Chapter 138

Chi Yi: "............"

She gave Li Zhi a complicated look.

Tang Nanshan, who was very interested in the nation's first love, asked curiously,

"What is it?"

Chi Yi paused.

"Nothing."

Then she added,

"I just think... if I were the ghost, I'd be pretty scared right now."

"Zhi Zhi looks like the villain."

Tang Nanshan burst out laughing.

The heavy atmosphere of hunting for the ghost seemed to lighten considerably after that.

Han Wenlin spoke up.

"Since we're all players, everyone should know the major historical events of our country, right?"

He looked at Li Zhi and Pei Hongyu.

"You two can ask questions and randomly pick people to answer."

Li Zhi shook her head.

"When the mole infiltrated the player group, it definitely extracted our memories. Everything we know, it knows too."

Han Wenlin frowned.

"Then what do we do? How about proving ourselves through our professions? I'm an online singer. I sing very well. I can sing one right now."

Chen Tianran, however, said,

"But if the mole already has a fabricated identity, then its abilities would definitely match that identity. It can even transform into a human. Singing shouldn't be difficult for it."

Han Wenlin became somewhat irritated.

"That won't work, this won't work either. Then what do you suggest? We can't exactly rip out our hearts to prove ourselves!"

You Jingmeng glanced at him coolly.

"Why are you in such a hurry?"

Her face was full of suspicion.

"Maybe it's you."

Han Wenlin: "............"

At that moment, Pei Hongyu said coldly,

"Use the process of elimination."

The others asked,

"How?"

Pei Hongyu replied,

"Every ghost has a counterpart."

The others didn't quite understand what he meant.

Li Zhi smiled and explained,

"Based on the pattern we've used to identify ghosts before, every real ghost has one decoy counterpart. The real ghost and its decoy share many similarities. The mole should follow the same pattern."

She looked at the five people opposite her.

"Ou Wendong is a belly dancer. Neither his profession nor his experiences resemble anyone else's here, so he can be ruled out."

"Mengmeng is a beauty blogger. Likewise, she has no counterpart, so she can also be ruled out."

"But Han Wenlin and Wei Xiao are counterparts for each other. You're both singers, and your experiences before entering the dungeon are also very similar."

Ou Wendong looked as though a great injustice had finally been cleared away.

"I told you I wasn't! Can I come over now?!"

You Jingmeng had already run over.

She complained pitifully,

"Boss Li Zhi, did you suspect me before? I was the first person you asked about my job outside the dungeon."

Li Zhi smiled.

"No."

"I asked you first because I trusted you."

You Jingmeng grinned happily.

Across from them, Cheng Jiayue looked flustered.

"I'm not either! I don't have a counterpart!"

Now only three people remained.

Statistically, she indeed looked the least likely to be the ghost.

Li Zhi, however, smiled.

"How could you not?"

She raised an eyebrow.

"Isn't your counterpart... me?"

Cheng Jiayue froze.

Remembering what she had introduced about herself earlier, the others suddenly understood.

"A background actress who was pulled into a dungeon after livestreaming began..."

"Isn't that exactly Boss Li Zhi?"

Cheng Jiayue was on the verge of tears.

"It's really not me!"

"I acted in lots of television dramas! I can prove it!"

Li Zhi looked at her.

"The ghost can extract information about every film and television production we've participated in from our memories."

"It can even extract information about every television drama other people have watched from their memories."

When the ghost infiltrated the player group, it extracted the memories of every player.

No matter how perfectly it disguised itself, it could only rely on the fixed memories stored in those players.

Outside the boundaries of those memories...

It knew absolutely nothing about the outside world.

"Love Threads Calamity was a television drama starring Chi Yi."

"By extracting her memories, you could naturally learn who the director and screenwriter were."

"You could also learn that she was injured and took a week's leave at the start of filming."

"But besides that..."

"When you played the little fairy maid extra in Love Threads Calamity, who was the assistant director responsible for your group?"

"How much were you paid per day?"

"Which district did you live in back then?"

"What was the name of the extra actress who played the little fairy maid alongside you?"

Li Zhi's tone remained as gentle and calm as ever.

Her expression was mild, as though she were simply chatting with a teammate.

Cheng Jiayue clenched her clothes tightly and answered firmly,

"The assistant director was Tang Zhengchu."

"My daily pay was one hundred yuan."

"I lived in Jindong District outside the film studio."

"I also had a partner named Yuan You. We're still in contact today!"

You Jingmeng immediately asked Chi Yi,

"Was there really a director named Tang Zhengchu on your production?"

Chi Yi looked somewhat confused.

"I don't know."

"I wasn't familiar with the directors who handled the supporting cast."

Cheng Jiayue's face turned bright red.

Whether from anger or anxiety, it was impossible to tell.

She clenched her fists.

"I'm not the mole!"

"The mole has to be between Han Wenlin and Wei Xiao!"

"Why aren't you interrogating them instead?"

"Because although they're each other's counterparts, they can also verify each other."

Pei Hongyu answered coldly.

"Unless they're both ghosts, otherwise the conditions conflict."

Wei Xiao said,

"If both of us were ghosts, then we couldn't possibly know about the livestream PK."

"Doesn't the ghost only extract the counterpart's memories?"

Tang Nanshan shook her head.

"No."

"The ghost extracts the memories of everyone present."

"So even if both you and Han Wenlin were ghosts, you'd still know about the livestream PK."

"Because Mengmeng and Ou Wendong are both livestreamers."

"Their understanding of livestreaming is enough for the two of you to use as camouflage."

She thought for a moment.

"Unless..."

"You can tell us something that nobody here knows, yet can still later be proven correct."

Han Wenlin said impatiently,

"If none of you know it, then how are you supposed to verify whether it's true or false?"

"That's impossible!"

"No need."

Li Zhi suddenly spoke.

"The ghost has already exposed itself."

Everyone froze simultaneously.

She looked at Cheng Jiayue.

"You made one mistake."

Cheng Jiayue's face flushed crimson.

She looked both wronged and furious.

"You're still suspecting me!"

Li Zhi smiled.

"The mistake was choosing me as your counterpart from the very beginning."

"If you hadn't..."

"You might actually have fooled me."

She was simply too calm.

Cheng Jiayue unconsciously clenched both fists.

The words squeezed through her teeth.

"What do you mean?"

Li Zhi said,

"Among all the players here, I'm the only one who has ever worked as a background actress."

"So every piece of information you have about being a background actress could only have come from me."

She turned to Chi Yi.

"When was Love Threads Calamity filmed?"

Chi Yi answered immediately,

"The year before last!"

"It aired last year!"

Li Zhi looked back at Cheng Jiayue.

"I did work as a background actress before."

"But that was when I had just entered the entertainment industry."

"Back then..."

"My daily pay really was around one hundred yuan."

She smiled.

"But..."

"That was already six years ago."

Cheng Jiayue seemed to realize something. The flush on her face gradually faded, and her tightly clenched fists slowly relaxed.

Li Zhi said calmly, " Love Threads Calamity was filmed the year before last. Over the past two years, the wages for background actors have gone up, especially for attractive extras who can play fairy maidens. At the current market rate, it should be around 300 a day. And because I stopped doing background acting years ago, your understanding of background actors' wages could only remain at what I remembered back then."

Cheng Jiayue recalled the string of questions Li Zhi had asked earlier. They had all seemed like the simplest, easiest information to answer, yet they had actually revealed the most critical information.

From the moment Li Zhi asked those questions, she had already been laying a trap.

The more desperately she tried to prove herself, the more easily she fell into it.

Just from a single day's wage, Li Zhi had found the flaw.

Staring at her, the tense anger on Cheng Jiayue's face melted away. She let out a faint laugh.

"You're right. I shouldn't have chosen you as my decoy."

Han Wenlin and Wei Xiao immediately backed away from her in horror.

The other ten players stood together, watching the fully exposed Cheng Jiayue warily.

"You really are smart." She looked at Li Zhi. Even though her identity had been exposed, there was no anger or disappointment on her face. Instead, she looked intensely interested. "Everyone else's memories were boring. Yours were the only interesting ones, so I chose you. I really wish you could stay here with me."

Li Zhi smiled. "Thanks for the compliment, but I won't be staying. Though if you get the chance, you're welcome to come visit me again."

Cheng Jiayue said resentfully, "Crossing the barrier to find humans is very difficult for us. It's not like that guy..." She stopped halfway through, glanced at the pitch-black sky overhead, and sighed. "Time's up."

As soon as she finished speaking, Cheng Jiayue disappeared on the spot like a wisp of black smoke.

The ghost hunt was over.

The red lights throughout the park lit up ahead of schedule.

The doors of the Verification Center slowly opened. This was the ninth round of voting. Once this vote was finished, as long as all nine ghosts they had voted for earlier were correct, the players would clear the instance.

Pei Hongyu glanced at Li Zhi and, for the first time, took the initiative.

"You go in first."

Li Zhi nodded and walked into the Verification Room first.

On her final entry, the blank area beneath the Hundred Ghost Wall had indeed been filled with two rows of player names.

Nine names in each row.

The names of the dead players had already turned gray, while beneath the remaining eleven names was a voting button.

If the players hadn't discovered the mole in advance—or if they hadn't cooperated and completed all nine attractions to obtain the hidden clue—then upon entering the Verification Room during the ninth voting round and seeing two rows filled with their teammates' names, they would probably have broken down on the spot.

Li Zhi submitted the answer Void Consumption, which they had obtained from the balloon-shooting game.

Then she reached toward the flashing red names and pressed Cheng Jiayue's name.

The countdown on the wall stopped.

Green light flooded the entire room, and the system's voice rang out:

"Congratulations, player Li Zhi. You have completed all ten rounds of voting. All ten votes were correct. Achievement obtained: Little Ghost-Hunting Expert."

Li Zhi: "..."

After leaving the Verification Room, the other teammates entered one after another.

Li Zhi looked toward the amusement plaza.

During the voting period, all the NPCs had already disappeared without a trace.

Once everyone finished voting, they would probably be teleported away immediately.

There likely wouldn't be another chance to see Li Jianxi.

She rubbed the balloon string tied around her wrist, wondering whether it could be taken out of the instance.

As she was thinking, Han Wenlin suddenly walked over and asked with a grin,

"Now you should tell me what the answer to the carousel was, right?"

Li Zhi paused.

Under the park's red glow, Han Wenlin's smile looked somewhat sinister.

"I know it wasn't Black and White Impermanence. So what was the answer?"

Li Zhi paused for a moment.

"You didn't vote for Black and White Impermanence."

She stated it as a certainty.

Han Wenlin clicked his tongue, looking rather pleased with himself.

"Even Cheng Jiayue couldn't fool you, but I did. Doesn't that mean I'm smarter than you?"

Li Zhi: "..."

She glanced at Wei Xiao in the distance.

Following her gaze, Han Wenlin looked over as well, speaking in his usual carefree tone.

"He wanted to trick me, so of course I could trick him too, couldn't I?"