Even though the two of them were standing close together, little Xu Yuan had to scream every sentence for Gao Tian to hear him. Gao Tian knew the fractured spacetime around them was snapping back into place. They were no longer separated by two meters of physical space, but by over two decades of time.
Gao Tian raised his own voice, shouting back at Xu Yuan:
"What method?"
Xu Yuan's voice drifted over, faint and intermittent:
"Hide a leaf in a forest!
"If you want to hide a leaf, the best place is in a forest!"
The little boy said something else, but Gao Tian couldn't hear him. As the man in the leather shoes approached, all supernatural power in his immediate vicinity was suppressed, including the little boy's Ghost Eye that pierced through spacetime.
The fog gradually dissipated, and fading along with it were the little boy and the joystick in his hand.
The spot where he had just stood was completely empty, leaving behind only an unplugged, dust-covered arcade machine.
The connection between the two timelines severed. Little Xu Yuan returned to more than two decades ago, and Gao Tian remained in his own world.Asking little Xu Yuan to find his own corpse over twenty years in the future was probably asking a bit too much of him.
However, his final words before the connection broke remained etched in Gao Tian's mind.
The best way to hide a leaf is to hide it in a forest. What did that mean?
Gao Tian turned around and walked out of the Arcade. At the same time, he unlocked his mobile phone to check the message logs in the Chat Group.
If this spacetime crossing and Gao Tian's words had impacted the little Xu Yuan from over twenty years ago, would it conversely alter the layout of the current timeline?
Perhaps the adult Xu Yuan wouldn't have turned into a ghost, and the Galan Society Chat Group might no longer exist.
Maybe if Xu Yuan knew the location of his death, he could have effectively avoided Sapphire Mall and never died at all. He might still be alive today as an excellent ghost hunter.
But to Gao Tian's disappointment, the chat logs in his mobile phone's Chat Group were exactly the same, completely unchanged.
Ghost Cave had sent out the Black Envelope, and Living Apartment was looking for someone in the group to dispose of its corpse...
This worldline hadn't changed at all.
That made sense. Spacetime was a massive loop. The Gao Tian from the previous timeline had probably also met little Xu Yuan in Sapphire Mall. But little Xu Yuan still died the exact same way after growing up, turning into a Fierce Ghost. Thus, the little Xu Yuan of this timeline wouldn't alter his fate just because of a few words from Gao Tian.
He had stayed in this dilapidated Arcade for about an hour and found practically zero clues. As Gao Tian walked out of the Arcade, he didn't forget to use his two-way radio to contact the others scattered across the other floors:
"Have you found any corpse parts?"
Xia Ta's voice came through the two-way radio:
"We've searched the entire mall, and so far, we haven't found a single piece of the corpse.
"Gao Tian, what were you doing earlier? Why did you suddenly go completely silent?
"We thought something happened to you over there."
Jiang Yang's voice interjected:
"If we keep searching like this, there's no way we'll find the body parts before the mall closes. For that thing to stay hidden in a bustling mall without being discovered, it has to be concealed somewhere normal people wouldn't even consider."
A few of the newcomers chimed in all at once, their voices ringing with despair.
Gao Tian ignored them and answered Xia Ta's question first:
"Just some minor issues I handled myself. I'll explain later.
"By the way, Xia Ta, let me ask you a question."
Xia Ta:
"Go ahead, student Gao Tian."
Gao Tian:
"The best way to hide a leaf is to hide it in a forest.
"Do you think this phrase has anything to do with the second Green Text Mission?"
Xia Ta:
"Where did you hear such a strange phrase?"
Gao Tian:
"It just suddenly occurred to me."
Fortunately, Xia Ta didn't press him on the source of the phrase.
The two-way radio fell silent for a moment before Xia Ta's voice sounded again:
"The place to hide a leaf is a forest, because forests have the most leaves. A single leaf hidden among millions of others would indeed make it very difficult to find.
"So, following that logic, the place to hide a piece of a corpse is among thousands of other corpses.
"Are you suggesting that the body is hidden among tens of thousands of corpses?"
That was obviously incorrect.
Without needing anyone else to point it out, Xia Ta immediately rejected her own conclusion:
"This is a mall, not a cemetery. Where would there be so many corpses?"
Suddenly, Jiang Yang cut in:
"Since you brought up the relationship between forests and leaves.
"What does Sapphire Mall have the most of?"
Boss Jin piped up from the side:
"Merchandise?
"Shops?"
Su Jiu's timid voice sounded:
"Money?"
That was obviously wrong.
Xia Ta and Gao Tian spoke in unison:
"People."
Hiding a leaf in a forest.
Hiding a leaf in a forest.
That was it.
Gao Tian suddenly understood the true meaning behind the sentence little Xu Yuan had desperately screamed right before the spacetime link broke.
It seemed he had underestimated little Xu Yuan. The person who understood him best was always himself. Without little Xu Yuan's hint, there was no telling how long it would have taken this group of fools to search Sapphire Mall.
If their speculation was truly correct, then the adult Xu Yuan's ingenuity was simply too vast. When he first saw this Green Text Mission, Gao Tian would never have dreamed that Xu Yuan would hide his corpse in a place like this after his death.
No wonder the mall saw such massive foot traffic every day, yet absolutely no one had discovered a corpse that had been sitting there for several years. Xu Yuan had performed a minor magic trick. From the very beginning, he had placed his corpse right in front of everyone. But the countless people passing through the mall every day turned a blind eye to it, as if they were under a hex.
"The corpse is hidden..."
Gao Tian lowered the two-way radio.
Clear footsteps echoed from the mall outside the corridor, heading straight for him.
Gao Tian stood in place, waiting as the approaching figure cast a shadow around the corner.
"My old classmate, why are you in such a hurry to get to the Third Floor Arcade? Won't you come have a drink with me?"
It was the old security guard who had been haunting him.
Gao Tian had merely used the Memory Ghost to hypnotize him, implanting a false memory that they were old classmates. He hadn't expected the old security guard to be so relentlessly clingy, chasing him all the way here and absolutely insisting on buying him a drink.
Gao Tian smiled faintly:
"I'm sorry, I lied to you. I was never your classmate.
"The reason you have this false memory is because I possess a ghost's Killing Rule. Through language and psychological suggestion, I can implant memories in your mind that never existed at all."
Very abruptly, Gao Tian had unreservedly confessed his biggest secret to a stranger.
A bewildered expression appeared on the old security guard's face, as if he completely failed to understand what Gao Tian was saying:
"A ghost's Killing Rule?
"What is that?
"Do ghosts really exist in this world?"
Unhurried, Gao Tian continued:
"However, I don't need to feel too sorry for you. Because you deceived me as well.
"You aren't even human, are you?
"For Xu Yuan to have hidden his corpse in Sapphire Mall for so long without being discovered...
"The greatest secret is that his corpse was divided into countless pieces, and every piece was stitched onto someone.
"That way, every day when Sapphire Mall opens, these six 'people' each carry a piece of a corpse that doesn't belong to them, walking separately through the mall's floors. No customer would ever notice that the security guard brushing past them has a piece of a dead person on their body."
Gao Tian's gaze fell on the old security guard's black-gloved left hand. That hand seemed completely out of control, constantly dripping black liquid onto the ground and emitting a pungent stench.
There was no mistake. The old security guard's left hand was Xu Yuan's severed arm!
This was the greatest secret of the Green Text Mission. This was the truth behind little Xu Yuan's phrase, "hiding a leaf in a forest."
The old security guard looked at his own left hand. His face showed no sign of comprehension; instead, he grew even more bewildered:
"What you just said seems to have reminded me of something... I don't know why...
"Come to think of it, it was about three years ago.
"I was doing my night patrol in the mall when I heard a strange laughter coming from a distant corner. The place had already been completely cleared out, so I walked over, intending to yell at whoever it was to leave.
"I didn't expect that when I turned a corner, I would see something absolutely terrifying... To this day, I can't remember what it was. I just passed out the moment I saw it.
"When I woke up, it was already early morning. The mall had returned to its bustling state, as if nothing had happened the night before, and I started another day's patrol.
"Ever since that day, I felt like I couldn't leave the mall. I didn't need to eat, and I didn't need to rest. Every day after the mall closed, my memory would automatically wipe clean. Then, when the sun rose, I couldn't control my body as it started a new day's patrol..."
Gao Tian naturally knew the reason behind the chaos in the old security guard's memories.
The strange laughter he had heard that day and the terrifying scene he had witnessed was Xu Yuan being killed by a Fierce Ghost in a corner of the mall.
Right before his death, Xu Yuan had used some unknown Supernatural Item to divide his corpse into five pieces, attaching each piece to a member of the mall's staff.
The ones acting as carriers for the parts of his corpse had to be five regular fixtures of the mall. Only then would their daily, repeated presence in the mall not arouse anyone's suspicion.
From then on, these five staff members were neither human nor ghost. They were simply five carriers bearing Xu Yuan's corpse pieces, tirelessly patrolling the mall day and night. The sole purpose of their bodies was to hide Xu Yuan's corpse. They had even forgotten their own existence.
He had to admit, Xu Yuan's ingenuity was truly massive, the Supernatural Item was incredibly miraculous, and his mind was sufficiently ruthless.
"So, how exactly should I remove this corpse piece from you?"
Gao Tian's gaze fell upon the old security guard's rotting hand, constantly oozing corpse fluid.
The next moment, he drew the Ghost Transformation Spear Tip.
The spear blade was unimaginably sharp. With just a single strike, it cleanly and decisively severed the old security guard's wrist, as smoothly as slicing through a block of tofu.