Bengtie: My death fueled their madness.

"It's another tired trope. Do horror movie directors and screenwriters have a particular obsession with women's restrooms?"

Once he was sure no one was paying attention and there was no one inside, he began casting a spell to create an isolation barrier before pushing the door open and entering.

The lights in the restroom were dim.

Hei Ta looked around, her delicate eyebrows furrowing.

"I remember the layout here."

"Oh?"

"This is exactly the same as the restroom in one of the coalition government's office buildings."

Black Tower pointed to the sink.

"The mirror shape and the style of the faucets are very similar, so it's estimated that the movie was filmed there before that building was incorporated into the coalition government."

Qi Zhimu carefully examined the huge mirror that stretched across the entire wall.

The mirror was wiped very clean, reflecting the empty cubicle door.

"Since the theme is related to mirrors, could it be that he disappeared after looking in a mirror?"

Touching the mirror with my fingertips, it was cold and hard, with nothing unusual about it.

"That's possible."

Black Tower pondered seriously:

"We can't draw conclusions before we see it with our own eyes. If the mirror swallows people, the ghost's true form is likely hidden inside the mirror, but this mirror looks too ordinary."

"The ordinary is the most troublesome."

Qi Zhimu withdrew his hand and turned to look at the tightly closed cubicle doors.

"Who knows if that freak might be hiding in the toilet, waiting to surprise us."

"I noticed earlier that it's a little past 10 a.m. According to the usual way things are in society, even at this time of night, many people will still be working overtime, so we don't need to rush," Heita said.

Qi Zhimu coldly surveyed the seemingly calm restroom.

"Alright, since ghosts like to steal and cheat, let's see when the next unlucky one will appear..."

……

Although there was no odor in the enclosed and cramped restroom, Black Tower still looked quite helpless.

Looking at the magician standing beside her, she hesitated several times before speaking.

Ten minutes passed.

Twenty minutes...

Footsteps came from outside. Someone pushed the door, but couldn't move it. They muttered something about why the door was stuck, and then turned and left.

Finally, Black Tower couldn't hold back any longer and took the initiative to turn on the team voice chat.

"Is this what you meant by 'wait and see'?"

The black tower tilted its head.

"The ghost probably only targets those who are alone. With the two of us standing here, it won't dare to come near us."

Qi Zhimu's lips twitched slightly: "So you blame me?"

"No, I just think your approach is inefficient."

"...Why didn't you say so earlier?"

"You've spent more time in the maze area than I have, and you've seen more than I have. I thought you would have some insightful opinions."

Qi Zhimu felt he was being sarcastic and didn't want to respond.

He rolled his eyes, lifted the isolation barrier, and led the Black Tower outside.

"Okay, okay, I'll listen to you. We won't wait around; we'll take the initiative."

"Where to?"

"Go to the other places where people have gone missing and find commonalities."

Hei Ta hummed in agreement and followed beside him.

The corridor was quiet, and no one noticed the couple who had just come out of the women's restroom.

After passing through the office area, Qi Zhimu also spoke up in the team's internal channel.

Don't ask why there's an in-team channel; it's just magic.

"A female employee just said that someone went missing in the restroom on the fifth floor. Let's go check it out first, and then we'll go explore the other floors."

"Someone is missing on the sixth floor as well," Black Tower suddenly said.

How did you know?

"I just saw it on someone's chat app. They said someone was also stuck in the men's restroom on the sixth floor. The property management checked the security footage and found that people were only going in and not coming out."

Qi Zhimu was surprised and turned to look at her.

Black Tower remained completely unfazed: "You have good hearing, and I have good eyesight."

"...Our skill points are evenly distributed." Qi Zhimu snorted, his tone unreadable, neither praising nor otherwise.

The layout of the restrooms on the sixth floor is almost identical to that on the fourth floor.

The same washbasin, the same mirror spanning the wall, the same cubicle door.

Qi Zhimu: "The mirror looks like an ordinary item, but it disappeared here. It can't really be that the toilet is haunted."

Black Tower didn't answer, his gaze lingering on the mirror for a few seconds.

"Continue upstairs."

They went to the seventh to eleventh floors.

On each floor, Qi Zhimu relied on eavesdropping to gather intelligence, while the Black Tower silently recorded the location where the disappearance occurred.

Three hours later, they had gathered intelligence on seven missing persons cases.

"All seven mirrors look fine."

Qi Zhimu's face darkened. He pulled off his coat and loosened the top two buttons of his collar.

It's so annoying. Why can't I enjoy fighting when I'm a powerful mage?

Hei Ta lowered his head and fiddled with the portable computer that Qi Zhimu had brought him. After a moment, he pondered and said:

"I'm wondering if there are more detailed records of these disappearances."

"for example?"

"The time of disappearance is accurate to the minute, along with the missing person's name, department, and movements before entering the restroom."

Qi Zhimu looked up: "Looking for common ground?"

"Yes, seven incidents. All we know so far is that they all occurred in spaces with mirrors."

Black Tower swiped his finger across the screen.

"However, there are no uniform characteristics in the position, orientation, or even the material of the frames of the mirrors, so the sample size is insufficient."

"Then go and retrieve their personnel files."

"No, the corporate intranet should have more complete records, such as security logs, monitoring timelines, internal communications, etc."

Qi Zhimu: "So you wanted to hack into someone else's system. You should have said so earlier."

Black Tower did not deny it.

"What do you need me to do?" he asked.

"Not for now, but I need to find a server room. In a large company with sixty floors, there are always a few rooms that are not frequently used."

Qi Zhimu put his suit back on, straightened his tie, and took Hei Ta's hand.

"Let's go then, little one."

Hei Ta let him lead him: "You should probably call me Reserve Food."

"While I'm glad you're aware of this, could you tell me why you don't want me to call you 'little baby'?"

"Because you look like a minor, seventeen or eighteen years old."

Qi Zhimu tripped and nearly fell on the flat stairs.

"...Could you please not say things like that at a time like this?"

"To tell the truth."

"Shut up. Even I don't know my actual age. God knows what number the person who created me was supposed to be."

Qi Zhimu's tone was displeased, and he seemed somewhat exasperated.

"You humans, when you talk about getting hung up on the age of characters in anime, aren't you getting something wrong?"

"I may look like a minor, but is it possible that I'm actually a thousand-year-old monster? Young magicians don't have my strength."

Do you consider yourself a two-dimensional character?

"I think I am. No one in the real world could grow such a great face as mine. It's a pity I'm an honest person, otherwise I could have tricked countless girls into my belly by pretending to be a good person."

"...Fine, whatever you say."

A faint smile flickered in Black Tower's eyes.

He seemed a little anxious.