Chapter 103: His Choice

At this crucial moment, Ji Li found a rare chance to pause.

From the intelligence he had gathered, most of the veil over this mission had already been lifted.

The ghost bride’s presence likely served the purpose of completing the task; it was probably not the killer ghost. Otherwise, Ji Li would have died multiple times by now.

He speculated that the true challenge for the attendants was the ghost preventing the sacrifice.

At present, however, how to confront it remained unclear.

Ji Li had a hunch: the hotel wanted them to complete the sacrifice.

After all, given the hotel’s meticulousness, there was no reason to include an unnecessary sacrificial step. Since everything now revolved around it, the path to survival likely lay in completing the sacrifice.

Thinking this, he no longer felt hurried. He did not care who or where the killer ghost was.

The next phase would simply reveal how the middle-aged man would manipulate the disciples into the sacrifice.

What Ji Li truly needed to observe was how the sacrifice was carried out.

He reclined against the earth mound, enjoying a moment of quiet. He could faintly hear fragments of conversation below between the middle-aged man and his disciples, though nothing clearly.

He stopped straining to listen, pulling a cigarette from his pocket. The wind repeatedly prevented him from lighting it. With only one arm, he felt helpless but finally managed to ignite it by lowering his head.

Lying on the hillside, he watched the six disciples perform their task.

From a distance, there seemed to be little movement. Yet the burly disciples had already picked up shovels placed beforehand, digging into the tomb of the Li patriarch.

Ji Li observed with curiosity; it appeared that every sacrifice required opening the tomb, meaning that over the past several days, the tomb had been dug up repeatedly.

As the excavation widened, Ji Li craned his neck, noticing a massive box beside the patriarch’s coffin.

The box was larger and deeper than the coffin itself, buried next to it.

Ji Li seemed to realize something.

Sure enough, when the box was pried open with brute force, he saw the middle-aged man and the disciples recoil, covering their noses.

Inside the massive box lay highly decomposed corpses.

At this moment, the third persona came into play. His observation skills, extraordinary even among humans, allowed Ji Li to perceive the scene below:

“All the corpses are stacked together. It’s impossible to tell exactly how many, but the number is not small.

On the surface, no obvious injuries are visible. They appear intact; the cause of death is unclear.

The top few bodies are less decomposed; the decay increases with depth.

It seems these are the people sacrificed.”

Hearing this, Ji Li nodded repeatedly. There was no doubt about it. The only unknown was the precise method of sacrifice.

The middle-aged man was still negotiating with the disciples, though Ji Li could not hear the words clearly.

It seemed the conversation had reached an impasse. Both sides stood firm, halting their work. The dark-skinned youth began arguing with the man.

Ji Li, having nothing to do, shifted his gaze to the nearby coffin.

Squinting, he realized now was the best chance to approach and see for himself.

Perhaps he could uncover clues as to how Tongguan and the others had failed. Yet he hesitated.

He knew the ghost had not left—it was waiting for the sacrifice to begin, and so was he.

After weighing the situation, Ji Li chose to move closer to the coffin, hoping for an unexpected discovery.

Silently, he stepped back a few paces, extinguished his cigarette, and crept toward the coffin.

As he approached, he noticed something unusual: the coffin was open.

Inside, the eerie portrait sat prominently.

Ji Li was taken aback. He had not expected such a critical clue to be left behind, remaining quietly in the coffin.

A few steps closer revealed scrape marks on the coffin’s surface, caused by a knife forcibly inserted—clearly the work of humans, likely in response to danger.

Ji Li stood silently beside the coffin, gazing at the familiar portrait.

The bride in the portrait remained seated, her presence dark yet solitary rather than menacing.

Without the surrounding horror, she would have been undeniably beautiful.

Though the elderly woman from the Li Mansion resembled the bride exactly, the bizarre aura she carried made her far more unsettling than the portrait’s serene, eerie beauty.

“So, the sacrifice requires the portrait to be present. This must be the remnant left behind after Chen Fu’s group failed.”

Ji Li quietly lifted his head, glancing at the gloomy sky. There was no wind or rain—only stillness.

He listened to the faint sounds of autumn, uncertain whether they were real or imagined.

With the portrait here, the killer ghost should not be nearby.

After all, its purpose was to prevent the sacrifice. If it had the ability to act, it would never abandon the exposed portrait. In other words, the painting was effectively the killer ghost’s nemesis.

Ji Li gently rested his hand on the cold coffin, slowly running his fingers over the surface of the portrait.

It was as if the ghost had long forgotten to sever his arm over this painting.

“So, a path to survival is already here.

As long as I take this portrait and hide somewhere, no one can harm me during the remainder of the mission. I can easily live through the rest of the task.”

This was a massive loophole—or perhaps a deliberate design by the hotel.

The portrait did not kill. At the very least, it would not harm anyone until the sacrifice succeeded.

The previous incidents were likely accidents.

Of course, as a vessel for a supernatural being, Ji Li could imagine that the ghost bride had once intended to kill him.

It was the instinct of a ghost: it had contemplated murder, but at the final stage, it restrained itself.

This showed that the ghost bride was bound by the mission’s rules; it could not yet kill the attendants.

Two choices now lay before Ji Li.

The first was to take the portrait and wait out the remaining time. He would emerge unharmed.

But this was clearly not the survival path the hotel intended. It relied on exploiting a loophole, and there was no guarantee that the ghost within the portrait would never act against him.

The second was to continue waiting, seeking the path the hotel had prepared, and complete the promotion task flawlessly.

But this plan was riskier and more uncertain—hardly a safe option for Ji Li.

Similarly, if he chose the first option, Tongguan, Chang Nian, Fang Shenyan, Yu Guo, and the others—whose fates were still unknown—would almost certainly die. There would be no survivors.

Gradually, the wind began to rise.

Ji Li’s face showed no emotion or hesitation. With his remaining hand, he grasped the wooden frame of the portrait.

This seemed to be his choice…