Forbidden Zone of Deception

Chapter 307 Knife
Although the first round of fruit selection was over and no one died, the fear in the air did not dissipate. After all, the evil spirit that appeared at the cashier was too terrifying, and every resident was trapped inside the fruit shop with nowhere to escape!
Next, Zheng Jie from room 308 was chosen to be fed fruit in the second round.

The short-haired, capable woman took a deep breath, trying to appear calm, but her slightly trembling fingertips betrayed the turmoil in her heart.

She looked at Zhou Qiang and asked in as calm a tone as possible, "Zhou...Zhou Qiang, when you...feeding the lemon in, what exactly did you feel? Did the corpse change after the fruit went in?"

Zhou Qiang rubbed his hands together and started to move away from the corpse: "He just... he just shoved it in, and as soon as he let go, the lemon went straight into the corpse's mouth! And then his neck..."

He pointed to the corpse on the ground, its mouth still agape, and said, "It's just a bulge that slides down the throat. It looks...it's really creepy!"

Listening to his description, everyone couldn't help but recall that eerie scene.

While they were exchanging hushed conversations, the other residents weren't idle either. Some tried dialing their phones again, but the screen still showed no signal.

Outside the window, the glass that once offered a blurry view of Yuntian Road was now completely swallowed by an impenetrable darkness, as if they were not in a shop, but floating in the void of the universe.

This complete isolation reminded Jiang Jin of that terrifying convenience store from back then.

Jiang Jin could only force himself to remain calm, and his gaze returned to the corpse in the center.

Taking advantage of the fact that no one was paying attention, he quickly glanced at the SAN value on the watch face. It looked like it had only dropped slightly by a few percentage points, but it was still stable within the materialist layer.

This reassured him somewhat, but also made him more vigilant: the corpse was essentially a ghost that had "completely invaded the material world"!

This means that it can exist stably in the physical world, yet it can ignore some of the laws of physics.

The putrid ghostly figure that had just emerged from the cashier's counter was, in his eyes, a typical "rule-based evil spirit." These kinds of evil spirits usually possess a stronger ability to corrupt rules and can easily traverse different layers of corruption.

Jiang Jin even subconsciously assessed that if he could attack an evil spirit of this level, he would likely gain a lot of resentment fragments... but this thought only flashed through his mind and then turned into a deeper sense of powerlessness.

Now, all his professional skills, items, physical enhancements, and summons have been sealed by this dungeon, leaving him as nothing more than an empty shell of a level 2 hunter.

Faced with this kind of rule-based evil spirit, the other party can easily send him to the underworld.

Li Yin was also deep in thought. He didn't have Jiang Jin's understanding of the corruption of rules, but he possessed keen observation skills and logical thinking.

He inquired in detail about the feeding process, including why Zhou Qiang chose lemons. Zhou Qiang replied that he thought lemons were small and easier to feed.

Li Yin's questioning was intended to analyze the extent to which the apartment restricted evil spirits, and whether the identification of ghosts was purely a game of probability.

"Did the ghost randomly select the lychee, or does it have some kind of preference?" Li Yin muttered to himself, his brow furrowed. "If it's random, then the risk of being selected is equal for everyone. But if it has a preference, or if its choice is based on some logic we don't know, then perhaps we can find a pattern..."

Jiang Jin approached Li Yin discreetly, discovering that this "male protagonist" indeed possessed extraordinary qualities. Li Yin had even taken photos of the various fruits displayed in the store beforehand with his phone.

At this moment, he was comparing the photos of the lemon shelf with the reality, confirming the correctness of Rule Six—the quantity and location of the lemons had indeed been "restocked" after Zhou Qiang's selection, without any changes.

The two of them, along with all the other residents who were still able to think, were all preoccupied with the same core question: how to find the ghost mixed in with them?

There are only two known differences between ghosts and human dwellers:

First, when residents choose fruit to feed the corpse, they can choose the types of fruit that have already been chosen by the ghost.

Second, ghosts cannot identify anyone as a ghost.

However, without knowing who the ghost is, these two pieces of information are almost impossible to use directly.

Each resident has only one chance to identify the wrong person; if they make a mistake, they face irreversible consequences.

At this moment, Zheng Jie's expression shifted uncertainly. She knew she had to make a choice, and the ten-minute countdown seemed to tick silently.

What to choose? This is an extremely difficult decision. Not only do you have to avoid being guessed by the ghost, but you also have to make sure that others, especially the hidden ghost, can easily see through your choice logic.

Her gaze swept across the shelves, eliminating the lemons that Zhou Qiang had already chosen. Of the remaining seventeen kinds of fruit, each seemed to carry a potential danger.

Li Yin continued his analysis, suggesting that under such pressure, residents might subconsciously choose small, easily accessible fruits, such as strawberries, lychees, and plums. At the same time, they might subconsciously avoid overly common, conspicuous, or seemingly inconvenient fruits, such as whole watermelons, pineapples, and cantaloupes. After all, even if the rules state that any size can be stuffed in, people would psychologically resist putting such large objects into the mouth of a corpse.

So, when a ghost identifies something, does it also base its actions on this common psychology? Perhaps it prioritizes pointing to smaller fruits that seem more likely to be chosen? Or does it do the opposite?
Just then, while everyone else was trying to stay away from the "ominous place" where the ghost clone had just appeared at the cashier, Jiang Jin moved over there seemingly unintentionally.

He had experienced too many bizarre and terrifying scenes, and he was the bravest of all. His gaze swept across the surface of the cash register, and then fell on a half-open drawer below.

Inside, a fruit knife lay quietly!

The blade is made of stainless steel, with a wooden handle. The edge reflects a cold light under the lamplight, looking exceptionally sharp! Could this thing be part of the rules here? Is it a potential variable?

Jiang Jin's heart skipped a beat. He quickly glanced at the others and, finding no one paying attention to him, swiftly and discreetly picked up the fruit knife and stuffed it into the inside pocket of his jacket.

Could we perhaps use a knife to stab someone to find out who the ghost is?

The thought flashed through his mind, but he immediately dismissed it.

No, that's too risky. Even if he couldn't bring himself to do it, the ghost could easily fake injury or even death.

He sighed inwardly again. If his skills as a charlatan lawyer were still intact, and those props were still usable, he could find the ghost in no time!
Li Yin walked to the corpse, squatted down, and endured the discomfort to examine it carefully.

He had already investigated this fruit shop and knew it had closed down long ago. But today, the fruit was fresh and plump, and there was also a corpse of unknown origin!

Who exactly is this corpse? Is it the former shop owner? What deeper connection is there between the existence of this corpse and this blood-letter quest involving feeding fruit?

Time waits for no one. Zheng Jie finally made her decision and said, "I'm going to choose the fruit now, please leave."

“Let’s go to the warehouse,” Li Yin nodded.

The crowd surged back into the dimly lit, cramped warehouse, closed the door, and left Zheng Jie alone outside.

In the darkness, the wait grew even more agonizing. Everyone was guessing what fruit Zheng Jie had chosen to feed the ghost, and what would the ghost point to this time?
One minute later, when Zheng Jie announced that the feeding was complete, everyone opened the door and immediately looked at Zheng Jie.

Her face was pale, but her eyes remained steady as she nodded slightly to the crowd.

Ten minutes passed quickly.

Almost at the same time, the familiar lights flickered, and the biting cold and stench descended once more!

At the cashier's counter, the air distorted once more, and the terrifying ghost clone slowly emerged like a messenger returning from hell!

Its cloudy white eye swept across the shelf once more!
This time, its rotting fingers moved slowly through the air, carrying a heart-stopping sense of oppression, and finally, firmly pointed to—a bunch of bright yellow bananas!
banana!

Everyone's hearts were in their throats again, and all eyes were focused on Zheng Jie.

A chilling killing intent swept by, and a few seconds later, the ghost clone slowly disappeared again.

"Phew..." Another collective sigh of relief, as if they had just survived a disaster.

Zheng Jie then spoke, her voice trembling slightly: "I chose pomegranate."

The second round was successfully navigated.

The ghost made two wrong identifications in a row. This seemed like good news, but Li Yin and Jiang Jin frowned even more.

Jiang Jin thought quickly. Zheng Jie chose the relatively uncommon fruit pomegranate... Does this mean that choosing something unconventional might be safer?

He leaned against the cold shelf, his gaze sweeping over the faces of Zhou Qiang, Zheng Jie, Qian Yong, and others, a sense of indescribable absurdity welling up inside him.

He clearly knew the plot inside and out thanks to the novel "Hell Apartment" that Blood Lord had given him, and could even recite many details of the key blood-letter missions. However, apart from Li Yin, the names of the residents in front of him were completely unfamiliar to him, and he had no way of figuring out who the "ghosts" who had sneaked in were.

About a year before the novel begins, Li Yin will experience his signature fourth blood-written event—the You Shui Village.

The original novel briefly describes Li Yin's second Blood Letter Fishing mission and third Ghost School mission, but the first Fruit Shop mission is not mentioned at all in the original novel.

These people weren't even given names in the original story. A chilling conclusion surfaced in his mind: the others gathered here now, including the seemingly capable Qian Yong, the calm Zheng Jie, and even the tattooed strongman Wang Tianba, probably wouldn't have survived until then.

This feeling of "knowing the ending" yet being unable to change it, and being completely unaware of the process, is more suffocating than mere ignorance. The "entire book" he had read was now practically worthless; his only "advantage" was the still immature protagonist, Li Yin, beside him.

Looking at Li Yin's profile, which showed tension yet was still trying to analyze and think, he found it hard to connect him with the future building manager who was full of wisdom and led the residents to survive one desperate situation after another.

The future powerful and wise protagonist is now struggling to survive in this damned fruit shop, just like him.

Jiang Jin smiled bitterly to himself, his hand unconsciously touching the fruit knife hidden in his pocket. The icy touch was the only insignificant "variable" he could grasp at the moment.

The fog ahead was thicker than he had anticipated.

(End of this chapter)