absurd deduction game.

Yu Xing entered the tailor shop for the third time.

This time, he didn't wait for Miss Wu to come out with the kitchen knife. Ignoring everything in the outer room, he slipped into the inner room at a speed beyond that of a normal person.

The curtain swayed slightly and silently after he passed by.

The dim light in the inner room did not affect Yu Xing's vision. He saw a hint of surprise on Miss Wu's face as she got up from her seat in front of the sewing machine. A kitchen knife was placed on a small stool next to the sewing machine, within easy reach, with a pair of scissors and a sewing box underneath.

Her eyes widened slightly, and a smile quickly spread across her face: "...Are you... from the logistics company?"

"I just heard a loud noise outside, like something fell over, and I was thinking of going out to check it out."

Yu Xing revealed a subtle smile.

Since Ms. Wu can manipulate the mannequin to work with her, she certainly wouldn't fail to notice that the mannequin has already broken.

Saying these things now probably means they've realized he's quite aggressive and are trying to buy time so the TV station can take care of him.

The location of the shrine had already been discovered last time. Too lazy to act, he didn't even reply and walked directly to the two pieces of cloth blocking the shrine, raising his hand to push them aside.

"Hey, you!" Ms. Wu walked over quickly, half elegantly and half urgently, her tone carrying a reprimand that wasn't harsh, "Are you even an employee of the logistics company? You came into the inner room without saying hello and then started touching me inappropriately. Is this how your company behaves?"

Yu Xing glanced at her sideways and saw that her legs were bound in the cheongsam, making it difficult for her to take big steps. She chuckled and took the two pieces of cloth off.

I'm going to file a complaint against you!

As Ms. Wu's annoyed voice rang out, the eerie shrine was exposed to the air, and the thin red thread on the tail of the statue became visible again.

"Ms. Wu, you said your goods were lost in our logistics company. We are responsible for every order, so of course we will investigate thoroughly."

"I will be very serious about... getting back the goods that belong to Ms. Wu."

As soon as Yu Xing finished speaking, the ethereal tentacles suddenly reached out from behind him.

The thick, withered branch, carrying the aura of another world, pierced through Ms. Wu's chest without warning.

Not a single drop of blood splattered.

In that instant, Yu Xing clearly saw that the light apricot-colored cheongsam seemed to come alive where the withered branch had pierced.

A crack suddenly appeared on its surface, like an open mouth, just big enough for the branch to pass through.

Miss Wu glanced down at the withered branch that had appeared on her chest. Her feigned annoyance vanished, and her smile became even more exaggerated, her mouth almost stretching to her ears.

Clearly, even with a hole piercing her chest, she was not harmed.

This curse power, which can attack both the physical body and the soul simultaneously, had no effect on her.

"What are you doing?" Her voice was gentle, even tinged with leniency. "Just because an order isn't going well, you're going to take it out on the customer? What a pity—"

"You're using the wrong method; you can't kill me like this."

Yu Xing looked at her, without the slightest surprise in her eyes.

He made a thought, and the withered branch slowly lifted Miss Wu into the air, raising her to mid-air. The hem of her cheongsam fell down, revealing a section of her fair calves, and her feet, clad in cloth shoes, dangled in the air, swaying slightly.

“I know.” Yu Xing looked up at her, her tone as calm as if she were talking about the weather. “You said that to deal with unruly mannequins, you have to remove their limbs.”

He paused, a slight smile playing on his lips.

"But you're lying to me, aren't you?"

Ms. Wu's smile froze for a moment.

“The focus isn’t on the limbs,” Yu Xing said slowly, leaving Miss Wu standing there, before turning and walking toward the sewing machine. “It’s on the torso.”

He had his back to her, but he could feel the gaze behind him suddenly turn gloomy.

“Clothes are only called clothes when they are worn on a person’s torso; everyone knows that,” Yu Xing said as she walked, her tone casual and conversational. “But it’s quite rare for someone to have a distorted perception of clothes, to think of themselves as the owner of the torso.”

He stopped in front of the sewing machine, turned his head slightly, and glanced at Ms. Wu in mid-air out of the corner of his eye.

“Ms. Wu is our logistics company’s customer.” His voice was soft, but every word was clear. “And you—you’re just a piece of runaway cargo, aren’t you?”

Miss Wu's expression changed completely.

That eerie smile was still on his face, but another emotion was already surging in his eyes.

"Let me guess what happened. An expensive, exquisite piece of fabric, so out of place in this little tailor shop, ran away from the logistics company and couldn't wait to come to the person who bought it."

Yu Xing withdrew her gaze: "Then, you suddenly realized that your master's sewing skills were very average. You felt that if Miss Wu were to make you, you would only become a mediocre item like other clothes. So, you killed her, used the real Miss Wu as your human model, controlled this body, and made yourself into a cheongsam."

"Then, you peeled off her skin and made yourself her new skin, so that she would wear you forever, right?"

He paused, then chuckled softly.

"How interesting, a piece of fabric that thinks it can replace a tailor."

A sharp hissing sound came from mid-air.

"I am not fabric!"

Miss Wu's voice suddenly turned ferocious, her tired yet elegant face contorted, and the smile on her lips transformed into a vicious, clenched grin:

"I am a perfect garment!"

Oh my god, you guessed the truth, it's panicking.

The narrator says.

Why does everything have to happen to you? You're doing your job properly, dealing with customers is one thing, but even the goods are causing you trouble. These damn goods have no understanding of how hard you workers work; they actually grow legs and run away on their own!

And now, look at it, unaware of the impending disaster it's in, still emphasizing the issue of how to address you. It's practically incomprehensible. I'm sure you hate this kind of ineffective communication.

Hearing the sarcastic tone of the narrator, Yu Xing felt a surge of anger rising within him. He forced a smile and drawled out his reply:

"Good—good—it's a ready-to-wear garment, a ready-to-wear garment that can make itself right, that's amazing."

His gaze fell on the small stool. He bent down slightly, but instead of picking up the kitchen knife, he pulled out the scissors that were underneath it.

The scissors felt cold to the touch. He held them up to his eyes and examined them carefully.

The scissors are very ordinary, old-fashioned tailor scissors, with iron blades and red lacquer on the handles—the kind of red-lacquered scissors that are very common and found in every household.

There were strong signs of use on it, and some rust had formed on the blade.

However, the moment Yu Xing held the scissors in her hand, she clearly felt a hidden aura emanating from the blade.

The aura was almost identical to the red silk thread hanging from the tail of the statue, only slightly weaker, pulsating in sync with the pulse in Yu Xing's palm.

It's like a resonance.

It was as if it were an echo. Yu Xing finally raised her eyes and looked at the mannequin.

The crimson thread meandered from the tip of the statue's tail, winding around the debris scattered on the ground, and wedged itself between the mannequin and the half-finished, withered leaves. As he gripped the scissors, a clear thought formed in his mind:

Only these scissors can cut that thread, and once the red thread breaks, everything that Miss Wu originally asked Qianjie for will become invalid.

This is also the only pair of scissors in the entire inner workshop.

The first two times Ms. Wu entered this place, she attacked him with a kitchen knife first. After entering, she casually put the kitchen knife down, and he didn't pay attention to where the kitchen knife was placed.

But this time, before Miss Wu attacked him, the rarely used kitchen knife was placed on top of the scissors that were frequently used when making clothes. Yu Xing noticed this and realized something was wrong.

Miss Wu, no, the reason this self-aware fabric did this seems to be to make the scissors less easily discovered, but unfortunately, it backfired.

Seeing that he had the scissors, Ms. Wu seemed to panic. She struggled on the dry branch, her hands and feet flailing about, and the hem of her cheongsam swayed violently.

But she couldn't move.

As Yu Xing said, the best way to restrict a garment is to restrict the torso of the person wearing it. The withered branch that pierced her chest pinned her in mid-air. Although it could not harm her, it had already accomplished Yu Xing's plan.

Just as things were about to go wrong, a noise suddenly came from outside the curtain.

Click.

Clack clack.

It sounded like a lot of plastic products rolling, colliding, and piecing together on the ground. The sound got closer and closer, more and more dense, chaotic yet with a strange rhythm.

It sounds like that mannequin he smashed outside the tailor shop is up to its old tricks again.

Ignoring the noise outside, Yu Xing took the scissors and walked to the mannequin, picking up the thin thread with her finger.

The red thread trembled slightly at my fingertips, like a taut blood vessel.

He brought the blade of the scissors close, as if to cut it.

"no--!"

Ms. Wu's scream exploded behind her.

The curtain was roughly torn open by a snow-white plastic hand, and with a loud ripping sound, a twisted thing burst in.

Yu Xing smiled, looked leisurely at the door, and then softly exclaimed, "Wow!"

He saw a rather terrifying monster.

It was the product of reassembling three mannequins that he had smashed. It lacked the proper proportions of a human body, with all the fragments haphazardly reassembled. The white pieces and plastic limbs shimmered in the dim light, like countless broken bones.

The broken legs and arms grew wildly, oblivious to their location, and even the clothes that were originally worn by two of the models were incorporated into them, with pieces of fabric scattered everywhere, and no trace of elegance remained.

The same applies to the three heads of the models.

One was in its proper place, tilted at a ninety-degree angle, its empty eye socket staring at Yu Xing. Another emerged from her chest cavity, only half the back of her head and one ear visible. And then there was one—hanging on her side, face down, its mouth opening and closing.

The mouths of those heads synchronized with Miss Wu's mouth, shouting in unison:

"Do not--"

"Do not--"

"Do not--"

The three tones sounded simultaneously and then stopped at the same time, like three broken tape recorders stuck in a rut.

But they weren't strange ghosts like "Miss Wu" who had developed self-awareness; they were just a chaotic mess pieced together temporarily. After getting stuck, they started laughing again.

cluck cluck.

The laughter spilled from the mouths of the three heads, mingling together, making it impossible to distinguish which head was laughing and which was screaming. The plastic fragments vibrated with the laughter, making a soft, grating sound, like countless insects crawling inside their shells.

It drew closer and closer, and at Miss Wu's behest, it charged toward Yu Xing.

The way they ran was less like they were standing upright and more like they were crawling on the ground like wild beasts, crunching and creaking. Their messy arms and legs stretched out towards Yu Xing, and several of them held kitchen knives in their hands.

I don't know how Ms. Wu's tailor shop ended up with so many kitchen knives.

Yu Xing slapped them with one of his tentacles, which was like winning the lottery for the already broken-down mannequins.

With just one strike, the seemingly terrifying aggregate exploded.

With a whoosh, they scattered everywhere, but instead of settling down on the ground, they vibrated and reassembled into even smaller things, moving faster and evolving from distorted human-shaped monsters into facehuggers.

Being attacked in vital areas by these monsters would definitely mean death, and Yu Xing wasn't afraid of the tiny plastic mannequin at all, but she didn't want to go back in time again.

Things shouldn't happen more than three times. If he were to repeat this simple scenario a fourth time, it would be truly shameful.

He clicked his tongue twice, no longer trying to observe the monsters' behavior patterns. He deftly closed the scissors in his hand, and with a swift stroke, the blood-red thread was severed in two, hanging limply.

Four screams rang out from the tailor shop, and almost instantly, the monsters that shouldn't have been there lost their vitality and fell completely silent.

At the same time, the broken silk thread melted away like snow and disappeared in an instant, and the strange aura that had been transmitted from the statue to the altar also dissipated.

Yu Xing turned around and looked at Miss Wu.

Miss Wu seems to be a little dead.

She lost her spirit, her head tilted to the side, hanging low so her expression was obscured, but you could feel that her limbs had lost all strength, and she was hanging down like a corpse.

The light apricot-colored cheongsam she was wearing had several cracks that were difficult to mend.

Yu Xing put Miss Wu down, withdrew his tentacles, thought for a moment, picked up a pair of scissors and cut open the entire cheongsam, freeing Miss Wu's body.

While cutting the clothes, he politely apologized, only to realize after cutting that the clothes didn't contain Ms. Wu's skin; her skin had been peeled off by the fabric, leaving only a blurry mass of flesh and blood.

"Can you still live?" Yu Xing rested her chin on her hand and poked Miss Wu's face.

In other instances, someone who had been tortured like this would definitely not survive, but this is a simulated Yin-Yang City.

He remembered receiving information that the number of people in Yin-Yang City had remained unchanged for many years, with neither life nor death, which was why those of them who had obtained tickets were the variable.

Yin-Yang City is such an abstract and dangerous place, it's impossible for the people inside to live peacefully every day. At least a few people must die every day, right?

Adding to the various casual remarks he'd heard from the natives about death and killing since entering the instance, it seemed that death simply didn't exist here for them.

After a moment's thought, Yu Xing got up, took the half-finished yellow dress from the mannequin, and wrapped it around Miss Wu.

This should be her original skin. (End of Chapter)