Jin Ling: "The chair was placed right next to my bed. At first nobody was there, but a while later, a person in black suddenly appeared on it."
Jin Ling wanted to see the face clearly, but the person sat with their head hanging low. Long, disheveled hair covered their face. Only a pair of snowy hands could be seen on the armrests. He adjusted the position of the mirror secretly. The moment his wrist moved, however, as though she suddenly noticed something, the woman slowly lifted her head. Her face was covered in dozens of bleeding cut marks.
Wei WuXian wasn't surprised, while all of the juniors were shocked speechless.
"Wait a second?" Lan JingYi placed a bowl of congee in front of Jin Ling, "A female ghost? How could it be a female ghost? Were you scared so dumb you saw wrong..."
Jin Ling replied with a smack, "Anyone can call me dumb except for you. Even though there's blood and hair everywhere so I couldn't really see what she looked like, both her hair and clothing were in styles commonly worn by young women. It's definitely right. We were just searching in the wrong direction." He continued, "Although there was indeed resentful energy left on the iron hook, the one haunting the White Room is probably not the Hook Hand."
Lan JingYi, "Did you not spend any more time to examine her face or something... Maybe we could use her facial features, like beauty marks or birthmarks, to find out her identity."
Jin Ling snorted, "You think I didn't want to? I wanted to, but the ghost noticed the moonlight reflected in the mirror and immediately looked this way. The mirror then reflected her eyes, and I accidentally had eye contact with her."
If one were to be discovered while spying on a spirit, one shouldn't keep looking any longer. He had to put down the mirror at once and close his eyes, pretending to be fast asleep. Otherwise, he might've stimulated the creature's blood thirst, heightening its killing intent. Lan JingYi, "What a close call, what a close call..."
Comments flew back and forth across the table, "But the thief did not see a woman in his eyes."
"Just because he did not see one does not mean there was not one. Maybe the thief saw in the wrong direction..."
"No, the female ghost-why would she be a female ghost? Who is she!?"
Lan SiZhui, "The woman's face was marked with dozens of cuts, so it is likely that she was one of the Hook Hand's many victims. What Jin Ling saw must have been a shadow of her resentful energy."
The shadow of resentful energy referred to the endless playback of a situation in which a spirit gathered heavy resentful energy. It was usually the moment before it died or an incident it loathed.
Jin Ling, "Yeah. As shown in the mirror last night, the White Room had completely different furniture than what it has now. It seemed to be an inn. Before the Bai resident was established, there was probably an inn here. That inn was where the woman killed."
Ln JingYi, "Oh, oh. Speaking of it, from the information we collected, someone did mention that the Hook Hand could easily break the locks of inns. He often snuck inside in the middle of the night, picking on women who were out alone!"
Lan SiZhui, "And the room in which this maiden, or madam, was killed, just so happened to be in the same location as the White Room of the Bai residence!"
No wonder the head of the Bai clan insisted that no unsolved cases or accidental deaths happened in the Bai residence. They didn't equivocate on purpose, but instead, they were truly innocent-this really had nothing to do with them!
Jin Ling picked up the congee and took a sip, pretending to be calm, "I knew things wouldn't be so simple. Oh, well. We'd have to deal with this, sooner or later."
