Chapter 90: A Sheep at the Tiger’s Mouth

The Li Mansion had completely descended into darkness.

Everyone had vanished, the lights long extinguished, and though dawn approached, the light had yet to break through.

Overnight, countless unthinkable and terrifying events had unfolded.

This was the grandest house in the Li Mansion. Within its long-closed doors, a sudden sound of rapid, frantic footsteps erupted.

The noise was so loud, so unrestrained, that it even startled several sparrows perched on the branches outside.

Bang!

With a deafening crash, a panicked voice forced the door open, stumbling and struggling as it burst out of the old mansion.

It was Ji Li.

He had just narrowly escaped death, yet his condition now was starkly different from when he had entered.

His long coat reeked of blood, and his hair dripped with it.

Most shockingly, his left sleeve was completely gone. And even worse, his left arm beneath it was gone as well!

It looked as though someone had violently ripped it off from the shoulder, leaving a crude, jagged wound, the broken bone untreated.

From the pale fracture, a chilling red blood continued to flow.

Ji Li’s pale face was smeared with blood, making him look utterly pitiful.

His eyes seemed to tremble—not only from the pain of his severed limb, but from the lingering fear of having narrowly escaped death.

No… impossible…

How… how could it be so strong?!!

Even his third persona could feel it, the agony of the lost limb tormenting his fragile nerves.

The words seemed to be forced out through clenched teeth.

His second persona, too, was awakened by the intense pain, dazed as if emerging from a long slumber.

He barely whispered, “Why…”

Ji Li, frail and thin, clutched his left shoulder and slowly turned to look toward the place he had escaped from.

The house before him, its door wide open, seemed even darker, causing his gray-black pupils to shrink.

Twenty-seven minutes earlier, Ji Li had still been trapped within the painting, surrounded by twelve tormented shadows along the walls.

The eerie ghost bride faced him silently, neither making a move.

He pondered why he had been chosen by her.

Almost simultaneously, he noticed the extremely elongated shadow on the ground.

A person with four shadows—there was only one in this world.

It was him. Ji Li!

In a daze, a bolt of realization struck his mind like thunder.

“My body… contains four souls!”

This was why Ji Li had been chosen by the bride, the source of his uniqueness.

He was not like ordinary people; there was a deeper secret within him.

Ji Li himself was a vessel for storing souls.

After realizing this, he inexplicably felt a gaze sweeping over him, lingering on his body.

That thing was coveting him, seeing through his flesh, aiming straight for the soul hidden deep inside.

“Perhaps I don’t only have four souls. In theory, if I could live forever, the number of souls within me would be countless!”

If that were true, then to this ghost, he was immensely significant.

It may have devoured ten years’ time or thousands of lives, but nothing would be as satisfying as consuming Ji Li alone.

After all, there was also a gray, unusual soul within him…

Ji Li’s scalp tingled as he finally realized that entering this room tonight to view this painting had been a monumental mistake.

A mistake that could cause him to die millions of times over and over.

A lamb entering a tiger’s mouth!

He had never imagined that his special attributes would play such an unintended role in this mission.

Surely, even the hotel staff had not noticed how Ji Li’s uniqueness perfectly aligned with the ghost’s method of killing.

Run!!!

The third persona’s roar snapped Ji Li’s nerves awake when he sensed the danger.

But having been pulled inside, where could he escape to…

“The doorway… the light there… it’s a gamble with my life!”

The door had always been open, but from the inside, it appeared blurry.

No crisis had occurred before, so Ji Li had never thought to test it lightly—but now, even if stepping through meant falling off a cliff, he would rather die than stay.

After all, he could revive later, but if the ghost bride caught him, what awaited him could very well be confinement and slaughter—dying again and again, each new persona resurrected in turn, completely reduced to a tool of the ghost.

The third persona had already given up hope of escaping; in truth, their realization had come far too late.

Having been pulled inside, there was no way it would be so easy to flee through the door.

Just as he thought this, Ji Li had already thrown his backpack ahead of him.

Although he couldn’t see exactly where it landed, the sound of it hitting the ground was unmistakable.

It seemed there really was a possible escape route there.

Ji Li accelerated into a sprint and leapt through the air, trying to leave as quickly as possible.

But midair, his body suddenly froze.

This was something he had never experienced in all the missions before.

Not only was he halted, but the space around him seemed to solidify, as if the entire area had slowed to a crawl…

He could watch himself falling bit by bit, yet his own movements were so slow he could barely prepare to react.

W…w…w…what…c…can…we…do…

Even the third persona, which did not exist materially, spoke so slowly that each word dragged painfully.

At the same time, Ji Li felt his legs seized by something.

His body stopped falling downward and was pulled toward the ghost bride.

In that moment, madness flared in Ji Li’s eyes. His hands, which had not been idle, finally reached behind his waist.

He gripped a handgun, but his first target was not the ghost bride behind him.

Instead, he aimed at the three black shadows closest to the wall.

Previously, those shadows had moved incredibly fast, but now, under the ghost bride’s influence, they had lost all resistance.

Ji Li had no idea whether bullets could affect them.

But judging from their form, these shadows seemed to exist in a state neither alive nor dead.

If they were neither alive nor dead, could they be shot?

Bang! Bang! Bang!

Ji Li fired three shots in succession, but the bullets moved unnaturally slowly. Only the first shot seemed effective.

A piercing, mournful scream sounded as one shadow on the wall appeared heavily damaged, its form fading slightly.

As he prepared to fire again, the oppressive stasis suddenly vanished, and the restraints on his legs dissolved instantly.

It had worked!

Ji Li had never been so desperate. He hit the ground hard on all fours, rolling toward the door without pausing for a moment.

But just as half his body was out the door, one of the shadows by the wall suddenly seized his left arm.