The masked man in black held a huge scythe, he sat on a high stool, condescendingly looking at the boy who had passed out to the ground, and the familiar sound of a bell came from the window, accompanied by an eerie singing, squeezing into the small space. The man in black waved his soft feathers with great interest, stroking the boy's face again and again.

The boy frowned uncomfortably and shook his head, trying to avoid the foreign object, but after several to no avail, he finally woke up from his dream. He raised his eyes to see the man in black standing tall, his huge, sharp scythe with dried blood, as if to prove his usefulness in this way, and to remind the boy of what was to come.

He sat on the ground shivering, and his body moved backwards with great effort, trying to get away from the danger, "You...... What do you want to do? ”

"Don't be nervous, kid. Didn't you order something from me? The expression of the man in black hidden under the mask was difficult to read, but his voice was somewhat pleasant.

"What...... Who are you? There was a hint of panic in the boy's voice.

The man in black let go, and the huge scythe smashed in the direction of the boy, and the floor could not bear the weight and shook twice, and the boy was so frightened that he couldn't say a word, and tears filled with tears.

"If you want something, you have to pay a price. What you want, you're going to be ready to do in no time. The man in black reached out and grabbed the mask on his face, slowly taking it off, the familiar face revealed, and the boy's eyes widened.

"Well, let me think, what's the game you're best at? Isn't it...... Hide-and-seek? I often see you playing this with your friends. Let's play hide and seek! But...... The rules, it's up to me to specify. ”

"No...... Don't ......" The boy shook his head vigorously, tears falling on the dark red floor, dyed one flower after another.

"So, are you ready? The chase is about to begin, and midnight is our exclusive playtime. ”

"Three, two, one......"

"Jun Yao...... Jun Yao? Wake up, Jun Yao ......" There was a voice in his ear that kept calling, Jun Yao's sleeping consciousness gradually woke up, and he could vaguely distinguish that it was Lin Mo's voice, the footsteps changed from near to far, and Jun Yao seemed to hear Jiang Xian's name again. So in the chaos and blur, Jun Yao tried hard to make her consciousness clear, her heavy eyelids finally broke free, the morning sun pierced her eyes and blinked uncomfortably, the corners of her eyes were a little moist, and after a long time, she finally adapted to the bright light, and Jun Yao saw the world clearly.

"Jun Yao? Are you awake? Great......" Lin Mo was standing in front of Chen Yang and Zhao Xiao, and when he heard Jun Yao get up, he turned his head happily. Jun Yao's mind was still a little confused, and she didn't know the current situation very clearly, she saw Jiang Xian lying on the table, looking like she was sleeping well, her eyes swept the whole room for a week, and finally fixed the wall clock on the wall.

The time shown on the wall clock is 8:20, the sun outside the window is just right, the birdsong is crisp, and it is another beautiful day.

But Shen Junyao was stunned in place, and her back was cold.

It's already morning, can you say that you slept all night?

Lin Mo nodded helplessly, "We are all asleep, and when midnight comes, at least the five of us are like this." I woke up first and saw that you were all asleep, and I wanted to go out to see what was going on, but to make matters worse, the door to my room didn't seem to open. ”

Just in the middle of the conversation, Jiang Xian opened her hazy eyes, slowly propped herself up from the table, raised her hand to cover the light in front of her, and waited until she got used to it, and then she saw the person in front of her clearly, "Jun Yao?" Lin Mo? I...... Is this asleep? ”

"It's not just you who are asleep, it's us." Jun Yao said solemnly, she got up and walked to the door, pressed the doorknob a few times, and sure enough, it couldn't be opened, so she turned around, "We have to leave this room first to see the situation." Then, as if remembering something, he took out a key from the backpack compartment, inserted it directly into the lock hole, and gently turned the handle, so that the door was opened.

Jun Yao didn't have time to pay attention to whether Lin Mo and Jiang Xian behind her had followed, she was more concerned about the situation of Xu Qingran, Ai Yu and Yin Weiyu, who decided to go out to act last night.

"How could this be? Damn it! Someone ...... "Before she reached the hall, Jun Yao heard Ai Yu's slightly angry voice, so she sped up and ran over, only to see Xu Qingran with her left foot on the coffee table, her right hand on the back of her head and rubbing her hair, frowning and silent with a look of regret. Yin Weiyu was sitting not far from him, her face didn't look very good, and when she heard the movement here, she looked at Jun Yao, "Jun Yao? You ...... last night."

"It's okay for you guys to be fine." Jun Yao finally breathed a sigh of relief, "Lin Mo was the first to wake up, and we fell asleep inexplicably last night, this thing is a little weird, I'll go and ask them to come out and talk about it." ”

Xu Qingran glanced up at Jun Yao and nodded in agreement.

When everyone walked into the restaurant, breakfast was ready, milky milk with an enticing aroma was steaming, the toast was golden brown in the toast, and the omelette and ham were kept warm on the oven. Xu Qingran was looking around, as if he was looking for someone, but after looking several times, he couldn't find any trace of the existence of other people, and he sighed helplessly, "Sure enough, there can't be such a bug." ”

"Huh?" Jun Yao, who was standing beside him, heard him talking to himself and was a little puzzled, so Xu Qingran smiled, "I originally thought that there would be traces of people in this hotel, and I didn't feel abnormal when I first came here yesterday, but last night's inexplicable sleepiness at midnight made me suddenly realize one thing, is there really only us in this hotel?" ”

"At least so far, we haven't found anyone else in or out of this hotel." Jun Yao was stunned for a moment, as if she had figured out something, "If you don't see it, it doesn't mean they don't exist, right?" ”

"That's right, if there really is no one else in this inn but us, then who prepared the two meals since our arrival yesterday morning, plus this steaming breakfast at the right time this morning?" Xu Qingran nodded, looking at the door to the left of the dining room with some wariness, which was supposed to be the passage to the kitchen. As early as when Jun Yao asked a rhetorical question, everyone stopped, thinking about it carefully, this scene was indeed a bit weird, no one was seen, but the food they needed was carefully prepared. So everyone watched Xu Qingran walk towards the small door step by step, he hesitantly held the doorknob, and looked back at Ai Yu, who was holding a golden revolver gun in her hand, so he nodded and made up his mind and pushed the small door open.

The temperature in the kitchen was unusually cold, the stove for cooking was very tidy, but there were still some uncleaned bread crumbs on the floor, egg whites in the sink, and the exhaust fan was sizzling, which showed no signs of human existence.

"Yes, there is, but he doesn't seem to want to be discovered." Xu Qingran sighed and closed the door again, "Maybe he has a very important clue on him, at least I think it has something to do with our lethargy at midnight last night." I want to ask, are each of you really asleep? It is also said that some people are not yet conscious, and they are not completely asleep, or they have not fallen asleep at all. This is a very important matter for us, and we must not hide it. The last sentence Xu Qingran said to Chen Yang and Zhao Xiao, after all, in the past, it was common to meet novices in the mission to discover strange phenomena or encounter strange things, but they chose to hide because they were afraid of being treated as an outlier, which led to the lack of clues and even the wrong direction of reasoning.

Xu Qingran had already assessed the level of several dream travelers who participated in the mission together in his spare time last night, except for the two novices, the rest of Shen Junyao, Jiang Xian and Yin Weiyu are all good people, Shen Junyao and Jiang Xian are positioned as wise people, and in terms of the sensitivity of the mission clues, they are really on par with themselves, and although Yin Weiyu has average reasoning ability, he is just a person with strong combat effectiveness, and in a sense, it can be said to be a tank. Although Xu Qingran said that he was completing his third mission, in fact, he had completed six missions, in addition to two novice tasks, he also had four mission experiences, and he can be called a real veteran. One of his friends and master in "Beidu" told him about the importance of reaching the ending in the mission, and when that friend died in the final mission, he was even more determined to get more clues. Xu Qingran is very aware of the difficulty of opening a branch line, and it is even more difficult to complete the side quest through the branch line, which requires extremely high sensitivity to do it, that is to say, it is possible with at least three or more wise people. However, before the fifth mission, the teammates were automatically matched by the system, and it was impossible to expect to get more than three wise people through matching, and the odds were pitiful.

I didn't expect to encounter such a small probability this time, Xu Qingran felt glad that he didn't need to go through the third mission again, although it was unknown whether it could be opened now, but he firmly believed that it could be done.

"I was talking to Jiang Xian at the time, and I felt very sleepy halfway through speaking, my eyes were blurry, and there was a feeling that something was forcibly pulling me out of my consciousness." Jun Yao shook her head, and Jiang Xian, who was mentioned, nodded, "Jun Yao fainted in the middle of speaking, I was frightened, I stood up and was about to see what was going on with her, when I felt dizzy, and then I felt weak all over my body, and then I was unconscious." ”

Lin Mo took a deep breath, "I also fell asleep, but I was the last one of the five of us to sleep, and it was exactly twelve o'clock in the night. ”

Xu Qingran looked at her and asked eagerly, "Did you hear any sound?" ”

"A lot of noises, very ......noisy," Lin Mo frowned and recalled the sounds he heard last night, "I heard a staccato ballad, and a very old laugh, mixed with the screeching sound of something dragging on the ground, and I seemed to hear the crying of a child." The sounds were loud, they all melted into my head, my head hurt, and at the end of my consciousness, I heard someone say, 'It's time to hide and seek,' and then I lost consciousness completely. ”

Chen Yang and Zhao Xiao are a little unconscious, after all, they are just children, they are not used to staying up late, last night when Jun Yao and Jiang Xian were sitting together to discuss things, the two of them were drowsy because the TV series they watched were too boring, as for what time they fell asleep, it is really not clear. Xu Qingran didn't expect the two novices to find anything, just nodded and said a few words of understanding before prevaricating.

"We were in the hall discussing tactics and we saw that the time was coming up, so we were ready to go out. At this moment, we suddenly heard the sound of 'cuckoo cuckoo', and when we looked back, there was an old wall clock on the wall behind the front desk that we had never seen before, and we were all frightened, and the bell rang twelve times, and then we couldn't remember anything. Ai Yu briefly talked about their situation, Xu Qingran and Yin Weiyu just nodded and had nothing to add, the three of them seemed to have the same experience.

"So, last night's slumber was a momentary thing, and there were no exceptions. Only Lin Mo was special, hearing the sound of bells, songs, chasing and talking. In connection with the last sentence you heard, 'It's time to hide and seek', then it can be inferred that the old laughter, the shrill sound, and the child's crying are all because of this 'hide and seek' game. Xu Qingran took the lead in summarizing, and then asked, "Do you remember the lyrics of the song you heard last night?" ”

Lin Mo was silent, as if she was trying to recall what she heard last night, Xu Qingran didn't urge her, just quietly waited for her answer, and after about five minutes, she finally spoke, "Ding Dong, midnight magic has come." Oops, who's playing the game? When the bell rings twelve...... I couldn't hear the rest of the lyrics because of the laughter and the screeching sounds. ”

"So, the disappearance of these children has something to do with the game. You remember yesterday when the mayor of the town was explaining the strange things that happened in the town, in the part about the children sleepwalking, he said that the children gathered in the street garden to play some games. At that time, the mayor didn't say what game the children were playing, but from the sounds Lin Mo heard last night, we can reasonably guess that the game they played in the street park was hide and seek? Jun Yao said, Jiang Xian on the side nodded, and then her words spoke, "In the lyrics that Lin Mo heard, there was a mention of midnight magic, about this midnight magic, could it be related to our inexplicable sleep last night?" And I just remembered one thing, which is related to this mission itself, this town, this mission, is called Eternal Sleep Town. Does eternal sleep have anything to do with our deep sleep at midnight? In fact, many times the task name itself is a clue. ”

"As for the midnight matter, there is no way to discuss anything now, so we will put it aside for now, and we will go to Alex's house in West 1-2 and George's house in North 3-1 respectively this morning according to yesterday's grouping. Pay attention to the information on these things: First, what are the rules related to the time curse in the town. Second, the details of the disappearance of the children - puppets, hide and seek. Third, Alice's father's relationship with the rest of the town. Fourth, about midnight. Fourth, be cautious about asking questions, if the other person doesn't seem to be able to speak, or if the other person doesn't show a very cooperative attitude, then don't ask the question. Xu Qingran saw that everyone had already eaten, so he began to assign today's tasks, "We will gather at the door of the hotel at twelve o'clock at noon, don't rush in first, to prevent yesterday's incident from happening again." Is there anything you need to add? If not, let's get started. ”