So, the fundamental reason why the ghosts' rules and essence were so similar was that they originally belonged to the same individual. This world as a whole had restarted many times.
Ghosts could restart, but it was rare to see a ghost that restarted along with the world.
At least... besides himself, Li Mo had never seen any other ghost capable of this.
But that was only limited to this world.
The source Bizarre entity of this world was of a very high level of completeness.
Excluding the special case of the Bizarre Kiana, the source Bizarre entities of other worlds mostly continued along a linear timeline, the contamination stretching ever longer.
But the source Bizarre entity of this world, its contamination expanded horizontally, stacking space-time upon space-time.
"Identical ghosts..."
If the soul is the only proof of one's existence, but when the soul is also copied and inherited into the next world, then who is the real person?
Hide-and-seek. For the living to win, was it really just about avoiding the ghosts' search?
Li Mo couldn't help but ask himself.
Including the fact that Kanagawa Yume was a ghost in her dream, trying to catch the dream version of herself.
He only had conjectures about many things right now, with no actual evidence to prove them.
"I'll act according to the original plan, but I need more backup plans."
"At the very least, I need a trump card to flip the table."
Playing two games with the ghosts, and surviving until daylight meant victory.
He could at most bring one person with him. The others would likely make mistakes due to various factors.
In a long, high-intensity game, human error is unavoidable.
Li Mo took out the Bizarre pistol from his waist. Four bullets against a tide of ghosts was undoubtedly a drop in the ocean.
"Anything else to add?" Li Mo asked, lowering his head.
"Be safe..." Hua's voice was gentle, seeming to hide many feelings.
"I will."
After a simple exchange, Li Mo hung up the phone and looked at Kanagawa Yume standing beside him.
At this moment, Kanagawa Yume guiltily averted her eyes, her ten fingers intertwining back and forth, muttering under her breath, "I didn't hear anything."
Li Mo ignored her little thoughts and shifted his gaze to the sleeping crowd.
It was not far from eight in the evening. Waking up early to clear their heads would put them in their most vigorous state.
Even in death, one couldn't die so carelessly.
Li Mo gave a direct instruction: "Wake them up, and ask them what they dreamed about while you're at it."
"Alright." Kanagawa Yume walked to the side of the Ghost Bed and shook the shoulders of the sleeping Occult Club members.
Without any bizarre interference, everyone quickly woke up from their sleep.
Kanagawa Yume asked them if they had dreamed of anything, but the result was a great disappointment.
The phenomenon of being tormented by ghosts in dreams seemed to only exist for her. No one else had dreamed of ghosts or the like.
"What time is it..."
"Check your phone. What? It's almost eight o'clock?"
"It's okay, it's okay. We just need to hide under the bed like last night, don't turn on the lights, don't make a sound, and we'll be fine."
After waking up, everyone began to comfort each other.
Kanagawa Yume returned to Li Mo's side and reported the situation truthfully.
"Unfortunately, no one dreamed of ghosts. Although everyone dreamed last night, their dreams were all very normal, everyday life."
"Some went on vacation abroad with their parents, some participated in club activities at school, and... uh, there were some indecent dreams..."
"In short, everyone slept very peacefully, no one dreamed of ghosts. Your idea of getting information about the ghosts through dreams has probably come to nothing."
Kanagawa Yume sighed and spread her hands in a helpless gesture.
"No, I've already gotten it."
Li Mo's answer made Kanagawa Yume feel strange. She raised her head and looked at him in confusion.
"What? You got it again?"
Why is the gap between people so big?
She hadn't told Li Mo the specific details of her dream. How did Li Mo, who only knew the general outline of the dream, know, and what did he know? Why hadn't she seen anything?
Li Mo hadn't wanted to explain too much, but when he thought of how the seal on the ninth room had loosened after his conversation with Kanagawa Yume that night, he changed his mind.
It wasn't that he wanted to break the seal of the ninth room, but to explore the potential connection between Kanagawa Yume and the ninth room.
Li Mo first walked to the window, glanced at the increasingly dense black fog outside the haunted manor, then pulled the curtains, blocking the outside world.
"After witnessing the tragic death of a companion, and the terrifying ghost standing in front of the bed, how can one's dreams be peaceful and beautiful?"
"Your classmates, their mental fortitude is far from that level."
"The human brain's activity is very complex, but there are also patterns. Even if they didn't have nightmares, it's not reasonable for everyone to have beautiful and warm dreams."
Li Mo pointed out the incongruity of the situation. Kanagawa Yume was lost in thought, and after thinking about it, it seemed to be true.
"But what if it's a coincidence? After encountering something so terrifying, it's not impossible for the subconscious to yearn for a beautiful past, right?"
Although it was a bit of a stretch, it was still a possibility.
If not for Hua's reminder, Li Mo might not have dared to be so sure of his view.
The facts had already happened, and with the various pieces of information he had collected, Li Mo finally confirmed one thing.
This world was indeed constantly reincarnating.
Everyone was dead, including himself.
The Bloody Newspaper wasn't always lying. It did reveal the truth at certain moments, it was just that he didn't have enough reason to prove it at the time.
A ghost's disguise must be triggered by a living person's specific rule. For the Bloody Newspaper to be able to disguise itself as everyone, there were probably only two possibilities.
The first was that the rule was particularly simple. Just by seeing, picking up, or approaching it, the Bloody Newspaper could perform a clumsy disguise, writing on the paper with blood that it was any one of the people who had triggered the rule.
Li Mo didn't believe this one.
Not because this kind of rule was rare, nor because there was anything wrong with this kind of rule.
A very simple reason: the Bloody Newspaper completed itself by inducing the living to die, using their souls to nurture the completeness of its wisdom and rule logic.
In other words, only when it had obtained the soul of a living person, even if it was incomplete, could it say on the paper that it was that person.
The ghosts in the haunted manor could be divided into two categories. One was special and could complete itself. For example: the Knocking Ghost, the Human-Spider, the Bloody Newspaper... The other was ordinary, characterized by basically consistent rules. For example: the ghosts in the dream, the ghosts summoned by the Knocking Ghost...
Therefore, the second, unbelievable possibility had a basis.
The Bloody Newspaper had indeed absorbed the souls of the Occult Club president, and the entire Occult Club, including his own.
With this, it disguised itself as everyone and continued to repeat the misdeeds of the previous reincarnation.
Although it sounded incredibly absurd, in a paranormal event, anything was possible.
But what Li Mo couldn't understand most was, why could the Bloody Newspaper disguise itself as him? Had the him of this world died so easily? Or had he died to the Bloody Newspaper?
Li Mo pondered for a long time, took out his phone, and stared at himself on the screen for a long while.
So the me now, is this really the first time I've come to this world?
If the entire world would restart, Hua couldn't escape either. There was no objective reference to prove that this was his first time coming to this world.
Unless he let Hua modify the phone ghost's cognition again and talk to MEI.
He couldn't do it. Li Mo couldn't contact Hua, he could only wait for Hua to contact him.
According to the current situation, Hua probably wouldn't call him casually.
On one hand, it was because she had reached her limit and couldn't casually use the Bizarre Hua's power; on the other, it was because she was concerned about the seriousness of the situation in the haunted manor. Calling randomly could very well get him killed.
"It's not a coincidence." Li Mo's cold tone was very firm.
"You don't need to think about this matter anymore, because it's meaningless. If we can't live, everything will start over, and nothing will be left."
"Alright, you're the boss. I'll go emphasize tonight's rules first." Kanagawa Yume didn't notice the words Li Mo used and walked back to the members of the Occult Club.
Leaning against the window, Li Mo took out the notebook, thought for a moment, and put it back.
He planned to use it after reaching the fourth floor. It was still too early now.
Who knew what kind of pit the notebook would dig for him, making him fall into some trap, forcing the Bizarre Kiana to appear.
"..."
If the Bizarre Kiana appeared, it could break the phenomenon of the world restarting, but Li Mo remembered very clearly.
The next time they met, if there was nothing to restrain the Bizarre Kiana, he would surely die.
"Perhaps, the source Bizarre entity this time can help me."
"Risk and reward are directly proportional. If I can shake out the Bizarre Sprout and the Bizarre Hua again, the Bizarre Kiana might not be able to gain the upper hand against the three source Bizarre entities."
"Of course, if Irene were here, the certainty would be greater. But that woman is too mysterious, she doesn't act according to the nature of the Bizarre at all. I can't predict her behavioral logic."
Li Mo's dim eyes flickered in the dim light.
"I have to live."
"It's still unknown what conditions need to be met for the world to restart. Tomorrow I'll make a deal with the notebook, or I'll really die here."
Li Mo's understanding of himself and the situation was very clear.
Today, he would survive based on all the intelligence from the past three days. On the fourth day, he would use the notebook to find the truth of the world's restart and try to find a way to live.
Intuition told Li Mo that when he reached the fifth floor, the source Bizarre entity and all the truths would be waiting there.
Time passed minute by minute. In the Outer World, electronic devices wouldn't be interfered with too much.
There were no ghosts in the haunted manor that interfered with signals yet. Of course, just because they hadn't appeared didn't mean they didn't exist. One still had to be extremely cautious when distinguishing various information.
"7:50 PM, ten minutes left."
Li Mo's gaze swept around. The boxes were placed correctly, there were no strange phenomena, and the atmosphere was quite peaceful.
Lifting a corner of the curtain, the black fog outside the window was already so dense that he couldn't see the scene downstairs.
"Wait, what's that...?"
Li Mo's cloudy eyeballs turned. He vaguely saw countless black shadows of similar size walking out of the haunted manor.
And in the black house, the same black shadows constantly came from afar.
But unlike the black shadows that walked out of the haunted manor, the black shadows that walked towards the haunted manor all followed behind a tall black shadow.
Li Mo recognized the tall black shadow. It was that terrifying Knocking Ghost of very high completeness.
"A variable."
"The one from the outside, the Knocking Ghost doesn't belong to the haunted manor?"
Li Mo stared at the Knocking Ghost that was constantly approaching the haunted manor, countless conjectures rising in his heart.
The ghosts leaving or arriving in the black fog could all find identical ones, but this Knocking Ghost, Li Mo had never seen even a similar one.
Its figure was tall, even somewhat bloated.
Like a human alien that had eaten countless people, a huge body, a human form, the characteristics of a ghost.
Countless ghosts followed behind it.
"Its shadow still hasn't changed."
Li Mo's gaze moved down to the shadow at the Knocking Ghost's feet. It was still the same as he had seen on the first night, thin and gaunt, as if malnourished, a stark contrast to its large, sturdy shell.
Li Mo had already determined that the world would restart, but the uniqueness of the Knocking Ghost threw his thoughts into chaos.
If the world had restarted countless times, then there would definitely be a second, a third identical or similar Knocking Ghost.
But he hadn't found one, and Hua hadn't mentioned such a conspicuous existence.
Could it be that the Knocking Ghost could kill its own counterparts?
Li Mo reserved his opinion on this.
Time was running out. 7:55 PM, less than five minutes before the nightmare descended.
Li Mo walked to the side of the Ghost Bed and found that everyone had already divided the work clearly, obediently and quietly hiding under the Ghost Bed.
No one was playing on their phones, no one made a sound.
Kanagawa Yume had told them about many behaviors that easily attracted ghosts. After the baptism of life and death last night, everyone in the Occult Club seemed to have changed, becoming very obedient.
Some things, just saying them can't give people a clear understanding. You have to let them experience it for themselves to learn a profound lesson.
There were only a dozen or so people in total, so the three Ghost Beds were more than enough.
From left to right, Li Mo saw Kanagawa Yume stick her head out, beckoning him over.
It was the middle bed.
In fact, the middle bed was also the safest.
The leftmost one was closest to the stairs to the third floor. When the ghosts came up to the third floor, the first bed was the easiest to see and touch.
If the ghosts had any strange behavior towards the Ghost Bed, being in the second bed would allow him to see it in time and think of a way to deal with it.
Although the third bed was the farthest from the stairs, its danger level was not less than the first bed.
Because a small number of ghosts retained the consciousness of living people. When making a choice judgment, they would make a choice based on the living person's habits before death.
Three, this number was too familiar to most normal people, and would make the ghosts subconsciously choose the option with "three."
This was also why Li Mo had chosen to stay in the second room in the first place.
"Hehe, come in quickly. If you don't come in, be careful of a ghost grabbing you from behind."
Kanagawa Yume teased.
Li Mo's gaze turned to the others. Everyone's expression was extremely heavy. How could they be as carefree and fearless as Kanagawa Yume?
Did she not feel fear and severity because she knew she was safe?
Li Mo was not sure. He crawled under the second Ghost Bed, and the person lying next to him was Kanagawa Yume.
Kanagawa Yume still wanted to say something teasing.
A classmate next to her immediately made a hushing gesture, signaling Kanagawa Yume not to talk nonsense.