Chapter 65: Shattered Mirror Threat
Inside the building, only the sound of two sets of footsteps broke the silence.
They passed the elevator without hesitation, heading straight into the hallway, intending to climb to the thirteenth floor on foot.
Avoiding the elevator was a habit long ingrained in the staff, an unspoken understanding, and the two began their ascent.
Yu Guo remained alert to their surroundings, but he could not contain the excitement building within him. Facing a real ghost only intensified his obsession with A-Lian. Though he had prepared himself for the possibility of not seeing her tonight, the anticipation still stirred hope in him.
Ji Li followed behind, his expression darkening. Everything seemed almost too smooth, as if the ghost had deliberately allowed them to reach this point. Especially when he saw Yu Guo's trembling back, he knew the man's mind was already unbalanced by their proximity to the destination.
"Don't get your hopes up. You have nothing to begin with."
Ji Li knew he shouldn't speak, yet for both their sakes, he warned him.
Yu Guo's brief excitement was immediately extinguished by the cold words. He took a deep breath and turned to Ji Li, saying sincerely, "Thank you."
Ji Li had nothing more to say. His eyelid twitched slightly, and the little finger on his left hand began to spasm.
It was like a built-in warning system: when the presence of ghosts grew too strong, his left pinky would react. He had deduced this during a previous mission; for example, when Li Xing had touched the hotel phone, Ji Li's pinky trembled uncontrollably as he reached for it.
He didn't understand why this happened—only that years of interaction with ghosts had linked his intuition to a physical reaction.
Before long, Yu Guo led Ji Li into the long corridor of the thirteenth floor.
The hallway was silent, lined on both sides with thirty locked rooms, each labeled as faculty offices. Yu Guo immediately focused on the fifteen rooms on the east side.
Ji Li watched him carefully, his heart sinking. Earlier, he had sensed something unusual in one of these eastern rooms, and now everything seemed to be heading exactly in the direction he feared.
Yu Guo's expression was detached, as if he hadn't been here for a long time. Seeing the scene stirred deep emotions within him. Previously, he had been unaware, but recent experiences had deepened his understanding of ghosts.
Most people, after witnessing the terrifying power of ghosts, would abandon such obsession. But Yu Guo was different.
The more he marveled at the ghosts' power and strangeness, the more determined he became that he would one day see A-Lian again. If she had truly become a ghost, he wanted to experience her presence firsthand, even if she no longer felt like a living being.
Even if she had killed him herself, he would accept it.
Ji Li watched Yu Guo's unrestrained emotions with disbelief. He could not comprehend how one person could feel such deep attachment to another—he had never experienced it, and he refused to believe it.
"Is it 1307…?"
Ji Li, watching Yu Guo walking ahead, asked cautiously.
Yu Guo froze, looking confused as he turned to Ji Li. "How did you know?"
Ji Li sighed inwardly and moved ahead of Yu Guo toward the door of 1307, saying as he walked, "I saw a room on the thirteenth floor where the moonlight gets swallowed. There's definitely a ghost inside."
Yu Guo wasn't scared; instead, he grew even more excited, though his excitement was tightly restrained, causing his body to tremble slightly.
Ji Li studied the locked door silently, while Yu Guo retrieved a key from his pocket, inserting it into the lock. "The key was left to me by the faculty member who was attacked. I've carried it ever since."
The metal key worked at first, but the door still wouldn't budge.
Yu Guo's expression darkened, and he finally pulled out the key. "We'll have to change the lock!"
Ji Li nodded, expecting this, and pulled out a tool kit from his pocket, using two wires to try picking the lock.
"What are you doing?"
"When doing missions, it's not just courage and strategy. Sometimes you need to use extreme methods. We have to be able to do everything ourselves."
The attempt succeeded quickly. Within two minutes, the lock clicked, and the door creaked open just a crack.
But Ji Li saw that faint moonlight seeped through the gap. From outside, the room appeared either blocked with black cloth or that the ghost had swallowed the light. The scene did not match his expectations.
Yu Guo placed a hand on the door but glanced at Ji Li, seemingly seeking confirmation.
Ji Li hesitated briefly, then nodded.
'Boom…'
The door was pushed open from the outside, revealing the interior of 1307 in full view.
Silver moonlight poured evenly into every corner of the room, like dew settling on the surfaces. Two desks faced each other, completely empty.
The room was pristine, as if no one had been there for a long time. The moment Ji Li stepped in, his eyes were drawn to the full-length mirror placed at the far right corner.
"No one's touched this place…"
Ji Li furrowed his brows and looked at Yu Guo, who seemed somewhat at a loss.
"That's not right. Over the past year, these desks would have been occupied again. How could it be this clean…"
Yu Guo understood Ji Li's implication. After A-Lian and the female teacher's deaths, the school had hired new staff to fill the positions, yet clearly, no one had been here for a long time.
"There's only one possibility: the teachers who came later were also killed by the ghost, their traces erased."
Ji Li began to move around the room, while Yu Guo retrieved offerings and photographs from his backpack, squatting on the floor and murmuring to himself.
Gradually, the situation in the room became fully apparent.
Ji Li's gaze eventually returned to the full-length mirror. From both Yu Guo's description and his own observations, the source of the strangeness seemed to stem entirely from it.
The murdered female teacher could not be seen directly, but through this mirror, the faculty member had been pulled away and killed.
Subsequent teachers assigned to the office were also killed, yet the mirror remained perfectly intact.
It was impossible for Ji Li not to focus his suspicion on it.
Yu Guo approached from behind, lightly touching the wide mirror frame.
"I examined it closely last time, even disassembled it. It's just an ordinary mirror."
Ji Li watched Yu Guo's hand glide over the surface, a deeper sense of unease creeping in.
Room 1307 seemed to be the source of the strangeness. The ghost already knew they had arrived—so why hadn't it acted? Even after entering, neither Ji Li nor his third persona had sensed any ghostly presence.
"But if it really is connected to that ghost, it makes sense that our ordinary perception wouldn't reveal anything," Yu Guo muttered, a hint of frustration in his tone. There was little they could accomplish tonight. The ghost remained hidden, and A-Lian left no trace; the visit seemed almost in vain.
He sat in the chair A-Lian had once used, silent.
Ji Li, meanwhile, fell into a state he could neither define nor explain. He looked at his reflection in the mirror and gradually felt a strange sense of familiarity.
Not with the mirror itself, but with something within it, something that felt known.
Yet Ji Li was certain he had never been to Tiannan Academy, nor seen this mirror before.
Slowly, he extended his hand and pressed against the glass. The icy touch made his heart shiver.
At the instant his left hand met the mirror, disaster struck.
Blood-red characters slowly appeared on the surface, as if triggered by his touch:
'You have arrived a season too early. Leave or die.'
Barely a second later, the entire mirror shattered with a deafening crash.
Shards flew in every direction, cutting Ji Li's fingers and face, and startling Yu Guo to his feet.
The mirror, which they had believed to be the ghost's source, had destroyed itself without warning, so easily.
"What happened?" Yu Guo hurried over, grabbing his backpack and rushing to the shattered mirror.
Ji Li stared in shock at his bloodied left hand, a drop of blood sliding from the cut on his cheek into the corner of his coat.
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