Chapter Thirty-Eight: A Foolish Mistake

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“Forty-three employees. Excluding the one shot by Ji Li, six are dead, five have been taken away, and three are missing.

That leaves only twenty-eight of us here and now!”

Tongguan frowned as he studied the staff list he had recorded on the hotel phone.

He glanced at Yu Guo and Fang Shenyan beside him, then at Chang Nian, who had remained behind him the entire time, and checked the time.

“It has been two hours and forty minutes since the mission began. Ji Li has been gone far too long without a word. Since he has not contacted us, that means the situation there is still under his control.

“We have already tried the theory of being isolated several times, but nothing has changed.”

Tongguan was still completely unable to make sense of the mission. During the preceding hours, he had also been testing the hypothesis Ji Li had proposed, yet it had produced no results.

First, they had separated five people from the group. No one was harmed. Then they had sent three people away to test the theory, but again no one died.

In the end, Tongguan had even taken one employee and hidden away from the main group. They had waited for half an hour, yet no ghost had appeared.

The situation was impossible for Tongguan to understand.

From the beginning of the mission until now, apart from the deaths that had occurred around him during the first five minutes, there had been no further casualties.

That unnatural calm only made him feel more uneasy.

It also caused him to question the possibility of the isolation theory again and again. The problem before him was no longer to test the path to survival.

It was to discover where the path to death lay.

After all, only by knowing the path to death could they verify the path to survival.

With no one dying and everything remaining tranquil, what worried him was that the situation might drag on until the very end, when it suddenly erupted.

By then, he would have no strength left to fight back.

Once the electricity was restored, he gathered Fang Shenyan and the others, preparing to investigate the path to death from another angle.

He glanced at the bored-looking Yu Guo beside him and asked quietly, “Could you repeat the suicide experiment you conducted earlier?”

After nearly three hours of waiting, Yu Guo had grown somewhat impatient. Now that there was something to do, his spirits immediately rose.

“Sure. We already know how to break it, anyway.”

Yu Guo was not one to hesitate. Almost the instant Tongguan finished speaking, he raised both hands toward his own head.

There was no surprise. As his body moved, his limbs gradually became rigid and numb. Only his eyes still held their usual vitality.

This was Fang Shenyan’s first time seeing such a scene. He could not help feeling startled, and he looked at Tongguan in confusion.

Seeing that Yu Guo could indeed enter that strange simulated state of death, Tongguan nodded slightly and reached out to lay him flat on the floor.

It was not long before Yu Guo sprang back to his feet, lively as ever.

“Why are you doing this?”

Tongguan also raised both hands toward his head. Sure enough, he felt the same stiffness. After trying for a moment, he gave up.

“It seems that all of us employees will experience that bizarre condition when we imitate death.”

Tongguan searched the list on his phone. His gaze stopped at a man’s name, and he marked it with a check using the pad of his finger.

Then he looked toward the man himself, waved, and called out, “Guan Ping? I need you to do me a favor.”

As he spoke, he began walking into the crowd. He explained to those following him, “Don’t you think Yu Guo’s earlier imitation of death was strange?”

At that, Yu Guo exchanged a glance with Fang Shenyan. Fang Shenyan pushed up his glasses and said:

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“I only just heard about it, but something feels wrong. The mission information is usually precise and unambiguous. Since the hotel said it would only come after us once all the employees were dead, then even if we deliberately sought death, we should not be attacked by a ghost.”

Yu Guo hesitated before explaining, “But the mission was rather vague on that point. The idea that it would kill the employees first and then come after us is only an inference.”

Chang Nian took out the hotel phone and glanced at it before saying softly, “That is not what it says. It says that if we fail to complete the protection mission within six hours, everyone will be killed without any possibility of resistance.

“That already clearly divides the mission into stages. Only after the protection mission fails will it kill us. So if we are attacked during this stage, how are we supposed to protect—”

She stopped mid-sentence. Yu Guo and Fang Shenyan had both realized that something was wrong.

Only then did Tongguan slowly turn around. Looking at their uniformly doubtful expressions, he said in a low voice, “You felt it too, didn’t you?”

Fang Shenyan’s face darkened, and he nodded.

“Yes. The information for this mission is riddled with loopholes. It cannot even account for itself!”

Tongguan continued, “The hotel does sometimes provide vague conditions, but that is limited to the time, location, and requirements for completion.

“I have never seen an entire mission presented with such ambiguity.

“And most importantly, the mission information actually contains the word ‘I’!”

Chang Nian felt as though she had been struck by lightning. She immediately looked through the email on the phone.

At the very bottom of the mission information, one sentence was clearly written:

“Within six hours, if the protection mission is not completed, I will lift the restrictions on the ghosts, and everyone will be killed without any possibility of resistance!”

“Has anyone ever seen a hotel mission use the word ‘I’? It is the most direct expression of personal intent. The hotel has never used language that way. At least, I have never seen it.”

Tongguan spoke with complete conviction. Without even looking at the phone, he recited the mission information from memory.

Sweat appeared on Fang Shenyan’s forehead. Trembling slightly, he took out a cigarette, lit it, and drew deeply.

A terrifying hypothesis had risen in his mind. But it was so unbelievable, so absolutely impossible, that he did not dare verify it.

Yu Guo, however, had no such reservations. He asked bluntly, “You mean the mission information we received might be wrong?”

Tongguan did not turn around. By then, he had already reached the employee named Guan Ping.

“Drawing a conclusion from the mission information alone would be too flimsy. Perhaps the hotel deliberately issued it that way. That is precisely why we need to test it.”

“How do we test it?”

Tongguan did not answer. He placed the phone in Chang Nian’s hands and walked toward the uneasy Guan Ping.

A gentle smile appeared on his face as he lightly patted Guan Ping’s shoulder.

“Don’t worry. I was never particularly close to the person who fired the gun earlier. We have already tried many things, and now I need your help with one more.”

Tongguan’s attitude was unusually kind. This was not an act. In all fairness, although the people before him were merely characters arranged by the hotel, they were still alive.

He might not go out of his way to save any of them, but neither would he deliberately harm them.

He had spoken with Guan Ping before.

At the time, Guan Ping had been in a poor emotional state and had tried to resist. Tongguan had patiently communicated with him and calmed him down.

They had gained some understanding of each other. Moreover, most of the people here had arrived later and had seen the bizarre corpse lying by the stairs on the first floor.

Although they had yet to witness a ghost kill anyone, they had begun to half-believe Tongguan’s repeated warnings about the evil spirit.

Guan Ping clenched his teeth. Though reluctant, he still asked, “What do you want me to do?”

He assumed that this favor would be no different from Tongguan’s previous actions: taking him somewhere secluded.

But what Tongguan said this time sent gooseflesh across his entire body.

“I want you to press your left hand against your right temple, then use your right hand to grip your own chin and slowly wrench it sideways.

“Adopt the same posture as the corpse at the stairwell and begin the attempt.

“I will maintain the same posture and simulate death alongside you!”

Ignoring Guan Ping’s astonished expression, Tongguan turned to Fang Shenyan and said quietly, “For the living to imitate death is to invite the ghost to possess them.

“It has never appeared, and that leaves me no choice but to take this step.

“But if Guan Ping and I act simultaneously, we can verify the ambiguity in the mission information from the opposite direction.

“If the mission information is correct, then I should be unable to complete the simulation. At the very least, I will be forced to stop before the final step.

“Because no matter how it is interpreted, the mission clearly states that the employees will die before we do.

“In the first scenario, Guan Ping will unconsciously wrench his own head apart, while I survive.

“That would mean the mission information is accurate, and we will have to seek another way forward.

“In the second scenario, Guan Ping and I will die together.

“That would mean the mission information is completely false. It would directly contradict its literal meaning.

“In that case, we will have to define the mission from an entirely different perspective.”

Chang Nian frowned. She felt that Tongguan’s method was too reckless. Although they now knew how to break the attack—by tackling the possessed person to the ground—the method of actively inviting a ghost to possess someone was far too dangerous.

If anything went wrong, it would mean death.

Fang Shenyan and Yu Guo exchanged a glance. Though they now regarded Tongguan with new respect, they quietly nodded.

They believed the plan was viable.

Tongguan drew a deep breath and looked at Guan Ping directly across from him.

“Whether you are willing or not, you must take part in this operation. If you sense danger, you may stop on your own at the final moment—but only then.”

On the surface, Tongguan’s plan was indeed a way to break the deadlock, and it could also verify the hypothesis in his heart.

But he had made a grave mistake—one might even call it the most basic mistake of all.

He had failed to gather enough information.

This stemmed from his personal dislike of Ji Li, as well as his contempt for a mission of only one-star difficulty. He had never thought to call Ji Li and ask about the situation on his side.

As a result, he had no idea that once a person was possessed by a ghost, death was inevitable.

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