"Has this kind of situation ever happened in the Living Apartment before?"
"No. From the time I entered the Living Apartment to becoming an administrator, Green Text Missions have never allowed last-minute additions. This is the first time I've seen something like this."
Gao Tian understood. Now, he and Boss Jin had to fight alongside them.
The good news was that only one of the six body parts was still missing. Plus, once they found it, he would earn the rewards for the Green Text Mission, too.
Although he still hadn't figured out how he'd been pulled into the Green Text Mission, this wasn't entirely a bad thing.
However, what happened next proved his estimation had been far too optimistic.
Over the next two hours, Xia Ta and the others split into three groups. They combed through every corner of Sapphire Mall—since leaving was impossible—and inspected every staff member and ordinary shopper trapped inside. They checked everyone and everywhere at least once, yet they still couldn't find the final head.
Logically speaking, a head should have been the easiest part to find. Unlike a leg or a torso, it couldn't easily be hidden under clothing.
As the minutes ticked by, no one—not even the exceptionally swift Xia Ta—reported any progress over the two-way radio.
Two hours had passed, and night had fully fallen. The mall would close in just one hour."Sister Ta, what's the situation on your end?"
"Not great. Everyone looks perfectly normal. We haven't been able to single out even one suspicious person."
Xia Ta's voice sounded weary. She hadn't expected their second Green Text Mission to stall on the final body part. With two Living Apartment administrators stepping in, she had assumed a novice mission like this would be a breeze.
Just then, Boss Jin spoke up:
"Could someone be wearing a Human Skin Mask or something similar to alter the shape of their head and face?"
Jiang Yang chimed in, "Unlikely.
"Even if they wore a mask, they wouldn't be able to hide their scent. Our dog would have sniffed them out."
Another female voice sounded timidly over the two-way radio. Gao Tian remembered her; she was one of the two newcomers to the mission, named Su Jiu:
"Is it possible... that the staff member carrying the severed head managed to slip out while the white fog sealed off the entire mall?"
Xia Ta's voice returned, answering Su Jiu's question:
"The Green Text Mission explicitly stated we have to find the six body parts inside the mall.
"The body part must still be in the mall, right under our noses, but we've somehow overlooked it so far.
"If the head left the premises, that would mean the Green Text Mission violated its own established rules, rendering the mission moot."
So, where exactly was the final head?
Watching the final hour slowly slip away on the clock face, Gao Tian felt a rising sense of anxiety.
Right then, Xia Ta spoke up again:
"The last head must be hidden in a very specific place. If we just blindly keep searching like this, we'll definitely never find it.
"Everyone, head to the first floor of the mall. Let's group up and share what we've learned."
Gao Tian knew Xia Ta was right.
If they couldn't find a single body part after searching for two hours, their thinking must have fallen into a blind spot.
He immediately took the nearest elevator down to the ground floor. Out in the plaza, Xia Ta was already waiting in the center. She stood as calm as an iceberg, forming a stark contrast to the anxious, chaotic crowd surrounding her.
Before long, Jiang Yang, Su Jiu, and the others hurried over. The six members of the Living Apartment had fully assembled.
"Now we've gathered the hands, the feet, and the torso. We're just missing the head—the easiest part to spot—yet we can't find it to save our lives."
The young office worker named Li Jin had reached the absolute limit of his patience. He spat out a furious curse and delivered a heavy kick to a nearby trash can, drawing sideways glances from several passersby.
However, no one took it too seriously. Everyone had been trapped inside the mall for over two hours, and he wasn't the only one losing control of his emotions. The other shoppers just assumed Li Jin was desperate to leave.
Boss Jin continuously wiped the sweat from his face with a handkerchief. His fleshy cheeks were coated in a thick layer of grease that gleamed under the streetlights:
"For this kind of thing, we have to rely entirely on you youngsters. A middle-aged man like me doesn't understand this at all, so don't count on me."
A hint of dissatisfaction colored his tone. He had spent a fortune to hire two administrators with five Green Text Missions under their belts to assist him. He hadn't expected a novice task to be this complicated, nor that they still wouldn't have breezed through it by now.
He felt none of the satisfying thrill of paying to win while being effortlessly carried by the heavy hitters.
Jiang Yang was completely out of ideas. He turned to Xia Ta:
"Sister Ta, can you think of any breakthrough?"
The expression on Xia Ta's face remained largely unchanged:
"Calm down. With this kind of impatience, how do you plan to survive your sixth mission?
"The head must have already appeared right in front of us; it's just that none of us noticed it. This isn't a problem a few more hours would solve. We've fallen into some sort of blind spot.
"This is only the second mission, so it shouldn't be too difficult. Think about it carefully. The answer is right in front of us."
As a veteran who had completed five missions, she had at least five Supernatural Items in her possession.
Given the current situation, she definitely still had hidden trump cards she hadn't played.
It simply wasn't a desperate enough situation to warrant using them yet. After all, burning a Supernatural Item on a mission of this level would clearly be a net loss for her.
Upon hearing Xia Ta's words, an exceptionally bizarre thought suddenly surfaced in Gao Tian's mind.
The idea was so insane it startled even Gao Tian himself. He was afraid that if he voiced it, they would treat him like a madman.
For the first time, Xia Ta noticed the shift in Gao Tian's expression. Her jewel-like emerald eyes landed on his face:
"Student Gao Tian, have you discovered something?
"You can tell us any minor detail, no matter how trivial it might seem. What we need is a breakthrough."
Gao Tian swallowed hard.
He fell silent for a moment before speaking slowly:
"Perhaps... this human head never existed to begin with."
Hearing that, the newcomer Su Jiu couldn't hold back a laugh despite the tension.
Jiang Yang blurted out, "How is that possible?
"If this head never existed in the first place, how could we possibly find it within the time limit? Unless the Living Apartment wanted to kill us from the very beginning.
"But there's no need for that. If the apartment wanted to execute us, it could just release the ghost on the fourth floor. Why go around in such a massive circle just to assign us a guaranteed-death mission?"
Gao Tian's internal reasoning was very simple.
If the corpse the Green Text Mission required them to find was Xu Yuan's, then they couldn't forget how Xu Yuan had died in Sapphire Mall.
Before the old security guard vanished, he revealed what he had seen: Xu Yuan had been killed by a Fierce Ghost with four faces growing on its body.
That was the crux of the issue.
A Fierce Ghost was formed from a person after death. How could an ordinary person possibly die with four faces?
In other words, the reason that Fierce Ghost had so many faces—Gao Tian boldly speculated—was that it had a habit of collecting faces and heads after killing its victims.
Every time it killed someone, it took their head and made it a part of its own body. That Fierce Ghost had killed three or four people before killing Xu Yuan, which was why it had so many extra faces.
Therefore, Xu Yuan likely couldn't escape that fate either when he died at its hands. Although his corpse had been torn into pieces, the most important part—the head—was carried away by the Fierce Ghost. That was why no matter how hard Xia Ta and the others tried, they couldn't find it.
Listening to Gao Tian's utterly absurd words, the only ones who didn't laugh were Xia Ta and Jiang Yang.
Jiang Yang spoke slowly, "If... you're actually right.
"Then this is a headless corpse, but the Green Text Mission must have left us a way to survive.
"What we really need to do is find something to replace the corpse's original head to complete the human form.
"After all, the Green Text Mission never stated that all six body parts had to belong to the same person. As long as we 'piece together a complete human form,' the mission will automatically be completed.
"The reason we had to find the other body parts was because if we didn't find them by nine o'clock, they would reanimate.
"But since we've determined the sixth head doesn't exist, we don't need to keep searching for it. We just need to find something to replace it."
Jiang Yang's logic was very simple, yet deeply chilling.
Even if the corpse itself was missing a piece, it wouldn't affect the mission's completion.
Because for the sixth head, they could just find someone else's to make up for it!
As long as it was a body part, it didn't have to belong to the same deceased person.
The first five body parts had to be found to prevent them from reanimating; since the sixth head didn't exist within the mall, they could just grab any living person to replace it.
Hearing this, a chill ran through everyone's hearts. The two newcomers shrank back, terrified that the heavy hitters would single out their heads as the final piece to complete the corpse.
Boss Jin asked, panting heavily, "Then... are you saying we should randomly kill someone here and take their head to finish the job?"
Although Boss Jin was ruthless and decisive in business, he had never actually killed someone with his own hands before. It was very difficult for him to overcome that psychological hurdle.
Xia Ta said, "It hasn't come to that yet.
"Student Jiang Yang, Student Gao Tian, both of you go bring all the collected body parts down to the ground floor and line them up.
"There's no need to worry about the stares of others at this point. The mall is already locked down anyway.
"I will figure out a solution for the final head."
She lifted her head, looking straight at the massive electronic screen by the mall entrance. The giant face of a female celebrity on the screen was mechanically repeating the motion of wiping on some brand of cosmetics. Her skin was so pale it seemed to glow—even someone who had been dead for three days wouldn't be that pale.
"Wait, that's not right."
Xia Ta suddenly changed her mind.
"Why have all the ads and neon lights for so many stores gone dark, yet this giant ad screen is still lit up?"
Prompted by her words, Gao Tian finally noticed that it was indeed true.
Due to the sudden incident at the mall, large numbers of people had gathered on every floor, clustering around the exits to get out and demand an explanation. The scene was utterly chaotic.
Under these circumstances, many floors and shops had lost power for various reasons. Yet the electronic screen at the entrance, which consumed the most electricity, was still shining brightly, completely unaffected. It formed a stark contrast to the dim mall.