"Little Wu? Little Wu!!"
Blondie leaned against the corner of the wall, both hands on the ground as he shrieked toward the funeral procession that had already gone far away, calling out for his dead friend!
The madness in Ji Li's eyes faded, only to be immediately replaced by a ferocious expression. His right hand clamped tightly over his severed left wrist.
Blood poured from it, the cross-section jagged and covered in dirt.
He gritted his teeth and ignored Blondie's cries. With one hand, he opened his backpack, took out a bottle of water, poured it over the wound, and roughly wrapped it in bandages.
The process was incredibly fast. It looked as though this was not his first time severing a hand to survive.
"You..." The Third Personality could see and feel everything Ji Li experienced, and it was somewhat flustered at that moment.
"Forget that useless crap!
Any injury sustained during a mission can be fully healed the moment we return to the hotel.
The key now is figuring out a way to survive the next attack!
Otherwise, we're all fucking going to meet God!" the Second Personality roared.
As Ji Li listened to the conversation between the two personalities in his mind, he rapidly sorted through the useful information at hand.
During this second clash, he had believed victory was assured. Using Blondie and the others, he had opened the coffin without spilling a drop of blood.
But no one could have expected events to change so quickly. Ji Li, who had not even made a move, had instead become the first person attacked!
Though losing his hand had cost him dearly, it did not plunge him into despair, because he had also obtained a great deal of information!
He had personally witnessed and experienced the ghost's attack. Its method of killing was to use an irresistible force to drag living people into the coffin in an instant and slaughter them!
But the method of killing was not important. What mattered was how Ji Li had unknowingly triggered the death condition!
"The coffin..."
That term appeared in his mind immediately. There had been three victims.
Everything had begun with that coffin. Both Liu Zi and Ji Li had been attacked after observing it.
Including the Tall Thin Man, who had died so abruptly...
Although Ji Li had been under immense pressure at the time, he had still heard the Tall Thin Man's scream before he died.
"Don't look at it!"
This "it" clearly referred to the coffin!
This was extremely crucial information. The three people who had been attacked now shared one common trait:
They had stared at that coffin!
It was not difficult to understand. Ji Li reached this conclusion almost instantly.
The Tall Thin Man had inexplicably become a scapegoat while Ji Li was being attacked. But now, Ji Li could probably reconstruct what had happened.
While he and Blondie had both been focused on their struggle, the idle Tall Thin Man must have been staring at that eerie coffin!
But merely looking at the coffin could not constitute the death condition, because Blondie had looked at it as well.
Ji Li suddenly recalled that every time someone was attacked, there had been a dull sound of the Coffin Lid opening. Perhaps...
The Tall Thin Man had seen something inside the opened coffin, and it was precisely because he had made eye contact with it that the death condition had truly been triggered!
In other words...
The true death condition was to look directly at something inside the coffin!
Ji Li let out a long breath. The pain from his severed hand continued to torment his nerves, yet it invigorated his active mind once again!
He slowly pushed himself upright against the wall and silently looked at Blondie, who sat on the ground in a daze, terrified and at a loss.
"I need to determine exactly what it is inside the coffin that causes the death condition..."
"They're dead... They're all dead..."
Blondie's intermittent moans echoed through the deathly silent alley, mixing with the wind and sounding especially bleak.
Ji Li sighed and patted his shoulder, making his body jolt. Clearly, the man had become skittish as a frightened bird.
"Only the two of us are left now. I just want to ask you one thing: do you want to live?!"
There was a certain magic in Ji Li's words. From his hoarse throat came hope—the hope of survival!
Blondie's mouth twitched. He stared blankly at the handsome but cold-tempered man before him, then nodded after a long silence!
Ji Li gave him a deep look and said softly, "Use your phone to add me on VX. The number is..."
Though Blondie looked confused, he was now completely obedient to Ji Li. Without another word, he did as instructed.
The funeral procession in the distance once again produced the rustling sound of footsteps. It seemed their third clash was about to begin.
There was still no panic on Ji Li's face. Holding his phone in his bloodstained right hand, he quickly accepted Blondie's friend request and started a video call with him.
"The second plan I'm about to tell you will keep you alive."
He glanced at the approaching White-robed figures, stared fixedly at the closed coffin, and said:
"When the coffin comes close again, shut your eyes tightly and do not look. Face the coffin and hold your phone against your chest."
Blondie froze. "That's it?"
Ji Li nodded. "That's it!"
Although the previous attempt had failed, it had also succeeded!
At the very least, he now knew that whatever created the death condition inside the coffin would reveal itself!
As long as Ji Li stood with his back to the coffin and video-called Blondie, he could see what exactly a living person had looked directly at the instant the coffin opened, causing their death!
This was the best possible way to avoid the death condition!
Closer... closer and closer...
The expressionless White-robed figures remained the same, each person stepping into the footprints of the one before them as they trudged forward. The coffin at the rear swayed from side to side, made even heavier by the Tall Thin Man inside.
The third clash between the living and the ghost abruptly began!
Ji Li had been utterly defeated twice before. This time, he refused to believe he would repeat the same mistake!
Ji Li held his phone toward the wall, his eyes fixed on the video screen as he watched the coffin slowly approach.
Blondie's body trembled, and the hand holding the phone shook uncontrollably, making the image somewhat blurry and unsteady.
But none of that mattered, because Ji Li was almost certain that once he knew what was inside the coffin, he would absolutely be able to find a way to survive!
The phone in Ji Li's palm creaked from the force of his grip. He was only one step away from a path to survival!
Amid an atmosphere of pressure at its peak, the coffin arrived with a thunderous crash, and Blondie's hand shook even harder.
By the dim glow of the streetlamp, Ji Li heard a strange yet familiar sound. The Coffin Lid was opening!
Sure enough, the ghost could not hold back any longer!
On the phone screen, a gap appeared within the blurry image. It was filled with darkness and chill, and Ji Li's eyes nearly bulged from their sockets!
When he saw what emerged from within the Coffin Lid, unprecedented shock burst from his eyes!
Inside the coffin on the phone screen was a mirror with a black frame and white backing, with a black ribbon tied around its border.
It was a memorial portrait frame, but there was no portrait inside it at all. Its surface was merely a layer of glass!
What truly horrified Ji Li was this.
Black lines suddenly appeared within the originally blank Mirror Frame, rapidly sketching out a human face!
It was Blondie's face!
There was no color but black and white, as though...
Blondie had become the subject of the memorial portrait in the Mirror Frame, and at the same time, the corpse meant to be inside that coffin!
Ji Li's scalp went numb. Only upon witnessing this scene did he finally realize what a terrible mistake he had made!
"The object inside the coffin is an empty Mirror Frame.
But the death condition is not looking directly at the Mirror Frame!
Rather, as long as the Mirror Frame shines on someone's face, it imprints a memorial portrait upon them, and they will inevitably die!"
Just then, he suddenly heard Blondie let out a piercing scream behind him, only for it to abruptly stop!
His fate was already obvious.
But Blondie's death did not bring matters to an end.
The phone screen, still glowing faintly, fell to the ground with his death.
Yet by an extraordinary "coincidence," its screen landed facing upward in the open air!
And Ji Li's pale, bloodless face was about to overlap with the Mirror Frame through the video call that had not yet been hung up!
Before you continue