Chapter 151: Yinling Wellness Center (17)
"Donating the fetus wasn't voluntary. Her revenge after suicide only targets the customers who enjoyed this project…" Ji Ning murmured, looking at the records of Zhou Zixin's life. "No trade, no murder. Could it be that her only demand is to kill all the guests? Once the guests are all dead, the Ghost Domain will dissipate?"
Jiang Ting wrapped his arm around Ji Ning's shoulder. "She's clearly wrong to pin all of this on the customers. We need to find the true cause of the tragedy. That's why the system hinted, 'The one who tied the bell must untie it.'"
He dismissed the surface-level cause-and-effect without a second thought. If the only way to resolve the Ghost Domain was to kill all the customers, Ji Ning would be included in that.
Jiang Ting refused to even consider that path, not even as a hypothetical.
"First, let's find out exactly why Zhou Zixin was forced to donate the fetus." Qin Yanshu said coolly. "Jiang Ting, how do you know she was an employee's girlfriend?"
"It was Technician No. 2, Yang Jie. I heard him making frequent calls yesterday and he used the name Zixin." Jiang Ting explained, then looked at Qin Yanshu. "I'll go find Yang Jie now. I'm leaving Ning-Ning in your protection. If anything abnormal happens, call me immediately."
Ji Ning suddenly caught a gap in the logic. She grabbed Jiang Ting's arm and said urgently, "Wait! If this club is really run that tightly, so much so that even internal employees like you and Yanshu were kept in the dark, how did Yang Jie know about the fifth-floor project and manage to get his girlfriend's fetus sent up there?"
Her words made Jiang Ting and Qin Yanshu pause simultaneously, their minds suddenly clear.
If one only extrapolated the events from the surface, it did seem simple. It was nothing more than Yang Jie not wanting the child, or only wanting money, so he deceived his girlfriend Zhou Zixin into aborting the four-month-old fetus.
And Zhou Zixin, as a woman, could not accept losing a child she had carried for four months, a child almost fully formed into a human shape. She jumped to her death.
After she died, her vengeful spirit's hatred could not be quelled, so she blamed everything on the customers who enjoyed the fetal-pampering treatments.
It seemed very reasonable. However, there was a detail, easily overlooked, hidden at the very beginning of the matter.
As an ordinary employee, how did Yang Jie know that the club's fifth floor needed four-month-old fetuses?
Now, among the three of them, the only one who could get close enough to Yang Jie to investigate him was Jiang Ting.
The heavy responsibility shifted onto Jiang Ting. Ji Ning and Qin Yanshu could only protect themselves for now and wait for his return.
Ji Ning's ears were still bleeding, and her body was gradually growing weak and feeble.
Yet she put on a facade as if nothing was wrong, looking at Jiang Ting and smiling at him. "There should still be time. Don't rush in front of the NPC, don't let him grow suspicious of you. We'll wait for you to come back."
It was only a brief separation; Jiang Ting didn't want to make it feel like a life-and-death parting.
He just bent down, kissed Ji Ning's cheek softly, and patted Qin Yanshu's shoulder. Without a word, he turned, opened the door, and left the stairwell.
After Jiang Ting left, the nonchalance Ji Ning had forcibly maintained quickly crumbled. Her legs staggered, and she slumped against the railing for support.
Qin Yanshu's heart clenched. He pulled Ji Ning into his embrace, his cold, hard voice softening in a rare moment. "Is your body very uncomfortable?"
Ji Ning felt as if all the strength had been drained from her body. She was growing colder and colder, a chill seeping into her very bone marrow.
When she spoke, her teeth were chattering slightly. "So cold…"
With one hand, Qin Yanshu tore open the buttons of his shirt. He guided Ji Ning's hand to wrap around his waist inside the fabric, letting her lean against his bare chest.
"Is this a little better?" His hand hovered beside Ji Ning's head. He hesitated for a long time before finally touching her, supporting the back of her head, his fingertips brushing her cheek.
His body was warm, unreservedly allowing Ji Ning to draw on his heat.
So even though the chill still raged rampant inside her body, the coldness on her skin was at least temporarily soothed.
"Thank you." Ji Ning said, her voice faint.
Qin Yanshu did not respond to Ji Ning's thanks. He didn't know what to say.
Although he hadn't known the girl in his arms for long, spending time with her felt… not bad.
Qin Yanshu had assumed that with Jiang Ting's prior relationship, he and she were just partners thrown together temporarily to clear the instance, with no possibility of anything further.
Yet now, with Ji Ning leaning against him, barely clinging to life, his heart tightened painfully for her.
He didn't know why it was like this. Perhaps it was just because he couldn't bear to watch a teammate suffer.
"Yanshu, do you hear something?" Ji Ning looked up and asked. But as soon as she opened her mouth, a warm torrent of blood reversed flow from within her body, spilling from the corner of her lips.
Qin Yanshu reined in his wandering thoughts and listened intently. Sure enough, he heard rustling sounds coming from above.
He turned on his phone's flashlight and shone it towards the higher steps. Within the light's range, as far as the eye could see, everything was shrouded in dense blackness. Even the white walls had taken on a dilapidated, old, and blackened appearance.
Foul blood was even flowing down the steps from above, trickling to the edges and dripping straight down.
Qin Yanshu shielded Ji Ning and retreated to a corner. The two pressed tightly together, knowing that Zhou Zixin, now transformed into a vengeful spirit, had finished with the fifth floor and was heading downstairs.
Not long after, a human figure appeared at the turn of the third-floor landing. Her head hung low, her long hair disheveled, and her entire body's clothes stained red with blood.
As she staggered unsteadily downstairs, she was stuffing various chunks of flesh and severed limbs into the gaping wound in her belly. Her broken, grating voice murmured, "My child… my child…"
Ji Ning swiftly sent a message to Jiang Ting, notifying him that Zhou Zixin was coming down.
Then, hugging Qin Yanshu's arm to quell her fear, she took a deep breath and called out loudly, "If you want revenge for your child, the person you should be looking for is your boyfriend, Yang Jie. What good will it do even if you kill all the customers?"
At her shout, Zhou Zixin's steps halted. After a stunned pause, a long, exceptionally shrill burst of laughter erupted from beneath the tangled hair, scraping against Ji Ning's eardrums.
An invisible, sinister wind swept forward, charging straight at Ji Ning's face.
Under Zhou Zixin's furious attack, Ji Ning's eye corners also began to seep blood. The sight of her seven orifices bleeding simultaneously was horrifying.
Her footsteps faltered, and Qin Yanshu immediately held her tighter, simultaneously moving in front of her to guard against any sudden peril.
"If Yang Jie truly loved you, how could he have let you lose a child you'd carried for four months? Have you never suspected he did it on purpose?" Qin Yanshu said coldly.
Without needing to confer, he understood Ji Ning's goal and joined her in persuading the female ghost, stalling for time.
With Qin Yanshu shielding her, Ji Ning felt bolder. Like earnestly advising a friend, she said, "Some men are always adept at finding all sorts of excuses to deceive women, covering up their filthy intentions. And girls are always foolishly willing to believe. Since donating the fetus wasn't voluntary, how can you think Yang Jie is innocent? What did he tell you? For money? Or for your future together? Do you think if this club didn't exist, he would have let you give birth to the child and treated you and your daughter well?"
Ji Ning's words were brutally realistic. As she spoke, Zhou Zixin shrieked in breakdown, whipping up violent Yin energy to attack Ji Ning.
Perhaps because Zhou Zixin's emotions were unstable, it became an indiscriminate attack, and Qin Yanshu also started to silently cough up blood.
Yet even so, he did not move a single step, standing completely in front of Ji Ning as her shield.
Zhou Zixin moved again, gradually making her way down the steps. Her body's shattered joints made her stagger crookedly, unceasing, grating clicks and creaks echoing out.
She utterly loathed these two men and women who spouted such nonsense. She wanted them to suffer torment slowly!
Watching as the female ghost reached the first-floor steps directly opposite them—the second-floor landing—Ji Ning prayed for Jiang Ting to hurry over. She continued, "As a woman myself, I truly ache for what happened to you. Even though nothing can be undone now, don't you want to understand the truth? Are you really going to let the true culprit go free, letting him live on unpunished after causing the deaths of you and your child?"
Whether Zhou Zixin was enraged by Ji Ning speaking of Yang Jie this way, or shaken by her words, she wailed in breakdown with her shattered voice. An evil wind swirled around her. Her grotesquely twisted, formless hands rose, charging straight at the two.
At that very moment, the fire escape door was flung open with force. Jiang Ting rushed in, blocking Zhou Zixin from Qin Yanshu and Ji Ning.
Though he hadn't been present and didn't know what had happened, Jiang Ting knew exactly what he needed to do.
"Zhou Zixin, listen to this." Jiang Ting opened a recording on his phone and raised the volume to maximum.
"Yang Jie, why are you hiding here? It's too dangerous. Don't stay alone; come out and be with everyone."
"Supervisor Jiang, leave me alone. I have to hide. I can't let her find me…"
"Who?"
"Zixin… Zixin… Zixin has come."
"Isn't she your girlfriend?"
"She's dead… She died because she lost the child. Don't blame me. Who asked her to want to give birth? If she gave birth, I wouldn't be able to shake her off… How would I ever move upstairs then?"
"You're connected to the fifth-floor female manager?"
"Stop asking, stop asking… Don't let her hear."
"AAAAHHHHH!!!"
After hearing the recording, Zhou Zixin, standing in the bloody filth on the stairs, let out a long, piercing shriek. Within the black fog, her figure gradually vanished.
The pools of blood on the floor slowly receded, and the dilapidated darkness gradually retreated.
It seemed Zhou Zixin had left this place. She was going to find the true culprit to exact her revenge.
Fortunately, the three had coordinated their timing perfectly. Even one step later, it would have been too late.
Jiang Ting turned around, pulled the barely clinging Ji Ning into his arms, and gently wiped the blood from her eye corners with his fingertips.
The three had completed the clearance task. Though battered and disheveled, within the white light that only appeared upon success, they gradually turned transparent, each breaking into a smile.
Qin Yanshu's gaze lingered on Ji Ning's face. Though still inscrutable, it had subtly become a touch more fixated.
Livestream comments:
"I'm turning from a casual viewer to a fan of Ji Ning. She was in such a miserable state and scared of ghosts, but she still kept fighting."
"Looking at Pretty Boy Qin's expression, I bet Ning-Ning's almost got him completely charmed too."
"Let the heart-throbbing come on even stronger!"
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