Forbidden Zone of Deception

Chapter 373 The Long Night

Walking up the dimly lit and oppressive staircase, Lingzi couldn't help but ask in a low voice, "Commander, why don't you ask a few more questions? We still have many questions about other rules, such as the fourth rule about the use of flashlights during power outages, or the seventh rule about handprints on the balcony."

Jiang Jin didn't stop, but a cold smile curled at the corner of his mouth: "We're new residents. If he tells us the whole truth now, aren't we afraid we'll fight him to the death? We might as well...see for ourselves. I've already...left Death Knell there."

Reiko paused for a moment, then realized. She couldn't see Deathstroke, so she couldn't tell that he hadn't followed her out.

"You left the death knell at the Ebisu residence?"

“That’s right.” Jiang Jin nodded, his eyes gleaming with calculation in the dim light. “According to the movie plot, the subordinates abandoned by that old devil Ebisu on the battlefield harbored resentment after death and became ghosts, tormenting him and his bedridden wife every night. Leaving Deathstroke there is an excellent opportunity for observation. The Ebisu couple cannot see Deathstroke, but my Ghost Eyes can share Deathstroke’s vision completely.”

This means that everything that is about to happen in Ebisu's house will be presented to Jiang Jin "before his eyes" as if it were a live broadcast.

“It is indeed worth observing.” Reiko agreed, and then analyzed, “According to the movie, those Japanese ghosts seem to be just ghosts from the mysterious layer.”

Although Lingzi's current strength is still very weak, as a professional journalist, she is very good at intelligence gathering and deduction, and she is almost the strategist in the team.

Theoretical knowledge about the contamination layer came to mind.

Within the Mysterious Layer lies the weakest layer of contamination for evil spirits. In the Mysterious Layer, the physical laws of most materialistic layers still apply, thus repelling "contaminated entities" like evil spirits.

Under this repulsion, ghosts may only appear briefly or occasionally leave images in photos and videos. To maintain stable activity over a long period, they may need to gradually possess a human body to maintain stable activity in the material layer. Ghosts in the mysterious layer generally have difficulty killing living people. Their greatest role is to continuously lower the human's SAN value so that they can enter a deeper pollution layer.

If you want to kill someone, you can usually only scare them to death, or possess a living person and kill them through materialistic means.

“For example, in the movie,” Reiko explained, “the ghosts strangle Ebisu’s wife with a rope, but they can only make her feel the pain of suffocation, but they can’t actually kill her. This is a typical phenomenon of the physical law suppressing ghosts in the mysterious layer. And the source curse in the movie, the evil spirit of the high school girl, can only kill people by possessing them, even if the residents do not violate the access control rules.”

Jiang Jin continued, "So theoretically speaking, as long as we strictly abide by the access control rules, we only need to deal with these Japanese ghosts who are in the mysterious layer and are severely restricted by the laws of physics. Not to mention me, even you, Lingzi, a reincarnator with the profession of incantation, would be more than capable of dealing with them."

This sounds like good news. The rules restrict residents, but also limit the direct interference of evil spirits? As long as they don't break the rules, they'll only face "fright" rather than "instant death"?
But Jiang Jin's tone was anything but relaxed: "I absolutely do not believe that a trial mission with a reward of the 'Key to the Home World' could be so simple. There must be a deeper murderous intent hidden behind these rules. The Ebisu family's nightly 'routine' can be used to verify some of my suspicions."

The two returned to room 304, locked the door, and took out an emergency flashlight from the bedside table and placed it within easy reach.

After doing all this, Jiang Jin sat in the center of the living room and closed his eyes.

His vision shifted instantly, connecting with the death knell left inside the house in Ebisu.

Ebisu and his wife Shizu were sleeping on tatami mats with the lights on.

Mrs. Shizu looked even more haggard than during the day, her breathing weak and labored, but she seemed to still be conscious. Ebisu, on the other hand, appeared restless, frequently listening to the sounds outside the door, his cloudy eyes filled with fear.

"Husband..." Mrs. Shizu's weak voice rang out, as if she sensed her husband's unease, "They...are coming soon..."

Ebisu grasped his wife's withered hand, his voice trembling uncontrollably: "Shizu... I'm the one who dragged you down... I was the one who wronged them back then..."

"Don't say that... The war... The war is over..."

"It's over? No, it's not over..." Ebisu's voice trembled with sobs, the secrets and guilt suppressed for decades bursting forth at this moment, "It was my mistake... I abandoned them..."

Then, Jiang Jin was able to see Ebisu begin to recount, haltingly, that long-buried, blood-stained, and shameful past:
“That year… in De’an, Jiangxi Province… Wanjialing… we were surrounded… by Xue Yue’s Kuomintang troops… like an iron barrel…” His words were incoherent with fear and somewhat slurred, but Jiang Jin, through the sound of the death knell, clearly caught the key information.

"Our squad... has become separated from the main force of the division... trapped in a dense forest canyon... out of food and almost out of ammunition..."

“On the third day of running out of food… Aoki… that kid from Osaka… secretly hid a dried rice ball, and it was discovered… which led to a fight… I… I didn’t dare to intervene, I was afraid of them… They laughed at me, saying, ‘A coward who can’t even control Miyazaki’s fishing boats’… I… I really am a coward…”

“That night… Matsumoto… and Inoue… were shot… Matsumoto was badly wounded. He kept crying and calling out, ‘Mom, I want to go back to Hokkaido to see my mother…’ He bled a lot… I… I was overwhelmed by fear… I just wanted to run away…”

The old man's voice choked with sobs, filled with endless regret: "I...I stole the squad's only compass...and half a bag of rice...They begged me not to abandon them...saying they wanted to go back to Japan alive...but I still ran away alone..."

"After I escaped...they...they lost their leader...in the dense forest...they all died..."

Ebisu wept uncontrollably, tears streaming down his face. He laid bare the sins and cowardice buried deep within his heart for decades, as if this could alleviate some of his pain. But Jiang Jin, listening, felt only a sense of satisfaction. This was the renowned Battle of Wanjialing during the War of Resistance!
However, at this moment...

"Snapped!"

The only lamp went out without warning. The entire room was plunged into complete darkness!

"They're here! They're here!" Ebisu let out a suppressed cry of alarm, his voice filled with extreme fear.

Almost reflexively, he grabbed the old emergency flashlight that was placed next to his pillow!
"Click!" The flashlight turned on, shooting out a dim yellow beam.

Ebisu kept the rules firmly in mind. He focused the light on the wall in front of him, not daring to move it upwards even a fraction, nor did he dare to turn around.

However, fear does not disappear simply by following the rules.

In just a few seconds, clear voices, each carrying a certain melancholy and cold quality, rang out in the deathly silence of the darkness, as if right beside Ebisu's ears:

"second lieutenant……"

"second lieutenant……"

The sound repeated itself, as if it came from hell.

Immediately afterward, Ebisu's body stiffened abruptly as he felt a rope tightly gripping his neck!
The immense force instantly suffocated him; his eyeballs bulged due to lack of oxygen, and a strange "hoarse" sound came from his throat.

He struggled desperately, but his hands flailed wildly in the air and he couldn't grab anything. He could only endure it, relying on "experience" and daring not to turn around or move the flashlight beam behind him.

At the same time, Mrs. Shizu, who was lying ill in bed beside him, also let out a painful groan. Her body began to convulse uncontrollably, and her hands flailing wildly in the air, as if she too was being strangled by some invisible force. Her face quickly turned bluish-purple.

"second lieutenant……"

"second lieutenant……"

The calling continued, like a maggot clinging to Ebisu's ears, intensifying his fear and suffocation.

however……

Jiang Jin, who was sharing all of this through Deathstroke's vision, frowned deeply.

In the "eyes" of the death knell, the room was completely silent. There were no materialized spirits, no so-called "rope" or "invisible hand"!
Ebisu was indeed struggling violently, his face flushed red, veins bulging, and he appeared to be suffocating; Mrs. Shizu was also groaning and convulsing in pain.

But from Deathstroke's perspective, there was absolutely nothing external affecting them! Their necks were bare, and their backs were empty!
Deathstroke, who was in the mysterious layer, saw nothing unusual!

So... this is definitely not the work of ghosts from the Mysterious Layer!

Moreover, while the Ebisu family experienced a power outage, the power supply to room 304 remained normal.

Jiang Jin's heart sank.

The situation was more complicated than he had anticipated. The terror of rule-based evil spirits seemed to lie not only in the instant death that followed breaking the rules. Even if one appeared to follow the rules, one could only barely survive, still enduring immense fear and pain.

The curse certainly transcends the level of mystery, but bound by the rules, the residents cannot actually be killed?
It is also possible that its mechanism of action is even more bizarre and harder to defend against.

“Reiko,” Jiang Jin’s expression was more solemn than ever before, “The situation has changed. Something happened to Ebisu, but… Deathstroke, who is inside the Mysterious Layer, didn’t see anything.”

Upon hearing this, Reiko's expression changed instantly: "That means..."

"Yes, we're not facing simple ghostly harassment from the Mysterious Layer. Be prepared, tonight... is unlikely to be peaceful."

His gaze swept across the dark window and then landed on the paper with the rules written on it.

The first rule, the one about being home before midnight, hangs like the Sword of Damocles overhead.

There was still some time before midnight. But the apartment's malice was clearly already eager to reveal its incomprehensible horror.

The first night at the Beizuka First Apartment was destined to be long and agonizing.

(End of this chapter)