After downing two cans of cheap alcohol, the large man felt the suffocating stuffiness of the room seem to recede slightly.
But perhaps due to excessive fluid intake, after continuing to bombard the screen in a shooting game for a while, the large man felt a distinct sensation of bloating in his lower abdomen.
He stood up and mechanically glanced around, only then belatedly realizing that the room was eerily quiet.
—That new intern who had entered the washroom had actually made no sound at all since going in.
A human with normal bladder function who intended to leave a good impression on an employer during the job-seeking period obviously shouldn't stay silently in the restroom for more than twenty minutes.
If the large man had remembered to glance at the computer screen next to him at this moment, he would have discovered that the test time "Escape Room" had left for Lin Xiaoxiao was down to the last ten minutes.
"00:09:59..."
The countdown numbers beat silently.
The large man paced back and forth on the spot. His originally clear eyes gradually took on a trace of anxiety. Then, as if making a certain resolution, he strode to the washroom door, raised his hand, and knocked heavily—bang, bang.
He knocked with exceptional force; the tremendous vibration made one's eardrums ache, and the old paint on the door panel fell rustling down.
However, the person inside the room acted as if their hearing had failed, offering no response whatsoever.
The large man abruptly fell silent, staring dead-eyed at that peeling door.
Red blood vessels, like wriggling worms, crept bit by bit onto the whites of the large man's eyes, tightly winding around his pupils.
The large man took two steps back, then raised his leg and kicked violently forward.
Accompanied by a loud bang, the wooden door of the washroom flew open.
"..."
Dust and wood chips flew in the air.
The light was not on inside the washroom. Darkness carrying a viscous dampness floated in the air. The large man narrowed his eyes, carefully observing the scene behind the door—the washroom was actually empty.
The intern from earlier seemed to have evaporated into thin air.
The large man stood at the doorway for a moment, finally lifting his foot to cross the threshold.
The view from the doorway was limited; only by truly walking in could one investigate further.
The atmosphere inside the washroom was not only damp but also somewhat cold and gloomy. That chill was like a slug growing in mud, slowly crawling up the large man's spine.
The environment indoors was so cramped that the walls seemed about to collapse inward, making it hard to breathe.
The washroom in Room 206 was an interior bathroom without windows; theoretically, there should be no wind. Yet, after crossing the threshold, the large man heard a clear sound of wind.
The sound of wind blew down from above. Just as the large man realized this, a sudden severe pain came from the back of his head.
Bang!
An old metal water pipe smashed heavily onto the back of the large man's head. His head didn't cave in but instead split directly in two, like a hollow chocolate ball melted by hot cream.
Rich, bright red plasma surged from this shattered sphere, flowing over the large man's hair and gradually covering the entire floor.
Lin Xiao, gripping the old water pipe, took two steps back, all smiles vanishing, her gaze cold enough to be terrifying.
After discovering that the large man had clearly lost his breath, Lin Xiao stopped her preparatory motion to strike again.
Although the dust had settled, her hands were still unconsciously clenching, veins bulging on the back of them—until this moment, she still maintained a state of high alert.
The large man's body lying in the pool of blood slowly became twisted, emitting an inhuman strangeness. The bloodshot eyeballs completely protruded from their sockets, melting into the fresh blood.
The large man had no chance to ask Lin Xiao the reason for her attack, but Lin Xiao felt that the other party should be able to understand her motive for swinging the steel pipe.
—After all, "Escape Room" was a single-player role-playing game, and Lin Xiao knew clearly that only she was the real player.
So, what role did the other "person" in the room play?
Lin Xiao thought, if the other party wasn't a guide character, then they were a hostile creature that would reveal its true face once the countdown ended.
She had actually felt something off about the job-seeking process for a while, but some unknown power had influenced her thoughts, making her ignore the abnormalities around her. It was only after working for some time that she finally discovered that the room she was in was not the real world.
Lin Xiao still remembered that feeling: her entire brain seemed split in two. One part of her fully accepted the current situation, believing everything around her was reasonable enough, while the other part was frantically warning her, reminding her to quickly observe the details in the room to avoid going down a path of no return in this black-market job.
There wasn't much furniture in Room 206. The freezer and the workstation were at opposite diagonal ends of the room, with the window above the freezer.
Lin Xiao had opened the freezer. She discovered that the scene she saw through the window when standing at the workstation was actually identical to when standing in front of the freezer.
Even if Lin Xiao's university major wasn't physics, she could know that this matter was completely unreasonable.
—The scene outside the window was not reality, but a virtual background detailed enough to pass for the real thing.
At the moment she realized the truth, the common sense and reason that had been forcibly blocked by an unknown force gradually returned to Lin Xiao's brain.
The feeling of sobriety made Lin Xiao feel a pain originating from her spirit, as if someone had reached a hand into her skull and was constantly pulling at her brain.
She finally began to realize how bizarre her current experience was.
—Why was she attracted by the content on the paper to come to the second floor, and without understanding the benefits or salary, walked into this room that looked terrible no matter how one viewed it, and directly started the test work?
Lin Xiao thought, as a human with some understanding of various fraud methods, if she had entered this anomalous event with her brain intact, she should have realized at the first moment that any decent game company wouldn't use such a method full of pyramid-scheme vibes to recruit testers.
Moreover, after entering the room, the large man had given her a hint: the room's windows could not be opened, and the main door couldn't be opened either.
Reality and the scene within the computer screen strangely overlapped; the false masked the real.
Lin Xiao had to think, as the only player, how she should escape the room trapping her.
According to past gaming experience, locked doors or windows in game maps could not be opened by brute force. To open a door, one had to rely on items.
There were usually two ways to obtain items: one was through searching, the other was through monster drops.
The items in the room were limited. Lin Xiao didn't find anything like a key, but she found several cans of beer that looked like they hadn't passed quality inspection.
The description on the cans made Lin Xiao suspect that this beer was some kind of buff potion; drinking it would increase combat power, with the downside of lowering sanity.
Lin Xiao placed the beer from the freezer on the large man's desk, wanting to observe whether the other party would enter a manic state ahead of schedule after drinking the beer.
Her attempt was very successful.
Lin Xiao knew her combat power was limited, so she turned off the light in the washroom beforehand and hid quietly on top of a wooden cabinet like a shadow. That spot happened to be a blind spot for the line of sight of anyone outside the door.
The large man, whose reason was affected by alcohol, didn't notice the ambush above, and thus Lin Xiao struck successfully in one hit.
As Lin Xiao reviewed her strategy in her mind, the bright red blood gushing from the large man's head gradually covered the floor. A key glowing with silvery-white light solidified from the pool of blood, followed by a line of text floating into Lin Xiao's view.
"Game Cleared."
The dark clouds in the sky hadn't dispersed yet, but the rain had gradually stopped; only a few scattered drops drifted down with the wind.
Lin Xiao stood with her head raised, zoning out in front of an old office building with a distinct abandoned feel.
One second ago, she was still in the game thinking about the aftermath of beating an NPC; one second later, she had returned to the real world.
The speed of the scene transition was so fast it made one think they were in a dream.
"Game reward settlement in progress..."
A line of text abruptly appeared in Lin Xiao's field of vision, breaking her contemplation.
Lin Xiao reached out to try and touch the text in the air but received no feedback. Then she took out her phone and took a photo of the text.
Only the office building appeared in the photo.
Lin Xiao lowered her gaze, tapped her temple lightly with her index finger, and then the corner of her mouth quirked up, pulling into a slightly distressed smile.
Perhaps she had gone crazy, or perhaps the world was abnormal to begin with, and today she had just accidentally seen the other side hidden beneath the calm surface.
The text in the air didn't stay for long; after a few seconds, new changes appeared.
"Settlement complete. Test player ID generated."
"Your ID is: 775-820."
"System activated. System interface successfully opened. This instance's rewards have automatically entered the user backpack."