Morning light had descended from the Fourth Floor to the Third Floor, yet it could not penetrate this room filled with gloom and cold.
The room's four walls were bare gray. The floor was covered in coarse gravel and sand, while more than half the ceiling had collapsed. Thin electrical wires dangled weakly from it like dried-up dead snakes.
Large piles of discarded construction materials filled the already cramped room. Various used hotel supplies had been wedged into the gaps between the debris, barely clearing out a small patch of open space.
In this small room, utterly out of place within the Rose Hotel, seven men and women of different heights and builds sat in a circle. Their broad black robes were spread beneath them as cushions, and they stared intently at a withered, bizarre corpse, silently brewing something.
The corpse in the center of the seven had bluish-gray skin stretched over a long, thin skeleton. A rain cape, badly damaged in many places, barely covered its body. Its face was hidden beneath a torn oil-paper umbrella, making its features impossible to see.
"It's reached its limit..."
At that moment, a man with a low, hoarse voice spoke as he removed the White Mask from his face.
When he finished speaking, a weathered face with imposing bone structure was revealed before the corpse. He was Hou Guisheng.
"This is the third ghost messenger about to break down. What we've been probing for won't yield any results."
After Hou Guisheng voluntarily removed his mask, another woman spoke. Yet her voice was exceptionally rough, like a man's.
However, when she removed her Blue Mask, it revealed an exceedingly well-behaved, round oval face, creating a jarring mismatch between her appearance and voice.
This oval-faced woman was one of the Rose Hotel's earliest guests.