absurd deduction game.

Yu Xing was made into a human skin garment.

This was indeed very sudden. He clearly felt that just a moment ago he was holding the fabric and listening to Miss Wu speak, and he only glanced at the mannequin a few more times out of the corner of his eye.

The next second, his hands were empty, and it seemed as if some important memory had been extracted from his mind. His perspective shifted, and he found himself in the center of the production room.

He couldn't move, and seemed to have lost the concept of his five senses, but he could "see" things outside. He was surrounded by pieces of lifeless fabric, and Miss Wu stood directly in front of him, holding the unfinished... no, the withered yellow dress that had been completed at some unknown time, and looked at him with that eerie yet calm smile.

Further away, a tall male corpse lay on the ground, its flesh mangled and almost unrecognizable.

That was... him?

Was he dead? When did that happen?
Miss Wu's cheeks were splattered with blood, as if she had just committed a horrific murder. The mess on the ground was several times worse than before. All the details told Yu Xing that he had not suddenly switched places with the human skin clothes on the mannequin, but that something had indeed happened, but had not left a trace in his mind.

Yu Xing: "..."

Hmm, that's interesting.

The same thing happened after I first touched the Thousand Knots Statue; I inexplicably forgot a large part of what had happened.

Cognition and memory are highly correlated, and Qianjie is undoubtedly a master at manipulating memory. However, he did not expect that even though there was no trace of Qianjie himself here, and Miss Wu was at most a follower of Qianjie, she was still able to do this.

Or rather, Miss Wu did not intentionally cause him to lose his memory; rather, after he died at Miss Wu's hands, Qianjie's ability activated on its own, causing him to forget the cause and process of his death.

Now, he has become a human skin garment, able to feel himself hanging on that mannequin, without pain or other senses. One can imagine that if this were not a replica, he might have retained his consciousness, been made into a finished garment and sold, and then spent the rest of his life in someone else's body, either becoming tattered and worn, or being stored away in a closet and never seeing the light of day. In the end, after countless years, he was finally destroyed, meeting the end of his life.

The thought was despairing, but Yu Xing's calm emotions stirred for a moment, giving rise to a slight sense of eagerness.

What exactly went wrong?

[Number of deaths: 1]

[You have failed the simulation test. A plot rollback is imminent. Please prepare yourself, Yu Xing.]

The narrator—no, this should be the system—reverted to its cold, impersonal tone and issued a system notification.

[Special reminder: After the story rewinds, please be aware of your surroundings and avoid deadly traps. Also, some things may not be what you expect, so please stay focused!]

Yu Xing exhaled in his own mind.

He had realized the difficulty of this simulation. Even he could die without any resistance. Most importantly, without the memory, there was no way to learn from the experience. Only the ending of "he died in this place" could help him.

This……

Isn't that the most interesting thing?

While waiting for the system to restart the storyline, Miss Wu wasn't idle either. After staring at Yu Xing's human skin coat to her heart's content, she clutched the withered yellow garment in her hands, made a devout gesture, and murmured, "Thank you for the protection of the 'Snake-Eyed God'..."

Then he turned around and draped the clothes he was holding over the mangled corpse on the ground.

As Yu Xing was being pulled away, she heard her chuckle softly and say, "It couldn't be more perfect."

……

When Yu Xing opened her eyes again, she was already standing outside the tailor shop, holding the summary sheet of problematic orders in her hand.

The surrounding environment was exactly the same as when I first saw it—a funeral parlor, a car repair shop, and three cheap plastic mannequins placed at the entrance.

A plastic bag, seemingly out of nowhere, was blown by the wind, making a rustling sound. An elderly woman, leaning on a cane, strolled slowly past him, looking quite energetic, carrying a basket of freshly bought groceries.

The vegetable basket was piled high, and a round tomato fell out. The old lady cried out and squatted down shakily to pick it up, using her cane as a handrail, causing the whole stick to sway from side to side.

This seemed to be commonplace for the old lady. She picked up the tomato, said nothing, and put on her usual leisurely demeanor. She strolled from Yu Xing's right to his left, her figure slowly disappearing into the distance.

This was a detail that Yu Xing didn't notice the first time, but it wasn't that it hadn't happened; it's just that he didn't pay attention to these irrelevant things at the time.

But now, he sees it much more clearly.

Yu Xing didn't think this was a good thing. He raised his eyebrows slightly and turned his head to look at the distant place.

If he wasn't mistaken, the colors here seemed to have become a bit more vibrant.

If before this street was like a layer of indelible grime, the whole world shrouded in a veil, then now, that veil has been lifted, the grime has faded, revealing the original colors underneath—the wreaths at the funeral parlor are deathly white, the red paint on the repair shop sign is rusty red, and even the cheap plastic texture of the three mannequins is clearly visible.

The signs of other shops were no longer illegible, and the joys, sorrows, and tranquility of the people coming and going were genuinely conveyed through their appearances.

really.

After dying once, he seemed to have become even more integrated into this place.

Civilization Street is a very inclusive place; anyone can walk on it, even someone who is used as raw material to make human skin clothing.

The narrator didn't miss any opportunity to provoke him; despite the gentle narrative tone, there was a hint of sarcasm between the lines.

For the first time, Yu Xing tried to have a conversation with the narrator: "So, can something as abstract as you walk on the street?"

The narrator ignored him, suggesting that real-time interaction was not possible.

Yu Xing snorted, her face showing great displeasure, and strode towards the tailor shop, stepping over the threshold.

When he died for the first time, the system told him that he needed to observe his surroundings more carefully to avoid death traps.

However, at the time, he was in a blurry state where he could not recognize many scenes, and he did not look at the tailor shop carefully. This habitual thinking of reverse intuition may also be the silent influence of Qianjie.

This time, Yu Xing opened his bright, piercing eyes and didn't miss a single detail.

The shop was still cramped, with a few vases displayed on the horizontal wooden board on the wall.

I don't know if anyone cleans this place regularly, but it doesn't look very tidy, which doesn't seem to fit the habits of Miss Wu, a young lady from a once-prosperous family who has fallen on hard times. Of course, she probably had servants to help her tidy up and clean her room in the past, but now she's all alone, and there's a possibility that she's just lazy.

The wooden counter has a cool, rarely used feel to it, and the natural grain of the wood is visible on its surface.

Yu Xing's gaze lingered on the edge of the counter.

There was a strange layer of ash there, not the kind of dust that is hard to see with the naked eye, but a layer of powdery ash. He reached out, picked up a pinch, and brought it close to his nose to smell it.

It smelled like incense ash. He narrowed his eyes slightly.

Just then, the curtain moved.

A fair hand lifted the curtain, and then Miss Wu emerged, holding a gleaming kitchen knife in her hand.

Seeing Yu Xing's actions, she smiled and asked, "Are you a warehouse manager at Maoyan Logistics? What were you doing just now?"

Yu Xing wiped her fingers and said calmly, "I'm a bit of a clean freak. I can't help but want to wipe it clean when I see dust. Miss Wu, you don't mind, do you?"

"Of course, it seems I was a bit careless with my cleaning yesterday. Please forgive me, sir." Miss Wu said elegantly, walking over naturally, and then without warning, she raised a kitchen knife and slashed at him.

Yu Xing raised her hand, and with a gentle flip, the kitchen knife was in his grasp. He placed the knife on the counter and chuckled as he discussed with her, "Let's not joke like that, Miss Wu. Let's get down to business. Show me some fabric, shall we?"

Miss Wu looked at him.

In that instant, Yu Xing caught a fleeting glint of something unusual in her eyes.

But only for a moment.

The next moment, her smile returned to normal, and a natural curve appeared on her tired face: "Really, I thought I could scare you, sir. I get a little bored when I'm alone in the shop, so I always like to think of things to cheer myself up."

"Come with me, I'll show you the fabric."

She turned around, lifted the curtain, took two steps inside, then turned back and reminded her in a slightly hoarse voice, "This is where I work; it'll be messy. Watch your step."

Yu Xing followed her through the curtain.

The space behind the curtain was exactly the same as when I first came in.

It was dim and cramped, with brightly colored fabrics piled on the walls and scraps of cloth and miscellaneous items scattered on the floor. In the corner was an old-fashioned sewing machine and a dusty floor-length mirror.

In the center of the room was that mannequin.

The half-finished, yellow, withered leaf hung there, its waist cinched very narrow, one sleeve hanging down, the other still a piece of cut fabric.

Yu Xing deliberately avoided looking at the mannequin this time, choosing not to look at it for the time being.

In such a short time, he had already thought a lot about the reasons for his previous failure.

Ordinary methods cannot kill him, so we can ignore his immortality for now—he is unsure whether his perception will be altered in Yin-Yang City, and whether he will feel alive after being transformed into a human skin suit, triggering the reshaping and resurrection of his body.

If we only consider the difference in combat strength between him and Miss Wu, even if she attacked him from behind, his branches and tentacles would be enough to kill Miss Wu a hundred times over. He would have to lose his self-awareness first and forget his instinct to resist before Miss Wu could skin him alive.

Moreover, judging from the scene he saw before his death, the previous human skin garment had already been cut, so he was probably left alone for quite a long time, perhaps even a whole day.

So, what could have caused him to lose consciousness?

Only a being of the status of an evil god can do this.

The only item in the entire tailor shop that might have been tainted by the evil god's power must be the mannequin. Last time, his attention was drawn to the human skin clothes, and he overlooked this inconspicuous support.

Perhaps it was because he stared at the mannequin for too long that he triggered the death rule of the Thousand Tribulations?
This is uncertain, but in any case, it's always best to avoid looking at it for now.

“Look at this piece of cloth.” Miss Wu bent down and picked up a smaller piece of gray fabric, handing it to Yu Xing. “The fabric I lost is about the same weight and size as this. Look, it’s so heavy, how could it just disappear like that?”

"Could it be a thief? They opened the roller shutter after your company closed and took my goods..."

She said the exact same lines, and Yu Xing naturally responded this time: "But none of the other goods were stolen. If it were a thief, they wouldn't just steal one thing, especially something this big."

"So don't worry, Miss Wu, as long as that item does exist, I will definitely be able to find it for you."

Ms. Wu didn't seem comforted by this promise; she was worried and sighed repeatedly.

Yu Xing handed the gray fabric back to her and casually added, "Happy birthday in advance, Miss Wu. By the way, does Miss Wu's family have any customs? Like worshipping gods on birthdays or something..."

Will the "Snake-Eyed God" also wish you a happy birthday?

"..."

Ms. Wu paused her worried expression, her eyes flickered, and almost instantly she revealed that chilling, weary smile, as if this topic would flip some kind of switch for her.

Yu Xing continued speaking to herself: "Speaking of which, this whole street must be full of believers of that god. Is Miss Wu's faith very devout? I don't seem to have seen any shrine to that god in the tailor shop."

He wasn't sure if the evil god followers in Yin Yang City would erect statues or build shrines for the gods.

After all, no one knows how far the local customs have gone astray.

However, the incense ash on the counter outside the shop corroborates this point. Where there is incense ash, there must be an incense burner, which also proves that believers would burn incense to make offerings. If we do not consider that believers would burn incense to make offerings to themselves, then the tailor shop would be missing the shrine of Qianjie.

So, where is this thing hidden?
Ms. Wu remained silent for a while, then, maintaining an elegant and composed demeanor, said, "This seems to be none of your business, sir from Maoyan Logistics. I have no interest in chatting with you; I just want to get my lost goods back as soon as possible."

“Of course, I understand how you feel.” Yu Xing said, but before she could finish, a question came from outside.

"Is Miss Wu there? I'd like to order a dress!"

What a coincidence, guests arrived at this time.

Miss Wu smiled and said, "Look, I still have a lot to do. Now that you've asked and looked around, if there's nothing else, shouldn't you set off to find some fabric for me?"

Yu Xing shrugged, indicating that he understood.

The moment he turned and walked toward the curtain, invisible tendrils radiated outwards from him.

Numerous "eyes" watched every corner of the tailor shop, avoiding the mannequin in the center and scanning the fabrics on the walls.

The only thing that could hide the shrine was the fabric.

At the same time, Ms. Wu's expression changed.

"This is..." She could actually see these tentacles that shouldn't be noticed, and her tone turned cold and terrifying: "Are you a follower of that tree?"

"I will report you!" (End of Chapter)