Forbidden Zone of Deception

Chapter 306 Jiang Jin in a Desperate Situation

2009年7月15日，傍晚18点59分。

Beichen Town, southern suburbs of S City.

Yuntian Road is a very remote street, and most of the shops along the road are closed, giving it a desolate and bleak feel.

The "Guoyuan Fresh Fruit" store is located at the end of this road.

The fruit shop wasn't large, about the size of a medium-sized convenience store. Through the blurry glass doors and windows, you could roughly see the interior. A group of people were gathered at the entrance.

At that moment, they opened the door of the fruit shop, and then... one by one they went inside.

Next, the leader used a flashlight to find the switch and turn it on, instantly illuminating the store and revealing everything.

Before me stood rows of neat shelves, displaying all kinds of fruits, each brightly colored and exuding a fresh, fragrant aroma, as if they had just been picked.

At a glance, there is a wide variety of fruits, the kind commonly seen in the height of summer.

Some of them even took out notebooks and started taking notes.

Melons: bright green watermelons, golden cantaloupes, and white-green Elizabethan melons.

Stone fruits: lychee, which is reddish-purple; fuzzy peach; apricot, which is yellowish-red; and dark purple plum.

Berries: bunches of dark purple grapes, plump strawberries, blueberries, and raspberries.

Citrus fruits: orange tangerines, yellow lemons.

Other categories: bright red apples, yellow bananas and pineapples, dark red pomegranates, and dragon fruit with green leaves.

No more, no less, exactly eighteen kinds.

However, in stark contrast to these vibrant fruits was the motionless male corpse on the cold, tiled floor in the very center of the shop!
The deceased was wearing ordinary blue overalls, his face was distorted and stiff, his eyes were wide open and staring blankly at the ceiling, and his mouth was wide open in a way that exceeded human limits, as if he had experienced extreme fear or pain before he died.

The group of people went up and stared intently at the deep, dark opening in the mouth, which sent chills down their spines.

At first glance, it seems that stuffing in an orange wouldn't be a problem.

At the very back of the shop, there is a small, half-open door leading to the inner warehouse.

Peering through the door, you can see that the room is filled with cardboard boxes, cleaning tools, and other miscellaneous items; there is no fruit stored inside.

At this moment, Li Yin, who was holding a notebook, took a deep breath, trying to calm his pounding heart. He glanced at his companions beside him; the floors, from lowest to highest, were:
Zhou Qiang (Room 102): A middle-aged man with an honest face, wearing work clothes, muttering to himself, as if he were praying;
Zheng Jie (Room 308): A short-haired woman with a capable demeanor, she is calmly observing the others with a scrutinizing gaze;

Then it was himself (room 404);

Jiang Jin (Room 410), the newest resident, is tall and strong, and also very skilled.
Qian Yong (Room 601), a man of short stature but with a sharp and capable appearance, scanned the interior of the fruit shop with keen eyes;
Zhao Meiling (Room 905) is a stylishly dressed, exquisitely made-up middle-aged woman. She purses her lips tightly, trying her best to maintain her composure.

Wang Tianba (Room 1107), a burly man with a hideous ghost head tattooed on his arm, was now pale and his eyes were darting around.

Wu Qian (Room 1411): A girl with a ponytail, who looks like a college student, stares at the corpse on the ground with a pale face;
Sun Miao (Room 2009), a young man wearing black-rimmed glasses who looked somewhat timid, kept pushing up his glasses, his fingers trembling slightly.

"Nine people..."

Li Yin silently thought to himself, a chill rising from his heart. He never expected... that the apartment could actually alter memories so perfectly!
This blood-written instruction was clearly only issued to eight households!

Now, no one can tell who the "ninth person" who infiltrated is.

Jiang Jin stood beside him, his expression a perfect blend of tension and bewilderment, but Li Yin always felt that deep within his eyes lay something completely different from his outward expression.

"Time is of the essence," Zheng Jie glanced at her watch and urged, "Zhou Qiang, let's choose the fruit first."

"Damn it!" Wang Tianba abruptly rolled up his sleeve, revealing a fresh tattoo on his arm with several names clearly etched on it. He growled, "Look! I specifically got this tattooed yesterday! It's the names of everyone on this mission! Originally there were eight! Now there are nine!"

Any attempt to record or prove the identities of the original eight residents was silently altered.

Panic spread like a plague.

"The ghost...the ghost is right among us!" Wu Qian said, her voice trembling with tears, her body shaking even more violently.

"Who is it? Who the hell is it?!" Wang Tianba's eyes swept fiercely over everyone.

"Calm down!" Li Yin forced down his fear and raised his voice, "The Blood Word Rules say we must find the ghost before all the fruits are chosen! There's no point in fighting amongst ourselves now! Time is running out, we must begin immediately!"

"There's no time to hesitate!" Jiang Jin urged. "Zhou Qiang is first. You quickly decide which fruit to choose! We'll go into the warehouse first, according to the rules!"

Then, the eight residents besides Zhou Qiang quickly rushed into the inner storage room. The storage room was small, filled with clutter, and dimly lit. The door was closed, cutting off the outside light and also blocking out Zhou Qiang's presence. Peeping was forbidden, and no one dared to take the risk.

In the darkness, all that could be heard were their heavy, suppressed breathing and the frantic pounding of their hearts.

Li Yin leaned against the cold wall, his palms sweating profusely. His first blood-letter quest had begun.

At this moment, Jiang Jin's face was extremely solemn, and his mind was racing.

There are eighteen kinds of fruit, and nine people. Theoretically, each person can choose two kinds, and all the fruits will be selected. However, rule four states that the ghost can choose the same fruit a second time. This means that the ghost can make the same choice, but other residents cannot choose the same fruit again from the second time onwards... This increases the complexity and interferes with the judgment.

The key point is that the ghost mingles among the residents with the aim of murder, but at the same time, it also needs to hide itself.

The only way to survive is to find out the ghost's identity. There's only one chance to identify it! The deduction must be made before all eighteen fruits are chosen… no, before the number of choices dwindles and the amount of information becomes abundant.

But then, an even deeper sense of powerlessness enveloped Jiang Jin.

This is a disaster... a real disaster!
He smiled bitterly in his heart.

The Hell Apartment's complete rule-based dungeon truly lives up to its name.

Not only are all class skills, items, physical enhancements, and summons sealed... even the Lawyer class skill needs to be upgraded to LV5 to modify the dungeon rules!

In other words, he can no longer modify the rules in this instance! This is his biggest advantage in daring to disregard the advice of Blood Lord and Yu Tianlun and enter the [Hell Apartment]!
Now, Jiang Jin can only rely on his brains, along with these characters from the story, to struggle for survival in this terrifying death game.

Not long after, a voice came from outside the warehouse door: "I've selected the fruit to feed them, you can come out now."

The warehouse door opened, and the residents filed out. They looked at Zhou Qiang, the first person to choose them, with very complicated expressions.

Soon, 19:10 PM arrived.

The lights in the store flickered a few times, as if there was a malfunction.

Immediately afterwards, a bone-chilling cold descended without warning, and the fruity aroma in the air was instantly overwhelmed by a strong, nauseating stench.

“It’s…it’s time…” Sun Miao said, his teeth chattering.

The crowd's eyes swept across the shop in fear.

Then, at the cashier's counter, the air began to distort and blur, and then a blurry figure slowly "emerged" out from the distortion!

Its body was hunched over, its rotting hair hung down, and its exposed skin was an abnormal bluish-gray, covered with lividity and signs of decay! Its face was even more horrifying, half of its skin seemed to have been torn off by something, revealing pale cheekbones and dark eye sockets, while its other intact eye was a lifeless, murky white.

This is the demon's clone!
It stiffly turned its neck, its murky white eye sweeping over the eighteen kinds of fruit on the shelf, then its rotting finger slowly rose and finally settled on—a pile of lychees that were red to the point of being purplish-red.

It points to lychees!

In an instant, everyone held their breath, their eyes fixed on Zhou Qiang.

Zhou Qiang was visibly relieved. After a few seconds, the ghost's figure began to fade, disappearing slowly as if it had merged into the air.

It's obvious that Zhou Qiang made a mistake; the fruit he fed the child wasn't lychee. This is quite normal; the probability of selecting the wrong fruit is extremely low, with only one in eighteen chances.

"Phew—" Everyone breathed a long sigh of relief, as if they had just been pulled out of the water.

This was the first time Li Yin had ever truly seen a ghost! His face turned pale, but he could still smell the lingering stench in the air.

Wang Tianba cursed directly, "Damn it, you scared the hell out of me!"

The ghost disappeared, and the rich aroma of fruit mixed with the faint stench of a corpse in the fruit shop, making people want to vomit.

Then, following the rules, Zhou Qiang calmly announced, "I chose lemon."

This means that no one can choose lemons to feed anymore.

Li Yin forced himself to calm down and began to ponder: Was the ghost's ability to see through things completely sealed off by the apartment, so it could only randomly identify the lychee? Or... was there some pattern to the ghost's identification?
There's too little information. And...

Li Yin's gaze swept over the eight people present. This ghost is really good at disguising himself; you can't tell who's acting from his expressions at all.

Li Yin glanced again at the corpse on the ground, its mouth still agape, and at the dazzling array of fruits on the shelves, feeling as if a collar on a gallows was slowly choking him.

Li Yin's first blood-written message officially began amidst extreme eeriness and oppression.

Jiang Jin, this special "newcomer," was also internally assessing the difficulty of this desperate situation, searching for a glimmer of hope...

(End of this chapter)