Ring of Fate

Chapter 969 Different Treatment

As time passed, Lumian saw that office workers were leaving the technology building one after another, and carts came to the less conspicuous places on the edge of the road, selling fried rice noodles, stir-fried noodles, braised food, fried skewers, barbecue and other foods.

Cars with their lights on passed by these places, still busy.

It's okay for now... Lumian had lost sight of Zhou Mingrui for a long time, but he didn't feel anything unusual.

At this time, Lao Xia came in:

"Go and check it out again, or Captain Xu will accuse us of hiding in the office and being lazy."

"Okay." Lumian nodded.

Then he saw Lao Xia turned his body awkwardly.

"What's wrong with you? Is your waist injured?" Lumian stopped and stood still close to the window.

Old Xia tilted his head and said with a normal expression:

"I didn't, what, ah..."

As he spoke, his lips paused in and out, and his accent changed.

Without waiting for Lumian's response, Lao Xia withdrew his gaze and continued walking towards the door.

His knees, ankles, arms, and shoulders felt as if they were filled with lead; they were heavy and stiff, with a sense of sluggishness.

Lumian suddenly recalled the puppet show he saw in the basement of the "Alone" bar in Trier. It felt like there was an invisible thread tied to all of Lao Xia's joints.

"Old Xia is now more like a puppet than a human being...

"He was, turned into, a secret doll?
"My thoughts seem to be stuck...

"I am also here, being turned into a secret puppet?"

Lumian was startled, lowered his head, and tried to raise his right arm.

In his sight, his arm lifted and stopped, then lifted and stopped again, just like when watching a video and encountering a slow internet connection.

As expected...Lumian's first reaction was that the Celestial Master was turning him into a puppet, but he didn't feel the painful and uncomfortable feeling described by Franka, like a fish leaving the water or a person leaving the air.

He immediately thought of another possibility:
Zarathustra or other subordinates of the Lord are hiding in the dark, trying to deal with him!
Lumian moved his neck slightly and looked out the window.

He found that all the vehicles on the road paused at the same time, but without the instant braking they would not be able to stop the forward rush.

After a brief pause, the vehicles continued to move forward.

After two seconds, they stopped again.

This made Lumian feel as if he was watching a surveillance video, frame by frame!
Not only the vehicles, but also the vendors selling fried vermicelli and their customers showed similar abnormal lag.

"In a dream, in a city, such a large-scale, secret puppet transformation can only be done by the Heavenly Lord or Mr. Fool...

"Abnormal, here it comes..."

Lumian tried to concentrate and prepared himself to exit the dream.

Although he didn't know why his experience was different from Franka's, the current situation and the changes around him made him feel that this was not something he could get rid of or fight against by his own ability.

The only solution is to exit the dream before you turn into a puppet.

Of course, Lumian did not put it into practice immediately, because he did not need to use the "Message Shredder" to delete the important contacts on his phone, which had already been done in advance. He still had some time to experience the current changes and see if he could observe some hidden information.

After a dozen seconds, Lumian's thoughts suddenly became smooth, and he no longer felt like his head was filled with paste.

"Okay? No more doll transformation?" Lumian was looking outside and noticed that the vehicles on the road no longer had any strange stops.

The vendors and pedestrians also returned to normal.

"Why aren't you moving? What are you thinking about?" Old Xia once again turned sideways and urged Lumian.

Lumian's eyes moved slightly, and he said with a smile:

"Ouch, my stomach hurts, I need to go to the bathroom."

After saying that, he ran, passed Lao Xia, and rushed into the public restroom on this floor.

Old Xia looked at his back and cursed with amusement:
"Lazy cows and horses produce lots of shit and piss!"

Lumian entered a compartment, locked the door, and quickly used the "Spiritual World Shuttle".

He "teleported" to another public restroom and appeared in mid-air on the men's side.

Seeing that there was no one in the compartment below, Lumian floated down and locked the door.

This was the hotel where Zarathustra was staying. Before Lumian went to "wait" outside Li Keji's ward in the Red Moon Hospital, he came here for a walk and checked out the area. Although his plan to take the initiative and assassinate Zarathustra was temporarily shelved and he changed it to using Li Keji to ambush possible enemies, if he had enough time, he would still make more preparations to prevent Zarathustra from choosing to use an indirect way to eliminate Li Keji. By then, the alternative plan might become the official plan.

Lumian took out a mirror and placed it on top of the water tank.

Then he pressed his right hand on it.

His figure suddenly leaned forward, quickly faded into obscurity, and entered the glass mirror.

With the help of the mirror world, he traveled through the glass window of Zarathustra's suite.

Under the night sky, this is undoubtedly a real mirror.

Lumian didn't put his face close to the glass mirror, but instead peeked at the situation in the room from a distance.

He was not sure whether Zarathustra had returned to the hotel yet. He might still be out socializing. He did not dare to use divination to find out his current location, for fear of alerting the real "fortune teller".

The next second, he saw a figure. The figure was wearing a black suit and had slightly messy white hair. He was hanging above the main light, swaying gently like the body of a hanged person.

Zarathustra!

This...Lumian was a little shocked:

"Zarathustra was hanged by Mr. Fool, just as he hanged the Angel of Death?
"Was the advice I gave Zhou Mingrui this afternoon really useful?

"I originally only wanted to kick Zarathustra out of the dream, and I was even prepared to pay the price of an opportunity to enter the dream..."

While Lumian was lost in thought, he saw twisted, wriggling, transparent maggots falling from Zarathustra's body.

As soon as these insects landed on the bed and the ground, they quickly faded and disappeared, as if they were just illusions.

Lumian then saw a figure walking out of thin air.

The figure was wearing a black suit, his hair was completely white, he had a thick beard on his face, and his eyes were dark blue to almost dull black.

Zarathustra!

Another Zarathustra!
Zarathustra is still alive!
Zarathustra raised his head and looked expressionlessly at "himself" hanging on the chandelier.

The hanging figure quickly faded and became as transparent as the maggots that had fallen before, until it disappeared.

“The one just hung up was Zarathustra’s historical pore image?

“Zarathustra sensed the danger in advance and summoned a historical image to replace himself? Otherwise, at the level of Sequence 7, the historical image would not last long…” Lumian retracted his gaze and stopped looking at Zarathustra, so as not to be noticed by the other party.

The information provided by the Major Arcana cards is relatively detailed for the abilities from the "Fortune Teller" path to Sequence 3 "Ancient Scholar". When it comes to Sequence 2 "Miracle Worker", it only briefly talks about what a wish and a miracle are. The Major Arcana cards hardly mention anything above that. The terms grafting and deception were only briefly mentioned later in order to explain specific things.

Lumian stood in the dark void behind the mirror. Combining his own and Zarathustra's experiences, he came up with some guesses about what had just happened:

"It is initially confirmed that it was the abnormality that I informed Zhou Mingrui about during the day.

"On my side, pedestrians and cars within the range have all been affected by the Puppetization, not just me... This shows that my reminder to Zhou Mingrui did attract the attention of the Heavenly Venerable, but because it was given during the day, the Heavenly Venerable could not accurately lock onto me and could only roughly circle out a range?
"In the collective puppet transformation, if I use my extraordinary ability to resist or struggle, I will be quickly locked by the Heavenly Venerable. If I choose to exit the dream to avoid danger, the Heavenly Venerable's purpose will be achieved, and I will waste an opportunity to enter and exit the dream... How treacherous...

"My reminder to Zhou Mingrui was also sensed by Mr. Fool, and the name Zarathustra was also mastered by him. As a result, Zarathustra was targeted and quickly mystified, but this was borne by the image in the pores of history...

"Why is Zarathustra so calm now? Is this the Faceless Man? Or is He sure that Mr. Fool's gaze will only come once before new changes occur, and if He avoids it, He really avoids it?
"Let Luo Shan test Zhou Mingrui tomorrow to see if he still remembers Zarathustra's threat. If he does, and Zarathustra hasn't been puppeted or kicked out of the dream again, then it must be that the Celestial Lord provided help and resolved this incident with a death projected by history...

"Can we also use a similar method to avoid being kicked out of the dream?

"Or maybe the threats from others are different from the provocations in person, so the experiences of Franka and Zarathustra are also different..."

Thinking of this, Lumian quietly looked outside the mirror again.

He saw Zarathustra walk to the door as if nothing had happened, open the door, let in several followers, and discuss tomorrow's business negotiations with them.

Lumian felt a little regretful.

He was just thinking about whether he should take advantage of the opportunity when the historical projection of Zarathustra was hung up and the real body appeared to carry out an assassination during a surprise attack!

His current curse still has the characteristic of not being transferred by the "paper man substitute" as long as the one affected is indeed the original body.

After taking a look at the followers and considering the possibility that there were Beyonders among them, Lumian silently left the glass window that could serve as a mirror and went back to the toilet.

Less than two seconds after he left, Zarathustra and his followers in the room either half turned their bodies or tilted their heads, and all cast their eyes toward the glass windows at the edge of the living room reflecting the night sky.

…………

Inside a cheap hotel.

Anthony, who was in self-isolation after contact with Peng Deng, sat on the edge of the bed, waiting for any abnormality that might come.

(End of this chapter)