Resurrected Personality

The deep midnight rain poured into the alley. A corpse leaned quietly against the corner of the wall.

Its long hair was blown open by the wind, revealing a face as thin as white paper, its head tilted powerlessly.

The entire neck seemed to have been snapped by brute force, twisted into an exaggerated, unnatural angle.

But as a drop of rain seeped into its wide-open eyes, the broken bones let out a crisp snap, and the unfocused pupils showed signs of converging.

Thought began to reassemble, to recover.

At the same time, two anxious voices sounded in his mind.

"Who am I?"

"You are Ji Li."

"Who are you?"

"I am also Ji Li.

We are all Ji Li! We are all Ji Li! We are all Ji Li!"

The chaotic voices churned in his mind. Stimulated by the repeated cries, the body in the corpse suddenly tensed, and in an instant, it stood up, scattering a shower of raindrops.

"Hoo!"

Ji Li had died, and then he had come back to life.

"Failed..."

He exhaled a puff of white mist, and Ji Li rubbed his aching neck. His dull, gray eyes gazed at the world in the rain, washing away the confusion after his revival.

After a long pause, he suddenly took a step forward and roared at the voices in his head, "Shut up!"

The world in his mind fell silent, and Ji Li also quieted down.

From the dirty alley into the glittering city, his steps quickened, heading in a certain direction. The lights and neon signs stretched his silhouette longer and longer.

In a daze, there seemed to be three shadows on the ground.

Shanming City, on the other side of the moat.

Ji Li silently looked at a public restroom in front of him, as if contemplating. After a moment, he reached out and pushed open the small door.

In an instant, everything changed.

Behind the door wasn't a restroom, but a luxuriously decorated hotel lobby.

Under the brilliant lights, golden light illuminated Ji Li's pale face. The gentle warm air quickly dried his soaked clothes.

He looked at the seventeen black and white portraits hanging in the center of the golden hall, starkly out of place with the surroundings, and remained silent.

"Congratulations to Tianhai Hotel, Branch No. 7, for the successful return of its acting manager, Mr. Ji Li.

Although the reception mission was not completed, you are still welcome to rest and enjoy a cup of warm tea to ward off the autumn rain's chill..."

Ji Li waved his hand, interrupting the sweet female voice from the broadcast, and walked towards the stairs on the left with a displeased expression.

"I just had my neck broken by that thing, and it still hurts! Can you find me a masseuse?"

"Main personality? Main personality? Are you still there?"

In Ji Li's mind, the previous voice began to chatter incessantly. He frowned and ignored it.

Since waking up here with all his memories gone half a year ago, he had died twice.

Although he could "resurrect" each time without any injuries, the price was that another "personality" would appear in his mind.

As of now, including the main personality, his soul had been cut into three parts.

After losing his memory, he couldn't recall anything. Even the name "Ji Li" was the only word left in his mind when he woke up.

So, he was convinced his name was Ji Li, but he wasn't sure if he was a normal person.

"Tsk!"

Ji Li's thoughts were interrupted. A large pool of scarlet blood suddenly appeared on the carpet beneath his feet, thick and forming a single mass.

"205! 205! Can you cut your wrists in the bathtub next time? The blood is seeping out the door!"

As soon as these words were spoken, the bloodstains on the carpet began to recede, retreating back into the gap under the door from the hallway.

Ji Li had just turned his head when he heard the sound of glass marbles bouncing from further down the corridor.

He narrowed his eyes and looked closely. On the corridor corresponding to 210, a glass marble, with no one controlling it, was bouncing up and down.

"210! Get back to your room!"

A flash of lightning streaked across the sky, illuminating the second floor of the hotel.

It shone on Ji Li's extremely grim face, and in a daze, it also reflected a headless figure by the door of 210.

After checking all ten rooms, Ji Li finally returned to his own room on the third floor.

He took off his damp jacket and slumped powerlessly into a chair. The fluorescent computer screen illuminated his pale face.

Tianhai Hotel was a bizarre hotel hidden beneath the mundane world.

Half a month ago, Ji Li, having lost everything, awoke here.

The hotel was empty at the time. The moment he woke up, a female voice sounded from the hotel's broadcast.

"Welcome, Mr. Ji Li, to Tianhai Hotel Branch Seven. You are now the acting branch manager.

You have two responsibilities:

1. To receive new residents and supervise them to prevent them from escaping. 2. The reception task is currently only for you.

When a task appears, its specific content will be sent to the hotel's official email. Please register and log in within five minutes to check it later.

For the resident supervision task, once a resident checks in, hotel staff only need to patrol every night to prevent them from escaping the hotel.

Currently, Branch Seven is the lowest 'Ordinary Hotel' level. To upgrade to a 'One-Star Hotel,' you need to receive three residents.

Hotel levels are divided into: Ordinary, One-Star, Two-Star, Three-Star, Four-Star, and Five-Star.

Hotel upgrades are based on the number of residents received.

Upon reaching a new level, corresponding 'Welfare Rules' will be added for the staff of the branch.

Upon reaching the 'Five-Star Hotel' level, all employees of that branch will be freed from Tianhai and regain their freedom.

Please do your best to complete the tasks and upgrade the hotel."

These few sentences were the only sounds Ji Li heard after waking up.

At the same time, he saw a brand-new mobile phone placed on the ground at his feet. Its screen was lit, displaying a registration and login page.

No normal person would obey these inexplicable hotel orders.

Ji Li was no exception, so he discovered the ability to come back from the dead for the first time.

His choice was to ignore the phone and walk out of the hotel.

The moment he pushed the door open, he saw the moat of Shanming City in front of him, but behind him was an extremely simple public restroom.

The door was open, and a dazzling golden light from the hotel flickered from within the restroom. Ji Li couldn't believe his eyes.

But this extremely bizarre scene represented a terror Ji Li had never encountered before!

At the same time, the five minutes the hotel's female voice had given for registering his email had passed.

Ji Li's inaction had a price: he was instantly consumed by flames, turning into a pile of ash!

This was his first death, and the beginning of his Second Personality's revival.

He had no choice but to return to the hotel, pick up the phone, register, and become the acting branch manager of Tianhai Hotel Branch Seven.

Throughout that entire day, Ji Li's life was completely overturned.

He had thought he was just a pitiful person who had lost his memory, but after dying and then being reborn, his Second Personality revived from within his body.

It was then that he suddenly realized he wasn't a normal person!

The hotel's official explanation wasn't extensive; it didn't even disclose the identities of the residents to be received.

What truly made Ji Li understand his current predicament were the seventeen black and white portraits on the hall wall.

These were the past managers of Tianhai Hotel, all of whom had died without exception.

However, in the corner of each portrait, the hotel's unwritten rules were scrawled in ink, including the details of the reception tasks that led to their tragic deaths!

After digesting all the rules, Ji Li's worldview was shattered.

This world had light and darkness, people and ghosts.

And ghosts, to humans, could not be harmed or fought.

They could be considered natural enemies.

But the two jobs at Tianhai Hotel forced humans to confront these ghosts!

The "reception task" required them to go to supernatural locations and bring back ghosts to stay!

The "daily supervision" involved nightly patrols to prevent the ghost residents from escaping the hotel!

The managers and staff who entered the hotel, without exception, were not willing participants. Like Ji Li, they were inexplicably pulled into the hotel to become staff.

From then on, they were forced to perform tasks.

The hotel, for both living people and ghosts, was a supreme existence.

Everything it commanded was impossible to refuse, or it meant instant death!

It was like a curse, planted the moment one entered the hotel.

According to the inscriptions on the edges of the portraits, it wasn't that no one had tried to escape, but their fates were all tragic deaths.

Similar to Ji Li's earlier failure to log into his email, they were instantly incinerated by an unknown fire.

However, none of them possessed Ji Li's special and mysterious physical attributes, allowing them to try again.

Still, the reception task, which had nearly wiped out Branch Seven, was the most difficult of the two jobs.

Yet, there were still some outstanding managers who survived for a considerable time, completing several tasks and receiving ghosts.

They had retained the direction for completing the mission.

"Ghosts can kill, but there are still restrictions and rules."

Ji Li kept this sentence firmly in mind, especially after experiencing the escort missions later on, he had also summarized his own findings.

Ghosts had to follow specific rules when killing. As long as these rules were identified and broken, they would no longer be able to attack living people. It would also count as a successful capture. Bringing them back to the hotel would complete the mission.

However, even so, the death rate remained extremely high.

Including the recent failed attempt, he had experienced three escort missions and died once again.

The two ghosts, "205" and "210," were the only achievements in the past half-month.

As for escaping Tianhai's rules by reaching a "Five-Star Hotel," Ji Li couldn't even imagine it.

Judging by the inscriptions on the memorial portraits, the highest level achieved by previous managers of Branch No. 7 was only escorting six ghosts, reaching two stars.

But after just becoming a two-star hotel, they had been wiped out.

Ji Li had a guess: perhaps every time the hotel reached a new level, the ghosts they had to face would become even more terrifying!

Even with the "benefits" added, they might still be unable to fight them!

This made Ji Li completely unable to fathom whether reaching the five-star level and escorting eighteen ghosts was even a possible feat!

"Ding dong!"

The computer screen lit up brightly, and a new email popped up from the bottom right corner.

Ji Li rubbed his neck in frustration, sighed, and then clicked to read it.

"Recipient: Tianhai Hotel, Acting Manager of Branch No. 7, Ji Li.

Please proceed to Beggars' Alley in the western district of this city at midnight on October 21, 2015. Find the way out within three hours and escort the new resident back to the hotel.

This is a hotel star-up mission. If completed, Branch No. 7 will be upgraded to a one-star hotel.

The benefit of this level is: expanding the staff.

Sender: Tianhai."

Before Ji Li could speak, the Second Personality in his mind had already started chattering.

"What is this hotel! It keeps sending me emails, telling me to pick up some damn ghost resident! How am I supposed to pick them up!"

"What are ghost residents..." the newly formed Third Personality asked softly.

"Aren't ghosts just ghosts, ghosts that kill people!"

Ji Li's head was pounding from their noise, and he slammed the table. "All of you, shut up!"

He tilted his head back and sighed. In fact, the mission that had just failed was already a promotion mission.

It seemed that due to his unique inability to die, Tianhai's rules had changed.

However, the "benefit" of promotion, expanding the staff, made him quite happy.

In his opinion, the reason for the previous failure was that he had always been fighting alone.

If he had other helpers, at least the probability of being attacked by ghosts could be shared!

After a long while, Ji Li was still staring at the now-darkened computer screen. He raised his arm with a gloomy expression.

A black dashed line appeared in the middle of his fair arm, as if indicating some kind of division.

Ji Li slowly closed his eyes. He could feel his life force gradually weakening with each revival, and he was not far from complete death.

He struggled desperately, only wanting to find a truth.

What were the lost memories?

Who had granted him the power to return from the dead?

Why had he awakened in the Tianhai Hotel?

Behind all of this, there was clearly a massive, unseen hand shrouding him.

And this conspiracy, which clearly belonged to supernatural powers, made him inevitably think of the Tianhai Hotel, which also possessed terrifying power!

Ji Li was different from all the previous managers.

He was not just living to live