Xu Hui, startled by a dark object rushing toward him, instinctively grabbed his flashlight, threw himself sideways, and rolled several times on the ground. He heard a loud thud as the object slammed into the exact spot where he had been standing moments before.

He scrambled forward, half-crawling, until he reached a far corner of the room before finally stopping. Shaken, he turned to look; the object that had struck the spot was the utterly bizarre vanity table.

It seemed that ever since he was trapped in this room, every near-death experience had somehow involved this table, around which numerous terrifying events had unfolded. It felt as if the source of all the uncanny occurrences resided there.

Yet, despite his frantic battering earlier, he hadn't managed to damage the table at all; it seemed almost impervious to physical attack.

At this moment, Xu Hui felt strangely calmer than before, a question stirring in his mind: based on what had just happened, the opposition's power seemed underwhelming. If things continued this way, whatever was in this room wouldn't find it easy to kill him.

The thought brought immediate reassurance. A cold smile touched his lips as he murmured softly to himself, "Come on, I’d like to see what other tricks you can pull."

He spoke those words purely to bolster his own courage. An unseen opponent was terrifying, and he admitted he had been quite unnerved earlier. His current composure stemmed only from the belief that, so far, he could handle these encounters with his own skill.

Unexpectedly, the moment the words left his mouth, a cold laugh echoed from an unknown location within the room. Startled, Xu Hui raised his flashlight and swept it around wildly.

The room was now a total mess: debris from shattered furniture mingled with scraps of white cloth strewn everywhere. The only intact items were half a table and the dreaded vanity table.

As the beam of light swept across the mirror’s surface, Xu Hui thought he saw a pale shadow flash within the glass. He quickly redirected the wavering light back onto the mirror. All he saw was the blinding white glare of the flashlight beam; nothing else remained in the reflection.

While still confused, Xu Hui suddenly felt something drip onto the back of his neck. He reached up instinctively, brushed it, and illuminated his hand with the flashlight, revealing dark, reddish-black residue. A faint, metallic scent of blood drifted into his nostrils.

He instantly lunged forward and shone the light behind him. There, high on the wall where he had just been leaning, was a brilliant red number, large enough to occupy the space of his own head: 55.

The characters were clearly freshly painted; the crimson liquid hadn't even fully dried, slowly tracing thin lines down the plaster.

Xu Hui’s heart clenched. He snatched out his phone; the countdown timer on the screen displayed exactly fifty-five.

“Is that it?” Xu Hui yelled toward the wall.

No answer came. After that initial cold laugh, the room returned to a deathly silence. He kept the flashlight trained on the gruesome number, and after a long stretch without incident, his body began to relax.

However, before he could fully let his guard down, the vanity table scraped across the floor once more, emitting a sound so grating it felt like it was drilling directly into his eardrums. Xu Hui instinctively raised his hands to cover his ears, dropping the flashlight.

The flashlight clattered onto the floor. Whether it was damaged by the fall or not, its light immediately dimmed.

Fortunately, the piercing sound vanished as quickly as it began, and the table ceased moving. Xu Hui dropped his hands from his ears and scrambled to retrieve the light. He tapped it twice, but the beam flickered erratically between brightness and near-darkness.

Xu Hui frowned, wondering if the contact was loose. He let out a slight sigh and casually waved the flashlight around. The beam accidentally swept across the vanity table, and suddenly, he noticed what appeared to be a human figure standing beside it.

His entire body tensed instantly. He couldn't help but recall the reflection he'd seen in the mirror earlier. While he suspected that had been an illusion, the presence of a distinct figure now made him genuinely afraid that it might be him. Instinctively, he hesitated to swing the light back toward it.

Xu Hui stood rigid, his gaze locked dumbly on the silhouette. He was standing a fair distance from the table, and in the room’s dimness, the figure was only visible as an outline; without the flashlight beam, its true features were obscured.

They remained motionless for a tense stretch—he didn't move, and neither did the figure. The longer he stared, the more the posture of the figure seemed to mirror his own.

Cold sweat trickled down his temple. Xu Hui raised the hand that wasn't holding the light to wipe his brow. In that exact moment, he thought he saw the figure raise its own hand to brush its forehead.

A wave of shock coursed through him. Was he hallucinating again? He slowly lowered his hand, and this time, he saw the figure mirror the movement, lowering its hand as well.

Xu Hui swallowed hard, teeth clenched, gathering his courage. He suddenly stabbed the flashlight beam directly at the figure. However, the instant the light hit the silhouette, an intense, blinding flash erupted before his eyes. He slammed his eyelids shut, unable to face the glare, and instinctively pulled his own flashlight away.

He felt the hostile light immediately disappear, and the space returned to darkness.

Xu Hui cautiously reopened his eyes, his vision swimming and blurry. He squeezed them shut, waiting for his sight to stabilize.

He desperately hoped the figure would vanish, but when he next looked toward the vanity table, the silhouette remained. Xu Hui carefully, slowly adjusted the angle of his flashlight, directing the beam across the figure from the side.

The moment Xu Hui had most dreaded finally occurred. As the light illuminated his own upper body, he clearly saw a beam of light simultaneously shoot out from the darkness opposite him, fully exposing the upper half of the figure. He saw his own face contorted in an expression of absolute horror, could even clearly distinguish his own eyes staring back at him in terror.

He couldn't comprehend why this wasn't a reflection in the mirror, but rather a duplicate standing beside the table.

Unable to stop himself, Xu Hui staggered backward two steps, half-expecting the figure opposite him to match his retreat. Instead, the other Xu Hui stepped forward two paces.

His eyes widened—or rather, he saw his eyes widen, as if in disbelief at what was unfolding.

Xu Hui retreated several more steps, only to watch the counterpart advance several steps in response. Although the steps seemed matched to his own retreat, he felt the other version of himself closing the distance toward him.

Simultaneously, a soft, echoing laugh drifted through the silent room, slow and impossibly eerie, seeming to resonate throughout the entire space.