Great! I'm surrounded by villains!
Chapter 44: The Mystery of Death

Chapter 44: Chapter 44: The Mystery of Death

The fox’s tail was soft, warm, and still carried the faint scent of shower gel. If you added a gentle head massage and ear cleaning service, it would be the ultimate enjoyment for office workers. All the fatigue accumulated seemed to disappear in an instant.

But Duan Mingyuan still had to emphasize that he had no such intention. It was just that Jiuyue was insistently hospitable.

With his eyes closed, he quickly fell asleep.

In the room next door, Yang Ping was carefully reading every bizarre tale that had been passed around about the Congyun Hotel, especially the "rules" it contained. Each detail here could be the key to decoding Ability.

Time slipped away unnoticed. For Yang Ping, spending the whole day at his desk reading was routine, but for some reason, he was in terrible form today.

Ever since he entered the room, he had felt restless, his eyelids twitching nonstop. Even closing his eyes to rest didn’t help, and instead, it caused him to see double when he looked at things.

His disquiet escalated. His senior had said that hidden within the Congyun Hotel was a malevolent presence stronger than any clockmaker. In his current dazed state, he would only be a burden to others.

"Don’t push yourself too hard."

Xiangwei looked deeply concerned.

Ever since the attack on his way home from school, the child had been restless. The feeling of powerlessness when facing formidable enemies weighed on Yang Ping’s shoulders like a mountain.

But that was the harsh reality.

After suffering a major disaster, the organization was practically defunct. Even though the various city outposts wanted to rebuild, the biggest issue was that the "seniors" who could stand up to evil spirits were either dead or had joined malevolent organizations like Wangxu.

The standing of the organization against evil spirits was no longer comparable to the past. Gathering intelligence had become nothing more than a way to comfort themselves. Even with lots of intelligence, there was no one left who could truly handle it.

What was worse, after the organization’s downfall, for some unknown reason, the frequency of evil spirit appearances had drastically increased, and more powerful entities kept emerging.

It wasn’t until Duan Mingyuan appeared that Xiangwei remembered the organization’s former glory.

"There’s no need to rush; with your talent, Ability will eventually—"

"Picture frame, the 13th step, crystal lamp, dark red rust marks..."

Yang Ping rubbed his eyes vigorously. The words within the document became blurred once again, the third time he had seen these terms today.

The same unease, yet with subtle differences.

No longer was there that soul-deep shudder. After gradually getting used to the feeling of being out of sorts, for some reason, Yang Ping suddenly remembered changing teeth as a child.

After the discomfort of pain, new teeth would eventually grow from the gums.

"Emotional fluctuations are key to the strength of Life Energy."

"Desire and obsession decide the evolution of Ability."

For the past few nights, Yang Ping had fallen asleep reciting these notes from the manuscript, but he had never managed to wake up from the wild Dreamlands. He didn’t even know what his desires and obsessions were. Compared to his peers, his emotions were quite stable.

He always thought of himself as an ordinary kid. If he had to identify something that differentiated him slightly from his peers in excellence...

It would probably be that he was good at solving problems.

He was praised by a teacher for his academic achievements in middle school, but this sole advantage vanished after he entered the best high school in the city.

That’s right, problems.

Just like the questions in practice exams, these unclear terms might be a puzzle placed before him, all elements that could be found in the Congyun Hotel.

With this thought, Yang Ping’s spirit was lifted.

"Xiangwei, I’m going out!"

Yang Ping got up in a hurry and ran out of the house without looking back.

Ever since he gained the ability to see evil spirits, the precognition of danger has always accompanied him, but his talent had remained uncontrollable. He couldn’t even achieve the basic function of "precognition."

He couldn’t deduce the time or location, nor did he know the specific identities of the victims, let alone predict how they would encounter danger.

The day outside was still bright, and the enthusiasts of the supernatural who checked into the hotel in the morning had all come out of their rooms, carrying their filming equipment, taking pictures everywhere as souvenirs, while a few were live-streaming with scales in hand, narrating the development history of the Congyun Hotel tales with a gloomy tone.

Yang Ping cast all distractions aside, now he was like a student who had entered an examination room, with eyes only for a riddle pieced together from disordered nouns.

The hotel had four floors, and almost every floor contained the elements described by these words.

First was the 13th step, which narrowed the search to the third-floor stairs. Congyun Hotel had adopted the most traditional decorating style and had not set up a separate safety passage. To continue the ambiance of the "haunted building," after becoming popular in the circle of supernatural enthusiasts, the operator did not renovate the hotel but allowed it to retain its most primitive appearance.

Rather than a hotel, this place resembled a retro-style mansion. Right at the entrance was the staircase leading to the floors above, representing the central position of the hotel, with guest rooms located on both sides of the staircase.

The handrails were wooden, and the hygiene was a cause for concern, with traces of grease, drinks, and some unidentified liquid residues dried on them, emitting an unpleasant smell when approached.

"Rust marks, rust marks..."

Yang Ping murmured as he walked downstairs, stopping when he reached the junction between the first and second floors.

"The 13th step."

The handrail on the right was stained with a dark red mark that looked both like rust and like the trace left by dried blood. In the moment he turned around, what entered his field of vision was a painting frame almost two meters tall.

Inside the frame was Mr. Qian Congyun, the founder of the hotel, wearing an old-fashioned suit with a demeanor of unspoken authority.

For a moment, Yang Ping thought the eyes of the person in the painting moved, but when he looked carefully again, he found no trace of it.

The crystal chandelier was above his head; it had been hanging here since the moment the hotel was built.

From this angle, he could include all the bizarre nouns in his view.

But what did these words signify?

What was going to happen on this 13th step?

Just then, the "words" in Yang Ping’s eyes one by one turned into dissipating bubbles, his vision grew clearer, and the superimposed images and reality melded into an inseparable whole.

A new hint appeared.

He saw a familiar name.

"Tang Qianqian■■, ■■■■■■■■■■■"

At this moment, "precognition" was no longer fleeting. Yang Ping held his breath, eager to know what would happen next.

Everything he saw seemed like hints from the future.

Every emergence of an ominous premonition was like a warning sent to him by someone from the future.

Finally, the obscured words revealed themselves one by one.

"Tang Qianqian is dead, killed by the resurrected founder."