Because their player team had grown, very few players came over to pick a fight after that, and Xu Huo and the others also secured an open lounge to wait out the end of Carnival Day.

After Carnival Day ended, players could enter rooms again, so after midnight, many players were already getting ready to open room doors and try their luck.

All the players had been cleared out before, so the number of empty rooms should be higher than at any other time, and the odds of entering a room safely were also at their highest.

"Should we go try as well?" Shi Shuai suggested. "The draw yesterday was the Mermaid Mask, and it hasn’t been changed today. The probability of a mermaid opening an empty room is one half. Finding a place to crash and sleep soundly shouldn’t be a problem."

Xu Huo had already decided to take the female Player he was here to rescue, Hua Sisi, to the Mermaid Game venue. The Girl in the painting had a special identity, and to be safe, it was best for her not to go in. She needed to stay outside and find a room to hide in; that was the most cost‑effective.

The Girl in the painting despised Shi Shuai to the extreme and didn’t want to act together with them.

Xu Huo respected her opinion. "We’ll find two rooms in a bit."

They were on the twentieth floor now, so they simply went door to door nearby. They tried almost ten rooms before one finally opened. Hua Sisi was in charge of opening it. She was clearly very experienced; after turning the doorknob she didn’t push the door open immediately, but waited for a moment.

"This way we can rule out rooms where dungeon props have been placed," Hua Sisi said, and only then pushed the door open. Sure enough, the room was completely empty.

"This works." She stepped aside.

The Girl in the painting went in first, looked around, and expressed her satisfaction. This room had just been cleaned; all the furnishings were intact and tidy, the fruit, snacks, and drinks were fully stocked, and the little props scattered around hadn’t been taken by anyone.

"I want to stay here too!" Shi Shuai dashed over in one stride and plopped down on the sofa, giving a perfectly reasonable argument: "With more people we can look out for each other. What if someone comes to open the door later?"

The Girl in the painting patted the cabinet next to the door. "I can block the door."

Shi Shuai raised his index finger and wagged it. "That won’t do. If you use something heavy to block the door, the moment someone outside pushes it open they’ll know you’re all bluff and no bite. Then don’t even talk about them backing off—they’ll definitely lock onto you and make trouble!"

"That makes sense." Hua Sisi added, "Besides, the ones opening the doors are all Players. How could a door stay blocked? It really is safer with more people."

Xu Huo asked the Girl in the painting for her opinion. When Players entered rooms, they would first loot the place; even if she was hanging on the wall, she might not be safe.

"If there’s danger, we’ll push him out to take the hit." He pointed at Shi Shuai.

The Girl in the painting hesitated for a moment but still agreed. 𝑓𝓇𝘦ℯ𝘸𝘦𝑏𝓃𝑜𝘷ℯ𝑙.𝑐𝑜𝓂

"I—I might not be able to block blades, but I can help you throw bombs," the little girl with a nickname that made people’s blood pressure spike said as well.

The Girl in the painting still liked her a lot. She warmly took her hand to show her welcome, then rolled her eyes at Shi Shuai again.

Shi Shuai wasn’t bothered at all by being disliked. Grinning, he said, "Little sister, you’re beautiful and kind, even your eye‑rolls look good."

Nobody wanted to respond to him. Xu Huo looked over at the round‑faced Player again.

"I’m definitely going with you." The round‑faced Player was scheming. "Mermaid Game, Players with backgrounds—those people are walking money!"

Hua Sisi kindly tried to talk him out of it. "Those people have been steeped in the privilege of Player families since birth. They don’t treat ordinary Players like us as human at all. Selling information on them is very risky, and with some of them, just looking at them twice might get you killed."

The round‑faced Player came and went in the Fish Banquet Building often, so of course he understood what she meant. After a brief silence, he said, "Relax, relax, this isn’t my first day in this line of work. I know how to avoid risk."

"Are you really that short of money?" After they sat down to rest, the little girl scooted over and asked him, "The info you sell isn’t even that expensive, and there’s not much that’s really useful. If you’re thinking of getting rich doing this, it’s going to be hard."

The round‑faced Player started a sob story. "Life is tough. Several people in my family have genetic diseases—we need money to buy medicine. I’m not good at fighting, so I can only rely on my tongue and my eye for people to get by... I really envy you. Your family must be loaded, right?"

The little girl nodded. "My family is very rich."

The round‑faced Player put his hands on his knees and looked at her with longing. "Do you have any props you don’t use much that you could sell me cheap?"

The little girl’s face said, "Do you take me for an idiot?" "Even the props I don’t use much are expensive. My parents spent money to buy them for me. Why would I sell them cheap? If I sell them, I’d sell them at a markup."

This one was not easy to scam.

The round‑faced Player looked around at everyone in the room and gave up on the spot.

There was no way he could afford to offend Xu Huo, and the same went for the Girl in the painting. Shi Shuai looked even poorer than he was, and Hua Sisi was gearing up to enter the Mermaid Game—she definitely wasn’t someone with cash to spare.

"If only meat pies could really fall from the sky."

They all rested well in the room for a day. During that time, they repelled two waves of Players who came to open the door and, with hardly any twists, waited until eight o’clock the next night.

Xu Huo and the other two were headed to a room on the twenty‑third floor whose number ended in three.

"If it gets dangerous, run faster," Xu Huo warned the Girl in the painting a couple of times, then went upstairs with Hua Sisi and the round‑faced Player.

He casually found a room whose number ended in three, knocked on the door first, and only then turned the doorknob.

The instant the door opened, he keenly sensed a fluctuation of Spatial Power. Behind the door was no longer the room he’d seen before but a spacious recreation room. In the center stood a round table, surrounded by eight screens, and directly in front of the entrance was one of them.

This screen was transparent from the inside out, so they could clearly see the situation at the round table and the other screens. But this was obviously a prop: the screen was only a meter wide, yet it kept everyone else’s line of sight well blocked.

"You can’t see anything behind the other screens at all." The round‑faced Player craned his neck; the space had already been cut up by props. Forget the opposite side—he couldn’t even peek at the ones on the left and right.

However, as soon as Xu Huo sat down on the chair, the screen in front of him lit up with a faint glow.

The other seven screens lit up in quick succession. Once all eight Participants were present, a floating doll appeared above the round table. It introduced itself: "Good evening, honored guests. I am tonight’s Fair Dealer. I will be overseeing the entire gambling session."

As it spoke, the doll suddenly floated down from above the table and moved close to the screen, as if examining something at close range.

"Can it see us?" The round‑faced Player was startled and blurted out the question on reflex.

The doll scrutinized the screen for a moment, then drifted back. "Of course the Fair Dealer cannot see the true faces of our honored guests. Please forgive my harmless little joke."

Someone behind a screen laughed—though they couldn’t see the person, the voice was very clear.

The doll floated over to the next screen and continued explaining the rules.