Forbidden Zone of Deception

Chapter 107 Zi Shi
“Yes,” Jiang Jin glanced at the shelves behind him again and said, “Anyway, it’s very likely to be a similar yin-yang transaction voucher. You should have noticed, right? In folk legends, transactions in the underworld often require some kind of contract as proof. For example, ghost money is the currency burned by the living for the dead. So, the recharge cards in the store may be proof that the dead can exchange items at a specific location.”

Old Chen asked, "So, those who used prepaid cards to make purchases before were ghosts?"

"Not necessarily. I'm just speculating that the holder of the recharge card might not be a living person, or that a living person bought the recharge card and burned it for the dead. The customers who come into the store to buy redeemed goods might be spirits, and the recharge card is their license to trade with the living world. The goods are not for use in the living world; they might actually be paper offerings. And the recharge card issued by this convenience store might represent the certification of the underworld to ensure the validity of the transaction."

Dr. Lin also said, "Another possibility is that the recharge card is a medium for redemption. The recharge card may not only be used for purchases, but may also be involved in redeeming something. For example, a living person may use the recharge card to redeem something that has been withheld from them (such as lifespan or luck). It may also be some kind of underworld contract, where the exchange represents the completion of a certain ritual (such as sacrifice)."

Now, there are less than 10 minutes left until midnight.

Wu Ge found an opportunity to stand behind the shelf with Jiang Jin and communicate in hushed tones.

"Who do you think... is the ghost?" Wu Ge's voice was as cold as ice.

Jiang Jin's gaze swept over everyone in the store, finally settling on Old Chen: "Old Chen."

"reason?"

“First, he never mentioned his reincarnation profession. He previously claimed that professions were meaningless.” Jiang Jin’s fingers unconsciously rubbed the edge of his blue-faced ghost mask. “Second, he said he was dismembered seven times—this kind of situation only occurs in the gap between the Lost Layer and the Annihilation Layer. The surface of the Mysterious Layer and the Lost Layer still retains certain materialistic characteristics, making it impossible for someone to be dismembered and still come back alive.”

Wu Ge nodded slightly: "Once you enter the gap between the Lost Layer and the Annihilation Layer, it's indeed very difficult to come back, unless..."

“Unless he’s not human at all,” Jiang Jin said in a low voice.

Unfortunately, his ability to tamper with rules is still on cooldown, otherwise he could verify it directly now.

Wu Ge was silent for a moment, then suddenly walked towards A Zi and took the mop from her hand: "Let me borrow it."

Azi was taken aback, and before she could react, Wu Ge had already started mopping the floor. His movements seemed casual, but were actually precise—he was observing the reflections of everyone.

In horror instances, the ghost's reflection may have subtle anomalies.

Jiang Jin walked over to Old Chen, wanting to test him.

Jiang Jin asked casually, "Old Chen, you said on the subway that you were dismembered seven times... what exactly happened?"

Old Chen sighed, his voice behind the mask carrying a sense of vicissitude: "I violated a monthly rule from back then—you can't say the word 'kill' for a month, not even homophones." He smiled bitterly, "As a result, I accidentally said the word 'sand,' and that very night, I was dismembered by a murderous demon and dragged into the depths of the Lost Layer."

Jiang Jin recalled that such a rule had indeed been issued last year. As a police officer, avoiding this word was extremely difficult; he had heard that many of his colleagues had fallen into the trap.

In that case, Old Chen's first horror instance should be just as difficult as his.

"What was the prototype for your first horror game?"

"The prototype for the first dub is the Japanese horror film 'Dark Water'." Old Chen's tone suddenly became more relaxed. "I was assigned to be the apartment security guard, and my task was to protect a mother and daughter. Oh, by the way, the mother was played by Hitomi Kuroki."

Old Chen isn't a shut-in; he wouldn't utter such childish terms as "Area 11."

Jiang Jin immediately understood: "Hitomi Kuroki, the Showa era goddess! Ghost Water, is that the 2002 Japanese horror film?"

"Yes, that's the one." Old Chen's voice suddenly carried a hint of nostalgia. "She's even more beautiful in person than in the movie, and she's maintained herself so well even in her forties. To be honest, I've been divorced for several years, and if she weren't just a background character, I would have even considered pursuing her..."

Jiang Jin nodded in agreement: "Kuroki Hitomi is indeed an ageless goddess. It's a pity that Edo fell five years ago, and we don't know how she is doing now."

Wu Ge's mop slid silently to Old Chen's feet, and the reflection on the floor clearly showed Old Chen's figure—nothing seemed amiss.

Jiang Jin continued to probe: "Do you still remember the rules of that terrifying dungeon?"

Every terrifying dungeon trial will inevitably have rules, without exception.

“Of course.” Old Chen replied without hesitation. “The apartment has seven rules, but I can’t remember them all now. I only remember… if there’s an extra girl in the elevator, you have to check her; water stains have to be cleaned up promptly; red backpacks have to be put in the security room…”

Jiang Jin was fortunate enough to have seen this horror movie back then, and he still remembered some of the plot points, which were pretty much the same as what Lao Chen described.

However, he still intended to probe further: "Do you remember the specific details?"

"Well, it's almost midnight, so it's not really appropriate to talk about this now, is it? Besides, information about dungeons is usually not provided for free."

However, after thinking for a moment, Old Chen said, "Fine, I'll tell you anyway. Whether we'll survive or not is another matter, and talking can ease the tension. Normally, this dungeon is in the Mysterious Layer the whole time. But I was unlucky; I was pulled into the Lost Layer at the end and barely managed to escape."

"In the instance, Hitomi Kuroki plays a single mother named Shumei who moves into an old apartment building with her daughter Yuko during her divorce proceedings. At first, it's quite cozy, and the mother and daughter want to start a new life, but strange things happen one after another... I entered the horror instance on the day the mother and daughter moved in, and there are several other reincarnators who became the apartment's property management and residents."

"On the first day after moving into the apartment, Yuko found a red backpack on the rooftop. Shumei thought it was unlucky and wanted to throw it away, but the backpack would always come back to her no matter how she threw it away. So, she brought the backpack to me and left it here. Then, one day, the backpack disappeared on its own."

"What's even stranger is that the apartment ceiling started leaking water, and no matter what we did, we couldn't fix it. Sometimes, just like the rules say, I would see a little girl in the elevator that shouldn't be empty on the security camera, and the SAN value would drop as soon as I saw it."

"Shumei noticed that although no one lived upstairs, she kept hearing the sound of dripping water. She asked a reincarnated person to open the door and saw that the entire room was flooded, as if it had been submerged for a long time."

Jiang Jin frowned. In his memory, the plot was a little different. The mother, Shumei, played by Kuroki Hitomi, took the schoolbag to the security room downstairs from the beginning and did not throw it away because she thought it was unlucky.

"Later, Shumei discovered that a little girl had disappeared from this building two years ago, but her name to us was just ▇▇▇. The last time she was seen was when she came home wearing a yellow raincoat and carrying a red schoolbag. And the last time the apartment's water tank was cleaned was the same day the little girl disappeared." "Shumei realized that the little girl might have climbed onto the rooftop water tank after no one picked her up from school, and then fell and drowned. Her body was never found, and her resentment caused water to continuously seep into Shumei's home."

"In the end, the girl wanted to take Yuko away. In order to save her daughter, Shumei wanted to jump into the water tank and become Yuko's 'new mother'. As a result, we reincarnators took turns to disperse her vengeful spirit and successfully rescued Shumei and her daughter."

After finishing his sentence, Old Chen paused for a moment, then added, "It was really a close call back then. I was also deeply moved by Shumei's maternal love. Now that I think about it, the scariest thing about this instance isn't the ghosts, but... even when a person dies, their obsession doesn't disappear."

It was roughly the same as Jiang Jin's impression. He thought about it and realized that some differences were actually normal, since most dungeons would be modified.

“Deep within the Lost Layer, although it has almost lost most of the characteristics of the Materialist Layer, can it really survive being dismembered seven times?” Jiang Jin suddenly asked while he was marveling at maternal love and humanity.

"I contacted the Meme Contamination Monitoring Department in time, and the cleaners came to save me. When I was dismembered for the seventh time and my body was restored to normal, they sprayed some spray on me. Otherwise, I could have been dismembered for the eighth time. I later asked a senior reincarnator, who said that I was in great danger at the time, and my SAN value was close to the gap between the Lost Layer and the Annihilation Layer."

A cleaner... that's not entirely unreasonable.

But another possibility is that Old Chen was truly dead after being dismembered. Perhaps, like the NPCs in the quarantine zone, he died without even realizing it, and was then collected by the cleaners. However, subway line 14 does not lead to the Japanese horror instance.

"By the way, what is your profession? What is your rank?"

“A shaman,” Old Chen replied, “just a mere LV1 ‘prayer’.”

The convenience store lights suddenly flickered, and then the freezer suddenly popped open with a "click"!

"No, no one has touched it..." Qiu Feng's voice was as dry as an unripe persimmon.

Everyone else saw it clearly too! Nobody went near the freezer!
This scene shocked everyone.

For a moment, no one dared to go over!

Then, Dr. Lin strode over!

It's almost midnight, and if the freezer is open, won't the customers immediately notice the lime juice inside?

At the same time, Wu Ge took a pen, wrote something on a piece of paper, walked over to Dr. Lin, and handed it to him.

The note read: "The lime juice in the third row is not for sale and is for employee storage."

“Give it a try,” Wu Ge said. “This is the best idea I could come up with. Anyway, the rules don’t forbid us from writing it this way.”

Those eight cans of lime juice no longer have the production date and expiration date that were originally printed on them.

Dr. Lin took the note, and then Murong Yan retrieved a roll of tape from the office area. The group worked swiftly and efficiently, affixing the notice to the freezer door in the blink of an eye. The black lettering on the white paper stood out prominently against the freezer's cold light.

"Will this really work?" Azi asked, trembling. "This opportunistic method..."

“We didn’t move it,” Jiang Jin said, staring intently at the freezer. “We just added a note.”

However, Jiang Jin didn't think that such a method could really work.

Old Chen rubbed his hands anxiously: "But the rules don't say we can add notices, what if we trigger something..."

“It’s better than doing nothing.” Murong Yan interrupted him, her eyes fixed on the Reincarnator watch on her wrist. It was 22:59:30.

A brief silence fell over everyone. The only sounds in the convenience store were the ticking of the clock and the low hum of the freezer. Everyone held their breath, waiting for midnight to arrive.

At 22:59:45, the note stuck on the freezer suddenly caught fire without any flame!
The flames burned incredibly fast, as if gasoline had been poured on them, and in the blink of an eye, they consumed the entire sheet of paper.

Even more terrifying is that the burning doesn't produce ash, but... strands of hair!

The hair fell to the ground in a fluttering motion, almost suffocating everyone!

"Oh no! Look!" Wu Ge suddenly pointed.

Everyone immediately looked over and saw that the doll on the food shelf had turned its head. Its glass eyes were now staring straight at the freezer!

At this moment, Jiang Jin glanced out the window and his heart skipped a beat—the road sign that originally read "Mingquan Road" had now become "Yimin Road," and the entire sign was covered in rust, with the paint on the characters "Yimin" clearly faded, making it a very old road sign!

All the reincarnators' SAN values ​​are continuing to plummet: 58%...57%...

Everyone felt a chill run down their spines. Would they have to delve deeper into the Lost Layer with their professional skills sealed? Once they started to "lose themselves," could they ever come back?

at last……

23:00:00!

Midnight has finally arrived!
(End of this chapter)