At some point, Chen Cailing opened her eyes, only to find the room empty.
"Xiao Bai? Xiao Bai?"
She called out twice, but there was no response. The fear spreading in her heart suddenly drove away any trace of drowsiness.
Why would Xiao Bai not be in the room in the dead of night? Where had she gone? If she needed to do something, why hadn't she woken Chen Cailing up?
Suddenly, a terrifying thought surfaced in Chen Cailing's mind.
Could it be that while she was asleep, the supernatural force in the story had attacked the participants, and Xiao Bai had already...
No, that couldn't be.
Instinctively, Chen Cailing dismissed this possibility. In her eyes, Xiao Bai was clever, calm, and had survived two horror stories before—there was no way she could die so easily and silently in this one.
But who could say for sure?
The supernatural attacks in the story were completely random. They wouldn't delay or avoid someone just because they were a veteran. Every horror story was a gamble with life for all participants!
It wasn't uncommon in the Strange Tales Radio program for veterans to die before newcomers.
The more she thought about it, the more anxious and uneasy Chen Cailing became, cold sweat forming on her palms.
Should she immediately notify Ye Xiaomei and the others, or take the risk to go out and look for Xiao Bai?
These two thoughts clashed fiercely in Chen Cailing's mind.
Just then, *thump thump thump, thump thump thump*—a series of footsteps suddenly came from outside the door. Chen Cailing's heart lifted with hope.
"Xiao Bai? You're back?"
So focused on Xiao Bai, she didn't think twice when she heard the footsteps and instinctively assumed it was her. But as her shout rang out, the footsteps outside paused eerily, and then silence fell all around.
Something was wrong.
If it were Xiao Bai outside the door, she would have responded to Chen Cailing's call. Why was there no sound at all?
That first shout had been purely instinctive. Startled, Chen Cailing quickly snapped back to reality.
Who said the footsteps outside had to be Xiao Bai?
With just a door between them, Chen Cailing's heart felt like it might leap out of her chest. The more she thought about it, the more suspicious and strange the sound outside seemed. Yet after a moment, she began to doubt whether she had actually heard footsteps at all—or if it was just a hallucination born of her anxiety.
Regardless, Xiao Bai's disappearance was real. At the core of it, Chen Cailing was torn over whether she should open the door and see what was out there.
Steadying her pounding heart, Chen Cailing finally decided to take the risk and open the door!
Partly, it was to satisfy her curiosity; partly, it was because she still refused to believe that Xiao Bai had vanished so silently from the mission.
At the same time, her right hand slipped into her pocket, gripping a ghost-repelling talisman tightly. Though not as powerful as a special item, it was still a store-bought prop that could somewhat counter supernatural forces.
With these preparations made, Chen Cailing held her breath, then yanked the door open.
Without a second thought, she whipped the talisman out of her pocket and thrust it forward.
*Slap!*
The talisman smacked solidly against something, but it didn't burst into flames as she had expected.
Xiao Bai stood at the door, staring in bewilderment at the grimacing Chen Cailing.
After the supernatural force in the toy room had faded, she had left that strange space and was heading back to the guest room when she was suddenly "attacked" by Chen Cailing.
"Xiao Bai?!"
"Cailing?"
Seeing the tension on Chen Cailing's face, Xiao Bai immediately sensed something was wrong. "What happened?"
"I woke up and you were gone. I called out, but you didn't answer. Then I heard strange footsteps outside, and I thought..."
"Did you mistake me for a ghost?"
At Xiao Bai's remark, Chen Cailing's face flushed red. After all that tension, it turned out to be a false alarm, which was a bit embarrassing. But Xiao Bai's attention wasn't on that—her mind was fully absorbed in what Chen Cailing had just described.
Chen Cailing had heard footsteps and waited a while before opening the door. First, that didn't match the timing of Xiao Bai's return. Second, when Xiao Bai came back from the toy room, she had deliberately lightened her steps, and the thick carpet in the hallway would have muffled any sound. Under those conditions, Chen Cailing, behind a closed door, shouldn't have been able to hear her footsteps at all.
That meant, between Xiao Bai's return and Chen Cailing opening the door, someone—or something—had really been there.
Just then, Chen Cailing's eyes went wide, and she let out a sharp gasp, pointing behind Xiao Bai.
"Xiao Bai, look!"
Turning around, Xiao Bai followed Chen Cailing's finger and noticed a lantern sitting on the ground nearby, its faint light flickering.
That lantern hadn't been there before. It confirmed that the footsteps Chen Cailing had heard weren't a hallucination—someone had really come, placed the lantern there, and then hurried away.
Who had left this lantern? And what did it mean to leave it here?
Could it be...
A thought crossed Xiao Bai's mind. She stepped forward, picked up the lantern, and let out a soft exclamation.
Sure enough, something was hidden inside the lantern. She took it out—it was a small bronze key.
The key was tiny and didn't look like it was meant for a door. Without a doubt, whoever placed the lantern wanted them to find this key. But who was it, and what did the key signify?
One mystery remained unsolved, and another had already emerged. The entire estate and story were growing more and more bewildering.
Just then, Xiao Bai's sharp eyes caught a faint glimmer of light at the corner of the stairwell.
Not good.
A flash of light meant someone was down there, and they were moving upstairs.
Whoever it was, Xiao Bai didn't want to run into them right now. She shot Chen Cailing a look, and the two quickly extinguished the lantern, slipped back into the room, and gently closed the door.
At the same moment, the butler's figure appeared around the corner of the staircase, heading up to the second floor.
Perhaps due to the power outage, he too carried a similar lantern, its flickering light casting a long shadow in the darkness.
Listening to the footsteps outside and a familiar dry cough, Xiao Bai and Chen Cailing, holding their breath inside the room, both felt their hearts skip a beat.
It was the butler...
What was he doing up here in the middle of the night?