Chapter 53: Mutual Recognition
Chang Nian took a torch from her bag and bent slightly in the dark storage room, approaching the male corpse on the right.
The light beam fell directly on his ten fingers—stained with blood.
This was highly unusual.
The bodies of Xiao Qi's father and the other male corpse outside bore no blood at all.
After all, the ghost's method of killing involved snapping the neck, which rarely produced much bleeding.
But the nails of this man's fingers contained a chaotic mixture of white powder and coagulated blood.
Chang Nian felt a chill; she couldn't understand why this middle-aged man's case was different.
She leaned closer, the scent of decay and death filling her nostrils. When she focused on the damaged nails, the smell grew even stronger.
Beneath the corpse's feet were flakes of wall plaster.
Chang Nian became certain: this man's situation was exceptional.
At the very least, he had been scratching the wall with his fingers right before dying.
As the beam of light slowly turned, her heart pounded. She recalled what Tongguan had said:
"Everything is just waiting for a trigger…"
Her gaze focused on the wall before the corpse. Twisted letters were etched there, smeared partially with crimson blood.
It was clear how desperate the situation must have been, forcing someone to carve important words with all ten fingers.
'The thing in that woman's phone has come to me!'
The moment Chang Nian read those words, her mind went blank. The torch clattered to the floor, and she remained speechless.
...
"So even if Ji Li isn't dead, it's very likely we won't find him," Tongguan said, looking at the phone Fang Shenyan had picked up.
At the same time, he immediately sensed something unusual from Chang Nian's side.
Almost as soon as the sound reached him, he rushed into the storage room.
The small space quickly became crowded.
"What's happening?"
Chang Nian glanced at Tongguan, her expression tense.
She immediately pulled out her hotel phone, flipping through it as she said:
"The trigger! This is the trigger! A clue we completely overlooked!"
Following the position of the middle-aged male corpse, Tongguan also saw the blood-smeared inscription.
His brow twitched. "The thing in that woman's phone has come to him!"
All along, Tongguan had never recognized the identities of the three corpses inside and outside the storage room. He certainly never imagined such vital clues would be hidden there.
Three corpses—no one knew their identities, except Ji Li!
The middle-aged male corpse should be called 'Old Xu'!
Old Xu and Xiao Li were the first staff members to realize the building had a ghost, and together they captured that terrifying photograph.
This storage room had been Old Xu's hiding place—and ultimately, his grave.
He was the first of the three who knew the secret to be silenced by the ghost.
Yet before dying, he left an indelible opportunity—the trigger for revealing the true mission!
The woman mentioned in the carving clearly referred to Chang Nian. With Ji Li present, he would have understood even more.
This mission could be approached from two angles to find the true trigger.
One: the photo on Xiao Li's phone, which clearly revealed the ghost's location and the true mission.
Two: Old Xu's last hint before dying.
Now, after Ji Li's death, this became critical information for Tongguan and the others to solve the mystery.
Chang Nian didn't know about the photo, but she could deduce a general idea.
"Our actions must have been witnessed by these people, which is why they kept evading our searches.
During this time, they must have done something—something that revealed a secret about the building's ghost.
What that secret is, we still don't know.
But it must relate to my phone!"
Tongguan said solemnly: "We have long suspected the curse's origin is in the hotel phones. Now, this male corpse's hint says something in your phone reached him.
Does that mean… there's a ghost in our hotel phones?"
Chang Nian began rapidly searching the task emails on her hotel phone until she opened the correct page:
Recipient: 'Staff Chang Nian, Tianhai Hotel Branch Seven'
'Starting October 26, 2015, at exactly 10:00 p.m., duration 12 hours.'
'Upon discovering this real mission, any method may be used to identify the ghost's location; success is counted upon correct identification.'
'Note 1: During the first six hours, the ghost cannot inflict real harm on the staffs;'
'Note 2: The method requires specifying the ghost's exact location, otherwise it will not count;'
'Note 3: Special conditions—this ghost does not exist in normal form, but all six staff members must independently identify it to return safely.'
Sender: 'Tianhai'
This task content was something Chang Nian had never seen before.
From the moment it appeared on her phone, it had always been this single entry, never changing.
Meanwhile, Tongguan had also opened his phone immediately, but his email gradually updated from the original false task to the real mission.
"Why is the transition of our missions different…"
Before he could finish asking, a sudden disturbance came from Fang Shenyan at the door.
Tongguan and Chang Nian rushed out of the storage room and saw Fang Shenyan's body unusually rigid.
His hands crept slowly above his own head, while the strangest part was his eyes behind his glasses—they couldn't move.
Even his human thought seemed frozen and locked!
Yu Guo, on the other side, froze at the sight.
He had just seen Tongguan check the real mission on his phone, but at that exact moment heard Fang Shenyan's scream.
Fang Shenyan was now uncontrollably possessed.
Yu Guo's adrenaline surged, and his hands trembled around his phone.
"Identify the ghost's current exact location; every staff member must point it out…"
How to save Fang Shenyan, now possessed, was a complex problem—but it suddenly became simple.
Before Tongguan and Chang Nian could react, Yu Guo raised his arm, extending his index finger toward Fang Shenyan, whose head had rotated ninety degrees.
"I, Yu Guo, identify the ghost—it is inside Fang Shenyan!"
Possession kills, and is otherwise unstoppable.
But the hotel's true mission provided an excellent method to halt the killing: identify the ghost's location.
A ghost needs to inhabit a body to kill, which also exposes its position.
Fang Shenyan's stiffness vanished immediately; his human strength returned.
The method worked.
The ghost inside Fang Shenyan was successfully extracted by Yu Guo's identification and submitted to the hotel.
However, the moment Yu Guo lowered his arm, it rose again, racing toward his own head.
He had removed the ghost from Fang Shenyan, but now his own body was possessed.
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