Forbidden Zone of Deception

Chapter 104 Doll
Before anyone could fully grasp the sign language Wu Ge had just given, the convenience store's automatic door slid open with a "ding-dong," and a customer wearing a "Heavenly Official" mask slowly walked in. The mask looked particularly eerie under the convenience store's lights.

Jiang Jin's breath hitched—the customer was heading straight for the freezer!

Everyone remembered the warning in the rules: we must do everything we can to prevent customers from buying lime juice from the third shelf of the freezer!

Azi gritted her teeth and was the first to step forward. Her fingers trembled slightly, but she still gestured smoothly: "Hello, do you need any help?"

The customer didn't respond, but simply opened the freezer door. The instant the cold air rushed out, A-Zi's heart leaped into her throat; she prayed he wouldn't choose lime juice!

However, Murphy's Law proved true; the customer's hand went straight for the lime juice in the third row—

In a moment of quick thinking, Azi gesticulated: "This drink is about to expire; I don't recommend buying it."

The customer paused, then picked up the bottle of lime juice and carefully checked the production date and expiration date. He then turned to Ah Zi, his finger gestures carrying a clear sarcasm: "[Still six months until expiration]"

Qiu Feng immediately stepped forward to defuse the situation. His sleeves were already soaked with sweat, but his gestures remained precise: "This lime juice tastes terrible; many people have complained that it tastes like disinfectant."

He pointed to the herbal tea next to him: "This new product is quite good."

The customer, wearing a celestial official mask, tilted his head slightly and slowly gestured: "No need, I just want lime juice."

Despair filled everyone's eyes!
Nobody wants to personally test what the consequences would be if a customer bought lime juice!
As the customer headed towards the cashier with their drink, Murong Yan quickly stopped them. Her fingers danced gracefully: "Would you like to drink here or take it away?"

"Take it away." The customer's answer was crisp and decisive.

Everyone secretly breathed a sigh of relief.

According to the guidelines, as long as you don't drink it in the store, you shouldn't trigger the worst-case scenario.

After paying, the customer left with the bottle of lime juice.

Through the glass door, everyone watched as his figure quickly disappeared into the darkness.

The convenience store was still brightly lit, and the goods on the shelves were neatly arranged, but everyone felt as if they had just narrowly escaped death.

They all knew that every rule here was a boundary between life and death.

Next, everyone continued to work with clear division of labor.

Azi and Murong Yan were in charge of organizing the shelves and checking for any extra items.

Dr. Lin remained standing by the freezer, like a statue;
After Qiu Feng finished restocking, he stood motionless next to the cashier.
Jiang Jin and Lao Chen were helping customers settle prices and collect payments.

Wu Ge leaned against the wall, his gaze coldly surveying his surroundings;

Azi and Murong Yan continued to inspect the shelves.

At this moment, Jiang Jin gestured to Lao Chen, indicating that he would go to the restroom first.

suddenly……

"Ah? This!"

That's Azi's voice.

Everyone rushed over and then saw something that shouldn't have been there, suddenly appearing on the shelves in the food section.

The object was placed next to a box of cookies. It was a Chinese-style doll about 30 centimeters tall, crudely made but exuding an indescribable eeriness.

Its head slumped askew on its shoulders, barely held together by a faded red rope. The doll's face was painted a ghastly white, with two exaggerated blobs of rouge spreading across its cheeks like crimson blood. Most eerie of all were its eyes—two jet-black glass beads that gleamed with a moist sheen under the light, as if they might turn at any moment.

The doll wore a tattered red bib embroidered with the words "Long Live to a Hundred Years" in gold thread, but the threads had turned black and were falling off. Its limbs were bound with red thread at the joints, as if deliberately tied into some strange posture. What was disturbing was that the corners of the doll's mouth were forcibly sewn into an upward curve with rough stitches, revealing the cotton stuffing inside.

Murong Yan's fingers trembled slightly. She clearly remembered that when she checked the shelves a minute ago, there was absolutely no such doll here. What was even more terrifying was that such an item had never appeared in the household goods section either—there shouldn't be such a thing in the entire convenience store's inventory.

The doll's bodice was stained with suspicious dark red stains, and its glass eyes reflected the light, making it seem as if it was staring straight at Jiang Jin, who was closest to it, from any angle.

Jiang Jin also noticed that the doll's right index finger was slightly raised, pointing towards the cashier.

The temperature in the convenience store seemed to drop several degrees instantly. The doll remained quietly seated on the food shelf, while the other products around it kept an eerie distance, as if they were afraid of something.

The air in the convenience store seemed to freeze. Everyone stood frozen in place, staring at the eerie doll, no one daring to make a move.

Jiang Jin's gaze darted back and forth between the mannequin and the cash register. The mannequin's raised index finger pointed directly at the cash register, making the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end. He gestured in sign language: "What is it pointing at?"

Murong Yan shook her head and responded in sign language as well: "[Ignore it, the rules say you can't move it]." But her fingers trembled slightly, clearly having also noticed the ominous direction.

Azi gestured nervously: "What if a customer wants to buy it? There's no such item in our inventory."

This question silenced everyone. Wu Ge gestured grimly: "[It's said to be not for sale? But if the customer is a ghost, refusing might anger it.]"

Dr. Lin remained calm throughout. His gaze swept over everyone, finally settling on the doll, where he gestured: "Let's wait and see."

Outside the convenience store's glass door, the night was as thick as ink. Occasionally, burning paper money would drift by, its orange-red sparks particularly glaring in the darkness. Even more terrifying, sometimes incompletely burned paper effigies would slowly float by in the wind, their pale faces painted with exaggerated smiles, their dark, hollow eyes seemingly spying on the people inside the store.

Qiu Feng stood by the cashier, unconsciously taking a step back, away from the direction the mannequin was pointing. His hand rested on the barcode scanner, his knuckles turning white. Old Chen stared intently at the door, his breathing heavy beneath his mask.

Jiang Jin suddenly noticed that the doll's eyes seemed to move slightly, as if conveying some kind of message. Even more strangely, the corners of the doll's stitched mouth seemed to widen further, revealing the dark red cotton inside.

The convenience store lights began to flicker, casting distorted shadows on the merchandise on the shelves. The doll remained seated on the food shelf, completely out of place with its surroundings. But then, Jiang Jin suddenly remembered something.

The direction the doll's eyes were moving just now seemed to be towards the freezer!

Jiang Jin walked towards the freezer, opened it again, and counted the amount of lime juice.

He had counted when he opened the freezer earlier; there were a total of 8 cans of lime juice.

Then, he gasped – even though one can had been bought, there were still eight cans of lime juice left on the shelf!
The fluorescent green cans were neatly arranged, as if they had never been touched.

It seems the extra items weren't just that doll!

Everyone pitched in to correct it, and Jiang Jin used sign language to indicate: "The quantity of lime juice in this bottle will not be reduced!"

Everyone's faces immediately turned grim.

At that moment, Jiang Jin suddenly looked at his watch.

The SAN value... has dropped to 79.36%!

They have now entered the mysterious layer!

The intense tension made Jiang Jin's urge to urinate even stronger.

"I'm going to the restroom first," Jiang Jin said in a low voice.

Wu Ge immediately followed: "Let's go together."

To avoid being alone and having any issues, they always go to the toilet together.

The lights in the restroom were dimmer than in the lobby, and the faucets seemed to be malfunctioning, with the sound of dripping water echoing in the sink from time to time.

After confirming that every stall in the restroom was empty, Wu Ge went to the urinal next to Jiang Jin and suddenly asked, "A Zi said she saw your hunting dog on the subway. Was it fed with ashes and black bones?"

Jiang Jin was stunned for a moment: "No. It was an Ash Black Talisman that I received in the newbie gift pack during my first horror dungeon. It was stained with my blood and then stuck to the remains of my hound."

He only learned upon returning to the Reincarnation Camp that most hunters bought ash and black bones to feed to their dogs, turning them into undead hounds. Ash runes, on the other hand, created skeletal hounds, whose internal resentment crystals contained a much higher purity of ash.

"What?" Wu Ge gasped. "The newbie gift pack includes Ash Black Runes? That was your first time in the Horror Dungeon? What kind of difficulty trial is this?"

Then, his voice still carried disbelief, "The Ash Black Rune can't be bought in ordinary Reincarnation Camps! It's usually sold in the outermost, frontline Reincarnation Camps of Muxu Market! It costs at least 20 Resentment Crystals! Hunters can use it to generate Skeleton Hounds, and it also has its uses for shamans and sorcerers."

At this point, he suddenly changed the subject.

"There might be something fishy among those five people outside."

Jiang Jin's heart skipped a beat, and she turned to look at him: "You mean..."

"When the seven of us first met on the subway, it was possible that one of us was a ghost. Ghosts from the quarantine zone can enter the horror instance, and as long as they don't leave the containment area, the cleaners won't interfere. Conversely, ghosts from the horror instance can also move around in the quarantine zone."

Why are you telling me this? Aren't you afraid I'm a ghost?

“You have that skeleton hound,” Wu Ge said. “When A Zi mentioned that a ghost hound had appeared beside you, I sensed that there was indeed ash material under your feet that was the same as the resentment crystal fragments. Ghosts can’t fake it to that extent. So I can confirm that you are a reincarnator and not a ghost.”

Jiang Jin's throat tightened: "What about the night shift employee handbook? What do you think of it?"

Wu Ge sneered, "There are definitely traps inside. Even if we follow the rules exactly, we might still step into a death trap. This is a completely rule-based instance; you can only clear it with intelligence, brute force is meaningless. Now we..."

His words stopped abruptly.

The two froze on the spot—outside the toilet window, a pale paper face was pressed against the glass!
The paper figure's eyes were two black holes, and its mouth was painted with an exaggerated smile in vermilion. Even more terrifying, its fingers were gently tapping on the window frame, making a "tap, tap" sound.

"run!"

Jiang Jin and Wu Ge stumbled out of the bathroom, both of them extremely pale.

Jiang Jin's blue-faced demon mask hung crookedly on his face, while Wu Ge's mandrill mask was also soaked with beads of sweat dripping from his forehead.

"There's something in the toilet!" Jiang Jin gasped for breath, his voice barely audible. "A paper face is stuck to the window, and it's knocking on it!"

Upon hearing this, everyone immediately tensed up!
Sure enough, once they entered the mysterious layer, the paper figure was no longer an organic substance from the material layer!

Murong Yan's fingertips unconsciously went to her chest, where a talisman given to her by her deceased sister was pinned. Cold sweat seeped from beneath Old Chen's Yama mask as he stealthily reached for the fruit knife hidden under the cashier's counter.

Dr. Lin calmly made a "shush" gesture, leaving Old Chen and Qiu Feng at the cashier, and indicated that Wu Ge should lead the way. The group cautiously returned to the restroom, only to find—

Nothing.

The window was intact, there were no paper figures, and there was no knocking.

The only unusual thing was the water vapor condensing on the mirror surface, forming a blurry shape that was gradually dissipating as the vapor evaporated.

"Damn it..." Jiang Jin's back was already soaked with sweat. "Where did it go?"

(End of this chapter)