Chapter 60: Shocking Discovery
"Concealing ghosts?"
As the female voice echoed over the broadcast, Fang Shenyan and Yu Guo froze in place, dumbfounded.
It wasn't that they couldn't handle it; the hotel's words were just too strange and unsettling.
Both of them instinctively turned to look at Ji Li, who lay on the ground. For the first time, Yu Guo seriously noticed Ji Li's open eyes and felt a sudden sense of fear.
Ji Li's eyes had changed. The once purely black pupils now seemed forcibly infused with colors that shouldn't exist.
Gray—the color of annihilation!
Yu Guo licked his dry lips and instinctively stepped back two paces as he watched Ji Li slowly rise, asking in a strange, unfamiliar tone, "Ji Li… why do you look different?"
At first, no one had noticed, since Ji Li had been near unconscious upon arrival, and no one saw that his pupils had already altered.
But as the hotel's focus turned to Ji Li, everyone finally observed the change.
The most shocked of all was Tongguan.
At almost the exact moment he saw Ji Li's altered pupils, his blood seemed to reverse, fists clenched, veins bulging.
Especially when he saw Ji Li's signature trench coat wrapping his body, rising from the ground with an indifferent gaze!
In that moment, Ji Li's appearance increasingly resembled the gray-eyed figure in a black robe Tongguan had seen in his childhood.
Tongguan's eyes nearly popped out as he fixed his stare on Ji Li, as if facing a lifelong enemy.
Chang Nian, standing nearby, was equally shocked. Yet her concern remained with Tongguan. Seeing him lose composure, she gently placed her hand on his arm.
The cool touch calmed Tongguan's heated emotions.
"Don't worry. This was expected. Ji Li is the one we're looking for. The truth will come out eventually, but not yet," she whispered softly beside him, her voice exceptionally gentle.
"After all, he hasn't fully transformed into gray-eyed form, right?"
...
Ji Li still felt hazy, a lingering weakness from severe injuries creeping into his mind.
The broadcast's words still echoed in his head. Others might not understand why, but he knew clearly.
In truth, six staff members needed to identify six portions of ghosts. With Li Xing dead, the five survivors only had to identify five portions to complete the task.
The problem lay in the abnormal movement of the gray soul inside Ji Li.
The portion of the ghost stored in his phone happened to invade his body during the gray soul's agitation, causing it to be absorbed and lost.
In other words, with Li Xing dead, the remaining unclaimed ghost should have been captured by the hotel.
But along the way, Ji Li's gray soul intercepted it…
A major blunder.
Now the hotel's focus was on him. Ji Li wanted to hand over the ghost but couldn't.
Time ticked by. He couldn't respond, and all eyes were on him.
After a long pause, the Tianhai Hotel broadcast spoke again:
"'Mr. Ji Li, you must not conceal any portion of the ghosts. Please hand them over to hotel management.'
The words sounded similar to before, but the phrasing was very different.
Yu Guo's expression turned to disbelief; the hotel had used the word 'please', showing a hint of compromise.
His gaze toward Ji Li felt strange, as if seeing him for the first time.
"I want to, but I can't…"
Ji Li, surprised by the hotel's tone, could only reply this way.
According to the hotel, the ghost hadn't completely disappeared; it still existed within him.
His body was already in chaos, and now another ghost entered—an unpleasant, unavoidable sensation.
'The person to complete the task will arrive in three days. Wishing all staff survival and success.'
After a pause, the broadcast seemed to accept Ji Li's response and moved on.
Meanwhile, the five-fingered blood palm in the air rotated, etched '205' behind it, and turned into a red light heading toward the second floor.
The hall fell silent. Fang Shenyan glanced at Ji Li, said nothing, touched the eyeball tattoo on his hand, and headed to the third floor.
Yu Guo pursed his lips, marveling at the hotel's attitude toward Ji Li, focusing on the 'concealing ghosts' issue.
He took two steps toward Ji Li, hesitated, and stopped, seeming to have something to say, but eventually left.
Then Tongguan and Chang Nian left swiftly without even glancing at Ji Li.
Only the exhausted Ji Li remained. His expression grew lonelier. Instead of going upstairs, he walked to a corner of the round table, sat down, and lit a cigarette.
After a long moment, he tilted his head back, looking at the broadcast panel above, and murmured:
"Was this mission planned by the hotel all along?"
The female voice continued without pause, ever-present.
'Whether the hotel planned this, I'm not sure. But when Li Xing was inspecting the disturbances on the second floor, he touched each of your hotel phones with his finger.'
'This is actually the origin of this mission. If you had asked earlier, I would have informed you of this.'
'With your abilities, perhaps this clue could have helped you detect the mission's anomaly sooner.'
Ji Li had not expected this answer. He had always assumed the female voice was the will of Tianhai Hotel and that the mission was designed by the hotel, but her response suggested otherwise.
"Aren't you the hotel's will?"
Her voice remained clear and gentle, like a spring breeze, yet there was a subtle difference now.
'I'm sorry, Mr. Ji Li. I cannot answer that question.'
'No one before you has ever asked me something like this, and I myself do not know the answer.'
Ji Li raised his brow. He seemed to have discovered some unusual secret about Tianhai Hotel. Her attitude was not what he had imagined.
From her words, it seemed she did not share the same consciousness as the hotel.
She seemed more like a customer service agent, tasked with explaining and conveying information on the hotel's behalf to the staff.
Ji Li's fingers trembled slightly. He had never imagined that within the hotel, such a unique situation could exist.
Perhaps before him, all managers and staff had assumed the female voice was the hotel itself and never considered that she might be an independent entity.
This was an astonishing discovery.
"You… who are you, really?"
'I do not know who I am, just as you, Mr. Ji Li, do not know who you are…'
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