Chapter 149: First Assault

One email was about the puppet show, the other about the hotel missions.

In fact, if one thought about it, the two emails had much in common.

Takayama Toshino and the others went regularly to Sunset Bridge to perform, wasn’t that like carrying out missions?

And during this period they also had to follow strict rules—otherwise they would face severe punishment.

Only, compared to hotel tasks, it seemed these people had not yet faced any life-threatening danger.

They were just ordinary people lured by profit, brought together by money. As for avoiding the police, that was easy to understand.

After all, a simple performance that could earn them wealth beyond what most people would ever see in a lifetime—anyone would suspect something was wrong.

Takayama now hung his head in silence, facial muscles twitching. According to the email’s instructions, this was to be his last performance. Afterward, he would supposedly be free again.

But no one expected—their end was only the true beginning of the mission.

And even more unfortunate, they had not fallen into the hands of a merciful branch, but instead into Ji Li’s—and Fang Shenyan’s.

Unlike the hotel emails, theirs is more like a virus.

It hacks into a computer or phone. Takayama received his on a computer, while the musician got his on a phone.

When the email arrives, the screen goes completely black, leaving only two options: accept or refuse. Otherwise, you can’t return to the desktop.

And in the background, besides the black, there’s a small puppet logo.

Takayama had revealed everything he knew, praying that once Ji Li and the others found him useless, they might spare his life.

Ji Li… did you hear that…

At that moment, the third persona suddenly spoke up in Ji Li’s mind, saying something inexplicable.

Ji Li’s contemplation was broken, but he did not reveal it.

He only exhaled slowly, flicked his cigarette out the window—only for a gust of wind to blow the ash back inside, staining his clean trench coat.

“Throw Takayama Toshino out. Now!”

Kondo Sei was stunned. She had thought Ji Li still had more to ask, but instead came this sudden order.

Before she could react, Ji Li lunged forward, seizing Takayama by the collar.

The explosive force shocked everyone—just that grip nearly lifted Takayama completely off his seat.

Takayama thought Ji Li was about to kill him, and thrashed desperately.

But Ji Li ignored it, veins bulging on his neck, roaring at the stunned Gao Liangping: “Open the door!”

Gao Liangping was closest to Takayama. Though he hesitated a moment, his hands were quick—but already too late.

At the very back, Fang Shenyan suddenly felt a surge of urgency. The eye in his left palm burst open, staring dead at Takayama!

In his vision, a hand appeared above Takayama’s head.

That hand again—that bluish-gray palm, its five fingers trailing countless threads, dangling downward, all aiming for Takayama’s head, his limbs, every part of his body that could be bound!

To everyone else, Takayama had simply stopped struggling.

But that was the start of his death. His face froze in panic from the moment Ji Li grabbed him. Only his wide, desperate eyes showed his fear and helplessness.

It was useless. Rigidity spread from his skull, down through his body. From head to toe, it consumed him.

Even his feet were tangled in threads—fixed in place.

With a series of crack-crack-crack as bones snapped, Takayama Toshino was dead in less than two seconds!

Ji Li was still gripping his collar when life left him.

Takayama had said the first rule in his email was never to reveal his part in the Sunset Bridge Bunraku shows.

But he had. Perhaps as an ordinary man, he never imagined that even if punishment came, it could be this.

He never thought ghosts were real.

The third persona’s warning to Ji Li had been exactly this.

He was the first to realize Takayama was doomed. From the moment he became a clue, his death was certain.

This time Ji Li’s group hadn’t chosen to kill him—but the ghost did not let him go.

Just like at No. 264 Deer Park Street, where Miss Akira now lay a corpse, twisted into a grotesque dance.

Ji Li hadn’t killed Akira either. But the moment the staffs left, the ghost executed her—a punishment for breaking the rules.

This ghost was new—strange.

It killed by curse-like transmission, yet mimicked the style of Amagai Hotel’s punishments.

Akira and Takayama—both slain under rule violations, just like in the hotel.

But things weren’t over yet.

Because Fang Shenyan saw—the hand that killed Takayama had not vanished.

It was moving sideways—shifting toward its next target.

This time, it aimed at Gao Liangping, the one closest to the dead man!

And Gao Liangping could not see the ghostly hand at all. His body was leaning sideways, half of him hanging out the van door, gripping Ji Li’s seat and the open door for balance.

It was an awkward, unstable position—his head down, legs sticking up.

Meanwhile…

The threads dangled again, moving naturally, first wrapping around the closest thing—Gao Liangping’s legs!

He could not see the ghost, but he could feel the chill circling above his head.

Yet this old man, already at an advanced age, showed little panic on his face, even when he knew he was the unluckiest of the seven staffs.

He was about to become the first staff slaughtered.

But Gao Liangping did not even furrow his brow. From his feet upward, the stiffness was spreading toward his upper body.

This ghost did not kill instantly—but in only two seconds, death would arrive.

At that moment, this simple man who had lived fifty-eight years at the bottom of society could only accept it—helplessly accept it.

And then, in the next second, something no one expected happened. Ji Li did something that went against all instinct.

Something that absolutely should not have been possible for him.

Without the slightest hesitation, Ji Li grabbed Gao Liangping—already stiff from the waist down—and leapt with him out of the moving van.

The two figures tumbled clumsily through the cedar forest at the roadside, shattering the stillness of the snowdrifts.

Death followed them out of the van, closing in with every roll.