he didn't check was the lift. But the lift was loud and the seeker will surely notice.

He hesitated only for a few seconds and press the lift button.

*Ding*