Chapter Thirteen: Real Stimulation

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The cold wind of the autumn night swept in through the open glass window, striking in waves and piercing the flesh of every living person.

Ji Li’s thick, dark hair fluttered in the wind as he crouched on the floor and began searching through the tool bag.

Rope, a headlamp, an electric drill—one item after another was laid out on the floor in a neat row.

Ji Li’s conjecture regarding the way to survive continued to reverberate in the minds of the other survivors, growing more and more intense.

“Exactly… exactly! If this ghost’s killing rule is to kill the woman first and then come for us, then as long as we interfere with its killing, we might really be able to delay it until tomorrow morning!”

Yu Guo’s nerves were stretched taut. Unable to calm himself, he paced restlessly around the room.

Every so often, he pressed himself against the hole in the eastern wall and watched the progress of the killing in the neighboring Room 702.

“We have to hurry. That woman is still struggling, but it probably won’t last much longer. Two minutes! Two minutes at most!” Yu Guo counted down from the side.

Fang Shenyan looked at Ji Li’s stern face, then turned toward the window. “What’s your plan?”

Ji Li fastened the safety rope around his body and secured the other end to the window frame. Then, with light steps, he sprang onto the sill.

Moonlight illuminated his back, making his face appear even colder and more aloof.

“Watching through a hole in the wall is ultimately like trying to glimpse the whole leopard through a narrow tube. I’m going to get a direct look at the entire process of the killing scene!

“A dead end, turned around, becomes a way to live!

“I don’t know what I can do to stop that woman from dying.

“But I want to try.”

Fang Shenyan nodded. “Are you sure you can do it? The mission site is Room 701. If you go to the window of Room 702, would that count as violating the hotel’s will?”

“I observed the distance between the two windows just now. If I lie on my side and brace both feet against the window of Room 701, I can lean over the window of Room 702 from the chest up.

“By that measure, I won’t really have left the mission site!”

In truth, Ji Li was not certain of this either. But this method of delaying things indefinitely was, at present, the plan that most resembled a path to survival.

There was already one dead person, and the second death would soon follow.

With only a one-in-four chance of survival, he could not afford to gamble.

Fang Shenyan said nothing more. He merely crouched beside Yu Guo and replied, “We’ll coordinate with you from here, depending on the circumstances.”

Knowing that time was pressing, Ji Li stopped hesitating. With a sudden twist on the narrow sill, his entire body spun once through the air.

He went from lying on his back to facing downward, both toes braced firmly against the sill. His body swayed for a moment.

The autumn wind cut viciously across his cheeks like a knife, leaving them faintly raw and aching.

Without the safety rope, Ji Li would never have dared to be so reckless.

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With his right hand, gloved, he gripped the rope and gradually fed it downward. At the same time, he relaxed his body and stretched his left arm far out.

Bit by bit, he reached toward the short window ledge of Room 702, no more than seven centimeters wide.

In barely two seconds, Ji Li, hanging in midair, had already broken into a sweat. His long hair fell down along his neck, swaying with an irritating tickle.

His concentration was absolute. His eyes remained fixed on the window ledge ahead.

His current posture was utterly unnatural. His right hand gripped the rope, secretly applying force to lower himself, and every inch of tension had to be controlled with perfect precision.

His left arm stretched forward, trying to seize the ledge, which was scarcely thicker than his arm. Worst of all, both his feet had to remain firmly planted on the ledge of Room 701 without slipping away for even an instant.

This impossibly awkward posture left Ji Li suffering terribly.

Meanwhile, Yu Guo, who had kept his eyes fixed on the peephole, was growing increasingly grim.

His mental fortitude was arguably the strongest among them all. In certain respects, he was even several degrees steadier than Ji Li, who had already encountered several ghosts.

“Almost… almost… I can see that woman’s struggles growing weaker and weaker. Her moans are fading, too!”

Sweat beaded on Yu Guo’s face. He turned to Fang Shenyan, whose expression appeared mild on the surface but was in fact rigid and emotionless, and asked in a low voice, “Can you stop it from killing her from here?”

Fang Shenyan pressed his lips together and habitually pushed up the glasses resting on the bridge of his nose. “Yes. But there’s a risk.”

Yu Guo glared fiercely at him. “The chance to find a way out is right in front of us. What are you afraid of? Just say it.”

Fang Shenyan nodded, then looked toward the only man in the back who had been doing nothing at all.

“Cao Yuan, go to the living room and bring me that peeping diary.”

Cao Yuan had been completely idle until now. At a loss, he froze when he heard Fang Shenyan’s order. “What?”

“Go!”

Fang Shenyan’s sudden roar startled even Yu Guo beside him.

Cao Yuan looked at that rigid, vacant face and did not dare say another word. In the shortest time possible, he dashed to the living room and brought back the diary.

Watching Fang Shenyan leaf through it, Yu Guo asked blankly, “What exactly are you trying to do?”

Fang Shenyan ignored him. He pushed Yu Guo aside, positioned himself in front of the hole, and began reading aloud:

“There is always a faint, elusive fragrance drifting from their body. I lie on the sheets where they slept, sniffing wildly, intoxicated…

“They could never imagine that every night, when they return home and lie down in bed, they are actually sleeping in the place where I once slept, wrapped in my scent.

“Whenever I think of that, I want nothing more than to cut myself apart and merge into their quilt, becoming blood-red goose down, embracing them every night!”

Yu Guo nearly gagged as he listened. Cao Yuan was horrified as well.

But then they understood Fang Shenyan’s plan.

To provoke it.

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The diary contained the ghost’s own handwritten words, and thus held unimaginable significance for it.

Now, having the hotel staff read those words aloud not only tore away the last scrap of its shame, but also exposed and proclaimed the foul, rancid obsession buried within it.

And the method worked.

The raincoat-clad man, who had been straddling the woman, suddenly shuddered violently as Fang Shenyan’s words drew near. Then its expression seemed to descend into a frenzy.

It flung the woman off the bed. Carrying a chill, bloody stench, it strode rapidly toward the peeping hole in the corner of the wall.

“This ghost is different. It has an extremely deep obsession—so deep that it has to torment the woman before killing her!

“If it were another ghost, provoking it might not work at all!”

Fang Shenyan paid no attention to the approaching ghost. Based on their earlier deduction, unless it killed the woman first, they should be completely beyond its ability to harm.

Though this conclusion was merely a subjective deduction by the living, based on the killing pattern inferred from Ding Miaoxin’s death, carrying out a mission like this was nothing less than gambling with their lives.

Fang Shenyan appeared cautious by nature, but in truth, he possessed tremendous nerve.

“Yu Guo, take out the knife!”

“Why?”

“The killing pattern still needs further confirmation.”

Fang Shenyan abruptly drew the slender dagger from beneath his ribs and shoved it into Yu Guo’s palm.

“When it arrives, use this knife to stab it in the eye!

“If we still cannot be killed, then the killing pattern will be fully confirmed, and Ji Li’s proposed path to survival will become far more plausible!

“Since we’ve decided to provoke it, we might as well make the provocation as intense as possible!”

Yu Guo gripped the dagger, its blade gleaming coldly, and for the first time gazed at the man who had entered the hotel alongside him.

His eyes shone with excitement. In his view, all their previous spirit-hunting expeditions had been nothing compared with this provocation.

They were actually going to plunge a knife into a ghost’s eye!

Seeing Yu Guo’s shoulders trembling slightly, Fang Shenyan gave a casual smile. “There’s no need to be afraid. It probably won’t attack us…”

Yu Guo was already so exhilarated that he was beside himself. His eyes gleamed as he muttered incessantly, “This is great! Absolutely great! We should have done this from the beginning!”

Fang Shenyan swallowed the rest of his sentence. Inwardly, he could not help cursing him as a lunatic.

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