The Novelist Forced to Become Famous

Chapter 37

Room 202 was the laundry room.

There were several industrial washing machines, dryers and sterilizers in the room, as well as a very long sink. The drain below was blocked, and the black sewage had filled up more than half of the sink.

Next to the door was a hook with a note that said "Key".

But there was no key on the hook.

"The key must be in the sink," Jiang BaiYan covered his face, "It was like this last season, hiding the most important clue in the place you least want to touch."

Han Bo said, "Use a mop to fish it out?"

"Where's the mop?" Jiang BaiYan asked.

The two guys fell silent together.

Jian Jing had watched the previous season of the show and silently took out a pair of latex gloves from her jeans pocket, "Want it?"

"Ah, yes, great." Jiang BaiYan was overjoyed and quickly took them. He and Han Bo each got one glove, "Leave this kind of work to us, teacher, it's tiring for you."

Jian Jing: "......Be careful of water ghosts."

Jiang BaiYan: "??!!"

He looked at her weakly and said weakly, "Teacher Jing..."

"Sorry." Jian Jing turned her back to avoid laughing.

Han Bo: "Hahaha."

Jiang BaiYan: "Hey."

The air was cheerful for a while.

However, jokes aside, the work still had to be done.

Han Bo and Jiang BaiYan fished in the sewage pool for half a day, suffering countless frights: touching a soft yellow eel, touching a realistic fake hand, touching a disgusting undescribable object...

In short, Jian Jing was very glad it wasn't her.

After going through great pains, they finally found a keychain in the drain pipe.

The guest room door could be opened now.

The first to enter was 201, but there was no luggage in the room. The bedding was folded and placed in the cabinet, spider webs were tied in the four corners, and there was no sign of habitation.

According to the information in the registration book, this 201 should be one of 204, 207, 209, 210, 212.

Next was 203.

The moment the door was pushed open, a white shadow flew quickly across the ceiling, unable to discern the specific appearance clearly, leaving only a faint afterimage on the retina.

"Oh my god!" Han Bo was frightened and sat down again on the spot.

"There's a ghost!" Jiang BaiYan did the same, shrinking behind Jian Jing.

Jian Jing: "......" She put her hand over her chest and slowly let out a breath.

She didn't see the ghost, but was frightened by the screams of the two in front of and behind her. Her heart was pounding, pounding, probably going up to 100 beats per minute.

After calming down, she pushed the door all the way open, "Someone lives here."

It was a single room with one bed, one wooden chair, one wooden cabinet, all painted red, with an extremely old-fashioned decor. A skeleton was lying next to the bed, and the clothes on it had faded, barely discernible as a floral print dress.

There was a suitcase in the corner.

Jian Jing opened the box, which contained many women's clothes from many years ago, a pair of leather shoes, a small makeup bag with a few lipsticks inside.

"We have to go down and get the registration book to figure out who is who." she said.

The two guys agreed, and everyone went for another trip. They successfully got the registration book from the lobby downstairs. On the way back upstairs, there were screams coming from the restaurant area.

Checking the information in the registration book, it was clear that there were three female guests, one staying with her husband, and two staying alone.

"There are lipstick marks here." Jiang BaiYan's eyes were quick and he soon found a faint trace of red on the signature line of the last row.

Jian Jing said, "This is room 211."

203→211

Next was the room across, 206.

This time everyone was mentally prepared. After opening the door, they flashed to both sides to make sure there was no jump scare before carefully peeking in.

A cold wind hit their faces.

Jian Jing shivered, goosebumps crawled all over her arms, and an indescribable chill swept through her body, like roaming snakes and insects, finally stopping in her abdomen.

Her stomach cramped and the skin around her waist turned cold. She subconsciously reached out to feel it.

In the pocket of her dungarees, a marble was icy cold to the touch.

[System: Triggered special copy, new task released]

[Task name: Seven Stars***]

[Task description: This is a long-standing **** hotel, harboring secrets related to death. The dead *** has not yet been discovered, **** resentfully calling out, you......]

[Rewards and penalties: To be determined based on completion]

Jian Jing: [Shocked face.jpg]

Special copy? Task name and content are censored?? Why do I feel ominous, could this copy have...ghosts?

She shivered, goosebumps all over.

"It's so cold here." Jiang BaiYan looked around, "Someone lives here too."

There were two skeletons in the room, one big and one small, apparently a father and son judging by their clothes. But the child was small and didn't need to be registered, so it was impossible to determine which room it was just from the registration book.

"There's a handbag." Han Bo took apart the bag and took out a hardcover notebook, a child's water bottle, half a pack of cigarettes, and a shoddy wallet.

They compared the information in the registration book and found that 206 was charged 20 more, and 205 was charged 5 more.

Jiang BaiYan found a menu with the fee schedule on the bedside table: "Toiletry kit 20 yuan per set, that must be it, 206."

206→206.

Jiang BaiYan said, "Teacher Jing, let's go to the next one."

Jian Jing nodded absentmindedly.

Next target: 205.

After grasping the reasoning, identifying room numbers was not difficult.

Jiang BaiYan and Han Bo got the feel for it, excitedly figuring out the real room numbers through the deliberate differences left by the production team.

205→empty room

208→205

207→empty room

210→empty room

209→203

212→208

211→202

Laundry room→201

Combined with previous deductions: 201→empty room, 203→211, they got a new map.

Laundry room..206..205......C..208..201

A......211...B..Stairs..D..203..202

In room 201 (originally the laundry room), they found the guest's scribbles recording the room number order.

7 and 8 are not adjacent; Neither are 3 and 4; 9 and the adjacent room have a common factor; 7 and the adjacent room have the same trait, but are not both odd or even; 10 and the adjacent number are consecutive.

209 has common multiples with 206, 203, 212. The only adjacent rooms are 203 and 206, so D or the laundry room is 209. If the laundry room is 209, A is 210, D is one of 207 and 212, C is one of 204 and 212.

Trying out the possibilities, it can be found that: If D is 207, B can only be 204 or 212, no similarities between numbers; If D is 212, B is 207, also no commonality.

So 209 is D, A or B is 210. A is 210, laundry room and B must have one as 207, but 7 and 6, and 7 and 11, 9 do not have the same traits, eliminated. B is 210, one of laundry room and A is 207. 7 and 11 are both prime numbers, correct. The remaining 204 is either laundry room or C.

204 appeared in the registration book, is a guest room, determined as C=204, laundry room=212.

The correct room numbers are:

212..206..205........204..208..201

207..211..210..Stairs..209..203..202

"Phew, almost died." Jiang BaiYan leaned against the wall, "Math problems are so complicated."

He debuted early, studying high school curriculum in snippets while filming. With good memory he was able to memorize content quickly, grades were decent, but math was a weakness.

"Luckily I don't have to learn calculus." He said fearfully, "Teacher Jing, calculus must be really difficult right?"

Jiang BaiYan habitually passed the conversation to her, but realized Jian Jing was zoning out. He paused, then casually turned to ask Han Bo, "Have you learned it?"

"Nope." Han Bo naturally continued the conversation, and the two chatted about university life.

But Jian Jing didn't hear anything, her gaze still fixed on the map. Along the way searching earlier, the marble in her pocket would suddenly become extremely cold when entering certain rooms, but nothing like this happened in some rooms.

Now, laying out the correct room numbers, a surprising fact emerged.

The places where the marble turned cold were exactly 201, 202, 203, 204, 205, 206, 207 - none of the rooms after 7 had any abnormalities.

Why would there be such a coincidence?

What exactly was the undiscovered secret?

Unfortunately, the production team's setup greatly obscured her vision, unable to discern effective information from it. Calling off filming now was also unrealistic, she could only wait until the end of the shoot to speak up.

Jian Jing thought about it, coming back to her senses saying: "Let's go to 204, and search carefully this time."

The other two gave an OK sign.

Once the goal was set, the coin was not difficult to find. Jiang BaiYan found the stuck coin in the top shelf crevice of the cabinet. Their group's task was considered complete.

At this time, the three-person group downstairs also found the three coins in the lobby, kitchen and dining room, plus the one found in the living room bathroom earlier, totaling 5 coins obtained.

The six gathered, went to the bathroom, ate snacks, drank water, touched up makeup, explained each other's previous actions.

But Jian Jing didn't have the heart to chat at all, zoning out frequently and not talking much either. The others were all observant people, seeing her abnormal behavior but thinking she was sulking deliberately, too lazy to humor her, ignoring it altogether.

Such controversial behavior, the production team wouldn't miss it, editing it a bit before airing it all.

--

After broadcast, it did blow up as expected.

Comment 1: The newbie is so ignorant, likeability -10086

Subtitle 2: Who does she think she is, giving attitude like that?

Subtitle 3: She's probably just tired, I don't feel like talking when I'm tired either.

Subtitle 4: As if only she is tired, look at the others still working hard.

Subtitle 5: To be honest, it's not fair that there are 4 people on the first floor and only 1 on the second floor.

Subtitle 6: We are all a team, no need to calculate who contributed more or less.

Subtitle 7: Those who went to the second floor volunteered themselves, who can they blame?

Subtitle 8: Emmm, let me add something from behind the scenes without spoiling too much, you guys misunderstood the new girl, watch the behind the scenes footage with news reports for the full picture.

Subtitle 9: OMG!! I saw it, holy shit! It gave me goosebumps!

Subtitle 10: I don't want spoilers, can someone explain the situation?

Subtitle 11: I owe the new girl an apology, holy crap!

Subtitle 12: Seeing them completely oblivious...

Subtitle 13: Here's the link to the news video with behind the scenes footage, truly horrifying, the girl must have noticed back then already.

Subtitle 14: She actually continued to cooperate and finish filming, I would have fainted right there and then.

Subtitle 15: The new girl is awesome! How did she even discover that??

...

After resting, the clueless group went to the backyard.

The backyard of the inn looked like an ordinary rural courtyard, with a chicken coop fenced in, and quite a few chickens wandering about arrogantly.

Cai Tonger burst out laughing: “There are actually live chickens, didn’t they say this place has been abandoned for a long time?”

"Seeing is not necessarily believing, these could be ghost chickens of the ones that were eaten." Han Bo joked.

The others laughed loudly.

What followed was essentially the highlight of any reality show, a group of celebrities using their full ability to vie for the key hanging from the rooster's neck.

Some got pecked by chickens, some stepped in chicken poop, some got chased by mother hens.

After a round of chaos, not only did they get the key from the chicken's body, they also accidentally found a toy in the coop, very similar to the final symbol in the clue.

"This is called cage snatching treasure, it's a puzzle toy that can't simply be taken by force, just like the nine linked rings." Cao Yu asserted, "The last one must be here."