A path to death pointed toward a path to survival.
If his deduction about the path to death was wrong, the living would face a fate too terrible to imagine.
Ji Li had not been wrong to take the initiative twice. Apart from the uncertainty surrounding Liu Zi's death, both his own attack and the Tall Thin Man's death had come with a brief window of time.
And the Tall Thin Man's last words had given him the wrong impression.
"Don't look at it." That suggested the living triggered the Mirror Frame by looking at it.
From the Tall Thin Man's perspective, the Mirror Frame had initially been aimed at Ji Li. In the chaos, as he watched it, the frame had turned and swept across his face.
That was when it caught him, marked him with a curse, and killed him.
He had assumed that looking at it was what had triggered the path to death.
He had overlooked the fact that the Mirror Frame turned on its own!
Those misleading words had sent Ji Li's reasoning straight into the abyss.
That was why he had concluded that the path to death was making eye contact with the Mirror Frame.
But Blondie had kept his eyes shut. He had never looked at the Mirror Frame. That gave rise to a far more terrifying possibility!
The true path to death: anyone whose face was swept by the Mirror Frame and turned into a memorial portrait would die!
A chill ran through Ji Li as everything clicked into place. Then he realized something...
The video call was still connected!
Blondie had been filming the coffin with his rear camera. When he died, his phone had naturally fallen to the ground...
And Ji Li's phone screen now showed nothing but darkness.
That meant the screen displaying his face was exposed!
Ji Li's scalp prickled. He was about to throw his phone away, but as he instinctively glanced down, he saw an empty Mirror Frame directly opposite the screen!
The Mirror Frame had come out of the coffin. It hovered in midair, aimed straight at Blondie's phone screen—and at Ji Li's face!
The path to death could be triggered at any moment!
Ji Li hurled his phone away, but the dread in his chest did not fade. Instead, an unnatural chill began to envelop his entire body.
A hand reached out of the coffin again, seized his long hair, and dragged him toward it!
Ji Li twisted back and slashed the captured lock of hair free. He scrambled away, only for the hand to grab him again.
In desperation, he pulled his shirt up over his head to cover his face. With his one usable hand, he hooked his fingers around a stone jutting from the ground and barely held against the ghost's pull.
But that would only buy him time!
After surviving several missions, he understood at once: he was on the brink of the path to death.
Perhaps the ghost's fleeting glimpse had not been enough to capture every detail of his face in a memorial portrait.
That was why he had not died instantly like Blondie and the others. He had been given a moment to breathe!
He threw all his strength into staying prone, fingers locked around the stone and feet braced against the coffin, achieving a precarious balance.
"Just smash that damned Mirror Frame to pieces!?"
The Second Personality had grown frantic, shrieking inside Ji Li's mind.
"Absolutely not!
The Mirror Frame is the ghost's vessel. It can't be destroyed!" The Third Personality began to analyze the situation calmly and offered another solution.
"There's less than half the mission time left. Could you keep your face covered and hold the ghost off until it ends?"
Ji Li was frantic too. Sweat soaked the face hidden beneath his shirt, and the chill around him had yet to fade.
He was almost certain the empty Mirror Frame was hovering right in front of him, waiting for his face to be fully exposed—or for the mission time to run out!
At the Third Personality's suggestion, he answered grimly:
"Impossible. With my left wrist injured, I've lost most of my strength. I can't last three hours.
And what you're suggesting only avoids the path to death. The mission requires us to find the path to survival before the ghost can be collected!
If the three hours end and the ghost is still here, the rules won't restrain it anymore. I'll never get out of this alley!"
In the span of a few thoughts, Ji Li and his two personalities considered several solutions, but none could get him out of this.
Ji Li frowned and struggled to steady himself. The path to survival had to have appeared already. What had he missed?
Just then, he sensed a faint glow through the fabric covering his face...
"Light..."
"Light!"
Ji Li suddenly recalled something strange that he had never been able to explain!
Why, in the second round, had he not died instantly when the empty Mirror Frame swept across his unobstructed face?
Why had he ended up in this "halfway to death" struggle with the ghost instead?
"The streetlamp!
When I was attacked in the second round, the first thing I saw wasn't the Mirror Frame. It was a blinding flash of reflected light!
The empty Mirror Frame has a glass surface. It needs to capture a clear image of a living person's entire face.
But I was standing beneath a streetlamp. The glare reflected off the glass and blurred my image, so the ghost couldn't capture all of me!
That's why I ended up in this strange state, halfway to death!"
The fog in Ji Li's mind cleared in an instant. Every clue came together, revealing a complete path to survival!
If he could stop the empty Mirror Frame from capturing his face, he could break the path to death for good.
And create a path to survival!
"Your bag!
There's a Headlamp in your bag. Put it on, and you'll completely counter the ghost's path to death!
It won't be able to capture your face anymore. All it'll see is a blur of light!"
The Second Personality had already experienced death once alongside Ji Li and was terrified of feeling it again. Now that they had found a path to survival, he shouted frantically inside Ji Li's mind.
Ji Li was already moving.
Before the ghost attacked, his backpack had been open nearby, just below him. The struggle had brought it even closer!
Ji Li let go of the stone, giving up his resistance to the hand. His body was immediately dragged toward the coffin.
But he remembered where the bag was. He groped for it and snatched it into his arms!
"Quick! Only three seconds left!"
The Third Personality lost his composure and cried out a warning!
Ji Li clamped the backpack under his left arm and rummaged through it blindly with his right hand.
"Three!"
At that moment, his fingers found something irregularly shaped. It felt cool, with a strap around its edge. He had no time to check what it was.
"Two!"
As the countdown continued, Ji Li yanked the shirt away from his face. The instant his vision cleared, he ducked his head to avoid looking at the empty Mirror Frame hovering overhead.
"One!"
Most of Ji Li's body had been pulled into the coffin. The hand gripping him belonged to Blondie's corpse!
In half a second, he switched on the Headlamp and strapped it to his head!
At that same instant, the empty Mirror Frame—the ghost's vessel—faced him head-on!
This time, Ji Li did not avert his gaze. The thirty-watt beam blazed from his forehead, turning his face into a halo of light within the Mirror Frame!
To the ghost, Ji Li now had no discernible features. It could not possibly render his memorial portrait.
Thud!
The empty Mirror Frame swayed in midair for a moment, then fell to the ground.
An image of a gaunt, sallow old man abruptly appeared against its white background.
He shot a hateful look at the living man half inside the coffin, then vanished.
The bodies of Liu Zi, the Tall Thin Man, and Blondie, which Ji Li had been standing on, disappeared without a trace.
The white-robed figures in the funeral procession vanished too. No Supernatural Power remained anywhere in Beggars' Alley!
All of Ji Li's strength gave out. He had held on for so long that his blood-drained left wrist had gone numb. He collapsed helplessly to the ground.
As he lost consciousness, his phone vibrated. An email arrived right on time.
Ji Li, Acting Manager of Shop No. 7, Tianhai Hotel. Successfully collected the third resident. Upgrade requirements met. Shop No. 7 has become a One-Star Hotel. Shop No. 7 will recruit five more staff members to manage the hotel alongside the manager. Note: Before reaching two stars, the Acting Manager may create only one reasonable rule to govern staff. Otherwise, the role is essentially no different from that of a regular staff member.
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