Ghost on the Second Floor

"Come with me, let's get out of here."

Yang Jian lit the ghost candle, temporarily dispelling the eeriness around him, and breathed a sigh of relief.

Without thinking twice, he immediately tried to leave the restaurant with Xiong Wenwen.

This operation has failed, and staying here would be extremely dangerous; we must retreat first.

The ghost candle was burning fiercely, its eerie green flames flickering erratically. The corpses hanging in mid-air around them still smiled at them, emitting chilling laughs.

Without the barrier of the Ghost Domain, even Yang Jian in his current state cannot directly contact this kind of supernatural phenomenon; he must rely on the light of the ghost candle to ensure his safety.

"The fire is burning quite quickly. And it seems to be increasing over time, indicating that the surrounding area is becoming increasingly dangerous."

Yang Jian looked at the brand-new ghost candle in his hand, his expression darkening slightly.

"You should have left long ago; you almost got me killed."

At this moment, Xiong Wenwen gripped Yang Jian's arm tightly, complaining and expressing her fear.

Yang Jian showed no embarrassment whatsoever. He said, "Solving paranormal events is inherently a matter of risking one's life. If I had succeeded just now, I could have dealt with a ghost with potentially huge dangers immediately. The risk and reward are proportional. I've done all I could. It's just that I was unlucky."

"Furthermore, your ability to foresee the future seems to have some issues. You can only predict the outcome when I'm taking action; you can't skip that step and see the result directly. Otherwise, I wouldn't have spent more than ten seconds making that attempt."

Xiong Wenwen argued, "Do you think the future is so easy to predict? The movements and locations of ghosts are the most ambiguous, requiring focused attention. And there's more than one ghost here, what am I supposed to do?"

"I don't blame you. It's just that I didn't know enough about your abilities, which led to some mistakes in my approach."

Yang Jian didn't blame the child; instead, he admitted his own mistake.

He hadn't expected that the smile on Tong Qian's face would be stolen, and that with the ghost that altered her memories, plus some unknown ghost in the hotel, so many variables would arise.

If it were a one-on-one fight, Yang Jian could definitely take care of that thing.

"Then why aren't you leaving yet? What are you still doing wandering around here?" Xiong Wenwen urged Yang Jian strolling around the restaurant with the ghost candle.

Seeing rows of corpses hanging in mid-air, each one staring at her with a sinister smile, and their dull, lifeless eyes shifting as the two of them moved, Xiong Wenwen was so terrified she almost cried.

Once the ghost candle goes out, I'll die here.

"I need to retrieve the ghost rope. This ghost can't be left unattended, or the trouble will only get worse," Yang Jian said in a low voice.

The loss of his Ghost Domain means the Ghost Rope is out of control. Fortunately, the restaurant isn't large, and as long as the source of the Ghost Rope is found in a short time, it can still be retrieved, which shouldn't be difficult for him.

However, if left unchecked, the ghost rope could cause a disaster, which should not be underestimated.

Soon.

Yang Jian saw a ghost rope on a corpse.

One end of the ghost candle was wrapped in gold, making it stand out conspicuously in the dim light.

This marked ghost rope is the source.

"Found it." Yang Jian stepped directly onto the dining table, grabbed the straw rope, and pulled hard, retrieving it.

Once the ghost rope was retrieved, it immediately lost its eerie power under the suppression of the ghost candle.

The corpses hanging in mid-air all fell down simultaneously.

The restaurant was a mess, and the corpse emitted a faint stench that made one want to vomit.

Even without the suppression of the ghost rope, these corpses still let out strange laughs, as if they didn't want to let Yang Jian leave easily and wanted to keep him here, making him one of them.

The eerie wind was still howling around them, and a gust of wind from an unknown source was blowing up the blood-stained newspapers on the ground and swirling around Yang Jian.

"Okay, let's go."

Yang Jian retrieved the ghost rope and immediately left the restaurant.

But at this moment, Xiong Wenwen pointed to the ground and said, "Look down there."

Yang Jian looked down and noticed a series of dense black footprints on the restaurant carpet. The footprints were messy and disorderly, as if someone had wandered around aimlessly for a while. The footprints were especially dense where they had just stood.

It seemed that someone had been waiting in the same spot for Yang Jian and Xiong Wenwen to emerge from the Ghost Domain.

"It's the ghost on the second floor of the hotel. It seems to have come in from outside the hotel and hasn't left since. It was attracted out by the ghost candles, but it should have left now. Luckily, we were in the Ghost Domain, so the ghost didn't find us, otherwise we would have faced another unknown terror."

Yang Jian looked at the black footprints all over the ground and finally found a series of footprints leading out of the restaurant.

The footsteps from before could no longer be heard.

"Now is not the time to deal with this. We need to go back and reconsider our strategy. The best way is to find Tong Qian and confirm whether she is really dead. If she is dead, we must find the recording information she left behind in her satellite-tracked phone."

Yang Jian and Xiong Wenwen left the restaurant safely.

The corpses behind them did not chase after them.

The ghost candle isolated and suppressed the terror; within its light, he and Xiong Wenwen were absolutely safe.

As soon as we left the restaurant, sure enough, the flame on the ghost candle immediately slowed down.

This proves that you are already far away from danger.

"Let's go back to the main hall first."

Yang Jian did not blow out the ghost candle, but still held it as he walked down the dimly lit corridor.

The trail of black footprints seemed to have passed through here as well, stretching all the way to the end of the corridor before disappearing at the fork in the road.

Yes.

The footprints disappeared, vanishing mysteriously.

I don't know if they went to the third floor, stayed on the second floor, or went down to the lobby on the first floor, or even if they were right next to me.

"Where did that thing go?" Xiong Wenwen asked in great fear. He hadn't used his abilities and didn't know the ghost's location.

"The ghost candle isn't reacting, or at least it's not around. We can only guess that it's lingering on the second floor. However, it's an unknown ghost, not my main target this time. Let's not focus on it for now, unless it shows up on its own."

Yang Jian glanced at it, ignored it, and walked towards the hall.

There were too many strange things about it, so he decided to put it aside for now and not try to find a way to deal with it.

Soon.

He and Xiong Wenwen returned to the hall.

This place seems safe; nothing eerie has followed, and the ghost candles are burning at their slowest possible speed.

Yang Jian then blew out the ghost candle.

The eerie green candlelight went out.

Looking back down the dimly lit corridor, nothing emerged, and the eerie laughter vanished.

It seems that Yang Jian's first encounter with that ghost has come to an end.

Neither side can gain the upper hand for the time being.

But Yang Jian knew that he would be the one to suffer this time, because he was facing a ghost, while he was a human. Every time he failed in a confrontation, it was a defeat, because he could not withstand repeated tests.

I temporarily retract all my ideas.

"Where are Feng Quan and Guo Fan?"

I glanced around the lobby and noticed that the two people who had been arguing about a female receptionist earlier were nowhere to be seen.

I went down the stairs and took a look.

Yang Jian's face darkened.

It's definitely not in the lobby.

Then I looked at the front desk.

The receptionist remained standing there motionless, her expression exactly the same as before—a smile, though slightly stiff.

"They must have heard something was wrong and ran away," Xiong Wenwen said, somewhat annoyed. "We're fighting desperately, and they're betraying their teammates."

"They couldn't have escaped." Yang Jian knew Feng Quan quite well.

This is an ambitious person; having come to Z City, there's absolutely no way he'd slink away in disgrace.

There are only two possibilities.

Either the two of them went deep into the hotel to investigate, or they encountered danger and got involved in some kind of terrorist incident.

Yang Jian's judgment leans towards the former.

The two of them definitely went deep into the hotel to investigate.

The hotel elevator showed signs of use; it was originally stopped on the first floor, but now it's stopped on the fourth floor.

In other words, Feng Quan and Guo Fan most likely went to the fourth floor of the hotel.