Players, Please Board the Train

Only after confirming did Peng Fengnian nod, then ask, “What’s wrong with this photo?”

Xu Huo scrolled back to compare the same location captured at other times and finally understood what felt off about this dungeon’s space.

Though the Mirror Hotel didn’t show any other players, the traces left by them still appeared here. This was because the space where the Mirror Hotel sat rotated with the real Museum City where the Corpse Hotel was located.

When the ticket players—the dozen or so who came with Xu Huo—first entered Museum City, most of it remained untouched, with no glaring changes on the surface. But by the first night, things had shifted.

It was hard to spot interior changes in other pavilions, but the Beheaded Cemetery sat right out in the open—impossible to miss.

For example, he could now see the marks left from digging up and opening coffins in the Beheaded Cemetery. Under normal circumstances, by the second day, whether from the Corpse Hotel or the Mirror Hotel, those digging marks should be visible. Yet in the photos Peng Fengnian took on the afternoon of the second day, the Beheaded Cemetery appeared pristine. Then on the third day, during daylight, the marks showed up again!

But this anomaly wasn’t time-based.

If it were a daily time loop, every morning should reveal a brand-new Museum City. So the real cause of this illusion of temporal distortion was spatial.

Earlier in the hotel, he’d sensed something odd. That monster clearly wasn’t the only one—it vanished and reappeared on a schedule, yet he couldn’t catch even a single clue. That was truly abnormal.

But now it all made sense. The monster hadn’t slipped into the hotel through some undetectable passage; it had always been in the hotel, never leaving—what had changed was the Mirror Hotel and Museum City itself!The question now was: by what rule did the space in Museum City rotate?

He said nothing. Beside him, Peng Fengnian craned his neck, trying to spot something in the photos, then pressed, “What’s so wrong with them? They look no different to me.”

“The difference is obvious.” Xu Huo pulled out the photos that captured the Beheaded Cemetery and pointed. “Take a look.”

Comparing them, Peng Fengnian caught on. “Why did the cemetery dug up in the morning revert by afternoon?”

“It didn’t revert—it swapped,” Xu Huo said.

Reverting meant operating within one space, affecting time—like Mr. Dong’s “Static Reversion,” which could restore broken objects to their original form, though not perfectly, just maintaining the shape.

A spatial swap, on the other hand, occurred because Museum City had at least two spaces swapping inside and out. For instance, the first night they arrived, Xiao Ling dug up the cemetery. By the next morning, that dug-up space had swapped over to the Mirror Hotel side, which explained why the previously flat cemetery also looked dug up the morning before.

But that morning, Xu Huo had met up with Xiao Ling and the others, then changed course toward the Mannequin Building by the main gate, never going back to the cemetery. If they had gone back, the dug-up cemetery would have already swapped to the Mirror Hotel, and they’d have seen a pristine cemetery instead.

Of course, this couldn’t be verified. Even if he’d gone back and found the intact cemetery, he might have chalked it up to the dungeon space refreshing.

The clues were still in these photos. In the afternoon photos from the day before, the cemetery appeared intact again—meaning the space had swapped again. It could be that the space swapped out had come back, or that there was a third intact space.

“You’re saying the Mirror Hotel and this Museum City are actually multiple spaces constantly swapping?” Peng Fengnian grasped his meaning, stunned. “Then how many spaces are there… No, if the whole city keeps swapping, how do we get out?”

“I don’t have a clue yet,” Xu Huo admitted honestly.

At the end of the day, this might just be Museum City’s expansion content, maybe not even related to completing the task. And so far, he hadn’t triggered any side tasks.

Peng Fengnian was disappointed but rallied, flattering him a bit before saying he’d tell the others.

Xu Huo had no reason to stop him; maybe they still had useful items on hand.

After the man left, he leaned back against the chair again, staring at the distant cemetery, and began pondering the dungeon task.

The Corpse Hotel allowed entry into the Mirror Hotel, meaning this hotel was the core of Museum City’s space. If so, the disappearances of people staying in the hotel probably didn’t start after the dungeon opened, and with so many beheaded people in the Beheaded Cemetery…

“Could it be that the hotel space devouring living people caused panic, leading to so many being executed in a ritual-like manner?”

The game panel’s Progress suddenly jumped to 5/6.

This puzzle answer was simpler than Xu Huo had expected. Maybe he didn’t need to guess about the spatial swap—just submitting that the hotel swallowed people could complete one progress tick.

Long Aotian was the only one who hadn’t entered the Mirror Hotel last night. Perhaps he had already completed this progress.

Time quickly reached 12:30 PM—the start time for ticket players’ dungeon. Xu Huo instinctively glanced toward the main gate, but when he turned back, scattered bones had appeared near the pits in the Beheaded Cemetery.

Before entering the Mirror Hotel yesterday, some skeletons had left the cemetery. Now bones showed up here, meaning players outside had engaged with them.

Unfortunately, he didn’t sense any change in his surroundings. Could the space actively avoid players’ gazes?

Unable to guess the answer, he set it aside for now. Regardless, judging by the monster’s activity and the “scenery” changes at the cemetery, at least 6 AM and 12:30 PM were spatial swap nodes.

“Did you see the scenery change?” Peng Fengnian climbed back up from downstairs, this time seemingly using a different sound-muffling item.

“Yeah. Do your companions have a way out?” Xu Huo asked directly.

Peng Fengnian grinned. “I’m here to brainstorm, aren’t I?”

“What do you guys think?”

Peng Fengnian turned serious. “We all think the spatial swap nodes might be the way out.”

“At 6 AM, everyone was in the building luring that monster.” At that time, Lin Zhenhuai had the detection item in hand.

“Teacher Pan still thinks it’s nighttime, since we all entered at night. Though it might not be a swap node, the hotel is distinct from other parts of Museum City. If there’s an exit, it might not follow the spatial swap pattern,” Peng Fengnian added.

Teacher Pan’s thoughts were similar to Xu Huo’s, but this was just a rough guess. “Let’s wait until tonight.”