See the Law of Deception

Chapter 91 The Price of the Wooden Box
Lu Jinzhao thought for a moment and decided not to call back to inform Lin Lin that she had also become a passenger.

After all, this isn't a good thing.

Lin Lin is now facing an extremely dangerous death on the platform, so just in case, it's best to let her worry less about your affairs.

After reading the news about the death platform, Lu Jinzhao continued browsing the forum.

She entered a public area, but thanks to the presence of [Qingwu], the atmosphere of the Cloud City Passenger Forum was more inclined to sharing. A lot of information about trains and platforms could be obtained in the public area, but some more secret or more important information was difficult to find out completely in the public area.

Passengers must pass through a Class B platform at least once to obtain Class II passenger status before they are eligible to apply for entry into the core area.

This is not arrogance, but rather that the attrition rate of newcomers on the train is too high. There is a constant stream of people being brought onto the platform, and there is also a constant stream of people dying.

Even if some newcomers seem to have great potential at first glance, within the platform, even geniuses in the universally accepted sense cannot be guaranteed to survive for long.

No one can be easily judged as having potential before reaching Level 2 passenger status.

This is an exceptionally cruel place; before being upgraded to Level 2 passengers, they can only be called "cannon fodder."

This is also a major reason why many people believe that the train is a "selection" system.

From a large number of people destined to be cannon fodder, a very small number are selected.

The train was conducting screening, and the people who built the Cloud City Forum thought so too, so she followed this rule and created the admission requirements for the core area of ​​the forum.

The reason they are classified as Class II passengers is simply because to obtain a Class II ticket, a passenger must have completed a Class B platform journey.

The lowest level of destiny is grade B.

"Thinking about it this way, the standards for the core area of ​​the forum are actually far from being strict."

It doesn't even require passengers to have a specific destiny to enter.

In Lu Jinzhao's view, if the train is a screening process, then one must at least possess a certain destiny to pass that threshold.

Therefore, this request is not out of arrogance or a deliberate attempt to make things difficult for anyone; it is simply in accordance with the rules of the train, giving it a sense of survival of the fittest.

The information in public areas provides lower-level passengers with some common-sense assistance, while the core area brings together the existing capable passengers in Cloud City.

It neither acts as a babysitter for newcomers nor engages in any strange, dark rules. While providing some assistance to newcomers, it retains the cruelty of the selection mechanism, leaving all new passengers to rely solely on themselves to survive on the train.

Even the highly respected [Qingwu] on the forum only shared his experience there, rather than creating a faction to accept newcomers and provide them with more direct assistance.

"why?"

Lu Jinzhao is pondering this question.

The way Yuncheng Station operates and the atmosphere among passengers must be deliberately created by someone.

Otherwise, in such a cruel place as a train, the atmosphere among passengers should be even more desperate and more frantic.

Although there are quite a few negative comments on the forum nowadays, and there are always some passengers who go crazy in real life in Cloud City, overall, the atmosphere here is more "orderly" than Lu Jinzhao expected.

This order seems to have been in place for a long time.

Therefore, the person who intends to create such an order must be a senior, distinguished passenger with a voice, and there is probably more than one of them.

What is the deeper meaning behind their actions?
What do they know?
What about the other platforms?
What is the prevailing social atmosphere like?

Lu Jinzhao suddenly remembered that she had seen it on the forum: [Qingwu] started doing this suddenly at a certain stage.

She should know something.

But since I don't know her at the moment, I can't be impatient.

Everything depends on her successfully escaping alive from Platform B.

After browsing the forum, Lu Jinzhao shut down his computer and lay down on the bed to rest.

Before this, she would almost always fall asleep as soon as she left the platform and returned to reality, but now she can even force herself to do some things before resting.

"It seems I'm adapting better and better."

With this thought in mind, Lu Jinzhao fell into a deep sleep. This time, she didn't have any strange dreams, and when she woke up, she only felt that she had spent a short time in darkness.

Although I'm still a bit dazed, my brain has definitely relaxed a lot.

After sitting up in bed, Lu Jinzhao spaced out for a while. It was the weekend, so she didn't have to go to class, and no one asked her out. She also didn't have to maintain a high level of concentration at the train station. So, for a whole hour, Lu Jinzhao simply sat on the bed aimlessly scrolling through her phone.

She neither chatted with anyone nor read anything; she simply kept opening and closing several apps.

But this aimless behavior did relax her nerves, like she had received a brain massage. She felt much better after spacing out and completely emptying her mind, even though she hadn't been able to fully relax during sleep.

She glanced at her schedule; she had an early morning class tomorrow.

Lu Jinzhao has no intention of giving up his status as a student.

Even though she could skip classes without a care now, or even not go to school at all, she had no intention of doing so.

Although she will no longer attend every class, she will still go to school because she doesn't want to be completely disconnected from society and her peers.

She doesn't intend to integrate into it or build any new social relationships, but she needs to feel alive in real-life scenarios, with a completely normal rhythm of life and social functioning.

This will help her better maintain her awareness and sense of self as Lu Jinzhao.

Because of the time spent on the platform, even the classroom becomes less unbearable.

When the three days after the transaction with the wooden box arrived, Lu Jinzhao knew it was time to pay the price.

She only made one deal with the wooden box, but she has to pay the same price every three days. Moreover, the next time she wants to use the wooden box, she will have to pay even more to complete the deal.

Lu Jinzhao was well aware of this, which is why she had previously been very resistant to using it.

Now it's evening, and she still hasn't bled the box.

She had already prepared everything—hemostatic agents, blood-replenishing agents, and bloodletting tools—but she hadn't yet taken action.

She placed the box on the table in front of her and kept examining it.

The use of paranormal items usually comes at a price, and these prices must be paid continuously afterward. If the user refuses to pay, then some kind of terrifying phenomenon will definitely occur.

Lu Jinzhao was waiting for the harbinger of that phenomenon.

However, as time passed, the box in front of them remained motionless. Even when the third day had passed and the fourth day had arrived, the box still did not react at all!

It's as if Lu Jinzhao never breached the contract.

But that's not the case.

"As expected." Lu Jinzhao's gaze fell on the sheepskin placed to the side.

"Is it because of you that it didn't react?"

She hadn't forgotten that at the funeral home, when she tried to use the casket, it initially didn't respond at all. It wasn't until she threw the sheepskin far away that the casket began to suck her blood.

At the time, she wondered if, when the time came to pay the price, the sheepskin was there, would the box still remain silent?

Lu Jinzhao thought for a moment, then simply cut his finger and dripped the blood into the box, but the blood was not absorbed at all.

She suddenly smiled.

"It's not that I'm not willing to pay the price, nor that I'm going to breach the contract; it's just that you yourself didn't want it."

"It serves as a witness."

Lu Jinzhao picked up the sheepskin that was lying next to him.

A red symbol, a large question mark, suddenly floated down from the sky.

【? 】

(End of this chapter)