Chapter 19: Expanding the Mirror Space

The hotel employee stared at Xia Tianqiong, her mind filled with only one thought: she hoped he wouldn't choose her true form so that she could be the only one to survive.

Suddenly, she saw him take out a small gold ingot and hold it in his palm. Before she could process what this meant, she noticed something strange about the mirror clones beside her. While they were mimicking her expressions, their eyes were filled with an intense, undisguised greed, like a dog spotting excrement.

"Oh no!"

As the realization dawned on her, she turned back to Xia Tianqiong, only to see him pointing directly at her. "You are the true form!"

The moment the words fell, the mirror clones struck. The employee died. The death game ended, lasting barely ten minutes, yet six people had already perished. In this era of the supernatural, human life was as worthless as blades of grass.

With only Xia Tianqiong left alive in the mirror space, his two dozen or so mirror clones vanished as the game concluded. Only one remained: the Mirror Ghost itself. It no longer mimicked Xia Tianqiong, but instead said with a look of annoyance, "The game is over. Congratulations on surviving to the end. You may leave now."

Per the rules of death, it could not kill the final survivor. Xia Tianqiong could have left at any time, but he wasn't in a hurry. He looked at the Mirror Ghost sincerely and extended another invitation: "Enter into a contract with me. I have money; I'll take care of you from now on!"

"Get lost! I don't need a human to take care of me!"

"You petty little wild ghost, you’re getting arrogant, aren't you?" Xia Tianqiong was incensed. He pulled a small mirror from his pocket—the one housing the Gambling Ghost—and aimed it at the Mirror Ghost, casting the "Mirror Immobilization Technique."

"You contracted the old Gambling Ghost?" The Mirror Ghost, finding its legs frozen and unable to move, finally understood that the Gambling Ghost had lured it into a trap to be contracted. "You bastard! You actually help humans deceive your own kind?"

The Gambling Ghost’s voice echoed from the mirror: "The master is very wealthy. I suggest you sign the contract, too. It’s for your own good."

"Impossible!" Though its body was paralyzed, the Mirror Ghost willed twenty or thirty clones into existence, all lunging at Xia Tianqiong. Since Xia Tianqiong had initiated the attack, the ghost was no longer bound by the rule against killing people at will. Mirror clones could rip out a human soul; once caught, death was certain.

Xia Tianqiong remained calm. His figure flickered and vanished, reappearing the next instant in the shadow behind the Mirror Ghost. Mirror Ghosts have no physical form, making them untouchable to humans, but other ghosts could interact with them. He let the Delivery Ghost possess his body, grabbed the Mirror Ghost, and immediately used Shadow Teleport to move into the shadow of the clone nearest to the mirror, then leaped upward, smashing into the glass.

Now that the death game was over, the mirror had reverted to an ordinary object and shattered upon impact. With a piercing crack, Xia Tianqiong carried the Mirror Ghost out of the mirror space and back into the hotel bathroom in the real world.

The clones in the mirror space did not follow; the moment the Mirror Ghost left the mirror, they all dissipated. This was the weakness of the Mirror Ghost clan: once they left their mirrors, they could not use any supernatural abilities. The same was true for the Gambling Ghost.

With the mirror destroyed, the mirror space vanished, and the six corpses inside fell out, piling up in the bathroom.

"Despicable human! Let me go!"

Back in the reality, the Mirror Ghost’s body became ethereal, visible only as a faint outline. If Xia Tianqiong hadn't been in a state of spectral possession, he wouldn't have been able to hold it at all.

"Either sign a contract with me, or I leave you here in the real world until you dissipate!"

The Mirror Ghost clan could not stay away from mirrors for long; otherwise, the nether energy composing their bodies would gradually evaporate until they disappeared entirely. Xia Tianqiong intended to use this to force a contract.

The Mirror Ghost struggled desperately, but its legs were pinned by the Gambling Ghost, and its upper body was held tight by the Delivery Ghost. "Brother, stop struggling!" The Delivery Ghost’s head poked out from Xia Tianqiong’s neck—a gruesome sight, like a man with two heads. "Our master is wealthy and treats his subordinates well. I get to eat ghost money every day. Just sign the contract! If your ghost body dissipates, wouldn't your trip to the human world have been for nothing?"

"Impossible! My clan never submits to humans!" The Mirror Ghost was as stubborn as the Delivery Ghost had been initially.

The Gambling Ghost chimed in: "Brother, the master possesses legendary forbidden techniques and can mass-produce ghost money. I tricked you for your own good. If you don't believe me, look there."

The Mirror Ghost followed the gaze to a pile of gold ingots on the bed. It stopped struggling, its eyes filled with shock and greed. "How can there be so much gold? Can he really create ghost money?"

The rest was simple. With the Delivery Ghost and Gambling Ghost taking turns persuading it, and the fear of dissipation looming, it finally signed a contract with Xia Tianqiong. It was a Master-Servant Contract. It was Xia Tianqiong’s rule: if he didn't have to fight, he would sign an equal contract, but if he was forced to fight, it would be a Master-Servant Contract.

After the contract was signed, he found a palm-sized shard of the broken mirror for the Mirror Ghost to inhabit. It possessed three supernatural abilities.

The first was "Mirror Space," which Xia Tianqiong craved most. It could create an alternate dimension inside a mirror for living or storage. The drawback was that the Mirror Ghost had to reside within it; if it left for too long, the space would shrink until it vanished.

The second was "Mirror Devour," which could create a massive suction force to pull targets into the mirror space—whether objects, humans, or ghosts. However, it could only pull in ghosts of a rank equal to or lower than the Mirror Ghost.

The third was "Clone Mirror," which used nether energy to manifest a mirror capable of creating mirror clones. These clones lasted about fifteen minutes—a useful trick in certain situations.

Xia Tianqiong prepared to use "Mirror Space." Holding the shard, he scanned the hotel room. Instantly, an exact replica appeared inside the mirror—every object, facility, and even the sunlight from the window was copied. The space could be expanded infinitely, provided there was enough nether energy.

As he prepared to expand the space, the Mirror Ghost warned him, "Master, this is currently the limit of my own nether energy. To expand further, we need to consume some ghost money."

"How much area can one tael of gold expand?"

"About one cubic zhang." (A zhang is roughly 3.33 meters).

Xia Tianqiong calculated quickly and took out fifty taels of gold. "Start with this!"

"So much?" The Mirror Ghost was shocked, viewing it as a waste.

"I think it's too little. If I had more gold, I’d expand it by tens of thousands of square meters to use as a warehouse."

Xia Tianqiong fed the gold to the Mirror Ghost and expanded the space. Fifty taels allowed for a massive area of over 500 square meters. He decided to expand the rooms to 50 square meters each, creating nine rooms connected by a long corridor, effectively replicating the entire hotel floor.

These rooms would serve as living quarters or warehouses. Having finished, he quickly packed his and Jiang Yu’s belongings into the mirror space, preparing to leave the hotel early. With so many people disappearing in his room—including two police officers—the authorities would surely lock down the building. He had to leave before they arrived to avoid awkward explanations.

He didn't bother checking out; he simply used Shadow Teleport to jump from room to room, descending until he reached the outside, bypassing the hotel's surveillance.

After leaving, he planned to find Jiang Yu to help with supplies, but a phone call revealed she had already arranged for various merchants to deliver to a warehouse. Some goods wouldn't arrive until tomorrow. Deciding not to meet her, he drove toward the nearby Jiuhua City to hunt the fierce ghost he had targeted.

Minutes after he left, police arrived at his room to find the bizarrely dead bodies. Soon after, the Supernatural Affairs Bureau took over and sealed the building.

"All six died from soul loss. Combined with the broken mirror, they must have encountered the Mirror Ghost clan!" Fang Moyuan finished examining the bodies and noticed her captain’s strange expression. "What is it, Captain Zhou?"

Zhou Boyu’s eyes glowed with silver light as he scanned the room. "There is residual contract energy here, just like in room 303 downstairs—both Master-Servant Contracts. And there is a trace of nether energy; a ghost might have perished here."

"How is that possible?" Fang Moyuan was shocked. "Killing a ghost is hard enough, but forcing one into a Master-Servant Contract is even harder. Two in a row? That’s not something an ordinary person could do." Even within the Bureau, ghost hunters who could contract ghosts were rare.

"Captain, I found something," another officer said, entering the room. "The front desk records show the room was checked out to a 'Xia Tianqiong,' the tenant of Unit 702, Haikang Apartments."

"It's him! He likely contracted a Ghost Mother or Ghost Infant with teleportation abilities. But how did he force two ghosts into Master-Servant Contracts?" Zhou Boyu’s mind raced. "Alert the police to search the whole city for him."

As the officer left, Fang Moyuan and Zhou Boyu continued their search. A few minutes later, Fang Moyuan excused herself to go to the restroom and walked away.