Chapter 106: True Face

It was a well.

A dry well.

Inside, the man had been trapped so long that he had lost all sense of time.

He ran his hands through his tangled hair in frustration, blood streaking his fingers—some fresh, some nearly dried.

The rock walls were covered with streaks of blood, the result of his repeated attempts to climb out.

Tongguan, eyes bloodshot, slowly lifted his head to meet the full moon above.

Moonlight streamed straight down the well, illuminating his face and exposing his exhaustion and disarray.

His watch had stopped the moment he was pulled to the bottom. He had no idea how long he had been trapped—time felt like years. In his delirium, he imagined his hair had all turned white.

Throughout this period, he had remained on constant alert for ghost attacks but had suffered no harm.

Gradually, he attempted to climb again, but the walls were too smooth, with few points of leverage. The highest he reached was halfway before he fell heavily again.

Tongguan stared at the moon for a long time before lowering his head and rubbing his face vigorously, trying to clear his mind.

He endured the mental anguish and pulled a cigarette from his pocket, lighting it for himself.

As the smoke spiraled upward, his thoughts drifted over everything he had seen and heard during the mission.

“Sacrifice, the ghost bride, and that spirit-rain ghost…”

Chen Fu, the key clue-bearer, was dead, leaving only two cryptic statements:

“It… isn’t it…”

“It… is imitating. I was wrong. The one beside me all along—it was it!”

Before, Tongguan had lacked the energy to analyze these words, always fearing an attack. But now, still alive and without seeing any ghostly figure, he resolved to carefully consider their meaning.

Judging by Chen Fu’s actions, his words were directed at the spirit-rain ghost:

“It is not it.”

The first it likely referred to the spirit-rain ghost. But who was the second it?

Tongguan sat at the bottom of the well, motionless, almost meditating, forgetting even to inhale from his cigarette. He simply sat there, lost in thought.

When the cigarette burned down completely, the hot tip scorched his fingers, snapping him back to awareness.

A plausible conclusion emerged: the second “it” Chen Fu mentioned must refer to the ghost bride.

After all, among the Li Mansion’s people, the ghost they had encountered most frequently was the ghost bride.

The first statement, then, meant that the spirit-rain ghost was not the ghost bride.

This was easy to understand and something Tongguan and the others had already suspected.

Yet coming from Chen Fu, it seemed to carry a special nuance. Perhaps he meant that the spirit-rain ghost, even dressed in bridal attire, was merely in disguise.

Disguise

This word suddenly sparked a new line of thought.

Following this idea, the second statement gained meaning:

“It… is imitating. I was wrong. The one beside me all along—it was it!”

The spirit-rain ghost had been imitating all along. Dressed in red with black hair, it mimicked the ghost bride’s appearance. Its goal was simply to remain near Chen Fu.

So who had been beside him all along?

“That strange elderly woman!”

For the first time, Tongguan felt a sense of clarity. Up to now, all the clues made sense—except the elderly woman’s role seemed optional in this mission.

According to Chen Fu’s words, could it be that the elderly woman they had been seeing was actually the spirit-rain ghost in disguise?

At ordinary times, it appeared as the elderly woman, but when it needed to kill, it became the ghost bride.

A perfect ruse, one that had prevented Tongguan and the others from ever considering the possibility of two ghosts. Even after realizing there were two, seeing it revealed would still stun them.

The spirit-rain ghost had been in disguise all along. A masterful deception! No one would suspect the elderly woman—even though she was so unusual—because she had always advocated for the sacrifice.

Yet at some critical moment, she—or rather, the ghost in her guise—had likely been replaced, manipulated, or impersonated in the operation.

Tongguan suddenly understood. He sprang to his feet, eyes blazing as he stared up at the mouth of the well.

The moonlight still fell straight down, as if deliberately illuminating his position.

This ghost—whether it had the ability to create duplicates or disguise itself—revealed that the elderly woman was its true form.

“Sacrifice! Now it makes sense—the ghost bride is actually the key to survival!”

All the murders had been carried out by the elderly woman. This meant the other ghost in the mission could serve as the path to safety.

This was the hotel’s purpose in setting up two ghosts for the task!

They had never imagined that a ghost could become a means of survival, let alone that this particular ghost would employ deliberate disguise.

Once this was understood, the main difficulty of the promotion task was nearly solved.

Complete the sacrifice, summon the ghost bride, use it to suppress the murderous ghost whose true form is the elderly woman—and the mission would be complete.

Tongguan’s pulse quickened. He looked at the well’s opening above, renewed confidence surging through him.

He needed to leave, retrieve the abandoned painting, and continue the sacrifice—otherwise, everyone would die.

But how to escape…

At that moment, he suddenly heard the sound of hammering from the solid rock walls around him.

It seemed to come from right beside him—not just thick layers of earth and stone, but someone chiseling through toward him.

Tongguan’s face changed. Unsure whether the source was human or ghostly, he stepped back several paces, eyes fixed on the stone wall in front of him.

The hammering didn’t last long, but he soon noticed small shifts in the cracks of the rock.

This suggested the barrier between them wasn’t as thick as he had thought.

Yet Tongguan was baffled—he had previously tried breaking these walls, but the rock had seemed indestructible, leaving no mark whatsoever.

Why was this entity making such rapid progress?

His vigilance sharpened. He drew his knife, ready for the moment the true form of whatever was approaching revealed itself.

Suddenly, a gust of wind swept across the sky. The moonlight, which had previously shone directly into the well, seemed to shift.

Just as the moonlight began to fade, several loose rocks fell, and a slightly disheveled figure squeezed into the bottom of the well.

The moment this person saw Tongguan, their eyes brightened, and they began to speak.

But a brick fell squarely on their head, drawing a curse in response.