See the Law of Deception

Chapter 140 The Substitute (14)

When Zhou Ziming mentioned breaking up, Qin Wan was the one who was least willing to accept it.

Although she had some supernatural items that could save her life, in a level B dungeon, one or two supernatural items wouldn't be enough to keep her alive.

She is used to treating her teammates at the Yuncheng station with a friendly attitude, which is also a strategy. Usually, her teammates are willing to accompany her and help each other because of her attitude and ability.

She won't do nothing. Like the deal with Zhou Ziming, she will change her luck in advance before getting off the bus and remind her teammates to borrow Du Yu's good luck so that her teammates can kill her faster. She will try her best to do what she can, but it is undeniable that her fate is not strong enough when facing ghosts and she is in a weak position.

After all, if you break a taboo and get targeted by a ghost, it's not something that can be escaped with just good luck.

Good luck might delay her being targeted by the ghost, and allow her to live a few more seconds, minutes, or hours, but it won't make the ghost's attack disappear.

She needs reliable teammates.

With teammates around, good luck can maximize efficiency.

Therefore, she was unwilling to separate from Zhou Ziming and Lu Jinzhao.

Of the three of them, the one with the best fate to deal with ghosts is the one that can be used the most. Although Lu Jinzhao's fate is not very effective in dealing with ghosts, she can tell that this newcomer who has just entered the senior platform is very smart, at least smarter than herself. Having someone smarter than yourself around always makes people feel more at ease.

So Qin Wan spoke up, "Isn't it a bit inappropriate to separate?"

“I think since another version of us has appeared, it means that a substitute already exists. We’ve both been targeted by the demon. If we separate now, wouldn’t that just give the demon more opportunities?”

She didn't just tell her teammates not to split up; she offered her own analysis.

Zhou Ziming suggested breaking up, but that was the only solution he could think of at the moment. After hearing Qin Wan's words, he felt that what she said made sense, so he hesitated: "Is that so?"

Qin Wan turned her gaze to Lu Jinzhao, her eyes filled with anticipation, as if hoping she would say something affirmative.

Lu Jinzhao had finished thinking. Instead of immediately responding to Qin Wan's expectations, she approached the issue from another angle: "I have a question."

She said, "Our double has appeared, but why?"

Her question made Qin Wan and Zhou Ziming think: "Yeah, what did we do?"

"Does entering this platform guarantee the appearance of a stunt double?"

“No.” Lu Jinzhao denied the guess: “In that case, we wouldn’t have been so calm this morning, and Qin Wan wouldn’t have tripped and fallen when she got out of the car.”

"Oh, right." Zhou Ziming scratched his head, feeling like he was entering a time when he wasn't very good at thinking: "Then what could it be?"

"Because we killed Du Yu?" Qin Wan guessed, then denied it herself: "But Du Yu hadn't killed anyone before, yet she was still targeted by her teammates."

“Recall what she said. She said that before her teammate Yan Xiaoyu showed any abnormalities, she only knew that the other person had gone to the toilet and had given up her seat in the elevator because it was full.”

Lu Jinzhao slowly revealed his guess: "We've been to the toilet and the elevator, but nothing happened."

"But it's easy to figure out which one caused the problem, because Qin Wan's good luck made her fall, which slowed us down when we entered the company. The elevator we entered wasn't full, so we didn't need to give up our seats."

Therefore, the problem lies in the elevator.

"After the elevator incident, everything was fine here all morning, but an accident happened on Du Yu's side. Not only did it cause problems for his teammate in the position, but another teammate also became a substitute."

"And Du Yu was also targeted by them."

"We were fine all morning, but after we came into contact with Du Yu and met her two teammates, a stand-in appeared."

Upon hearing this, Qin Wan asked with some annoyance, "So, it's like an infection?"

"That person in the elevator might have given up their spot to a ghost and been targeted. Then, it was her teammate who was close to her. We didn't have any contact with them this morning, so nothing unexpected happened."

"But soon, Du Yu came to our door, and we made contact."

"So, the best way to stay on this platform is to avoid interacting with anyone?" Zhou Ziming asked.

“But that’s impossible.” Qin Wan shook her head: “Such a small company, having to go to a funeral parlor, and not having any contact with the people around them at all, is too difficult.”

"It's just a guess." Lu Jinzhao didn't delve deeper into the topic: "But most likely, there are six Stand ghosts in the platform right now."

"If we separate, are you confident you can withstand six demons by yourself?"

"Most importantly, have you ever wondered why this platform is called 'The Substitute'?"

Lu Jinzhao then revealed the key point that led her to discuss so much earlier: "Before Du Yu noticed something was wrong with Yan Xiaoyu, did anything happen?"

"According to Du Yu, no."

"She was replaced without a sound."

"That person named Bai Xunyan is one of them."

“Du Yu didn’t, because she sensed something was wrong and immediately ran to find us and stayed with us.”

"Perhaps that's why she was spared her life for a short time."

"Yan Xiaoyu was briefly separated from them because of the elevator. As for Bai Xunyan, Du Yu said she instructed Bai Xunyan to take Yan Xiaoyu to the rooftop to test the other party, so at that time, she was briefly separated from the two of them."

"I suspect that the appearance of a stand-in is like a contagion. As long as we interact and stay together, we will be targeted by the ghost. But the arrival of death may be related to being alone."

"If Du Yu wasn't lying, when Bai Xunyan took Yan Xiaoyu to the rooftop, at that time, she was actually the only one with a substitute ghost."

After that, Du Yu found them and was no longer alone.

"In that case, it's best if we don't separate." Qin Wan couldn't quite describe her feelings. She felt a little relieved, but also found the ghost at the platform to be really strange and difficult to deal with.

But what she admired even more was that Lu Jinzhao was able to quickly connect these odd points, which might be clues in his words, and piece together a truth.

"So the problem comes full circle. We need to confirm that the three of us are all human beings," Zhou Ziming said.

"Actually, it's already been resolved." Lu Jinzhao's expression showed some relief.

She had been thinking about this question for a while, and felt like her brain was working at supersonic speed.

"Huh?" Zhou Ziming asked, puzzled.

"If my guess is correct, after the appearance of the Stand, if you are alone, you will be replaced and die. If you can confirm that you are alive, then you must not be alone."

"That means that at least two of the three of us are alive."

“Yes.” Zhou Ziming nodded: “But I just went downstairs with Qin Wan. Maybe you were a stand-in, so we weren’t alone.”

Lu Jinzhao raised an eyebrow: "Then I should already be dead."

She pointed to the office area in the distance, where the three of them were still chatting, as if it were a replica of their current situation.

"If the me I am now is fake, then the me of that time must be real, right?"

"She was alone with two body doubles, shouldn't she be dead by now?"

"Besides, if I were a ghost, why would I tell you all this? I would have just agreed when you suggested splitting up and acting separately," Lu Jinzhao said helplessly.

"It seems so! Then the three of us shouldn't separate anymore. If we don't end up alone, this mission should be much easier, right?" Zhou Ziming said with some surprise.

Lu Jinzhao, however, is not optimistic about this.

Is it enough to just avoid being alone?
If it were that simple—just discover the rules and band together—why would this platform be classified as "Class B"?

Perhaps not being alone is just a prerequisite for survival? "What do we do now? Leave here?"

There were three body doubles standing in the office area. Watching people who looked exactly like him moving around not far away, Zhou Ziming felt a little uneasy.

He was really afraid that the three men would suddenly realize something and look in their direction.

He didn't realize that when he asked that question, he was subconsciously asking in the direction of Lu Jinzhao, not Qin Wan.

"Let's go first. Let's find a place near the station, somewhere simple and open, and preferably not too many people around."

Lu Jinzhao felt that the ghosts at this event were more sinister than those she had encountered before. There was no direct confrontation, and even sensing danger required extra effort.

There will definitely be more problems.

The three left the company building, but the security guard was still nowhere to be seen. There were a few pedestrians on the street, but they didn't intend to talk to them and even deliberately stayed away from them.

Who knows if these are real people or mannequins?

However, although Lu Jinzhao felt that something bad was going to happen, he did not expect the accident to come so quickly.

The phone rang the moment they stepped out of the office building.

All three of them changed their expressions, simply because, as always, their cell phone signals disappeared after entering the platform, and no calls should have been able to come in.

Moreover, just in case, all their phones were on silent.

The ringtone that is playing now is the system's default ringtone.

".What's going on?"

Zhou Ziming hesitated for a long time before taking out his phone, and Lu Jinzhao also hesitated for a while, but still took out his phone.

Even though she was somewhat prepared, her heart still sank when she saw the number.

Simply because she was very familiar with that number and remembered it very clearly.

That was her own number.

Without a doubt, this phone call was made by a ghost.

She hung up the phone and didn't answer.

Zhou Ziming saw her action: "Is it okay to just hang up?"

He didn't even take out his phone; it was still ringing incessantly.

Lu Jinzhao replied that he didn't know, and then casually added the number to his blacklist.

However, the system prompted her that "the number does not exist" and she could not add it to the blacklist.

However, after hanging up, they didn't call back.

"Why don't you just pay attention to it?"

Lu Jinzhao looked up and gestured with her eyes. The two followed her gaze and discovered that, because of the continuous ringing of the bell, the pedestrians who were originally just walking by were slowly looking at them.

"."

Zhou Ziming dared not delay any longer and immediately hung up the phone.

Qin Wan hesitated for a moment, wondering whether she should answer the call, but looking at that familiar number, she decided against courting disaster.

The call stopped after it ended once, and Zhou Ziming thought that the ghost wasn't so troublesome after all, but about a minute later, he heard the phone's notification tone again.

Three ringing sounds signaled that all three phones had received the notifications for the text messages.

His expression changed, and he immediately retracted his previous thought.

"How to do?"

He asked, "Do we want to see it?"

"Let's wait and see," Lu Jinzhao said, unsure as well.

She had never encountered this type of ghost at the train station before, and she had no experience dealing with it.

They walked in the direction the train had come from, and not long after, there were three more ding-dong sounds.

Then came the increasingly rapid and urgent text message notifications, as if the messages would keep coming if they weren't checked.

It's practically indistinguishable from a ringtone!

"It's really haunting."

Left with no other choice, Lu Jinzhao took out his phone. As soon as he turned on the screen, he saw hundreds of unread text messages!
"It seems like I can only look at it." Qin Wan also took out her phone. She felt her hands were a little cold, and her chest was filled with palpitations. Even though she hadn't directly faced the ghost, this lingering shadow kept haunting her, as if she were possessed by bad luck.

She felt very bad.

Lu Jinzhao opened the text message interface; all the messages contained only one photo.

That photo is a photo of herself.

But what it contained was extremely horrifying.

It's a photo of her death.

Her death appeared extremely gruesome; her face was bluish-purple, and her eyes bulged out, as if she had suffocated. In addition, her abdomen had been cut open, just as she had done to Du Yu.

"Is this telling me I'll suffer retribution?" Lu Jinzhao looked at the photo, a cold smile playing on his lips. "Too bad, I don't believe in that."

"Yours are also photos?"

She looked at Qin Wan and Zhou Ziming, whose faces were slightly pale, and asked.

"Yes." The two nodded.

Is this some kind of precognitive ability?

Unsurprisingly, their photos show the two people in different ways of dying.

“I don’t think so,” Lu Jinzhao immediately denied.

"If they truly possessed precognitive abilities, would they need these methods to kill us?"

A ghost that can predict the future must be at least a Class A ghost, right?
"So, by releasing these photos, are you planning to kill us like this?" Zhou Ziming frowned.

The way he was dying was arranged by the ghost. This feeling of being despised, besides a little fear and dread rising in his heart, made Zhou Ziming feel somewhat resentful.

Perhaps it was just a threat, but Lu Jinzhao didn't say that.

She sensed the underlying anger in Zhou Ziming's tone and thought it was a good thing.

Appropriate anger can give people more courage.

"Let's go, let's find a secluded place."

The reactions of these passersby as the bell rang repeatedly were truly unsettling.