Chapter 159: The End
Zhang Hui stared at the shadow on the wall that vaguely looked like a person. Then he looked at the hand sticking out of the wall.
For some reason, he didn’t feel that scared anymore. It just felt... really cold.
He placed the candle firmly on the floor, took a deep breath, and bravely stepped forward to gently touch the hand.
Creepy.
He quickly pulled his hand back, took out a red banknote from his pocket, and stuffed it into the ghost’s hand while mumbling, “Prosperity, equality...” After thinking for a moment, he also took out his ID card and placed it face up on the ground.
That scary feeling seemed to fade away.
“I guess my cousin isn’t a ghost... but why is he acting more and more like a girl?”
He had originally suspected that Li Mu was possessed by a female ghost, which would explain why his looks and behavior were getting stranger.
Zhang Hui sat down on the floor, looked up, and stared at the straight sword that had pinned the shadow in place. He couldn’t figure out how it worked. How could a sword keep a shadow from moving?
Although he had been too scared to move when Li Mu and the others left, after sitting there for a while, he started to get used to the creepy atmosphere. His mind became clearer too.
The little girl next to his cousin might be a ghost, but she didn’t seem like a dangerous one.
And Li Mu, Yu Fan, and that older man didn’t look like ghosts at all. In fact, they seemed like they came here to deal with ghosts, like those ghost-hunting teams in movies?
“The more I think about it, the crazier it sounds.” He muttered to himself with a sigh, not sure why he had such bad luck.
Just then, footsteps came from upstairs. Zhang Hui turned to look and saw a chubby middle-aged man coming down.
Startled, Zhang Hui quickly stood up to block the ghost’s shadow and hand from view.
“Hey man, why did the power suddenly go out?” The middle-aged man looked confused and yawned. “I walked around forever and didn’t see anyone. My phone died too, couldn’t charge it... I can’t see anything in this darkness.”
“Uh...” Zhang Hui broke into a sweat, terrified the man might see the ghost. He stammered, “The power is out in the whole area.”
“How can a big hotel like this lose power? Don’t they have a backup generator?”
Zhang Hui swallowed hard. Just minutes ago, he was scared to death by a ghost, and now he had to cover it up for someone else.
“Maybe there was a short circuit?”
“Hmm, I see.”
The man walked down the stairs, and when he got closer, the candlelight revealed that Zhang Hui looked nervous and was acting strangely.
Maybe he’s a thief, trying to steal something while the power’s out?
The man narrowed his eyes a little and smiled. “Hey, why don’t we head out together?”
“No, no, I still have something to do.”
The man became even more suspicious seeing how nervous Zhang Hui was. He suddenly stepped to the side and leaned over to peek behind him.
Zhang Hui’s heart skipped a beat.
“A sword?”
“......”
But the middle-aged man didn’t seem to notice anything strange. He just scratched his head and asked, “Why is there a sword stuck in the wall?”
“I-I don’t know.”
Zhang Hui quickly moved to block his view again, but at that moment, something clicked in his mind.
This man couldn’t see the shadow or the hand sticking out of the wall. Otherwise, at the very least, he would’ve panicked or accused Zhang Hui of hiding a body inside the wall. No way would he be this calm.
So why could he see it?
Wait... was that man actually a ghost too?
The middle-aged man lost interest and continued down the stairs toward the first-floor lobby.
Zhang Hui let out a sigh of relief, but then thought back.
“But then... why can so many people see that ghost girl called Xiao Jing?”
While Zhang Hui was still deep in thought, he heard footsteps again. It was Chen Yi, carrying an oil lamp and bringing Xiao Jing upstairs from below.
“You don’t look as scared anymore,” Chen Yi glanced at him.
“After being scared for so long... I kind of got used to it.”
“Good. Just stay here and watch. Don’t let anyone touch that sword. If the ghost in the shadow escapes and hurts someone, don’t blame me,” Chen Yi warned before heading upstairs.
Xiao Jing stopped in front of Zhang Hui and suddenly leaned in with a loud “Boo!” and made a scary face.
Zhang Hui’s heart didn’t even skip a beat.
He could tell by now that this ghost was just trying to scare him on purpose.
“Huh?” Xiao Jing was surprised that he didn’t react with fear.
“Xiao Jing, keep up.”
“Coming, coming!”
Once the two of them left, Zhang Hui sat back down on the floor, held his head in his hands, and muttered, “What the hell is going on?! I just want to find a decent job!”
……………………………………………
Earlier, Chen Yi had gone downstairs to the front desk and managed to get a “universal key card”, though he had to smash the drawer to get it.
Now, he was going room by room to check the paintings inside.
For rooms locked with keys, he had Xiao Jing leave her body and float inside as a ghost to take a look.
If possible, he hoped everything could be cleaned up after getting rid of the ghosts, so the police wouldn’t have to get involved and make things even messier.
“Why are all the paintings in the hallway gone?”
He looked around, puzzled. “Could someone have broken in during the blackout?”
“What if they accidentally took the real ghost’s body...?”
Even though Chen Yi was middle-aged, he was still in good shape. By the time he finished checking every floor from the first to the tenth, he was only slightly out of breath.
When he reached the door of a luxury suite, Xiao Jing suddenly froze.
“It’s in here!”
“Finally found it.”
Using the universal key card, Chen Yi opened the door and walked inside. Right across from the entrance, there was a painting of an old farmer on the wall, slowly giving off wisps of black smoke.
If Li Mu and Yu Fan had been here, they would probably recognize the painting. It was the one they saw at the art exhibition. The hotel owner must have liked it and bought it to decorate the luxury suite.
Even from a distance, Chen Yi could feel a chilling ghostly aura coming from it. The temperature in the room felt like it dropped below freezing.
He stepped inside and noticed a man sleeping on the bed.
“He’s been possessed.”
Just one glance, and Chen Yi could see that the guest was in poor health. He had a fever, a cold, and multiple infections. If he wasn’t taken to the hospital soon, he likely wouldn’t live more than a week.
Not everyone could handle being possessed like Li Mu could.
“I wonder how sister is doing,” Xiao Jing muttered. “Yu Fan must be thrilled to be alone with her. Who knows, maybe he’s already gotten everything he wanted from her.”
Chen Yi glanced back at her, feeling like this little ghost had a pretty dirty mind.
He lit a fire with his lighter. Flames started to rise from the bottom right corner of the painting and spread upward. As it burned, faint, sharp screams full of hatred could be heard.
Back in the second-floor hallway, the ghost shadow trembled violently. The black shadow slowly turned into dark smoke and floated away. The ghost hand also looked like it was being burned. Its skin turned black and charred, then melted, and its bones crumbled into dust.
Zhang Hui shivered and hid to the side. “What did I do to deserve all this?!”
When the shadow and ghost hand on the wall completely disappeared, the lights in the hallway suddenly turned back on, and the cold air vanished all at once.
In the distance, people outside could be heard cheering as the power came back.