Hide Leaf in Forest

Although the two of them were clearly very close, Little Xu Yuan had to shout every sentence for Gao Tian across from him to hear. Gao Tian knew that the two of them were about to return to their proper timelines. They were no longer separated by two meters of space, but by more than twenty years of time.

Gao Tian raised his voice too and shouted to Xu Yuan across from him:

"What method?"

Xu Yuan's voice came through faintly:

"Hide Leaf in Forest!

"The best way to hide a leaf is to hide it in a forest!"

The Little Boy said something else afterward, but Gao Tian couldn't hear him anymore. As the Leather Shoe Owner drew near, all supernatural power in the area around him was suppressed, including the Little Boy's Ghost Eye, which could see through time and space.

The fog gradually dissipated, and so did the Little Boy and the joystick in his hand.

The place where he had been was now empty, with only an unplugged Game Console covered in dust.

The connection between the two timelines had been severed. Little Xu Yuan had returned to more than twenty years earlier, while Gao Tian remained in this world.

Asking Little Xu Yuan to find his own corpse more than twenty years in the future might indeed have been asking too much of him.

Still, the words he'd spoken before the connection broke remained in Gao Tian's mind.

The best way to hide a leaf was in a forest. What did that mean?

Gao Tian turned and headed out of the arcade. At the same time, he opened his phone and checked the Chat Group conversation history.

If Gao Tian's words had affected Little Xu Yuan more than twenty years ago because of this trip through time, could they have altered the course of events in the present?

The grown-up Xu Yuan should not have become a Ghost, and the Jialan Society Chat Group might not even exist anymore.

Perhaps Xu Yuan had learned where he would die and successfully avoided Sapphire Mall. Then he wouldn't have died at all. He would still be alive as an outstanding Ghost Hunter.

But to Gao Tian's disappointment, the conversation history in his Chat Group was exactly the same as before.

The Ghost Cave had released the Black Packet, and the Living Person Apartment had asked the group to find someone to deal with its corpse...

This timeline hadn't changed.

That made sense, too. Time was one enormous cycle. The Gao Tian from the previous timeline had probably also met Little Xu Yuan at Sapphire Mall. Yet Little Xu Yuan had still grown up and died in the same way, becoming a Vengeful Ghost. So Little Xu Yuan in this timeline wouldn't change his fate because of a few words from Gao Tian, either.

After spending about an hour in the run-down arcade and finding almost no clues, Gao Tian left. He remembered to contact the others searching the other floors over the Walkie-Talkie:

"Have you found any Corpse Pieces?"

Shata's voice came through the Walkie-Talkie:

"We searched the entire mall, but we still haven't found a single Corpse Piece.

"Gao Tian, what were you doing earlier? Why did you suddenly go quiet?

"We thought something had happened to you."

Jiangyang's voice cut in:

"If we keep searching like this, we definitely won't find the Corpse Pieces before the mall closes. If those things can stay hidden in a busy mall without anyone noticing, they must be somewhere an ordinary person would never think to look."

Several newcomers chimed in one after another, their voices full of despair.

Gao Tian ignored them and answered Shata first:

"It was just a small matter. I took care of it myself. I'll tell you about it later.

"By the way, Shata, I have a question for you."

Shata replied:

"Go ahead, Gao Tian."

Gao Tian said:

"The best way to hide a leaf is in a forest.

"Do you think that has anything to do with the second Green Text Mission?"

Shata asked:

"Where did you hear that strange saying?"

Gao Tian replied:

"It just occurred to me."

Fortunately, Shata didn't press him about where the saying came from.

The Walkie-Talkie fell silent for a moment, then Shata spoke again:

"A forest is where you'd hide a leaf because that's where there are the most leaves. When one leaf is hidden among millions of others, it's hard for anyone searching to tell them apart.

"So, by that logic, the place to hide a Corpse Piece would be among thousands of Corpse Pieces.

"You mean the corpse is hidden among tens of thousands of corpses."

That was clearly wrong.

Before anyone else could say so, Shata refuted her own idea:

"This is a mall, not a cemetery. Where would all those corpses come from?"

Suddenly, Jiangyang interjected:

"Since you brought up forests and leaves...

"What's there the most of in Sapphire Mall?"

Boss Jin cut in:

"Goods?

"Shops?"

Su Jiu's timid voice spoke up:

"Money."

That was clearly wrong.

Shata and Gao Tian said in unison:

"People."

Hide Leaf in Forest.

Hide Leaf in Forest.

Now they had it.

Gao Tian suddenly understood the true meaning of the words Little Xu Yuan had desperately shouted to him before time split apart.

It seemed he'd underestimated Little Xu Yuan after all. No one understood him better than himself. Without Little Xu Yuan's hint, who knew how long it would have taken all these idiots to search Sapphire Mall?

If their guess was right, then the grown-up Xu Yuan had an unbelievably wild imagination. When Gao Tian first saw this Green Text Mission, he never would have dreamed that Xu Yuan had hidden his own corpse in such a place after his death.

No wonder, then, that despite the mall seeing so many people pass through every day, nobody had noticed a corpse that had been there for years. Xu Yuan had performed a little magic trick: he'd put the corpse right in front of everyone from the start, yet the countless people who passed through the mall every day had all acted as if they didn't see it, as though they were under a spell.

"The corpse is hidden..."

Gao Tian lowered the Walkie-Talkie in his hand.

A clear set of footsteps sounded from the mall corridor outside, approaching him.

Gao Tian stood still, waiting for the shadow of someone to appear around the corner.

"My old classmate, why are you in such a hurry to get to the arcade on the Third Floor? Why not have a drink with me?"

It was the persistent Old Security Guard.

Gao Tian had only used the Memory Ghost to hypnotize him and plant a false memory that they were old classmates. He hadn't expected the Old Security Guard to be so reluctant to let him go that he'd followed him all the way here, determined to buy him a drink.

Gao Tian smiled.

"I'm sorry. I lied to you. I was never your classmate.

"The reason you have that false memory is that I know a Ghost's Killing Rule. With words and psychological suggestion, I can plant memories in your mind that never existed."

Completely out of the blue, Gao Tian had laid bare his greatest secret to a stranger passing by.

Confusion appeared on the Old Security Guard's face. He seemed unable to understand what Gao Tian was talking about.

"A Ghost's Killing Rule?

"What is that?

"Have Ghosts really existed in this world?"

Gao Tian continued calmly:

"Still, I don't need to feel too bad about lying to you. You deceived me, too.

"You're not human, either.

"How Xu Yuan managed to hide his corpse in Sapphire Mall for so long without anyone discovering it...

"The biggest secret was that his corpse had been divided into countless pieces, with each piece sewn onto someone."

"That way, whenever Sapphire Mall opened, these six 'people' would each carry a Corpse Piece that didn't belong to them, walking around on different floors. No customer would notice that a part of the security guard passing by them belonged to a dead man."

Gao Tian's gaze fell on the Old Security Guard's black-gloved left hand. It seemed to have lost control, oozing black liquid onto the floor and giving off a strong stench.

There was no mistake. That left hand of the Old Security Guard's was Xu Yuan's severed arm!

This was the biggest secret behind the Green Text Mission—the truth of Little Xu Yuan's "Hide Leaf in Forest."

The Old Security Guard looked at his own left hand. Rather than showing any sign of understanding, he seemed even more confused.

"What you're saying seems to have reminded me of something. I don't know why, but...

"Come to think of it, it was probably about three years ago.

"I was making my rounds at night in the mall when I heard a strange laugh coming from a distant corner. The mall had already been cleared out, so I went over to tell whoever it was to leave.

"But when I went around a corner, I saw something terrifying... Even now, I can't remember what it looked like. The moment I saw it, I passed out.

"When I woke up the next morning, it was already dawn. The mall had returned to its usual bustle. It was as if nothing had happened the night before, and I started another day of patrol.

"Ever since that day, I've felt like I couldn't leave the mall. I didn't need to eat anymore, and I didn't need any rest. After the mall closed every night, my memories would automatically be erased. Then, when dawn came, I'd lose control of my body and start another day of patrol..."

Gao Tian knew why the Old Security Guard's memories were muddled.

The strange laughter he'd heard and the terrifying scene he'd witnessed that day had been Xu Yuan being killed by a Vengeful Ghost in a corner of the mall.

Before he died, Xu Yuan had used some Supernatural Item to divide his corpse into five pieces, placing one piece on each of the mall employees.

The ones carrying the corpse pieces had to be five people who were regular fixtures at the mall. That way, they could appear there every day without arousing anyone's suspicion.

From then on, these five employees were neither human nor Ghosts. They were merely five vessels carrying Xu Yuan's Corpse Pieces, endlessly patrolling the mall day and night. The sole purpose of their bodies was to conceal Xu Yuan's corpse. They had even forgotten their own existence.

Xu Yuan certainly had a wild imagination, his Supernatural Item was remarkable, and his methods were ruthless.

"Then how am I supposed to remove the Corpse Piece from your body?"

Gao Tian's gaze fell on the Old Security Guard's rotting hand, which was dripping corpse fluid.

In the next instant, he drew the Ghost Transformation Spear in his hand.

Its blade was impossibly sharp. A single strike cleanly severed the Old Security Guard's wrist, as smoothly as slicing through a piece of tofu.