Communication

Communication

"Why is there another Jiang Li over there?"

Feng Xinghan's words first stunned everyone, then a deep chill surged through their hearts. They immediately got to their feet, moving away from Jiang Li on the sofa.

Jiang Li's expression turned extremely ugly. She offered no explanation, only followed everyone's gaze toward the stairwell.

The inn had six floors. Besides the two elevators used for going up and down, there was also a staircase running continuously from the first floor to the sixth, serving as an emergency escape route.

At that moment, an identical Jiang Li stood at the stairwell on the first floor!

She stared fixedly at everyone, her gaze especially flickering back and forth over Jiang Li. Then, without saying a word, she turned and slipped into the staircase, vanishing from sight.

Everyone breathed a sigh of relief. She had run away, which meant... "she" was probably fake.

"That 'Jiang Li' was a ghost in disguise?" Li Yuejun felt her limbs go ice-cold. Two identical people appearing before her eyes was simply too bizarre.

"Mm."

Two people answered her: one was Xu Zhi'an, and the other was Bai Yanliang.

Hearing Bai Yanliang's voice, Xu Zhi'an was somewhat surprised as well.

"You know this ghost's ability?"

Keeping a close watch on the stairwell, Feng Xinghan walked over.

Xu Zhi'an nodded, his gaze drifting slightly as he looked at Feng Xinghan.

"You may not believe this, but until ten minutes ago, I'd been chased by 'you' the entire time." Xu Zhi'an looked at Feng Xinghan as he spoke.

"Me?"

Feng Xinghan was utterly bewildered. He sat down on the sofa as well, looking at everyone without understanding what was going on.

Seeing everyone's eyes gather on him, Xu Zhi'an drew a deep breath and recounted what had happened to him.

"So you mean that, without realizing it, a ghost disguised as 'me' approached you, and then you entered the room of a waitress named Zhang Wen?"

Feng Xinghan's expression was grave, his entire body tense.

Xu Zhi'an nodded fiercely.

Then he looked at Bai Yanliang again.

"Mr. Bai, you seem to know that ghost has the ability to disguise itself too?"

Xu Zhi'an's question drew everyone's attention to Bai Yanliang.

In fact, although Bai Yanliang had acted perfectly normal all along, it was precisely that normality that increasingly attracted everyone's attention.

Nothing else was involved. It was simply because... he was too normal.

He seemed to accept the existence of "ghosts" in this world as a matter of course, enter Mist Gathering as a matter of course, and even carry out curse missions as a matter of course!

From beginning to end, Bai Yanliang had shown none of the emotions of fear, complaint, anger, or dejection. If they had not known for certain that he was a newcomer, they might even have thought he was a native of the Past World.

There seemed to be something strange about this Bai Yanliang...

That was the general impression the other four currently had of Bai Yanliang.

Yet Bai Yanliang still wore that calm, untroubled expression. He swept his eyes over everyone and said seriously, "Actually, when I first woke up, I saw that ghost capable of disguising itself."

"What?!"

"You saw it? When you first woke up? What happened?!"

Bai Yanliang's sudden revelation caught everyone off guard.

There was no other reason for it. The key was that Bai Yanliang had acted far too ordinarily, as if he had not realized at all how horrifying this was!

"Mm. When I first woke up, Mr. Xu Zhi'an knocked on my door. I looked through the peephole, and 'he' looked exactly like Mr. Xu."

"You didn't open the door for him?" Li Yuejun asked. Her brows were tightly furrowed, her hands clenched together nervously as she stared at Bai Yanliang.

Bai Yanliang shook his head and explained his reasoning at the time.

"I determined that the 'Mr. Xu' who appeared then was not the real one, because I could not find any reason for Mr. Xu to act that way. So I did not open the door."

Bai Yanliang spoke lightly, but everyone who heard him felt their scalps tingle.

They could not imagine what would have happened if Bai Yanliang had opened the door. Even less could they imagine whether, if they had encountered the same situation, they would have opened it...

After giving it some thought, goosebumps immediately rose all over them.

Because after searching their consciences, they realized... there was a very high chance they would have opened the door for "Xu Zhi'an"...

At that thought, the way they looked at Bai Yanliang had already changed.

This newcomer would not only avoid holding them back, but also... possessed an exceptionally calm mind, clear thinking, and a unique perspective...

"I didn't expect it to disguise itself as me too. But this is good. At least now we can confirm this ghost's ability." A trace of relief appeared on Xu Zhi'an's pale face.

Bai Yanliang looked at them with undisguised confusion.

His obvious confusion was quickly noticed. Li Yuejun said, "The ghosts that appear in time-limited missions only possess one bizarre power: teleportation, anti-gravity, immense strength, mutation, invading dreams, and this time, the bizarre ability to disguise itself as a human. Since it has already displayed disguise, it absolutely will not possess any other bizarre power. That is the rule—the rule of Mist Gathering."

Bai Yanliang nodded in understanding. He had roughly guessed as much himself, after all, that ghost had taken nearly a minute to get from the fourth floor down to the first.

"But... is that Zhang Wen actually a ghost?" Xu Zhi'an asked again.

Everyone fell silent. Only Feng Xinghan suddenly raised the notebook in his hand and spoke.

"She probably isn't a ghost."

"I remember you said you went to the Yingcheng Daily office? Did you find something?" Xu Zhi'an immediately sat up straight and asked.

Yingcheng Daily was the name of the newspaper everyone had seen during breakfast. Yingcheng was this place, a small city located at the ninth time node.

The reason they used time as a marker was because Yingcheng also existed in the real world, as did... Ruyi Inn.

Feng Xinghan did not keep them in suspense after being asked. He opened his notebook.

"Mm, I found something. In fact, the person who had the newspaper publish the news that the inn owner Ding Lei's wife, Li Yuhua, had gone missing was Zhang Wen."

"So it really was her..." Xu Zhi'an was not particularly surprised by this information, but it did indeed rule out the possibility of Zhang Wen being a ghost.

Because a "ghost" would absolutely not do something like that. Or rather, a "ghost's" methods were very direct.

"But why would she release that news?" Xu Zhi'an asked again.

"Heh... to put pressure on him, probably. After all, she's Boss Ding's little mistress." Li Yuejun revealed another piece of information that none of them had known.

Seeing everyone look at her, Li Yuejun's expression became slightly unnatural, but she still said, "Earlier, Jiang Li and I searched Ding Lei's office. We found love letters Zhang Wen had written to Ding Lei in one of his drawers."

Everyone suddenly understood, but Bai Yanliang's brows furrowed slightly.

Things were becoming increasingly confusing.

Bai Yanliang had concealed something—for instance... the female ghost beneath the bed. Her name was Zhang Qiao!

She was Ding Lei's younger brother's wife, so then... where was Ding Lei's younger brother?

Was this ghost that could disguise itself male or female? Who exactly was its true identity?

Moreover, according to Xu Zhi'an, Zhang Wen's behavior had been extraordinarily strange, almost as if she had gone mad. But... Bai Yanliang felt that she seemed to be consciously cooperating with that ghost's actions...

Why?