Snow drifted down from the distant sky, purest before it reached the ground.
No footsteps had trampled it, no tires had crushed it, no exhaust fumes had polluted it.
Only the free wind carried it freely, letting it fly wherever it wished.
"11 p.m.–midnight: the first snow of winter solstice will fall. All staff will take commemorative photos by the moat and set off fireworks..."
Yu Guo sat on the riverbank with the winter solstice party planner in his hands, the pages crackling in the cold wind.
The snow had been heavy from the moment it began.
Before long, white had gathered on his head and shoulders.
Behind him stood rows of fireworks prepared well in advance, their boxes still covering them with the fuses exposed, waiting to be lit.
But it was already 11:23 p.m. The first snow had been falling for quite some time, yet the fireworks remained unlit.
Plans could never account for fate.
Ji Li's return had shattered everything they had arranged.
Half an hour earlier, he had appeared outside Mu Nianmei's room and used the Bronze Ancient Coffin to tear Room 201 apart.
He had forcibly locked a ghost inside the coffin, then vanished from the Seventh Branch along with it.
Everyone who witnessed it had been left speechless, their hearts filled with dread.
Although Female Voice had quickly restored everything, leaving it all intact as though nothing had happened.
The people who had been immersed in the winter solstice festivities only moments earlier had now recognized a truth.
They had no right to lose themselves in drunken oblivion.
This was no safe haven, no comforting refuge. It was a man-eating den of demons, an abyss that swallowed everything.
The ghosts housed here were vicious and hideous; the people here were deceitful and insane.
"Ji