Chapter 45: The Primordial Origin

In the fifth-floor corridor, Ji Li, with his dark brown hair, half-knelt on the ground, raising his grey-black mingled eyes to look at the little girl before him, who was as clear as water.

All the sounds of the world had vanished, leaving only the sound of two people breathing.

It was the groan of a man after a splitting headache, mixed with the helpless probing of a young child.

Ji Li slowly stood up from the ground, dusting off his slightly disheveled lapels.

"As expected, Xiao Qi turns out to be Old Xue's daughter..."

Xiao Qi—why she had not died? The answer was now ready to burst forth.

Her identity within this building was extremely special.

Because she was not a member of the staff; like Ji Li and the other hotel employees, she was an outsider as well!

Therefore, regardless of whether it was the real task or the fake task, in the eyes of the ghost, she could only be dealt with at the very end.

Otherwise, a seven or eight-year-old girl holding the secret of the path of survival could never have survived alone for such a long time!

Ji Li looked past the terrified Xiao Qi toward the very end of the deep corridor, toward that office where operatic singing once used to echo.

Everything there was dead silent now. Following the discovery of Old Xue's death, no one had set foot there again.

What Ji Li could not understand, however, was that Old Xue had died on the fifth floor. Although Xiao Qi was only around seven or eight years old, she should have had some concept of death.

"You... didn't you see your father?"

Thinking this, Ji Li still couldn't help but ask. Perhaps variables had emerged after he left.

Xiao Qi looked like a startled fawn, terrified of Ji Li's gaze, yet he was the only adult she could rely on at the moment.

She hesitated for a moment, then said in a crisp, clear voice:

"No..."

Ji Li glanced at the girl with a somewhat peculiar look, then took her arm and walked toward the depths of the fifth floor.

The entire way was filled with silence; both of them remained quiet.

Until Ji Li reached his former destination—the office room that had held Old Xue's corpse—only to find an empty desk and not a single trace of a person!

"Old Xue's body has disappeared..."

Ji Li stared at the scene before him in disbelief.

The ghost had not shown its face up to this point; why would it bother to move Old Xue's body away?

He pulled Old Xue's smartphone from his jacket, lit up the screen, looked at the unread messages sent by the texting man, and pressed his lips together.

He turned his head and asked Xiao Qi, who wore a bewildered expression, "Why are you in this building?"

Xiao Qi didn't quite understand why Ji Li had brought her here. Hearing the question, she instinctively clutched the little teddy bear tightly against her chest.

"A power outage happened at home, and since Dad had to work the night shift, he brought me here to spend the night.

I was sleeping right over there, hugging my bear.

Later, Dad woke me up rather strangely and said we were going to play hide-and-seek.

I was half-asleep and very reluctant, but Dad's tone was very firm; he insisted that I had to hide.

So, I hid inside a cardboard box outside.

But after a while, I fell asleep again.

When I woke up, Dad was gone..."

As Xiao Qi spoke, her eye sockets gradually grew red and moist, yet she looked remarkably strong, holding the tears back from spilling over.

Ji Li remained unmoved. Mulling over Xiao Qi's words, he made a guess in his mind:

"Xiao Qi shouldn't be lying. Old Xue waking his daughter up in the middle of the night and ordering her to hide must be because he discovered something he shouldn't have.

I'm afraid that by that time, Old Xue already knew there was a ghost in the building and sensed the approaching crisis, which is why he made Xiao Qi hide in advance."

The sequence of events was coherent, surprisingly smooth.

Yet Ji Li suddenly realized something. He drew a sharp breath and began to calculate in his mind.

Then, a sense of wrongness washed over him.

"There are a total of forty-three staff members in the building. Regardless of whether this number comes from the ghost or the hotel's statistics, there shouldn't be any error.

And Xiao Qi's identity is special; she is an outsider. That means counting her, this building should have a total of forty-two—no, forty-four people!

The other missing person..."

Ji Li suddenly thought of a breakthrough in the matter. Old Xue, the texting man, and that missing person were very likely acquainted with one another.

Old Xue had remained stationed on the fifth floor all along; he certainly wasn't the first person to obtain the news that the building was haunted.

Perhaps the primary ringleaders were the missing person and the texting man. They must have obtained the information and passed it on to Old Xue.

It could be said that those two had dragged Old Xue into this mess.

Whatever these three had discovered must be the most crucial secret of this task!

Ji Li hurriedly pulled Old Xue's phone from his coat again. This time, he was determined to see what those unread messages from the texting man actually said!

Old Xue's phone was a rather outdated model without fingerprint unlocking; it only used a passcode.

He leaned down, trying to soften his facial expression as much as possible, and asked Xiao Qi gently, "This is your father's phone. Do you know what the unlock passcode is?"

"My father's phone... why is it with you..."

Xiao Qi's mind was not yet fully mature, but she was somewhat sharp, especially since she was deeply afraid of Ji Li's pupils, which seemed to be turning grey.

Ji Li was unaware of his own changes; he was simply anxious to uncover the truth.

Calculating the time, he figured that the killings downstairs were likely over, and now his turn to be attacked could come at any second.

He had not yet realized that his own hotel phone could no longer receive calls, nor did he know the situation on Fang Shenyan and Tong Guan's end.

Including the fact that there were still ten staff members on the first floor who stubbornly refused to die!

For a child not even old enough to be called a teenage girl, Ji Li couldn't even be bothered to fabricate an excuse.

"I don't know where your father is, but if you want to find him, you need to help me unlock this phone."

Xiao Qi's small face instantly turned deathly pale. Her only relative had gone missing right after she woke up, and holding on until now had already been extraordinarily difficult for her.

Hearing Ji Li's words, the tears she had held back for so long finally streamed down her face.

Looking at the tear-stained Xiao Qi, Ji Li felt both helpless and somewhat impatient; he never had the patience to coax children.

"I just need you to tell me the phone password, and I'll take you to find your dad. Stop crying!

I'll only give you two seconds!"

"324566!"

This time, Xiao Qi stated Old Xue's phone password without hesitation. Ji Li glanced at her and said nothing more.

Successfully unlocking the device, he immediately tapped into the chat history between Old Xue and the texting man.

"Xiao Li, what on earth are you showing me in the middle of the night? Why are you being so secretive?"

"Old Xue! Don't take this as a joke. Brother Xu and I found a group of terrorists on the eighth floor!

They are searching door-to-door right now! All the other colleagues have been taken away!"

"How is that possible? I've been sleeping with Xiao Qi the whole time and didn't hear a peep."

This Xiao Li must be the name of the texting man. It seemed Xiao Li had discovered something and wanted to show it to Old Xue.

Reading up to this point, Ji Li frowned. He likewise couldn't understand why Tong Guan and Chang Nian, who were in charge of this floor, hadn't discovered the location of Old Xue and Xiao Qi.

This did not align with his understanding of Tong Guan.

However, he temporarily suppressed this doubt, as he was instantly captivated by the ensuing dialogue.

"What kind of photo are you trying to show me anyway?"

"Don't get scared when you see it.

In this world... there are ghosts!"