Owner's Identity

"What did you mean by that?"

What the Third Personality had said was rather strange. Ji Li roughly understood its meaning, but he wanted a more direct explanation.

"It meant that the moment Room 701's door closed, another door closed at the same time.

"The two sounds almost completely overlapped!"

Ji Li blinked, and the solid wooden door before him suddenly seemed profound and unfathomable.

All at once!

A torrent of crimson blood suddenly poured from the four gaps around the door. It moved with bizarre speed, covering the entire door in the blink of an eye before flooding toward Ji Li!

It was as if something was about to swallow Ji Li into a sea of blood!

Just as Ji Li's pupils contracted to their limit, a hand landed on his shoulder!

"Whew..."

Only then did Ji Li come back to his senses. The door had not moved in the slightest, with not a trace of blood on it. Beneath his feet were spotless floor tiles.

"What are you looking at?"

Fang Shenyan's gentle face appeared before him, though his voice was stiff and numb, as awkward as ever.

Ji Li shook his head, declaring everything from before to be nothing but an illusion.

"Nothing... Go check the layout of the rooms first."

Fang Shenyan gave Ji Li a suspicious look, then led the bewildered Ding Miaoxin and Cao Yuan deeper into the apartment.

Yu Guo had already gone into the Restroom with his phone raised, his Spirit Exploration Live still ongoing.

Only Ji Li remained in Room 701's Living Room, facing the empty doorway.

"Are you sure?" Ji Li walked expressionlessly toward the door and examined the peephole.

"My five senses should be sharper than yours and the Second Personality's. I'm eighty percent sure!" The Third Personality was telling the truth; that had been clear from the previous coffin mission.

The Third Personality's existence made up for Ji Li's lack of perceptiveness.

"I don't believe it!" The Second Personality had always liked contradicting the Third Personality, and it spoke bluntly.

"You said two door-closing sounds occurred at the same time. If they could overlap, then they must have been extremely close to us!

"But there are only Room 701 and Room 702 on the seventh floor. I paid attention—the door to Room 702 has stayed shut the entire time. It never opened! That makes no sense at all!"

Ji Li listened to their argument without interrupting, merely pressing his face slowly against the cold door.

His eyes met the blurry peephole lens.

The view of the hallway was slightly distorted, as though the entire world had been blurred, but it was still fairly clear.

Over by Room 702, there was utter silence. The flamboyant fan doll hanging on the dark door had not moved an inch.

After a long while, Ji Li turned around and looked at the apartment, so clean it seemed uninhabited. "You both have a point. Let's keep watching."

Room 701 had a two-bedroom, one-living-room layout.

Everything about it was utterly ordinary, with nothing worth noting. Ji Li wandered through the Living Room, and if he had to pick out one abnormality—

The apartment was simply too clean.

But this cleanliness did not mean it looked brand-new.

Rather, every furnishing in the apartment had been meticulously kept in order!

Everything was placed precisely where it belonged, without a speck of dust.

Even the cover on the sofa did not have the slightest wrinkle.

Yet the faint yellowing on the walls and ceiling showed that a heavy smoker had once lived here, and for quite some time.

Ji Li ran a hand over the top of the television and rubbed his fingers together, unable to stop himself from wondering what kind of person the apartment's owner had been.

At the same time, Yu Guo emerged from the Restroom with his phone in hand.

"Guys, don't be disappointed!

"Even though this place really doesn't look haunted, I swear on my personality that something terrifying is definitely going to happen here later!"

"Hey, hey, hey! Don't leave! Why are you watching that female streamer next door? Don't..."

Yu Guo's expression darkened. He shut off his phone, looked at Ji Li, and sighed. "This place doesn't look haunted at all..."

"I searched the Restroom from top to bottom and didn't find a single thing related to ghosts. Now all my viewers have left!"

He slumped onto the sofa dejectedly. "If I hadn't seen those three ghosts on the hotel's second floor with my own eyes, I definitely wouldn't have believed what you said."

Ji Li said nothing. He merely pulled out the Cigarette Case from his pocket, took a cigarette, put it between his lips, and headed toward the kitchen.

The kitchen felt even less lived-in than the Living Room.

The cool-toned tiles reflected light onto Ji Li's face. Its chilly look made it obvious that no one had cooked here in a long time.

Frowning, Ji Li smoked as he pushed open the kitchen window. The night wind stirred his long hair, making his expression even more lost.

"The hotel email clearly said so.

"The sixth Replenishment Person would be waiting at the mission site, but this place...

"Is completely empty."

Ji Li came out of the kitchen empty-handed. The other three emerged from the two bedrooms, and the five store employees gathered in the center of the Living Room.

Fang Shenyan looked at Ji Li, surrounded by smoke, and felt his own craving flare up. He lit a cigarette and said:

"The two bedrooms are both intact. We searched everywhere and didn't find anything eye-catching..."

"But I think the owner of this apartment was probably a cohabiting couple, or husband and wife!"

Ji Li perked up at those words. He raised his head, looked at Fang Shenyan, and asked, "Go on."

"In the two bedrooms, no one had lived in the smaller one. You could tell from the empty wardrobe.

"But in the Master Bedroom, there were slight sweat stains on one corner of the bedsheet, and the wardrobe contained a mix of men's and women's clothing.

"Generally speaking, men sweat much more. If a man lies naked on a bedsheet, marks will gradually appear over time!"

As Fang Shenyan spoke, Ji Li saw Ding Miaoxin nodding in agreement. Since two people with marriage experience both said so, they were probably right.

"Still, it looks like they were preparing to move. The furnishings in the apartment have clearly been thoroughly cleared out."

"No..."

Yu Guo, who had remained silent until then, frowned and spoke. "Your explanation is wrong!"

"Why?"

"Because in the Restroom, I found only one set of toiletries, and they were clearly for a man!"

Yu Guo looked at Fang Shenyan, who was smoking with his head lowered, then pointed toward the entrance.

"There isn't a single pair of shoes on the shoe rack. I checked the trash can in the Restroom, and even the packaging had been thrown away. Everything that could identify the owner was made extremely vague."

A trace of confusion appeared on Fang Shenyan's fair face. He did not quite understand.

"He means that everything in the apartment was cleaned out.

"So why were there still traces left in the bedrooms, as well as men's toiletries in the Restroom?" Ji Li casually crushed out his cigarette and straightened up from the sofa.

Ji Li's words pulled everyone present into a whirlpool of silence.

Ji Li glanced at Yu Guo with a faint smile. He had not expected this seemingly careless young man's thinking to shift so quickly.

"This apartment is the mission site. Everything we find could be a mission clue.

"What remains in the apartment now may be the hotel's hint to us!"

Fang Shenyan pushed up his glasses, fell silent for a moment, then looked up and said:

"To deduce the true identity of the apartment's owner!"