Forbidden Zone of Deception

Chapter 7 Invisible
The black mask this person was wearing appeared to be extremely intricately designed.

At the top of the mask, a headband clung tightly to the skull, causing the forehead to bulge slightly and gleam with a cold, eerie blue light. The eyes were encased in metal frames, revealing only blurry shadows. Below, on either side, were gill-like breathing valves, their surfaces covered with dark red patterns. The mouth area featured three neatly arranged honeycomb-shaped filters, gleaming with a cold metallic sheen.

The entire mask was seamless, like some kind of air filter mask, making it impossible to see the facial features behind it. The bottom of the mask fit perfectly with the high collar of the sanitation worker's uniform, without a single gap, completely covering the neck as well.

He carried a large scavenging bag on his back, held a red dustpan in his left hand, and a broom in his right. If it weren't for the mask, he would look just like an ordinary sanitation worker.

His sanitation worker uniform had a name tag, but it only had eight numbers on it, not a name.

This is precisely the special job that the Membrane Contamination Monitoring Department only deploys when membrane contamination occurs—the cleaner.

"Hello..." Lu Zhao quickly pulled out a wad of cash from his pocket, "Could you make an exception for Task 1..."

But before Lu Zhao could finish speaking, the cleaner suddenly raised her broom and swung it at him!

Then, a horrifying scene unfolded.

The moment Lu Zhao was hit by the broom, his body collapsed at a visible speed, as if it had become a deflated balloon!

His skin quickly lost its luster, his muscle tissue collapsed strangely, and his whole body looked as if it had been flattened by some invisible force.

If you check the Reincarnator's watch at this moment, you'll find that his SAN value plummeted by more than 50% in the instant he was touched by the broom!

"Help..." Lu Zhao let out a last, weak groan, his voice twisting and distorting in the air like a stretched cassette tape. His limbs began to twitch uncontrollably, his fingers stretching and spreading out like melted wax.

In the end, he lay completely flat on the ground, turning into a lifelike human-shaped piece of paper—like a specimen casually flattened by some higher-dimensional being.

On this "paper," Lu Zhao's terrified expression was perfectly preserved, even his pores and wrinkles were clearly visible. His eyes still maintained a three-dimensional illusion, as if they were still moving, but they could no longer close. The watch on his wrist had also turned into a two-dimensional plane, and its SAN value was frozen at 0%.

The sanitation worker slowly bent down and swept the paper figure into the dustpan with his broom. Then, he untied the scavenging bag he was carrying. The moment the bag opened, you could see—

Inside were countless identical human-shaped paper cutouts, each retaining the terrified expression of its last moments before death, piled up one on top of the other!
With a soft "whoosh," the sanitation worker emptied Lu Zhao's scraps of paper from the dustpan into the scavenging bag... as if it were nothing more than insignificant trash.

When a new companion is thrown in, the other pieces of paper seem to tremble slightly, as if they are screaming silently.

After completing all of this, the cleaner's body began to exhibit strange phenomena.

His body began to flicker and distort, like the image on an old television with a poor signal. His face began to disintegrate into countless tiny pixelated blocks, then his entire body turned into a shimmering, static-like noise, while his head became a blurry mosaic. Accompanied by a piercing electronic noise, this eerie existence was completely erased from reality, like a picture being wiped clean, leaving not a trace of its existence.

……

At this time, Jiang Jin knew nothing about Lu Zhao's past.

He was looking at his "ID card".

His name is still Jiang Jin, but his birth year has changed to 1972. And he's 27 years old this year, so...

"Could it be 1999 now?"

After all, he didn't want to directly ask others what year it was, as such unusual behavior might quickly attract the villagers' attention and hinder his actions.

"In the 90s, the mobile telecommunications network on Hong Kong Island mainly used the second-generation GSM-900 and PCS-1800 standards. The mobile phone I used supported the 2G GSM network. In 1999, my mobile phone could theoretically use the local GSM network for basic communication functions such as making calls..."

During his internship, Jiang Jin had a good relationship with the senior technicians in the technical department and would consult them whenever he had a problem.

"Woof woof...woof woof..."

Suddenly, Jiang Jin saw a dog covered in blood and covered in wounds walking out of the alley in front of him.

At first, he thought it was Liang Qin's hunting dog, but upon closer inspection, it was just an ordinary dog. The dog was badly injured, lying on the ground with severe bite wounds on its neck.

It appears that it was fiercely fighting with another dog and lost.

The dog's blood flowed almost the entire way before he collapsed to the ground.

Jiang Jin went over and checked on the dog; its injuries were quite severe. Just then, he saw two children passing by and quickly asked, "Excuse me, could you help me with this dog...?"

Two boys passing by saw this scene, and one of them, a boy with a buzz cut, said slowly, "Ah Yong, isn't that the dog from the Huang family's old house?"

Another boy, who was very tall, glanced at it indifferently and said, "I guess so. You're from out of town, aren't you? If you feel sorry for this dead dog, then please drag it away quickly. The night patrol performance team will definitely pass by here, so don't let this dead dog block their way."

“You…” Jiang Jin was annoyed by their words: “Then at least tell me where the Huang family is? I’ll send the dog there.”

Jiang Jin thought that if he sent the dog back, he could take the opportunity to talk to the dog's owner and perhaps find out the secret about the notice board outside the village. In that case, he could determine which rule would be most advantageous to him to change.

“The Huang family is all dead.” The crew-cut boy replied coldly, “This dog used to be fed by the villagers. It guards the Huang family’s old house all day long, thinking it’s Hachiko, the loyal dog! You should get rid of it quickly, it’s bad luck to look at it.”

Then, the two of them left without looking back.

Looking at the dog lying on the ground, it seemed to be on its deathbed.

Jiang Jin sighed.

He walked up, picked up the dog, and thought to himself, since the villagers were feeding this dog, he should find a good place to bury it. Later, he could also use this opportunity to get closer to the villagers and gather information.

Of the two boys, the one named A-Yong suddenly said to the boy with the crew cut, "Hey, A-Zheng, did that stranger glare at me just now?"

"Ah? Is there any?"

Seeing Ah Yong's pale face, Ah Zheng's child quickly said, "Yes, yes, of course!"

Jiang Jin, carrying the dog, turned into an alley. He planned to follow the map to a deserted wasteland, bury the dog there, and wait for the newbie gift pack to drop.

A damp smell permeated the alley, and water droplets seeping from the cracks in the walls dripped onto the ground, making a soft "drip drip drip" sound.

Hey! Out-of-towner!

A childish yet malicious voice rang out behind him. Jiang Jin turned his head slightly and saw a sturdy boy named A Yong walking in front, holding a slingshot in his hand; while a boy with a buzz cut, A Zheng, followed behind him, also holding a slingshot, but his wrist was trembling slightly.

"Ah Zheng, aim for the back of his head," the burly Ah Yong said in a low voice, pulling a smooth pebble from his pocket. "I'll hit him in the waist."

Jiang Jin felt both annoyed and amused. With his skills, this childish prank was simply laughable. He turned his head away, confident that he could easily dodge it just by listening to the sound of the pebble being shot out.

"Damn, these outsiders look down on us!"

As the two children made their moves, the two pebbles were launched from the bow at the same time!

The sound of something cutting through the air was particularly jarring in the quiet, dark alley.

Just as the pebble was about to hit Jiang Jin—

"Crack!" "Crack!"

Two soft sounds rang out almost simultaneously.

The two pebbles thrown by A-Zheng and A-Yong suddenly bounced diagonally about a meter behind Jiang Jin and hit the walls on both sides!

The two children stood frozen in place.

Ah Zheng's mouth gaped open, and the slingshot in his hand fell to the ground with a "thud." Ah Yong also gasped. He had seen it clearly: the man had stood still and done nothing, yet the pebble seemed to have hit someone behind him—

Something invisible!

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(End of this chapter)