WTNL Chapter 330

Xingwang Hotel
Chapter 330: The Framing Shop

Wen Jianyan raised a hand and touched the mask covering his face.  

It clung tightly to his skin, producing an extremely strange sensation.  

From a distance, the mask appeared rigid and deathly pale, as if made of porcelain. But upon actually touching it, one would realize that it was unexpectedly soft—like human skin—cold and clinging seamlessly to the contours of his face without the slightest gap.  

It almost felt as though, at any moment, it might fuse completely with his flesh.  

Eerily unsettling.  

The sound of his breathing echoed dully inside the mask, but at least he could still breathe without too much difficulty.  

Looking out through the mask, the entire world seemed to have transformed.  

Outside the window, the cold rain dripped steadily.  

The corpses that had once stood rigidly on the street with their backs turned now, after they had donned the masks, abruptly faced them directly.  

Pale, stiff faces twisted into grotesque smiles, their eye sockets pitch-black, like two empty holes staring vacantly in their direction.  

But unlike before, they now only watched—making no move to act.  

His pounding heartbeat gradually steadied.  

“Let’s go.”  

Wen Jianyan exhaled in relief, hearing his own muffled voice speak.  

“This time, we should be able to keep moving forward along this street.”  

With that, he stepped forward, heading toward the door.  

“…”  

The others exchanged glances before cautiously following.  

An oppressive silence surrounded them, broken only by the soft patter of rain.  

The corpses stood motionless, their heads slowly turning as the group passed, their ghastly pale faces fixed on them, those hollow black eyes watching in unison—a sight so chilling it made everyone’s hearts clench.  

The distance closed step by step.  

They could now clearly see the lines on the corpses’ pallid faces, even smell the thick, rotting stench mingling with the rain.  

Their nerves screamed in terror, goosebumps rising on their backs.  

One step. Two steps. Three steps—  

And then, finally, they brushed past them.  

Even after moving beyond the crowd of corpses, those silent, emotionless stares still prickled against their backs like needles, an invisible pressure urging them to quicken their pace.  

At last, they left the corpses behind.  

As the stench of decay faded, everyone let out a long, relieved breath beneath their masks.  

Perhaps because of the masks, the street ahead seemed subtly different now.  

The sky, already gloomy before, was now pitch-black, as if soaked in ink.  

The group pressed forward in silence.  

Unlike before, the corpses along the road didn’t disappear this time. Instead, their numbers grew as they advanced.  

Stiff and unmoving, their pale faces turned toward the group, watching soundlessly.  

Visibility worsened.  

The edges of their vision were almost entirely swallowed by endless darkness, leaving only the cobblestone path beneath their feet and the shuttered shops on either side faintly visible.  

The rain continued to fall.  

The street ahead seemed to widen, the distance between the buildings on either side stretching further apart.  

The scenery on both sides was completely unfamiliar—nothing they had seen since first stepping onto this street.  

Every detail within sight confirmed what Wen Jianyan had said:  

This time, they weren’t trapped in the same loop as before.  

They were truly moving forward.  

The further they went, the more desolate the surroundings became.  

The once tightly packed buildings grew sparse, the gaps between them revealing glimpses of an endless, barren wasteland.  

And beyond that—  

Blond narrowed his eyes, as if trying to make out something in the distance, and instinctively took a step to the side.  

But the moment his foot left the path, a hand seized his collar and yanked him back violently.  

Startled, Blond whipped his head around.  

It was Wen Jianyan.  

Behind the bloodless, featureless mask, through the two hollow eyeholes, he could just barely see the warm brown of Wen Jianyan’s eyes.  

A familiar voice spoke:  

“Don’t.”  

Then, Wen Jianyan pointed downward.  

Blond followed his finger.  

On the damp, hard cobblestones, just ahead of where he had been about to step, was a faint, muddy footprint—as if someone had stepped onto soil and then immediately retreated.  

A cold shiver ran down Blond’s spine.  

It was his own.

This road appeared so wide before their eyes, and yet they were walking right in the center, far from either side. All it took was Blond taking a single step to the side…  

But that narrow, seemingly insignificant step took him off the seemingly spacious path and onto the muddy ground below. If Wen Jianyan hadn’t pulled him back in time, Blond had no doubt that his next step would have taken him completely off the road and into another world.  

Behind the mask, Blond’s face was pale.  

Wen Jianyan said quietly, “Don’t leave the main road.”  

Blond nodded vigorously.  

If his earlier speculation was correct, the reason they hadn’t been able to find the framing shop before wasn’t because they’d taken the wrong path, but because they were human—and only ghosts could reach the painted realm.  

This meant that after leaving the second shop, the road they were walking on would gradually detach from the so-called “human world.”  

During the Changsheng Building instance, Wen Jianyan had pieced together a certain truth about “reality” through various clues.  

The reality they lived in and were familiar with was like the Earth’s crust—just the shallowest layer of the world. Beneath it lay an unfathomable abyss of the unknown.  

If Changsheng Building was the outermost barrier, preventing ghosts from spilling into the human world, then Xingwang Hotel was the path leading inward.  

This bluestone road was built by humans. Staying on it was still relatively safe for now, but stepping off it…  

What might happen afterward was anyone’s guess.  

So, after leaving the mask shop, Wen Jianyan had remained on high alert. He’d long understood that in the world of instances, appearances were rarely trustworthy.  

That’s why, just now, he’d keenly noticed the moment Blond’s figure flickered like a mirage after taking that step, as if he might vanish in the next second. Wen Jianyan had immediately reached out and yanked him back.  

“What did you see just now?” Wen Jianyan asked.  

Blond swallowed hard, his voice strained. “I-I’m not sure, but…”  

He paused, his breathing under the mask trembling slightly.  

“It looked like… graves.”  

“…”  

Wen Jianyan was taken aback.  

…Graves?  

But now wasn’t the time to dwell on that.  

He quickly snapped back to attention and turned to the rest of the team, warning them:  

“Don’t look at what’s beside the road, and don’t let yourselves be drawn to it. Our destination is the framing shop—stay focused on nothing else. Understood?”  

The other team members were also shaken by what had just happened to Blond.  

They nodded in unison, steeling themselves as they followed closely behind Wen Jianyan.  

Wen Jianyan took a deep breath and turned his gaze forward.  

If they had entered the town from Room 329, could they have gone straight to the framing shop through the passage?  

Or…  

Would they have died instantly by stepping directly into the ghost realm?  

Wen Jianyan still didn’t have the answer.  

But he had a feeling it wouldn’t be that simple.  

Pushing aside his wandering thoughts, he focused entirely on moving forward.  

The further they went, the more eerie the street became.  

The scattered corpses along the way gradually increased. Worse still, the new bodies weren’t just standing motionless—some could even move.  

They shuffled slowly and stiffly down the street, drifting like mindless, aimless spirits.  

Wen Jianyan and the others had no choice but to advance cautiously, keeping an eye on their surroundings to avoid colliding with these things.  

Though they didn’t seem to notice the living yet, there was no telling whether that would remain the case if they made physical contact.  

The only silver lining was that since they’d stepped onto the true path, even though they’d been walking in the rain much longer than before, the human skin cloaks on their backs showed no signs of stirring.  

Wen Jianyan couldn’t say for sure why.  

Perhaps they’d entered the spirit realm, so the medium connecting the otherworld and the human world had naturally lost its effect.  

Or maybe, because they were wearing masks, they were now classified as “ghosts” rather than “humans,” rendering the human skin cloaks useless.  

Of course, it could be a combination of factors.  

Either way, it was a rare bit of good news.  

The buildings along the road grew sparser.  

Long stretches of empty space appeared beside the bluestone path, bordered by patches of brownish-yellow mud. Beyond that, darkness swallowed everything—only someone with Blond’s visual talents might have been able to see what lay further, but even he didn’t dare use his abilities now.  

After all, the bluestone road was dangerous enough, and stepping off it would only be worse.  

One misstep could spell doom.  

Suddenly, a complete building materialized in the emptiness ahead.  

Wen Jianyan froze.  

Blond gasped. “It’s—it’s the framing shop!”  

Though they’d braced themselves for this, having their suspicions confirmed still sent a jolt through the group.  

After their long trek, seeing the real framing shop appear before them left them torn between relief and dread.  

“Let’s go.”  

At Wen Jianyan’s command, the group quickened their pace toward the shop.  

Soon, the framing shop came into full view.  

Aside from the barren surroundings with no other buildings in sight, the shop looked identical to the one depicted in the oil painting from Room 329.  

A slightly crooked, sloping roof, peeling white-painted walls, an old, tightly shut door, and a sign above it, weathered by the rain until the characters were barely legible.  

Three large characters were faintly visible:  

Framing Shop.  

Other than that, there were no other markings whatsoever.  

It looked eerily quiet, almost indistinguishable from the other buildings on the street. The windows were pitch-black, revealing nothing of what might lie inside.  

The door was closed, but it clearly wasn’t locked—it seemed like the slightest push would make it swing inward.  

Yet, the oppressive aura emanating from this building far surpassed anything else on the street.  

Standing before the door, the group couldn’t help but feel their hearts pound with unease.  

“This is it,” Wen Jianyan said slowly.  

Chen Mo nodded and stepped forward, moving toward the entrance of the framing shop. He reached out, preparing to push the door open.  

The others watched his movements intently, holding their breaths.  

Chen Mo’s fingers, pale from the rain, slowly inched closer to the door under everyone’s gaze—  

Twenty centimeters, fifteen, ten—  

“Captain…”  

“Captain!!”  

Blond’s voice was practically a scream. He grabbed Wen Jianyan’s arm. “Behind—behind us!!”  

Everyone turned at once.  

A horrifying scene unfolded before them, sending chills down their spines.  

The street seemed to freeze.  

All the moving corpses came to a halt, standing as stiffly as the ones that had been motionless all along. In unison, they turned their heads toward the group, their empty, hollow eye sockets silently fixed on them.  

Under the gaze of countless pale, lifeless faces, a wave of intense dread washed over them, leaving their bodies cold.  

Click.  

At that moment, a faint, almost imperceptible sound reached Wen Jianyan’s ears. It was so soft that the rain nearly drowned it out, but he caught it. He whipped his head toward Chen Mo, searching for the source.  

It was the mask.  

At some point, a thin crack had appeared on Chen Mo’s mask. The fissure was small but stark against the smooth, ghostly-white surface.  

A sudden realization struck Wen Jianyan. “Chen Mo, get back!”  

Chen Mo didn’t turn around.  

A cold wind rose.  

The human skin cloak on Chen Mo’s body fluttered slightly, its folds twisting into inexplicable shapes resembling human faces. A putrid stench gradually seeped out, growing sharper in the damp air. Yet, Chen Mo seemed completely unaware, his hand still reaching for the door.  

Just three centimeters left.  

No!!  

“Get back!!”  

Wen Jianyan gritted his teeth and lunged forward.  

The moment he stepped close to the door, a strange, dizzying sensation overwhelmed him, blurring his thoughts. His mind emptied, leaving only one impulse:  

Push the door open.  

The next second, a searing heat flared near his hip.  

Wen Jianyan jolted back to awareness.  

“We can’t open it now!!”  

He grabbed Chen Mo’s arm and yanked him back with all his strength.  

Once they retreated from the door, the countless eyes fixed on them vanished.  

The corpses with their eerie, frozen smiles resumed their aimless wandering, no longer paying them any attention.  

The group staggered back to a safer distance, breathing heavily.  

Chen Mo turned to Wen Jianyan, his expression dazed. “What… what just happened?”  

Wen Jianyan steadied his breathing and released Chen Mo’s arm.  

“You were entranced.”  

Even he had almost fallen for it.  

He lowered his hand, subtly pressing against his side.  

Silence.  

“If this happens every time, then… how are we supposed to open the door?” Blond asked, still shaken.  

Wen Jianyan let his hand drop. After a moment of thought, he spoke slowly, deliberately:  

“I don’t think that’s the case.”  

Chen Mo swayed as he stood, turning to Wen Jianyan. “What are you thinking?”  

“I think… the rule is reversed.”  

He pointed at the crack on Chen Mo’s mask.  

“Reversed? What do you mean?”  

The others were confused.  

“This is a street only ghosts can walk, but…”  

Wen Jianyan looked toward the framing shop.  

The building stood motionless in the distance, its door slightly ajar, as if the gentlest push would open it.  

Memories of what had just happened flashed through his mind.  

The mask cracking as Chen Mo approached, the human skin cloak stirring back to life, the corpses turning their attention toward them—  

Every detail pointed to one conclusion…  

Chen Mo’s identity was shifting back from “ghost” to “human.”  

Which meant…  

Wen Jianyan slowly voiced his conclusion:  

“I think that’s a door only a human can open.”

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