Chapter 18: Distinctions in Missions

In the hollow stairwell, only the rhythmic sounds of three sets of footsteps echoed in succession. Ji Li followed the bloodstains on the ground while making a rapid descent.

"Cao Yuan's death won't buy us much time!" Fang Shenyan’s figure was upright, his warning voice echoing softly in everyone's ears.

"Damn it, how did this ghost end up looking so hideous? We finally run into a female ghost, and it turns out to be this kind of trash!" Perhaps because the path to survival was within reach, the Second Personality’s temper had calmed significantly, and he even had the heart to crack a joke.

"Judging by the ghost's behavior, the path to survival must be correct. As long as we find the man in the raincoat, we can definitely complete this mission!" The Third Personality’s tone was also uncharacteristically surprised.

It was evident that the difficulty of tasks after reaching the one-star hotel level was incomparable to before. This was leagues beyond the mirror-ghost mission they had previously experienced; the complexity and sinister nature of this mission were the most intense Ji Li had ever seen.

Yu Guo, trailing at the back, occasionally looked up toward the stairs above, his breathing somewhat ragged. "The man in the raincoat can’t have gone far. He’s been away from 702 for over five minutes. If he really is the sixth person, he might already be heading back!"

The bloodstains had already spread to the fourth floor, and Ji Li’s expression grew anxious. Cao Yuan must be completely dead by now, and with the path to survival erupting, he feared the ghost would soon begin its next attack. They were down to only three people now. In particular, he felt that both Fang and Yu possessed abilities far beyond those of typical newcomers. Fang Shenyan’s sharp mind and Yu Guo’s bold execution were rare virtues in this life of hell. Regardless of their motives or character, as long as they were useful… they had to be protected!

Ji Li hesitated. If the ghost arrived before the man in the raincoat, would he be willing to risk his own life to save someone else?

Just then, he heard a flurry of hurried footsteps coming from the stairwell below, accompanied by groans. Ji Li’s body jolted to a halt. Having run down so many floors, he had yet to see any other living soul. So, these hurried footsteps coming up…

Sure enough, just as Ji Li and the others paused by the railing near the third floor, a panicked man wearing the iconic raincoat appeared!

"He’s here! He’s finally here, damn it!" The Second Personality let out a curse. Though it felt neither urgency nor fatigue, it still broke a sweat for Ji Li’s life.

"Hoo…" A cold wind swept past. The man in the raincoat realized there were living people only a few steps above him and jerked his head up.

Ji Li finally saw the face of this actual victim. It was a fair, delicate face with bangs obscuring his eyebrows; even a casual glance revealed that this person was exceptionally handsome. However, this aesthetic was ruined by scruffy stubble, and most shocking of all was the man’s right eye. A piece of black cloth was wrapped around his injured eye, but blood continued to ooze downward, leaving the right half of his face a deep, crimson red. The overall impression was that of a fractured visage.

"It’s you!"

As their gazes met, the man in the raincoat was the first to speak. His voice was shrill, suggesting his mental state had been pushed to the limit. His eyes locked onto Yu Guo first. That wounded right eye was the handiwork of Yu Guo’s sharp blade!

Sensing the man's fury, Yu Guo quickly waved his hands. "No, no, no! Brother, we’re all on the same side; what happened before was just a misunderstanding!"

Expecting the man in the raincoat to attack first, they were surprised when, after saying this, he turned and scrambled downward! Ji Li didn’t blink; now that the sixth person had appeared, he wasn't about to let him go. The moment the man turned to flee, Ji Li planted his hands on the railing and vaulted over with agility, landing perfectly. He caught the man in the raincoat squarely as he was about to bolt down the stairs, pinning him with all four limbs. Feeling the violent struggle beneath him, Ji Li found it hard to maintain his grip.

Without needing a prompt, Fang Shenyan and Yu Guo rushed over to help restrain him. With the strength of three adult men, even the now-deranged man in the raincoat stood no chance of resisting.

"Who the hell are you people! Why do you keep harming me over and over again!" the man in the raincoat roared.

Having freed his hands, Ji Li didn’t answer. Instead, he began searching the man's pockets. With almost no effort, he pulled out two cell phones. One was the phone Ji Li had seen before, covered in cartoon stickers. The other, however, was immediately familiar to them all. It was the dedicated phone issued by the Tianhai Hotel to its staff!

"The sixth person! It really is you!" Yu Guo hauled the man up from the floor and pressed him against the iron railing to prevent him from escaping.

"What sixth person! There’s no time! Let me go!"

Ji Li ignored his clamor and pulled out the hotel phone to check the message logs, a look of "as I thought" appearing on his face.

"Recipient: Tianhai Hotel, Branch 7 Employee Chen Yu. Please survive in Unit 4, Building 2 of the Sanhe Residential Compound until 8:00 AM the next morning to permanently escape the ghost’s entanglement. During this period, you have ten minutes per day to leave Room 702; exceeding this time will result in erasure for violating the rules! Sender: Tianhai."

Fang Shenyan leaned in to read it. "His mission is indeed different from ours. It explicitly states the mission location is within the entire Unit 4!"

Ji Li nodded. "Perhaps because he had already seen the ghost of 701, he held onto the hotel’s mission as a last resort and followed it faithfully."

"You guys..." The man in the raincoat finally understood. The three people before him seemed deeply connected to the Tianhai Hotel mission he had received.

Ji Li glanced at the floors above; they were eerily quiet. The theory that staying near the man in the raincoat was the path to survival grew more certain. He softly explained everything, including his theories about the two rooms, 701 and 702. The man in the raincoat confirmed his suspicions. Yu Guo released his hold, and the man slumped dejectedly against the railing.

"I’ve been driven mad by that ghost. It stays in 702 almost every moment; it never moves. I didn't know if the 'ten minutes' the hotel mentioned were cumulative, so I never dared to leave. I once tried to kill it, but ghosts can't be killed... Until today, when it suddenly vanished into thin air after I grabbed it! I thought it had returned to 701 and that I was finally free. But I didn't expect it to come right back a little later..."

Hearing this, Ji Li and the others nodded slightly. "It seems when the man in the raincoat came to the door of 701 earlier, he was trying to confirm if the ghost had left. That smile of his was likely because he mistakenly thought he had truly sent the ghost away. And the ghost’s disappearance was actually the time it spent going to 701 to kill Ding Miaoxin..."