The Wrong Plan

Leaving aside Wang Xiaoming's plan, Yang Jian currently only has three ways to deal with the Music Box Curse.

I boarded that eerie bus again.

After completing the ghost cabinet transaction, state your requirements.

The information on the human skin paper.

Aside from these three, Yang Jian felt that returning to the Caesar Hotel to pursue Xiang Lan and uncover the secrets of the music box was too far-fetched. Not only was it dangerous, but it would also take an unknown amount of time, and he might even get himself trapped in that cursed place. If the curse were to erupt, he would surely die.

At this very moment.

In a villa complex on the outskirts of the city, Yang Jian sat alone on the sofa in villa number eight, deep in thought.

In front of him lay a large sum of compensation left behind by He Tianxiong when he left. It consisted of a pile of gold and some asset contracts.

But Yang Jian is no longer interested in these things. After all, he only wanted money to settle some affairs after his death, and now that has been arranged, the extra assets have become dispensable. Anyway, he won't live to spend money and enjoy them.

"If I were to put the three options in order, I would put the ghost cabinet option first, the human skin paper option second, and the bus option third," Yang Jian said after considering it for a moment.

As for why the bus option was placed last, it's because he also felt that there was a high probability he would die if he got on the bus.

Some of what Wang Xiaoming does have some credibility.

Ghost Chest's plan is the safest because Yang Jian knows Ghost Chest's trading rules. As long as Ghost Chest can do it, then things are secure. Of course, this matter is a bit troublesome.

"Find the person in the photo? The deadline is one year." Yang Jian was still holding the photo in his hand.

"A year's timeframe to find the person in the photo—it seems like a simple task, but upon closer inspection, it hides a deep trap. What if this person doesn't even exist in the world? How am I supposed to find them then? Am I supposed to conjure someone up out of thin air and give them to the ghost cabinet?"

"Moreover, the person in the photo seems to be the same as the person in the ghost painting, but the ghost painting isn't entirely her; it's just a painting. Is it the ghost bride we encountered on the bus last time? Or is it that we need to collect all the puzzle pieces to complete the goal?"

Yang Jian's eyes flickered slightly. "That shouldn't be possible. My last request was to find Zhao Lei, which is a very simple task. Ghost Cabinet wouldn't suddenly raise the task to such a high level. So I don't need to collect all the puzzle pieces. It's very likely that I only need to find the puzzle pieces. As long as I tell Ghost Cabinet the location of the puzzle pieces, the task will be completed."

I thought about it.

He felt this was a very difficult task because he didn't know if the person in the photo was really the ghost in the painting, and if so, he didn't know how many pieces of the puzzle were involved.

Therefore, there is only one thing he can ask for help with right now.

Human skin paper.

Yang Jian put down the photo, then shifted his gaze back to the golden box.

To be honest, he was very wary of this thing. The information contained terrible traps, and it was easy to fall into them if you weren't careful. And once you fell into a trap, it meant death.

The only time without a trap was perhaps the Huanggang Village Ghost Coffin Incident.

This human skin paper Ghost Messenger? Is it worried about being swallowed by them? Or is it worried about being permanently suppressed by Ghost Messenger, completely losing its eerie abilities?

"I can't trust Wang Xiaoming, and I can't trust the human skin paper either, but to survive, I have to make a choice." Yang Jian reached out and put on his gloves.

He was always so careful, using specially made gloves to ward off supernatural forces.

After opening the box, they took out the human skin paper.

The dark brown parchment remained unchanged, folded up and completely inconspicuous.

But a strange, chilling aura could always be sensed.

This thing is definitely a bit strange.

"My Yang Jian. By the time you see this, I will already be dead." On the human skin paper, eerie black handwriting appeared, forming a complete sentence that was presented before Yang Jian, but that was all.

Normally, without asking questions or even threatening, the paper human skin always seems to reveal information about the future on it.

The key lies in whether it is willing to reveal the information.

"Don't give me useless information. I need to know how to break the music box's curse. And please, no more threats. I don't have many options this time. If I can't find the answer from you, then you've completely lost your value to me."

Yang Jian spoke, as if he were conversing with an unknown supernatural being, or perhaps questioning a ghost that was parasitizing human skin.

It's unclear whether his words had any effect, but the writing on the parchment continued to appear.

Following the previous sentence, more words appeared on the parchment. "The reason I will die is because I was cursed by the music box at some point. The curse will erupt precisely at midnight on the 25th. I cannot exorcise the curse. If you see this sentence, remember not to open the music box, absolutely not."

Yang Jian's face darkened. This seemed to be outdated information, because he had already opened the music box, but according to the date on it, he would die from the Music Box Curse at midnight on the 25th. So, he only had three days left to live.

The time was short, but not too short either. It was a fairly average number of days compared to the other cursed individuals. My luck wasn't so bad that I couldn't even last two days.

But soon, new content appeared below this outdated message.

The black handwriting was eerie, as if written by a vengeful ghost, "I tried various methods to break the music box's curse in my final days, but all failed. However, I obtained some information related to the Music Box Curse, and I analyzed the music box's melody."

Soon.

The black marks that followed on the parchment did not form words, but instead formed the shape of musical notes.

"The melody of a music box?" Yang Jian thought for a moment, then took a picture with his phone; it might come in handy.

Although he knew absolutely nothing about Lepu.

"Today is the 24th. I tried to recreate the melody of the music box using various methods. I tried different instruments, consulted some people, and concluded that this melody was most likely played on a piano. I'm wondering if the curse comes from the music box? Or from a certain piano?"

Piano?

Yang Jian's eyes flickered slightly. Room 71 of the Caesar Hotel?

But the writing on the parchment continued to emerge, "On the night of the 24th, I tried to enter a place I had been before, to find the piano in a certain room. I encountered some danger and almost died, but I finally found it. However, at the door of the room, I heard two other different melodies coming from the piano."

"Two melodies?" Yang Jian noticed this information.

He had heard the piano music from room 71. The first melody was the music from the music box played by the mysterious woman, Xiang Lan; the second melody was the eerie lullaby played by the ghost in the room. Could there be a third melody?

"But I failed. I didn't break the curse, but I seem to have grasped a trick. Perhaps combining three different melodies into one piece of music will produce unexpected results."

"The reason I failed was not because I was afraid to play the piano in that room, but because I simply couldn't play it."

Yang Jian felt like he'd been tricked by this paper doll.

The writing on the parchment still lingered. "This plan failed, but I inadvertently discovered some terrible secrets about that place. I'm dying, I'm running out of time, I left to seek a new method. Midnight on the 25th, I failed, I died from the Music Box Curse."

All the writing began to disappear rapidly at that moment, as if Yang Jian in the future had indeed followed the instructions on the parchment to seek the secret of room 71 at the Caesar Hotel, but because he chose the wrong plan, he wasted time and ultimately died under the curse.

However, after all the writing disappeared, new writing appeared. "My Yang Jian. By the time you see this, I will already be dead. I have suffered many dangers and experienced terrible events. The most dangerous thing to be wary of is the curse from the music box. I almost died from that curse."

"Um?"

Yang Jian's expression hardened at this moment, because the information on the human skin paper had changed this time. It no longer said that he was dead, but that he almost died from the curse.

In other words, the possibility of survival has emerged.