Chapter Five: The Final Moment
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A dead end corresponds to a path to life.
If the dead end hypothesis fails, then those still alive will face a terrifying, irreversible plight.
Ji Li’s plans to take the initiative twice were not wrong. Aside from the vague death of Liuzi, there was a buffer period between his own attack and the tall thin man’s death.
Moreover, the final words of the tall thin man gave him an illusion.
“Don’t look at it.” This was the living’s active observation of the picture frame.
From the tall thin man’s standpoint, the picture frame’s initial target was Ji Li. In the chaos, as Ji Li’s gaze shifted, the frame’s focus drifted and swept over the man’s face.
It was at that moment that the curse was etched, and the tall thin man died.
Thus, Ji Li instinctively believed it was his own gaze that triggered the dead end.
But he overlooked that the picture frame could rotate on its own!
Because of this false clue, Ji Li’s reasoning plunged into a bottomless abyss.
That’s why he concluded the dead end meant “the living and the picture frame making direct eye contact.”
But Huang Mao kept his eyes tightly shut and never actively looked at the frame, giving rise to an even more terrifying hypothesis:
The true dead end: anyone whose face is scanned and etched into a portrait by the picture frame is doomed to die.
After Ji Li figured this out, he shuddered violently, as if realizing something...
The video call was still on!
Huang Mao used the rear camera to film the coffin, so when he died, his phone naturally fell to the ground...
Now, Ji Li’s phone screen showed complete darkness.
This meant the screen displaying his face was exposed openly to the air!
His scalp nearly exploded in panic. Just as he was about to throw the phone away, he instinctively lowered his head—and caught sight of an empty picture frame hovering right opposite the screen!
The frame had emerged from the coffin, suspended in midair, aimed directly at Huang Mao’s phone screen—and at Ji Li’s face!
The dead end was about to trigger!
Ji Li threw the phone away in a panic, but the sense of dread did not fade. Instead, an uncanny chill began to envelop his whole body.
A hand suddenly reached out from the coffin again, grabbing his hair and dragging him toward the coffin!
Ji Li’s heart raced. He swung back and severed the strand of hair, then tumbled forward, desperately trying to escape—but the hand pulled him back immediately.
In this critical moment, he lifted his collar up to cover his face, clutching at a protruding stone on the ground with his palm, barely fending off the ghost’s attack.
But it was merely a delaying tactic!
Having endured multiple missions, he instantly understood: this meant he was on the brink of the dead end.
Perhaps it had only caught a fleeting glimpse of him, insufficient to fully etch his portrait.
Therefore, unlike Huang Mao and the others, he had not died immediately, gaining a brief respite!
Summoning all his strength, he lay prone on the ground, gripping the stone with his hand, pressing his feet against the coffin board to hold a precarious balance.
“Smash that damned picture frame right now!?”
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His second personality spiraled into frenzy, screaming sharply in Ji Li’s mind.
“Absolutely not!
The picture frame is the ghost’s vessel—it cannot be destroyed!” The third personality began to analyze calmly and proposed another solution.
“There’s less than half the mission time left. Can you keep blocking your face and struggling with the ghost until the mission ends?”
Ji Li was anxious. His face was drenched in sweat beneath the fabric, yet the chilling aura around him persisted.
He was nearly certain that the empty frame hovered right before him, waiting either for him to be fully exposed or for the mission to end.
Hearing the third personality’s suggestion, he retorted gravely:
“No way. I’ve lost most of my strength due to the injury on my left wrist—I can’t hold out for three hours.
Besides, what you’re suggesting is merely avoiding the dead end. The mission demands finding a way to life to exorcise the ghost!
Otherwise, if the ghost remains after three hours when the mission ends, with no rules to restrain it, I’ll never escape this alley!”
In just a few thoughts, Ji Li and his two personalities had devised several solutions internally—but none could break the predicament.
Frowning, he struggled to steady his mind, certain the path to life had appeared somewhere—he had just overlooked it!
At that moment, he felt a faint light on his covered face...
“Light...”
“Light!”
Suddenly, a memory struck Ji Li’s mind—an anomaly that had remained unresolved until now.
Why, during the second encounter, when he was attacked and his face was fully exposed to the empty frame, did he not die instantly?
Instead, he experienced this “half dead end” struggle with the ghost!
“Street lamp!
When I was attacked in the second round, the first thing I saw wasn’t the frame, but a dazzling reflection!
The empty frame’s surface is glass; its goal is to illuminate the entire face of the living.
But because I stood directly under the street lamp, the ghost’s image became blurred by the reflective glare, so it couldn’t capture my full face!
That explains this strange ‘half dead end’ situation!”
The fog in Ji Li’s mind cleared instantly. All clues converged, forming a complete path to life!
As long as he prevented the empty frame from ever reflecting his face, he could utterly break the dead end.
Thus, creating a path to life!
“Your bag!
You have a headlamp in your bag—if you put it on your head, it will completely counter the ghost’s dead end!
It won’t be able to capture your face anymore, only a fuzzy light source!”
The second personality, having died alongside Ji Li once before, feared that sensation deeply. Upon realizing the path to life, it raved wildly in Ji Li’s mind.
Without hesitation, Ji Li took action.
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Before the ghost could strike, he clearly remembered his backpack lay open not far beneath him—now very close after the earlier struggle!
Ji Li decisively gave up struggling with the hand dragging him, letting his body be pulled toward the coffin.
Relying on memory, he groped for the bag and clutched it to his chest!
“Quick! Only three seconds left!”
The third personality lost its composure and shouted urgently.
Ji Li squeezed the backpack under his left arm, his right hand fumbling inside.
“Three!”
At the same time, Ji Li found an irregularly shaped object—it felt cool with straps around its edges. He had no time to identify it.
“Two!”
The final countdown began. Ji Li yanked the fabric down. At the moment his sight cleared, he bent his head sharply, refusing to look at the empty frame hovering in midair.
“One!”
More than half his body had been pulled inside the coffin. The hand gripping him belonged to the already dead Huang Mao!
In half a second, he switched on the headlamp and placed it on his head.
The empty picture frame—the ghost’s vessel—now faced his illuminated face!
But this time, Ji Li’s gaze did not waver. The 300,000-lumen light on his head transformed his face into a glowing halo within the frame!
From another perspective, in the ghost’s eyes, Ji Li no longer had any facial features—impossible to trace a death portrait.
“Thud!”
The empty frame wavered briefly in the air before crashing to the ground.
Within its white background, a gaunt, yellow-faced old man’s image abruptly appeared.
It glared hatefully at the living man standing in the coffin, then vanished instantly.
The bodies of Liuzi, the tall thin man, and Huang Mao that Ji Li had been standing on disappeared without a trace.
The funeral procession’s white-clad figures also dispersed completely. The beggar alley was free of supernatural forces.
Ji Li had lost all strength. Having endured so long, his left wrist numb from blood loss, he collapsed weakly to the ground.
As he fainted, his phone vibrated once. A timely email arrived:
“Tianhai Hotel, Branch Seven, Acting Manager Ji Li.
Successfully accepted the third resident, meeting upgrade criteria to become a one-star hotel.
Branch Seven will recruit five additional staff members to manage the hotel alongside the manager.
Note: Before reaching two stars, the acting manager can only create one reasonable rule to govern staff, with no significant difference in essence.”