I have a ghost diary

The receptionist was taken aback when she saw that the hotel door was open and Chu Jiang was sitting on the sofa in the lobby.

Then she asked warily, "You opened the door? But where did you get the key?"

Chu Jiang was even more wary than the other person. He stood up, quietly walked around to the main exit, and then looked at the female receptionist. "Have you forgotten? You opened the door yourself."

"You said you'd buy me breakfast, where is it?"

Upon hearing this, the receptionist's face turned deathly pale, as if she had suddenly lost all her strength. She took two steps back and leaned against the wall.

Chu Jiang could tell she was terrified; she kept her head down, her legs trembling with fear, but she didn't say a word.

After a long while, the receptionist finally looked up and managed a weak smile. "A cleaning lady who was supposed to come by will be here shortly to clean your room."

"I'll go out and buy you breakfast now. What did you want to eat again? I forgot."

"Rice noodle rolls, with double eggs." As he said this, Chu Jiang carefully observed the other person's expression.

However, the receptionist appeared perfectly normal and did not show any strange expression because Chu Jiang had added breakfast to his request.

She simply nodded repeatedly and hurriedly walked out the door, afraid that Chu Jiang would press her further about the matter.

Chu Jiang was initially hesitant about whether to follow them, but after thinking about it, he decided it was best not to be too reckless.

This inexplicable appearance of an identical person, with similar ways of thinking, reactions to events, and speech, cannot be easily explained by twins alone.

And if they are just twins, why would both female receptionists be so afraid?

......

Ten minutes later, the receptionist returned carrying two bags. One bag contained her own steamed buns and fried dough sticks, and the other contained rice noodle rolls she had bought for Chu Jiang.

When the receptionist first saw Chu Jiang waiting for her at the door, she looked a little uncomfortable.

She forced a smile. "Let's go inside and eat."

"Wait, are you the one in front or the one in the back?" Chu Jiang asked casually.

"Huh?" The female receptionist was a little taken aback.

So Chu Jiang took the rice noodle roll from her hand, quickly stepped back, and opened it to take a look. Yes, it was a double-egg roll, probably the back one.

"Come in, let's chat casually. Relax, I won't hurt you."

Logically, Chu Jiang shouldn't be trying to have a serious talk with the other party at this point. He should just move out immediately, right? It's only a few hundred yuan in rent; he can just forget about it.

But since they had already encountered it, Chu Jiang felt that before leaving, he should at least figure out the basic situation so that he could take precautions.

Sometimes running away doesn't solve anything. Like yesterday, I thought everything would be fine once I separated from Gui Tou.

As a result, Chu Jiang didn't even know when he had been cursed by the ghost head, and he almost went back himself to have his head replaced by the ghost.

Chu Jiang still feels terrified when he thinks about it. The only good news is that after so much time, he still hasn't thought about losing anything, which means that Ghost Peek has probably gone to find someone else.

The two entered the hotel one after the other and sat down facing each other on the sofa in the lobby.

The receptionist remained silent after taking her seat, simply eating her steamed bun without saying a word.

So Chu Jiang asked while eating, "What's your name?"

"Just call me Xiaoman. I'm the receptionist and owner of this hotel."

"This is the business my parents left me. When business was good a few years ago, I even hired a few employees."

"But there were really no customers this year, and I couldn't afford to support them, so I quit them all and only hired some cleaning ladies who work part-time to help me."

Chu Jiang nodded, having gained a general understanding of Xiaoman. "What difficulties have you encountered recently? I heard you crying late last night."

The reason I'm mentioning the crying again is because this is about Xiaoman, who is behind me. Xiaoman is unaware that Chujiang has already heard her crying.

However, to Chu Jiang's surprise, Xiaoman did not show any panic. She just hesitated for a moment, looking as if she didn't know whether she should speak or not.

This made Chu Jiang's heart skip a beat. He calmly stood up again, looking like he was about to run away, and said, "You two, which one is the real one??"

This was completely chaotic for Chu Jiang. He had only told Xiao Man in front of him about the crying, so the fact that the woman in front of him wasn't surprised meant that she was the one from before.

However, Chu Jiang's extra request for breakfast was directed to Xiao Man, who was sitting behind him. Since she brought this back, shouldn't she be the one sitting behind him?

"I really mean it!" Unexpectedly, Xiaoman became very excited upon hearing this question. She stood up and kept pointing to herself with both hands.

"I am the real Sun Xiaoman, you have to believe me!" She looked like she was about to cry.

Chu Jiang raised his hands. "Don't get agitated. Can we sit down and talk this out?"

Given that Sun Xiaoman has not yet shown any obvious aggression, even if she might be a ghost, Chu Jiang is willing to have a proper talk with her.

Most importantly, Chu Jiang had a question: if one of the two Xiaoman is really a ghost, can it really communicate with people?

Yesterday, while Chu Jiang was surfing the internet, he posted some questions on a paranormal forum, and some bored people answered his questions.

One crucial question is: can't we find a way to make ghosts obey us? That way, we can use their power without them possessing us.

It has to be said that as soon as this post was published, it immediately attracted a lot of "enthusiastic and kind" guys.

Some said he lacked common sense, some bluntly said he was too naive, and others directly mocked him: "You don't actually think you're the only one who thought of this method, do you? Really? Really?"

Aside from these somewhat mentally unstable and irritable guys, there are still good people, as one netizen explained to Chu Jiang:

According to research on ghosts, all ghosts discovered so far are on the opposite side of the living, and without exception, they possess the instinct to kill.

Moreover, they are basically unable to communicate. If you can make a ghost obey you, then you're really awesome.

So Chu Jiang continued to ask the kind person: "Is it possible to find a way to help them fulfill their wishes?"

This is Chu Jiang, whose inspiration came from many ghost stories he had read.

Then the other netizen immediately replied: Impossible, this is reality, not a ghost story. At least I have never heard of a ghost having wishes.

Besides, even if it exists, you can't communicate with ghosts, so how would you know if it has wishes?

Based on this newly acquired knowledge, Chu Jiang was puzzled by the situation before him, because he had communicated with both Sun Xiaomans and had not noticed which one was more rigid or inflexible.

Chapter Thirty-Seven: I Do Not Exist

Of course, when Chu Jiang communicated with the ride-hailing driver yesterday, the driver was perfectly fine.

It can only be said that what happened to Sun Xiaoman was perhaps not as simple as Chu Jiang imagined.

After calming Xiaoman down and getting her to sit down, Chu Jiang asked the biggest question first: "I only asked you to bring me some rice noodle rolls, but how did you know I wanted double-egg rice noodle rolls?"

Xiaoman hadn't expected Chu Jiang to ask that. "I just... I buy according to my own preference. I usually like to add an extra egg..."

Was it just a coincidence?

So Chu Jiang continued to ask, "How many times have we met since dawn today?"

“Twice, once when I opened the door in the morning, and now,” Sun Xiaoman answered, one sentence at a time.

"That's where things get interesting. After you went out to buy breakfast, I saw another one of you come out from the guest rooms on the first floor."

"Her reaction to the situation was similar to yours; she eventually left the hotel under the pretext of buying breakfast."

"I don't think that's your twin sister, is it?"

When Chu Jiang asked his question, he looked directly into Sun Xiaoman's eyes, which made her even more flustered; at the same time, Chu Jiang could also notice that her legs had started to tremble.

The two people reacted so similarly, they were practically identical.

"I, I..."

"Let's start by talking about why you secretly cry in the middle of the night. I think you also want to find someone to talk to, right?" Chu Jiang said in a gentle tone.

After a final struggle, Sun Xiaoman finally revealed the secret, or rather, the nightmare that had haunted her for weeks.

"About three weeks ago, I noticed some strange things happening around me."

"For example, a tenant might inexplicably say thank you to me. I don't know what I did to help them; at first, I just thought they were being polite and didn't think much of it."

"But later, a cleaning lady asked me, 'Are the mangoes tasty? Are they sour?'"

"But I haven't eaten mangoes recently. When I asked, I found out that when she came yesterday, she gave me a bag of mangoes that she grew herself, and said that she was very happy to accept them."

“But I don’t remember this at all, and I even asked the aunt if she had made a mistake.”

"But my aunt insisted that I had it, and said that I had forgotten."

"So the two of us went to my usual room, and I actually found a bag of green mangoes that I don't know when they were put there under the small table."

"The reason I looked for this place first is because I usually have leftover fruit and I habitually stuff it under the table."

"When the cleaning lady saw the evidence, she advised me even more not to stay up late, and said that I was so forgetful at such a young age."

"At that moment, even I doubted myself, and I went to bed early that day."

At this point, Sun Xiaoman's expression became even more melancholy. "Unexpectedly, this was just the beginning."

"In the following week, I encountered the same thing repeatedly, as if another me had appeared in the world, in every corner of my life's trajectory."

"This other person will handle interpersonal interactions on my behalf. She will act exactly like me in everything, so much so that everyone else will mistake the imposter for me."

“I tried to temporarily close down and travel to other places to relax, but that… that ghostly thing! It followed me wherever I went.”

"It almost never appears in front of me, but it's always lingering around me. As long as you spend enough time with me, everyone will have the chance to see the imposter and have some interaction with it."

"That's why I came back from out of town in despair and temporarily cut off all my connections. I tried to stop communicating with any of my friends; I didn't reply to their messages or calls."

“I once thought that maybe this was the purpose of that evil thing. It would take advantage of this opportunity to sneak in and deepen its communication and feelings with the people around me.”

"But what I didn't expect was that when I stopped contacting my friends, it also stopped contacting my friends."

"On the one hand, I'm glad it didn't bother anyone else. But on the other hand, I feel even more desperate, because it's thinking about how to replace me in almost every way."

“I fear that one day, I will cease to exist in this world; it will kill me, and then I will live on with my face and my identity.”

When Chu Jiang heard this, he was almost certain that there was definitely a ghost causing trouble.

However, at present, this ghost should not be very dangerous, at most a C.

As for the individual risk, it seems manageable so far; at least no victims have been identified. Sun Xiaoman appears to show no signs of injury other than some depression and sleep deprivation.

The next step is to analyze the patterns. Perhaps this will become the first ghost in Chujiang to independently discover the patterns and seal them away.

Yes, Chu Jiang is determined to get involved in this matter, even if it's just as practice.

This world is terrifying. We finally encountered such a "docile" ghost. Instead of feeding it to Ghost Diary, are we supposed to fight a Class A vengeful ghost like Slender Man?