Chapter 92: Life or Death

After surviving the perilous night, Ji Li had expected a rare, clear morning.

At least that’s what he had thought while looking at the sky after narrowly escaping death the night before.

But fate was unkind. The first day after entering the mission brought a sky thick with clouds, an oppressive, bitter weather.

The dilapidated, hole-riddled clay house offered no respite for Ji Li, already gravely injured.

A biting cold wind gnawed at his bones, slipping into the gap of his broken left shoulder, chilling him to the core.

In this state, he woke, shivering uncontrollably.

The first sensation was an endless, penetrating chill.

He lowered his head, staring at his empty left arm, now nothing but a sleeve, and remained silent.

Even his mind seemed blank, overwhelmed only by exhaustion.

Shivering in the wind, he looked at the gloomy sky and forced himself to rise.

Peeling back a corner of his coat, he saw that his injuries had stabilized somewhat.

The special medicine from the hotel had been effective; the night’s rest left only minor seepage through the gauze, with no further deterioration.

With his remaining right hand, he fumbled through his bag, pulling out a pack of cigarettes. Hands trembling, he lit one with the lighter Fang Shenyan had left him.

Repeated attempts were snuffed by the wind, but eventually, he drew the day’s first smoke.

Squinting, Ji Li glanced toward the shattered glass window, coughing weakly, then shifted his gaze to the kang beside him.

The tabby cat that had been there was gone. He reached out—no warmth.

It meant the cat had left long ago.

This has to be the worst injury I’ve ever had, his second persona remarked.

It had been silent for a long time, even during the loss of his arm.

Ji Li nodded quietly, still reluctant to speak, even though the second persona found it difficult to talk.

“Maybe we should consider finding allies…”

Ji Li could tell the second persona meant friends, not merely helpers.

“I don’t need—”

You can’t hold out alone for long. Last time it was your hand, this time your arm. Maybe next time someone will take your head as a ball.

“At least… not yet…”

His voice was hoarse; his head throbbed from the night’s cold. He was stubborn, as hard-hearted as ever.

The second persona sighed silently. Just as it was about to speak, the third persona interjected.

Voices—someone alive is talking in the neighboring yard!

Ji Li snapped to attention, leaping from the kang, though his stiff body almost made him fall.

Blood and dirt plastered his face, his former vitality gone, yet he scrambled to his feet, cigarette in mouth, moving quickly to adapt to his weakened state.

He crouched along the clay wall, listening to the conversation.

A confident middle-aged man spoke, tinged with blame: “How did you mess this up? How could such a thing go wrong?”

“I’ve done all I could. They came on their own. Isn’t it good for you as well?”

Ji Li instantly recognized the voice. The tone, the cadence—it was Chen Fu.

Before he could wonder why Chen Fu was speaking with unknown forces outside the Li Mansion, the man continued:

“My intention was to remove the five treacherous disciples and help you achieve your goal. But now a group of stand-ins has appeared. What am I supposed to do with my disciples?”

Hearing this, Ji Li pieced together many previously unresolved questions.

This middle-aged man was likely the one who had spied on him yesterday—the third-party mysterious figure in this mission, as he had suspected.

They had never understood why Chen Fu and the elderly woman had gone to the Republican-era street to carry the coffin right as the mission started, gathering all the staff.

Initially, they had suspected some connection between the Li Mansion and the hotel but could never explain it.

Now, everything made sense.

It had all been a misunderstanding.

Originally, Chen Fu had led the fake funeral procession to meet the middle-aged man’s five disciples.

They had planned to use those five rebellious disciples as a sacrifice for the painting.

But the disciples seemed to arrive late. By chance, it was the staff who were at the scene.

Through this twist of fate, the staff became the victims.

What made Ji Li uneasy was whether this apparent coincidence was truly accidental—or if the hotel had deliberately orchestrated it.

This mission was centered on a preexisting supernatural event.

For the staff to participate, there had to be a plausible reason.

In that case, the coincidence was no longer a coincidence.

“Calculating everything…”

Ji Li couldn’t help feeling a trace of curiosity about the hotel called Tianhai.

Perhaps, in the hotel’s eyes, the scheming and plotting of these humans were trivial at best.

The hotel itself was the true master of strategy.

“I used the painting to lure those little bastards to meet this afternoon in South Mountain. By then, it will be perfect to clean house,” the middle-aged man said, his voice strong and deliberate, though slightly accented and odd.

“Why did you bring them to South Mountain? We’re holding the funeral this afternoon too. If we run into them, how do I explain it to my aunt?”

Chen Fu sounded anxious. He seemed more afraid than anyone of failing the plan.

“Don’t worry, Master Fu. We now have ten lives available for sacrifice. The best approach is to cover both bases.

You use the fake funeral to sacrifice the five unlucky souls, while I lure the disciples with the painting to South Mountain and kill them in the process. Isn’t that more secure?”

Chen Fu fell silent, weighing the pros and cons.

The middle-aged man added lightly: “The painting is yours for now, but the more people know of it, the more dangerous you become.

Do you want to secure everything at once and rise to power, or hesitate and risk disaster over time?

This choice is yours alone…”

Meanwhile, Ji Li faced two choices of his own, but his responsibilities far exceeded Chen Fu’s.

The situation was now clear: the staff and disciples—ten people in total—would serve as sacrifices to the painting from two sides.

Although only five slots were technically needed, did the ghost bride truly want to kill only five?

Another way to frame it clarified the stakes:

First possibility: The sacrifice succeeds. Chen Fu achieves his goal; the staff die; the ghost bride may stop killing. Ji Li’s survival is exchanged for the lives of Tongguan and others.

Second possibility: The sacrifice succeeds. Chen Fu achieves his goal; the staff die; but the ghost bride grows stronger, killing all living beings endlessly. The entire town would perish.

These two possibilities represented two completely different paths to survival: one facilitates the sacrifice to survive; the other prevents it to survive.

On the surface, the first option seemed impossible. The second appeared most likely during the mission.

Yet the true burden weighing on Ji Li was the seemingly impossible first option.

Because, currently, no sacrifice had yet been completed, and the staff had already been attacked.

Preventing the sacrifice now would result in the same outcome.

But facilitating it carried extreme risk.

In short, no matter which path he chose, it seemed the staff were doomed…