Forbidden Zone of Deception

Chapter 357 Repair Technician

Jiang Jin took a deep breath and reached out to grasp the doorknob.

One benefit of the LV3 upgrade is that his core skill, [Space-Time Deep Vision], has been enhanced. Now, he can not only replay the future fragments he observes in his mind as stable, continuous dynamic images for five minutes, but he can also share all the information he sees with others. Moreover, observing this five-minute future takes only one second in the real world. This is undoubtedly a huge intelligence advantage, allowing everyone to gain a certain degree of precognitive ability along with him.

He suddenly flung open the villa's door.

A figure was standing outside the door.

Everyone held their breath and looked over.

He was a man wearing a dark blue work uniform, a matching hat, and a wristwatch, carrying a rather heavy-looking metal toolbox.

His attire looked ordinary, like any appliance repairman who comes to repair homes late at night.

Jiang Jin's gaze quickly swept over the other person's chest, where, sure enough, was a golden eagle-shaped badge.

However, when Jiang Jin tried to see the other person's face clearly, a strong sense of incongruity and cognitive impairment arose.

His eyes clearly saw that the other person had human-like facial features—eyes, nose, mouth, nothing was missing. But when he tried to focus and try to remember the other person's facial features, he found that his mind went blank.

The face looked as if it had been pixelated, or rather, it was made up of countless tiny, constantly flowing pixels, with no feature that could be captured, remembered, or described.

Even though he was staring intently at the other person, he still couldn't tell what the other person looked like.

This is a kind of ambiguity and isolation rooted in the level of cognition!

"Where's the videotape?" the repair technician asked.

His voice was extremely strange, unlike a human voice. It sounded more like the sound of an old cassette tape being played due to wear and tear, with a slight stuttering quality. The last syllable of each word seemed to have a double image.

Jiang Jin suppressed the chill in his heart and stepped aside to let the other person in.

He had already set up a huge number of hunter traps and auxiliary formations that Yu Tianlun had drawn up in advance in the living room. Although he had doubts about the effect of Sadako, it could at least bring some psychological comfort.

The repair technician strode in, his steps steady and silent.

Jiang Jin followed closely beside him, his gaze involuntarily falling once again on the golden eagle badge.

This time, he noticed that there seemed to be two fine cracks on the surface of the badge, and even more strangely, the eagle's eyes seemed to come alive, locking onto him with a cold, inorganic gaze!
Jiang Jin avoided the eagle's gaze and then handed the original videotape to the repair technician.

The repair technician took the videotape and, without any further action, immediately opened his toolbox.

The tools inside looked very ordinary: screwdrivers, pliers, multimeters, soldering irons... but the way he used them had an indescribable eeriness to it.

Instead of opening the videotape casing, he gently touched several metal contacts on the side of the tape with a special metal probe, while his other hand adjusted a knob on a portable instrument resembling an old-fashioned oscilloscope, with chaotic waveforms jumping on the screen.

His movements were precise and mechanical, as if he had practiced countless times, yet they were completely at odds with the conventional principles of electrical appliance repair.

He would occasionally use that small soldering iron to "solder" a virtual point inside the plastic casing. The light of the solder would flash and disappear, but no actual solder joint could be seen.

The entire process was silent, with only the faint hum of the instruments and his punctuated voice occasionally reporting one or two incomprehensible parameters.

A few minutes later, he stopped what he was doing, handed the videotape back to Jiang Jin, and said in that choppy voice, "The videotape is fine. I need to check the TV."

Jiang Jin's heart tightened, and he gestured to go to the room on the second floor. Everyone, including Lingzi who was closely following Jiang Jin, followed him upstairs with their hearts pounding.

This unknowable being is probably not an evil spirit like Sadako, who was created after a human died, but rather a product of true meme contamination!
Jiang Jin tried to get information out of him, asking in as calm a tone as possible, "Master, thank you for making this trip so late at night. Where are you from?"

The repair technician seemed not to hear, and walked straight to the Toshiba television that was playing a videotape without saying a word.

He began to disassemble the back cover of the television, his movements still precise and mechanical, inspecting the internal circuit boards and the huge CRT picture tube.

His fingers then traced the glass surface of the picture tube, as if he were sensing something through touch.

at this time……

"Boom...boom...boom..."

A clear knock came from the downstairs entryway once again!

Jiang Jin was startled!
who is it?

He immediately gave Lian Xuan and Yang Jian a look, signaling them to keep an eye on the repairman, while he quickly went downstairs and returned to the front door.

He looked out through the peephole, and then he was stunned.

Another repair technician!
The same dark blue work clothes, the same hat, the same watch, and the same metal toolbox they were carrying!

Similarly, Jiang Jin couldn't recognize his face!

"Who are you?" Jiang Jin asked in a deep voice through the door.

A voice, as sharp as a still frame, came from outside the door: "Three hours ago, you called. I'm here to repair the videotape."

Jiang Jin's heart skipped a beat, and his sharp gaze swept over the other person's chest—empty! No Golden Eagle Badge!

"I didn't call for repairs!" Jiang Jin immediately denied, recalling the rules. "You've made a mistake, please leave!"

The repair technician outside was silent for a few seconds, then said, "I received a call. I have to come in and take a look." "How many people did your repair shop send to fix it?"

"Just me, the only one."

Jiang Jin immediately thought of the previous discussion about the "Terror Cruise".

Could it be... that this is due to meme contamination from different time branches of the annihilation layer?
“No repairs are needed here, please leave immediately!” Jiang Jin’s tone left no room for argument.

The figure outside the door stood there for a while, seemingly to confirm, before finally turning and leaving.

Jiang Jin returned to the second floor and found that the first repair technician had already reassembled the television.

He said in that jarring voice, "It's fixed. The problem was that the TV picture tube was old. It's been fixed. Here's the confirmation form, please sign it."

After saying that, he took out two repair confirmation forms and a pen and asked Jiang Jin to sign them.

The above content looks quite normal, nothing strange about it.

Jiang Jin remembered that Rule Nine clearly stated that two copies of the confirmation form must be signed. Just as he was about to take the pen and the confirmation form, a text prompt suddenly appeared in his right eye:

"Warning: Reincarnator Jiang Jin, do not sign this confirmation form. Once signed, your biometrics will be locked and used to create a new cursed videotape! You yourself will become part of the [Midnight Bell] horror copy meme! Please use the Trick Lawyer ability to modify the rules!"

Upon seeing this, Jiang Jin immediately and without hesitation modified the rules, completely removing the requirement to sign a confirmation form!

"I won't sign." Jiang Jin returned the confirmation form.

"Kurosaki-kun!" Reiko said quickly, "Is it alright to break the rules?"

However, the repair technician said, "It was me, I made a mistake, it's not necessary, please confirm."

Then he took the confirmation form, picked up his toolbox, went straight downstairs, opened the door, and left the villa silently, just as he had come, disappearing into the darkness.

No one dared to track him down.

Jiang Jin felt a chill lingering around him. Although he couldn't recognize the faces of these two technicians, apart from their badges, their figures, voices, and even the old-fashioned watches on their wrists were exactly the same!
At this moment, Yu Tianlun and Li Shang, who were supposed to be guarding the ancient well in the basement, walked out from the corridor on the first floor with blank expressions.

"How...did you guys get up here?" Jiang Jin asked in astonishment.

Yu Tianlun and Li Shang exchanged a glance, both seeing confusion in each other's eyes.

“We…don’t know. It just felt like a blur, and here we were. And then, the basement just vanished?” Li Shang frowned, trying to recall, but found his memory of how they left the basement to be completely vague.

Could this be... what "repair" is?
Did they somehow "repair" the existence of the basement and the ancient well?
However, a shadow of unease still looms over everyone.

Just five minutes later...

"Boom...boom...boom..."

The knocking sounded again!

Jiang Jin rushed to the cat's eyes, and sure enough, there was another repair technician standing outside!
“You called to report the problem three hours ago,” Kazhen’s voice came through the door.

This time, Takamiya Yui couldn't help but whisper, "It's been...more than three hours, hasn't it?"

The voice outside answered immediately, with a chilling precision: "That's right. The repair shop received the call at 7:30. It's 10:30 now."

But now, the wall clock clearly points to 10:40!
Jiang Jin once again used the excuse of "making a mistake" to forcefully persuade the technician to leave.

But this is just the beginning.

From that moment on, it seemed as if they had fallen into some kind of terrifying cycle. Every five minutes, a knock would sound on the door, and there would always be a repair technician standing outside whose face was unrecognizable, whose attire and tools were exactly the same, and who claimed to be the same technician who had received the repair call three hours earlier!
Jiang Jin dissuaded everyone from leaving with the same reason, but each knock on the door made the nerves of everyone in the villa tense up a little more, and fear, like a rising tide, overwhelmed their reason.

As the clock struck twelve at midnight, the knocking on the door came again as scheduled.

Jiang Jin numbly approached the cat's eyes. It was still the same figure.

“You called to report the problem three hours ago,” Kazhen’s voice said, but this time, he added with a cold, persistent tone, “I heard a tape running inside. I have to come in and take a look.”

at the same time……

The television set on the second floor, which had just been "repaired," turned on automatically without warning!

The screen went completely black, and then, the image of the deep, ancient well slowly appeared!
Downstairs in the entryway, Takamiya Yui, who was about to speak again to persuade the technician to leave, opened and closed her mouth, but the words that came out suddenly became intermittent, like a broadcast with a poor signal: "The... technician... outside... please... leave..."

His speech slowed down, and the last word "open" was drawn out, distorted, and finally stuck completely!
Takamiya Yui remained frozen in place, mouth agape, completely motionless!
Instead of human voices, his throat emitted a sharp, piercing noise... like the static on a television screen!

Yui Takamiya is being "videotaped"!
Outside the door, the repair technician's knocking became urgent: "Cassette tape, running, malfunction! Must be checked!"

At that moment, everyone felt a chill run down their spines.

Facing Sadako, perhaps there's still a chance. But becoming like Takamiya Yui is worse than death!
Should they choose to copy the videotape and show it to others?
What should we do now?
Should we try opening the door and letting this "person" in to attempt repairs?
On the television screen on the second floor, the image of the ancient well began to flicker erratically, and soon, a horrifying scene of the woman jumping into the Mihara Volcano was inserted!

Finally, the entire screen suddenly lit up, turning into a patch of white, constantly jumping, and emitting a piercing noise!

And in that very instant...

The eerie wooden door to the basement reappeared clearly on the wall at the end of the corridor!
(End of this chapter)