After returning to the room, Jiang Yan relayed the complete storylines of the three children to Shen Xiaoxiao.
Shen Xiaoxiao immediately fell into deep thought.
Jiang Yan quietly grabbed something to eat, but even after she finished a whole bag of bread, Shen Xiaoxiao stayed in that same pose, chin resting on her hand, her expression especially grave.
Little Xiaoxiao couldn’t stand it any longer.
She spoke up directly: “Are you actually coming up with anything?”
Shen Xiaoxiao was caught off guard.
A battle was about to break out. Little Jiang Yan watched the two of them with bright, expectant eyes, but Shen Xiaoxiao suddenly clapped her hands right in front of her.
“Come to think of it, why am I bothering to waste my energy on this!”
Humming a tune, Shen Xiaoxiao ran off to wash up. Little Xiaoxiao glanced at her, hesitated to say anything, then rolled over to turn her back toward Shen Xiaoxiao.
Little Jiang Yan turned away in boredom.
She fished out a notebook from Jiang Yan’s backpack and started scribbling. Jiang Yan leaned over for a look and found her writing down the three children’s stories. But since she couldn’t use a ballpoint pen, her handwriting was a mess—scratchy and ugly as ghost scratchings.
Jiang Yan withdrew her gaze. She intended to go check out those hanging dolls in the corridor, so after leaving a few instructions, she stepped out of the room.
She had barely gone a few steps before her foot bumped into something soft.
Jiang Yan looked into the darkness and spotted a huddled figure.
It was little Huanhuan.
The little girl sat on the hallway carpet hugging her knees. She must have been badly frightened—her head was buried tightly against her knees, long white hair falling down both sides of her body. If you looked closely, you’d see her shoulders were trembling ever so slightly.
Jiang Yan frowned. “What are you doing out here?”
At the sound of her voice, little Huanhuan flinched in fright.
She slowly raised her face, streaked with messy tear tracks, looking at Jiang Yan through cloudy, tear-filled eyes, as if trying to judge whether the person before her was real.
Jiang Yan could more or less guess what happened.
She crouched down. “Did you encounter a ghost?”
After a moment, little Huanhuan hesitantly nodded.
She whispered, “Auntie, just now, a teddy bear doll tried to take me away. I refused but it wouldn’t listen. I shouted over and over, but no one came to help me.”
Jiang Yan explained, “You were interfered with by a supernatural entity. You thought you were crying for help at the top of your lungs, but no one could hear you at all.”
At this, little Huanhuan’s relief was obvious.
She scrubbed her pale little cheeks.
Jiang Yan asked, “So? Why are you out so late at night?”
“I was bringing milk for my little sister.”
Little Huanhuan checked her pocket and pulled out a bag of plain milk. “I’d already warmed it up. My sister isn’t very healthy—she has to drink warm milk before bed.”
Jiang Yan asked, “Why not have Shen Huanhuan bring it?”
Little Huanhuan answered earnestly, “Something simple like this, I can do myself. I’m already grown up, very independent.”
Jiang Yan nodded, opened her room for the girl to deliver the milk, and watched her walk back to her own room.
After opening the door with her keycard, little Huanhuan waved at Jiang Yan gratefully. “Thank you, Auntie. Good night, Auntie.”
“Mm, good night.”
Jiang Yan waved back.
After seeing the girl off, Jiang Yan took out her flashlight and began shining it up at the giant dolls above.
Right now over her head was a doll in red, sporting double buns, silk ribbons wrapped around its arms, and holding a long halberd.
Jiang Yan took a long look, stretched up, and pulled the doll down.
She reached her hand into the snapped neck, searched through the cotton stuffing a good while, and confirmed there was nothing hidden. Then she hung the doll back up.
“Kind of a weird design, sitting on a lotus flower.”
With that critique, Jiang Yan moved on to the next dolls.
Viewers in the livestream started noticing something odd.
[Sister Jiang’s tone is kind of strange.]
[Where else is Nezha supposed to sit but on a lotus…?]
[Yeah, doesn’t she recognize Nezha??]
[…]
[Something’s off—look again.]
Jiang Yan thoroughly checked each doll, brushing off the occasional sudden eye-blink or scream from the dolls. Her hands never paused. Blank-faced, she rummaged through their stuffing. Finding a cat doll, she remarked in fascination:
“This anthropomorphic style is kind of interesting.”
“The black cat’s hat has a police badge—must be a policeman.”
“And those seven rainbow babies are fun too.”
Now the stream went totally silent.
After half a minute, someone finally voiced everyone’s thoughts: [We’re doomed.]
Then the bullet comments exploded—
[Black Cat Detective and Calabash Brothers…]
[Jiang Yan’s never seen cartoons… damn.]
[Why are there people who haven’t watched cartoons?!]
[She doesn’t know these classic national cartoons, let alone niche or foreign ones.]
[Damn, how are they supposed to clear this energy field now??]
[Everyone else is support—Sister Jiang is the brain, the backbone, and the sixth game is guessing cartoon names. My very life depends on this show now, don’t break me down!]
…
[Maybe Rank Three can do it? He’s ranked super high, super, super high!]
[? Rank Three’s natural ability is ridiculous, but do you expect him to force the ghost to tell the answer?]
[Obviously not. I mean he can use his brain too!]
[Be honest, aside from being pretty and finding clues, has Rank Three ever seemed smart to you? Why do you think he always shares clues with everyone? Is it laziness?]
[…]
[…Cough.]
Jiang Yan was oblivious to the livestream’s “personal attacks” on Mu Wang, and went on methodically searching for clues.
Right now, Mu Wang and Zhao Kepu were on the first floor, Shen Huanhuan and Yu Renwan on the second. Shen Xiaoxiao had gathered all the children in her room for centralized supervision.
So Jiang Yan was the only one on the third floor.
Because she had to check each doll one by one, Jiang Yan’s pace was slow. Over twenty minutes later, she finally picked out an old-fashioned pocket watch from a rabbit doll’s eye.
A red gemstone was embedded in the back of the watch, perfectly matching the rabbit’s eye.
Jiang Yan flipped open the watch.
Inside was a photograph, the lower right corner labeled in tiny script:
[Yangzhou and Mother]
Yangzhou was the boy thrown from the roller coaster.
After his mother died, his father sent him to live with his aunt. Later, on Children’s Day, Yangzhou took a long bus ride to Tongyuan Amusement Park, slipped into the roller coaster’s storage area, and died when the roller coaster made a test run and he was thrown off.
Jiang Yan studied the mother-son photo closely.
The woman in the picture looked prematurely aged, her face sallow, gazing wearily into the camera. She wore ill-fitting clothes, hair clumsily tied, holding a one- or two-year-old Yangzhou in her arms. Sunlight fell on her face, making her eyes look pale and worn out.
She seemed like a deeply burdened woman.
Jiang Yan examined the watch over and over, making sure she hadn’t missed anything, then clenched it in her palm.
She began sorting through current information.
Information about Yangzhou was found in the hotel, so he had a high probability of being the back story ghost. Combining this with previous deductions, Yangzhou was likely an undocumented psychic able to trace memories—or he was an awakened yao.
If Yangzhou was a psychic, that was one thing. If he was yao, it was trickier—he must have a compelling reason to pretend to be a human child and pass as one of the family.
But then another question followed.
If Yangzhou was yao, he wouldn’t have been thrown from the roller coaster. Even if he was, he wouldn’t have died.
Absorbing the shock with yao power wouldn’t be hard—any yao a few hundred years old could do it. And a few-hundred-year-old yao wouldn’t be able to glimpse her memories.
A yao capable of such feats, even with a field’s boost, would have to be at least two thousand years old. So what on earth was going on?
Jiang Yan frowned deeply.
Was Yangzhou faking his death?
Or was Yangzhou not the ghost at all?
She fiddled with the watch in her hand, just about to hunt through more dolls, when the elevator suddenly chimed, and Yu Renwan and Shen Huanhuan returned.
Yu Renwan jogged up to Jiang Yan, waving a black feather.
“Jiang Jiang, you were probably right—this ghost might really be a yao.”
Yu Renwan said, “We found this feather beneath the carpet in the second-floor corridor. But neither Huanhuan nor I can figure out what kind of bird it’s from.”
Shen Huanhuan also walked over. “I don’t know much about yao, but there are only two associated with children that I can remember. One is the lucu, which can make the wearer’s descendants flourish for generations. The other is the Jiguo Bird.”
“The Jiguo Bird can’t reproduce, so it steals other people’s children as its own.”
“This black feather might just be from a Jiguo Bird.”
Shen Huanhuan analyzed, “Its habits are a perfect fit for this field: it stole dying children and kept them here as its own.”
The analysis made sense.
If this ghost really was a grand yao from the Classic of Mountains and Seas, then it was perfectly reasonable that Jiang Yan’s memories could have been read.
But in this world, it wasn’t just grand yao—any mountain, stream, plant, or creature could cultivate as yao.
So Jiang Yan said nothing and reached for the feather, examining it carefully.
After a few breaths, she lowered her gaze.
No.
The owner of this feather was just a few hundred years old, maybe newly a millennium at best.
And if the back story ghost really was a grand yao, she’d have felt enormous pressure the minute she entered. That possibility could be ruled out.
But then how could such a weak yao peer into her memories?
Were there two ghosts in this field?
Or had this bird yao eaten some rare treasure, leveling up its abilities?
Jiang Yan was finding that being a yao herself was both an advantage and a hindrance in this scenario.
Maybe she was overcomplicating things. Normal people wouldn’t know anything about yao, and wouldn’t think this deeply upon entry.
Sometimes the truth was simple, and to avoid chasing down convoluted analysis, she needed outside help.
With that, Jiang Yan headed toward the elevator with the feather in hand.
Yu Renwan was startled but hurried to catch up: “Jiang Jiang, where are you going?”
Jiang Yan: “To find Mu Wang, and have him ask the staff.”
At her words, Yu Renwan hesitated a few seconds, then strode out heavily after her.
Shen Huanhuan exchanged an amused glance and entered the elevator as well.
Jiang Yan pressed the button for the first floor.
In a dozen seconds, they arrived.
The elevator doors slid open slowly. The lobby outside was pitch black, with some faint light shining from the front desk.
Jiang Yan led the way.
As soon as Zhao Kepu saw her, he looked ready to burst into tears and rushed over in a panic. “How can they do this, how can they do this?!”
Jiang Yan arched a brow, following his pointing finger.
At the front desk, Mu Wang had the staff member tied securely to a chair. The staff’s eyes were tightly shut, lips nearly bitten through, but Mu Wang, ruthless as ever, was prying open his eyelids with one hand and his mouth with the other.
“What’s the name of the sixth game?”
“Who’s the ghost here?”
Mu Wang had activated his ability: anyone who spoke had to tell him the truth. The desk clerk was breaking down, having already given out several secrets, and could only babble nonsense to delay.
“I don’t know the name of the game, but I know it has between one and eight characters.”
“Or maybe eleven, twelve, thirteen…”
Jiang Yan couldn’t take it anymore.
While the staff member closed his eyes and listed numbers, Jiang Yan walked over, leaned in, and whispered a few words to Mu Wang.
Moments later, Jiang Yan stepped aside.
Mu Wang held up the feather. “Is this feather the only one from the ghost’s true form?”
“Thirty-seven, thirty-eight, thirty-nine…” The desk clerk chanted on, and, ever distracted by Mu Wang’s outrageous questions, failed to switch tracks.
He answered crisply, “Yes!”
The room fell silent for a few seconds before Shen Huanhuan couldn’t help but laugh aloud.
That one line confirmed three things.
There was only one ghost.
It really was a yao.
This little yao had, by chance, gained a high-level power.
So the urgent task now was to determine what kind of yao it was, then look through the hotel and the five storylines for the animation it represented.
The desk clerk tried to tack on something else, but no one was paying attention anymore. Jiang Yan untied him, then patted Mu Wang’s shoulder. “That’s enough.”
Anything else, they could handle themselves.
Mu Wang nodded and handed Jiang Yan the documents he’d found on the first floor.
“They’re the birth records for the three children and Yangzhou. I checked with the staff—they said all files are authentic.”
Jiang Yan skimmed them, snapped photos, and circulated them to everyone.
It was late, so after returning to the third floor, everyone picked up their children from Shen Xiaoxiao, then went back to their own rooms to rest.
Once all had left, Jiang Yan, feeling weary, rubbed her forehead.
She tossed the watch and feather on the desk, shut down the stream, and grabbed pajamas to go wash up.
By the time she was done, half an hour had passed.
Jiang Yan pushed open the bathroom door to find the room quietly still—Shen Xiaoxiao was holding a magnifying glass, examining the pocket watch.
All her devices were top tier. Since this time the background was present-day, nothing she’d brought had been downgraded.
Spotting Jiang Yan, Shen Xiaoxiao raised the watch curiously.
“So, the ghost this time is a swallow?”
Jiang Yan froze.
She quickly walked to Shen Xiaoxiao’s side.
Shen Xiaoxiao used a magnifier with dozens of times the power. She pointed at a tiny black dot in the sky behind mother and son in the photo—so faint it looked like a speck of dust, even fainter really; you wouldn’t notice it unless your face was nearly against the photo.
“It’s a swallow,” Shen Xiaoxiao confirmed.
She pointed at the black feather. “I looked it up—though this kind of feather is common, swallows have feathers just like this.”
At the mention of swallows, Shen Xiaoxiao grew noticeably excited.
“My favorite song lyric mentions swallows!”
Jiang Yan: “What lyric?”
Shen Xiaoxiao, thinking back, recited seriously: “‘The reincarnated swallow returns to the old sill, for you it brings a February flower.’”