Chapter 43: True Constraint

The heavy rain outside the building had long since stopped. Though the rainwater had yet to dry, the glass doors were streaked with moisture.

Inside the increasingly chilly building, scenes of extreme cruelty were being enacted.

"Stop trying to save them!"

Fang Shenyan pinched his aching knuckles, stopping Yu Guo, who was still attempting to busy himself.

The two stood side by side, looking at the remaining ten people in front of them.

Confusion grew in Fang Shenyan’s eyes. At the very beginning, ten out of the twenty-eight staff members had died instantly. No matter how hard they tried to rescue them, it was beyond saving, and they had gradually come to agree with Ji Li’s assertion that being possessed meant certain death.

Shortly after, they discovered that the closer they got to the staff members, the faster the living people died!

This was a new discovery, yet a very bizarre one.

This change reminded Fang Shenyan of the hypothesis Ji Li had mentioned earlier.

The closer the store clerks were to the staff, the faster they died. This seemed to form a pattern of killing.

However, what baffled Fang Shenyan and made him rack his brains was: how were these staff members simultaneously possessed by the ghost?

Before he could figure this out, everything that happened next filled him with even greater suspicion and alarm.

Following Fang Shenyan and Yu Guo’s withdrawal to observe from a distance, the remaining ten living employees exhibited another strange phenomenon.

These ten people all had their hands clamped onto their heads in unison, yet they made no further movement!

It was as if they had been frozen in the exact same posture. Even though everyone around them had perished completely, they still took no action.

Yu Guo fumbled around his body somewhat impatiently, pulled a cigarette case from his bosom, offered one to Fang Shenyan, and said softly, "Teacher Fang, what is going on here?"

Fang Shenyan stared with deep, dark eyes at the ten surviving living people, took a drag from his cigarette, and shook his head slightly. "I don't know."

As he spoke, he raised his wrist to glance at his watch. It was now three-twenty in the midnight hour.

Twenty minutes had passed since the initial turmoil on the first floor, yet these final ten people had not moved for a full ten minutes!

They maintained that deadlock of a lethal posture without actually delivering the fatal blow.

"I keep feeling like the ghost is deliberately stalling for time, perhaps constrained by the restrictions of the true mission content. Only when a certain threshold is reached can it slaughter us without restraint!"

After raising his head in contemplation for a moment, Fang Shenyan dialed Ji Li's number.

However, the call repeatedly failed to go through.

***

Meanwhile, Tong Guan and Chang Nian had reached the vicinity of the third floor, attempting to find Ji Li and rendezvous with him.

"Along the way, I've been pondering the issue of the ghost's killing pattern. The mission content might be flawed, but the ghost's killing pattern will never change. From this point, we can deduce the true mission information in reverse."

Tong Guan kept his head down, remaining constantly vigilant of his surroundings. He was still unaware that the situation on the first floor had undergone an inexplicable pause.

Chang Nian looked up at the slightly yellowish light source, thought deeply, and said, "But what do all these people who died have in common..."

Tong Guan took the hotel mobile phone from his bosom, casually opened the memo pad, handed it to Chang Nian, and said in a deep voice, "The phone! Perhaps Ji Li's hypothesis wasn't entirely wrong; the staff members indeed met their successive demises because they came into contact with us, the store clerks. But we are not the source of the curse—perhaps the hotel phone is!"

Chang Nian did not quite understand. She looked at the roster of twenty-eight staff members recorded in Tong Guan's phone, hesitated, and asked, "What does this mean... Could it be that the mission content wasn't wrong after all?"

Tong Guan shook his head and then deleted all the names in the memo pad.

"I only just thought of it. The hotel phones are in the possession of every one of us clerks. The people who died previously also indeed died while in our vicinity. It was only this final batch of first-floor personnel who all fell victim even after we had already left. At the time, I didn't react in time, until I just picked up the phone trying to review the mission content and it suddenly dawned on me. My phone has already recorded all surviving personnel. Perhaps the ghost's killing pattern is to slay staff members in the vicinity of the hotel phones, including any living people who have come into contact with the phones in various ways! This is its method of determination!"

Chang Nian stopped in her tracks, a chill sweeping through her body. "Then... is the mission content still wrong?"

Tong Guan nodded. "Yes. Firstly, the tone of the mission information is overly subjective, which does not match the hotel's usual mission style. Secondly, the mission content is ambiguous and vague, resembling something abruptly edited on the spur of the moment. Furthermore, the hotel phone being the source of the curse aligns much better with the notion that the ghost is masking the true mission. Lastly, and most crucially, there is a point that can prove the current mission is fake!"

Listening to Tong Guan's word-by-word analysis and his nearly resolute conjecture, at this most difficult juncture, the corners of Chang Nian's eyes finally held a trace of a smile.

"What?"

"Because at the time, there were still three hours left before the mission ended. On the first floor, that test between Guan Ping and me had neither a beginning nor an end; it fizzled out into nothingness! Back then, my thought was that if I were to die, it would mean a flaw had appeared in the mission, and the fake mission created by the ghost would officially come to light. Now we know the phone might be the source of the curse, which means the ghost was very likely lurking by our side all along."

"That plan would have exposed the ghost's deployment two hours in advance, giving us plenty of time. Therefore, it had no choice but to terminate our plan right from the start. What is most bizarre is that right before the execution of the plan, I had just tested that a store clerk could remain rigid and snap their own neck, yet when we actually executed the plan a moment later, I lost that sensory feedback! This is already the ghost's overly obvious attempt to cover up its tracks."

Chang Nian listened intently to Tong Guan's lengthy speech, nodding continuously and following his theory to continue the thought.

"And when Ji Li's plan was taking shape, out of caution, the ghost didn't stop it again, but instead resorted to stalling tactics. It forcefully dragged the matter out until the very final moments of the mission before erupting, because by then it no longer cared whether we discovered the truth or falsehood of the mission!"

Tong Guan nodded and was about to speak when suddenly the hotel phone buzzed loudly, the caller ID displaying "Fang Shenyan."

"Hello? Teacher Fang?"

"Tong Guan, there is a situation. Since three-ten, there are only ten surviving staff members left on the first floor. But as of now, while the rest have long since died completely, these people still refuse to snap their necks. I suspect the ghost is stalling for time, and this must be related to the true mission content. But when I called Ji Li, it went unanswered. I suspect he and Li Xing have encountered an accident."

Tong Guan's brow furrowed tightly. He had just said that the ghost was stalling for time, but Fang Shenyan's call indicated that up until this very moment, the ghost was still waiting for something and had not yet delivered the fatal blow!

"Are we just going to keep waiting like this?" Yu Guo shouted at the top of his lungs from the other end of the line. He had no sense of direction, and the rhythm of events remained entirely in the ghost's grasp; this feeling was driving him mad.

Tong Guan's face turned dark. He also realized that the ghost must have a long-conceived plan. Even now, he felt that the so-called task of protecting the employees was also merely to buy time!

As for the purpose, Tong Guan figured it out the moment the thought crossed his mind: nothing more than the ghost being constrained by the true mission content. Perhaps the moment those remaining ten staff members met their doom, the ghost's clutches would reach out to all the store clerks!

"I understand. I'm going to find Ji Li!"

Just as Tong Guan finished these words, the sound of chaotic footsteps suddenly echoed from the other end of the corridor.

A blurred figure stood amidst the halo of light, standing with its back to the light, appearing somewhat ethereal.

A voice—initially sounding somewhat familiar, but upon closer inspection somewhat distant and cold—reverberated through the corridor.

"Tong Guan? Come over to my side quickly, the path of survival has been found!"