The Nonexistent Skull

"Has this ever happened in the Living Person Apartment before?"

"No. From the time I entered the Living Person Apartment to when I became its manager, Green Text Missions have never added people at the last minute. This is the first time I've seen anything like this."

Gao Tian understood that he and Boss Jin's group would have to fight alongside one another now.

The good news was that they had found all but the last of the six Corpse Pieces. And after finding it, he would also receive the Green Text Mission reward.

Although he hadn't figured out how he'd entered the Green Text Mission, it wasn't all bad, was it?

But the events that followed proved that he had been far too optimistic.

Over the next two hours, Shata and the others split into three groups. They searched every corner of the mall (they couldn't get outside, either), checked every employee, and even inspected all the ordinary customers stranded inside at least once. Still, they couldn't find the last piece: the head.

The head should have been the easiest part to find. Unlike a leg or a torso, it couldn't be concealed by clothing.

As the minutes ticked by, no one—not even the swiftest among them, Shata—had any progress to report over the Walkie-Talkie.

Two hours passed. Night had completely fallen, and the mall would close in just one more hour.

"Sister Ta, how's it going over there?"

"Not well. Everyone seems perfectly normal. We can't even find a single suspicious person."

Shata sounded exhausted. They'd gotten stuck on the final Corpse Piece during only their second Green Text Mission. She'd thought that with two apartment managers on the job, a beginner mission would be a breeze.

Just then, Boss Jin's voice came through:

"Could someone be wearing a Human Skin Mask or something, to change their face and the shape of their head?"

Jiangyang replied:

"That's unlikely.

"Even if they wore a mask, they couldn't hide their scent. Our dog should be able to smell it."

Another woman's timid voice came through the Walkie-Talkie. Gao Tian remembered her: she was one of the two newcomers on the mission, Su Jiu.

"Could the employee carrying the head Corpse Piece have slipped out while the White Mist sealed off the whole mall?"

Shata's voice came over the radio, answering Su Jiu's question:

"The Green Text Mission clearly says to find six Corpse Pieces inside the mall.

"The Corpse Piece must still be here, right under our noses. We just haven't noticed it.

"If the head had left the mall, the Green Text Mission would have broken its own rules. There'd be no point in continuing."

So where was the last head?

As Gao Tian watched the final hour on the clock tick away, anxiety began to creep into his heart.

Just then, Shata spoke again:

"The last head must be hidden somewhere unusual. If we keep searching blindly, we'll never find it.

"Everyone, go to the first floor and meet up. We can share what we've found."

Gao Tian knew Shata was right.

They'd spent two hours without finding a single Corpse Piece. They must have fallen into some kind of blind spot.

He immediately took the nearest elevator down to the first floor. Shata was already waiting in the middle of the plaza, standing as calmly as an iceberg, a stark contrast to the anxious, chaotic crowd around her.

Before long, Jiangyang, Su Jiu, and the others arrived. All six members of the Living Person Apartment had assembled.

"We've got the hands, the feet, and the torso. All we're missing is the easiest part to find—the head—and no matter what we do, we can't find it."

The young office worker named Li Jin had reached the end of his rope. He let loose a curse and kicked a nearby trash can hard, drawing stares from a few people passing by.

But no one else thought much of it. They'd all been trapped in the mall for more than two hours, and he wasn't the only one losing his temper. The other customers just assumed Li Jin was in a hurry to leave.

Boss Jin kept wiping the sweat from his face with a handkerchief. A thick layer of oil gleamed on his plump cheeks under the streetlights.

"Things like this are all on you young people. I'm just a middle-aged man. I don't understand any of it, so don't count on me."

There was a hint of dissatisfaction in his voice. He'd spent so much money to hire two managers who'd completed five Green Text Missions to help out, yet a beginner mission had turned into such a mess. They still hadn't gotten through it easily.

There was none of that satisfying Pay to Win feeling of a big shot carrying him to a win while he sat back and reaped the rewards.

Jiangyang was completely out of ideas. He turned to Shata.

"Sister Ta, can you think of a way to break through?"

Shata's expression barely changed.

"Calm down. With that impatient attitude, how do you expect to get through the Sixth Mission?

"The head must have appeared right in front of us already. None of us noticed it. This isn't a matter of getting a few more hours to search. We've fallen into some kind of misconception.

"This is only the Second Mission. It won't be too difficult. Think carefully. The answer is right in front of us."

As someone who'd completed five missions, she had at least five Supernatural Items on hand.

In a situation like this, she surely still had a trump card she hadn't played.

But things hadn't reached the point where she needed to use it. It would clearly be a waste for her to expend a Supernatural Item on a mission of this level.

Hearing Shata's words, a bizarre thought suddenly surfaced in Gao Tian's mind.

It was so insane that even he was startled by it. He was afraid that if he said it aloud, they'd think he was crazy.

Shata was the first to notice Gao Tian's expression change. Her jewel-like eyes settled on his face.

"Gao Tian, have you noticed something?

"Even something that seems unimportant could be worth mentioning. We need a breakthrough."

Gao Tian swallowed.

He fell silent for a moment, then spoke slowly.

"Maybe the head never existed in the first place."

Even at a moment this tense, the newcomer Su Jiu couldn't help laughing when she heard that.

Jiangyang couldn't help saying:

"How is that possible?

"If the head never existed, how could we find it within the time limit? Unless the Living Person Apartment meant to kill us from the start.

"But there's no need for that. If the apartment wanted to execute us, it could just let the Fourth Floor Ghost down. Why go to all this trouble and give us a mission we're destined to fail?"

Gao Tian's reasoning was simple.

If the body the Green Text Mission wanted them to find was Xu Yuan's, then they shouldn't forget how Xu Yuan had died in Sapphire Mall.

Before the Old Security Guard disappeared, he had said what he saw: Xu Yuan had been killed by a Vengeful Ghost with four faces growing out of its body.

That was the key.

Vengeful Ghosts were formed when people died. How could an ordinary person die with four faces?

In other words, Gao Tian boldly guessed, the ghost had so many faces because it had a habit of collecting faces—heads—after killing people.

Every time it killed someone, it removed their head and made it part of its own body. The ghost had killed three or four people before killing Xu Yuan, which was why it had so many faces.

Xu Yuan, who died at its hands, had likely suffered the same fate. His body had been torn apart, but the most important part, his head, had been carried off by the ghost. That was why Shata and the others couldn't find it, no matter how hard they tried.

Of all of them, only Shata and Jiangyang didn't laugh at Gao Tian's outlandish explanation.

Jiangyang spoke slowly.

"If... you're right,

"then this is a headless corpse, but the Green Text Mission must have left us a Life Path.

"What we really need to do is find something to replace the corpse's original head and make the figure whole again.

"After all, the Green Text Mission never said the six Corpse Pieces belonged to the same person. As long as we 'put together a complete human form,' the mission will be completed.

"We had to find the first five Corpse Pieces because if they weren't found by nine o'clock, they'd undergo Corpse Transformation.

"But if we've confirmed that the sixth piece, the head, doesn't exist, then we don't need to keep searching. We can just find something to replace it."

Jiangyang's reasoning was simple, and it sent a chill through everyone.

Even if the corpse was missing a piece, they could still complete the mission.

Because they could use someone else's head to replace the sixth piece!

It only had to be a Corpse Piece. It didn't have to come from the same dead person.

They had to find the first five pieces to keep them from undergoing Corpse Transformation. Since the sixth head wasn't in the mall, they could just use a living person in its place.

A chill ran through them at his words. The two newcomers shrank back, afraid the big shots would pick one of their heads to complete the corpse.

Boss Jin panted as he asked:

"Then... are you saying we should randomly kill someone here, take his head, and hand it in?"

Boss Jin was ruthless in business, but he'd never killed anyone with his own hands before. He couldn't bring himself to cross that psychological line.

Shata said:

"We haven't reached that point yet.

"Jiangyang, Gao Tian, go bring all the Corpse Pieces we've collected to the first floor and lay them out together.

"We don't need to worry about what other people think now. The mall is sealed off anyway.

"I'll figure out what to do about the last head."

She raised her head and looked straight at the enormous electronic screen by the mall entrance. The giant face of a female celebrity was mechanically repeating an advertisement for some brand of makeup. Her skin was so white it seemed to glow—not even someone who'd been dead for three days could be that pale.

"Wait."

Shata suddenly changed her mind.

"Why have all the store advertisements and neon signs gone dark, while this enormous advertising screen is still on?"

Only after she pointed it out did Gao Tian notice that she was right.

Because of the emergency at the mall, crowds had gathered on every floor, waiting by the exits to get out and demand an explanation. The place was in chaos.

Under the circumstances, many floors and stores had lost power for one reason or another. But the electronic screen by the entrance, which consumed the most electricity, was still shining brightly, completely unaffected. It stood out starkly against the darkened mall.