Forbidden Zone of Deception

Chapter 145 Corpses and Doppelgangers

Standing in front of Teacher Park's house, Liu Yan said to Jiang Jin through a mental link: "Jiang Jin, with Xu Dafeng here, I'll talk to you through a mental link. There's something you should have realized by now: this terrifying dungeon is very difficult to clear by brute force."

“I see... none of the bullets have any effect on this ghost, this is outrageous.”

"After careful consideration, I'm afraid we might be being misled."

"Misled?"

Jiang Jin looked at the house in front of him, while simultaneously checking the interior through the crow's vision.

The first thing he saw was Masamoto and Miko, who were terrified!
Upon seeing these two people, Jiang Jin still felt a strong sense of unease.

According to the original movie, Mija and Jung-won are two fictional characters created by the real culprit, Jung-won, who do not actually exist. They are a projection of her conflicted feelings of love and hate towards Teacher Park.

But in this terrifying instance, memetic contamination has turned these two people into real people! The original culprit, Yoo Jung-won, who committed heinous murders, no longer exists.

"Miko! We still can't get out!" Zheng Yuan was completely terrified. "No matter which way we go, we can't reach the door! Calling the police is useless!"

"What happened?" Miko was already sobbing uncontrollably. "Where's the teacher? Where's Yinqiu? Why are our bodies and Minghao's bodies piled up in the basement?"

Basement? Corpse?

The blood-eating crows quickly flew towards the basement, and when they arrived at the basement door, Jiang Jin saw the terrifying scene through the crows' perspective!
"Fuck!!!"

Even Jiang Jin felt a chill run down his spine when he saw this scene!
What's the situation?
Why are there so many corpses of the same person?
An evil spirit's clone?
However, the way each person died was exactly the same as in the original movie!
"Aren't Zhengyuan and Meizi there? And there's Dafeng's body inside?" Jiang Jin immediately turned to look at Xu Dafeng. Could he also be a ghost?
“No!” Liu Yan shook her head: “If they all die, our mission will automatically fail, the reincarnation system will notify us, and then the cleaners will come to clean us up. In other words, according to the reincarnation system’s judgment, they don’t count as… or at least not all of them as dead!”

Then, the basement suddenly went dark, and then... the door closed automatically!

Jiang Jin and Liu Yan stared wide-eyed at the room in front of them.

“This is a memetic contamination phenomenon!” Jiang Jin blurted out involuntarily. “It’s probably from the annihilation layer?”

“Not at all,” Liu Yan shook her head. “We at this level can’t even come into contact with the true annihilation layer.”

Memes... Since the moment they appeared in the world, the world's top scientists have been studying them one after another. However, even today, human understanding of memes is still extremely limited.

All of humanity's current means of resisting memes, however weak, are provided by the reincarnation system. When meme contamination erupts, those contaminated automatically become reincarnators through the system.

Under the influence of meme contamination, reincarnators can enter various fictional horror movie, horror game, and horror novel worlds, which are all transformed into bizarre and fantastical worlds with strange rules.

The most terrifying meme known in the world today exists in the [Zoo Ghost Stories] instance, a realm that strikes fear into the hearts of all reincarnators worldwide. There are isolated restricted zones around the world that allow access to the [Zoo Ghost Stories] instance, but only a very small number of reincarnators who enter this instance return alive. Moreover, most of those who do return find it difficult to survive long in the material realm; almost all of them fall completely into the interdimensional realm within one to two years.

Meme contamination not only affects human cognition and lowers one's SAN value, but it can also completely overturn and rewrite all the common sense of the material world. Everything that is considered self-evident in the material world is controlled by various bizarre and incomprehensible rules in a world contaminated by memes. Currently, meme contamination and the curses and vengeful spirits derived from it can only be barely contained by the reincarnation system.

Everyone was afraid that Muxu City would become the next Manhattan and Edo.

"Zhengyuan! Meiko!"

From the crow's perspective, Jiang Jin saw two people walking down the stairs.

It's Jo Soon-hee and Oh Eun-young from the movie!
Eun-young looked weak and listless, with her eyes half-open, while Soon-hee was barely supporting her.

Mija and Jung-won were completely exhausted. When they saw Eun-young and Soon-hee, Mija even screamed.

"Ah ah ah ah ah ah!"

Miko collapsed to the ground, her hand trembling as she raised it to point at Soon-hee and Eun-young, shouting, "You, you two, are you human or ghosts?"

Zhengyuan also stood in front of Meizi, looking at the two women with a wary expression!

After all, he had just seen the bodies of two women, and more than one, displayed in the basement! And now, they were walking towards him!

Of course, Masamoto and Miko also saw their own corpses.

However, their reason has now completely collapsed!

Suddenly, they heard footsteps coming from above the stairs!

who……

Who is coming?

The next moment, the Blood-Eating Raven's vision was cut off!

"Let's go in!" Liu Yan gritted her teeth. "We can't delay any longer!"

The tasks assigned to them by the Reincarnation System upon entering this terrifying instance were quite simple.

First, on her birthday, she arrived at Teacher Park's residence.

Secondly, each reincarnator must protect at least one student (excluding reincarnators) attending Teacher Park's birthday party from death! If either of these two tasks is not completed, the student will be eliminated by the cleaners!

So, the two of them have absolutely no choice now!

"Dafeng, don't go in!" Jiang Jin said to Deathstroke, "Deathstroke, you stay here to protect him!"

Although it's not safe here either, it's better than going in.

Jiang Jin also took out a ghost candle he had gotten from Zhao Kaiming and handed it to Da Feng, saying, "If anything happens, immediately light this ghost candle with a lighter!"

"well……"

Da Feng trembled as he took the ghost candle and said, "You must save our teacher! But if that man with the gun comes, can I deal with him with this candle?"

If he comes, Jiang Jin will be helpless.

"Let's go inside first! Dafeng, if there's any danger, just run. Deathstroke will protect you with his life!"

Then, Jiang Jin and Liu Yan rushed straight into Teacher Park's house!
Not long after they rushed through the gate, the two of them froze.

What about people?

What about Jung-won, Mi-ja, Soon-hee, and Eun-young?

"Jiang Jin, I have an idea." At this moment, Liu Yan suddenly said, "Who is the evil spirit? And why is it killing the students?"

The movie's plot has been altered and is no longer of much reference value.

According to what Xu Dafeng told them, the teacher Park, who was completely devoid of professional ethics in the original movie, is actually a model teacher in this horror scenario. In particular, the incident in which she changed the original female lead Liu Zhenyuan's menstrual cycle is almost the complete reversal of the movie's plot.

This clearly demonstrates the exaggerated and disruptive impact of meme contamination on this terrifying copy.

Of course, the biggest subversion is that it turns what was originally a murder committed by humans into a murder cursed by vengeful ghosts and evil spirits!
So here's the question: after the plot twists to this extent, who is the evil spirit that killed them?

Neither Mija nor Jung-won have any reason to resent Teacher Park or their classmates. Although Jung-won's mother was killed in the accident, it seems to have nothing to do with Teacher Park.

In the movie, the missing teacher's son, Young-min, is revealed in the horror subplot to have been murdered by an unidentified killer a month before the teacher's birthday!
So here's the question: if the evil spirit is Yingmin, then it should be targeting the murderer. Why would it kill the student who killed the mother?

Could it be that the murderer was the mother's student? He was killed because he was hit by a stone from behind, but he didn't know which student killed him, so he killed students indiscriminately?
But then another question arises: how did he know the murderer was his mother's student? If he knew, why couldn't he pinpoint which student it was?
However, it would make sense if the murderer was one of the seven students.

Yingmin was murdered after Miko contacted the teacher and arranged a birthday party.

And all the students she contacted afterward were able to regain their teacher's accurate address.

Then, one of them came here and killed Youngmin.

If that's the case, then wouldn't it mean that if the murderer can be found and Young-min's spirit can kill him, everything can end and the lives of the remaining students can be saved?
But then Liu Yan dismissed the possibility.

When the Reincarnation System issues quests, it evaluates the reincarnators' professional skills and items, making it impossible for them to easily clear dungeons.

Liu Yan possesses the Mind-Reading Leech, which is enough for her to know who the murderer is!

It's impossible to assign them such an easy task!
Moreover, what is very puzzling is the motive for the murder?
This is something that neither Jiang Jin nor Liu Yan could understand at all.

The original movie included a scene where students deliberately bullied Yingmin, but Dafeng denied this. Liu Yan also confirmed with the mind-reading leech that he was telling the truth.

Jiang Jin even used the ring that Deathstroke had found to conduct an experiment, confirming that Da Feng could still see him when he wore the ring. Therefore, it could be proven that Da Feng was not a ghost.

"I don't think we can be easily misled. In the original movie, the director kept misleading the audience, making them think that the rabbit-masked killer was Young-min. But in this version, is the ghost really Young-min? In the original movie, the killer was actually one of the students, Jung-won! So..."

Jiang Jin understood what Liu Yan meant.

So, could the real ghost be one of the seven students?

"I say this because the original text of the reincarnation system is somewhat questionable."

The original mission text for the Reincarnation System states that each reincarnator must protect at least one student (excluding other reincarnators) attending Teacher Park's birthday party from death. The original mission text makes no mention of the number "seven"!
Does this prove that, in fact, among these seven students...

Some people are already dead, so there's no way to keep them alive?
Then, Liu Yan looked towards the basement.

"There are all the corpses in that basement. Jiang Jin, I suddenly realized that this might be a hint from the reincarnation system, but also a misdirection!"

Jiang Jin immediately understood: "I know what you mean. Seven people, each with three or four corpses in the basement, we're more shocked by the horror of the memetic contamination, thus overlooking one thing... the real ghosts can completely hide among these corpses!"

For a ghost in the Lost Layer, having clones is perfectly normal. If a ghost splits into three or four clones and they mingle with the other corpses in the basement, it's enough to make people mistakenly believe that this ghost is also one of the murdered students!

(End of this chapter)