Forbidden Zone of Deception

Chapter 43 Escaping Qingtan Community
Apartment No. 31, Qingtan Community, 7th floor.

Jiang Jin's hunter vision instantly locked onto the front, and he raised the Mourning Shotgun, aiming the scope at an open door in front of him. The infrared aiming point was clearly locked on, and he pulled the trigger!

As the description says, a phosphorescent green light appeared at the muzzle!
The door was blasted open, leaving a large hole. Jiang Jin then sent Deathstroke to investigate the situation.

Then Deathstroke reported that there were no spirits behind the door, but the other side of the door was covered in splattered blood.

"Great gun, great feel, minimal recoil, and the sound of it firing is awesome! My regular police handgun can't compare!"

Jiang Jin was incredibly excited. Since his student days, he had been a true military enthusiast. During the gold shop robbery years ago, when the police sent him disguised as a civilian to deliver food to the hostages, he immediately recognized that the robbers were using fake guns and subdued them. Because of this, one of the hostages, Liu Yan, fell in love with him at first sight.

Thinking of this, Jiang Jin recalled participating in live-action CS with Liu Yan. After he got his hands on a replica rifle, he and Liu Yan were assigned to different groups and sparred with each other. In the end, they were evenly matched, and everyone said that he and Liu Yan were a match made in heaven, a strong couple. No one could have predicted that they would eventually part ways.

"I wonder what kind of expression Liu Yan or my brother would have if they saw that I have a gun like this now."

Jiang Jin's older brother is also a policeman. When he applied to the police academy, almost everyone thought he admired his brother. Only he knew that he genuinely loved being a criminal investigator.

After the shot, there was only a deathly silence.

The corridor lights flickered on and off, and something seemed to be wriggling in the darkness in the distance, but Jiang Jin didn't have time to investigate.

He needs to get out of here, the sooner the better.

Jiang Jin strode towards the stairwell. Liang Qin was highly skilled and daring, so he dared not take the elevator. In any case, his SAN value was currently high, and he had acquired a lot of equipment, so he still had enough capital to take risks.

Deathstroke followed closely behind him, while the black dog's ears perked up, scanning its surroundings warily.

He had just reached the top of the stairs when he suddenly stopped.

The stairs have disappeared!
What should have been the descending steps is now just a dark void, as if the lower half of the building had been forcibly severed by some force.

Jiang Jin frowned.

Now we'll have to take the elevator.

He turned and walked towards the elevator, pressing the down button. It wasn't midnight yet; there was no need to press the button for every staircase.

"Now that I think about it, the reason I was dragged out of the sixth floor by my hair was because my SAN value had almost dropped to the level of the annihilation layer, right?"

The elevator doors slowly opened, revealing an empty room, but a few strands of long black hair lay scattered on the floor—exactly the same hair that had dragged him earlier.

Jiang Jin sneered and stepped inside, letting Deathstroke carry the hair out while pointing his gun at the elevator.

"Want to do it again? We're all in!"

There is no close button; you can only wait for the elevator doors to close automatically and start descending.

Shortly after Jiang Jin's elevator descended, two people suddenly emerged from the back of the corridor!

They were two sanitation workers wearing orange uniforms and air-filtering masks!

They carried a mop, a bucket, and two black body bags.

One of the cleaners put the remaining body parts of Wu Qin and Liang Qin into body bags.

The other person dipped a mop into a bucket of water and began cleaning the bloodstains on the floor.

After mopping the floor clean, the cleaner took out another rag and went to the door where Jiang Jin had blasted a large hole, and began to carefully wipe away the bloodstains.

Jiang Jin, who was inside the elevator, was completely unaware of all this.

To his surprise, the elevator arrived at the first floor surprisingly smoothly, and Jiang Jin quickly walked out of apartment number 31 after the doors opened.

"Okay, let's go, Mr. Poor... Pipi Clock!"

Jiang Jin cautiously raised the siren and surveyed his surroundings through the scope.

Jiang Jin moved quickly along the rows of abandoned apartments.

Along the way, we didn't encounter any of the evil spirits or monsters we had expected.

Suddenly, he noticed a basin in front of a barren greenbelt not far away, filled with ashes from burnt paper. Was that ghost money?

After running through a stretch of overgrown green belt, he finally arrived at one of the community exits! But at that moment, Jiang Jin's pupils suddenly contracted.

Outside the exit, there was a thick, grayish-white fog.

The fog rolled and churned like a living thing, reducing visibility to less than five meters. In the distance, the outlines of a few dilapidated buildings could be vaguely seen, but beyond that, everything was completely swallowed up by the fog.

A low groan escaped the tolling bell's throat, and its canine teeth chattered slightly.

Normally, Liang Qin, the newcomer, should be responsible for taking him out. But now, Jiang Jin has to rely on himself.

With the fog so thick, Deathstroke's vision was no different from his own, making it impractical to use Bloodraven to scout ahead.

Jiang Jin gripped his hunting rifle and stepped into the thick fog.

He hadn't walked far when he suddenly heard a rustling sound from his left, as if something was crawling in the grass.

He turned abruptly, pointing his gun at the source of the sound.

In the mist, a hunched figure slowly stood up—it was an old man in a security guard uniform!

"Young man... are you lost?" The old security guard grinned, looking seemingly harmless.

Without wasting words, Jiang Jin pulled the trigger with a low growl from the death knell.

Qingtan Residential Area is one of the seven restricted areas in Muxu City, so how could there still be security guards there!
It's either a ghost, or an NPC like that old lady in room 701!

Currently, it seems more likely to be the former.

"boom!"

The mournful sound of gunshots echoed dully in the fog. The bullet pierced the old security guard's forehead, and his head exploded like a watermelon, but his body remained standing. A large amount of black hair emerged from his severed neck and coiled around Jiang Jin like snakes!

"Death knell!" Jiang Jin shouted fiercely.

The hounds should be used at this time. Try not to waste bullets, since firing one will deduct SAN.

The death knell roared and lunged forward, biting into the hair. The hair contracted rapidly as if scorched, and the old security guard's body finally collapsed, turning into a pool of foul-smelling pus.

Jiang Jin did not stop and continued forward.

The fog grew thicker and thicker, and he could no longer distinguish directions, so he could only move forward in one direction by instinct.

Suddenly, the death knell stopped abruptly and howled wildly ahead.

Jiang Jin squinted, vaguely seeing a blurry outline in the mist—

It was a barbed wire fence with a rusty metal sign hanging on it that read:

"Qingtan Community Isolation Zone Boundary - Crossing Strictly Prohibited"

The barbed wire fence was covered with drones and surveillance equipment, all to prevent anyone other than the reincarnators from breaking in. Jiang Jin guessed that there must also be some kind of rune array or something similar that ordinary people couldn't see.

Outside the wall, the fog thinned slightly, and a deserted highway could be vaguely seen.

"stop!"

Just as Jiang Jin was about to try to climb over the barbed wire, he suddenly saw three fully armed figures rush out of the fog, holding standard rifles, with the infrared sights on the muzzles locked onto him.

"Put down your gun, hands up! Slowly turn around!" the leader shouted sternly. "We are from the 49th Patrol Team of the Membrane Contamination Monitoring Department. We need to verify your identity!"

Jiang Jin did not resist. He put the shotgun into his watch, slowly raised his hands, and said, "I am a newly recruited reincarnator, just returned from the terrifying dungeon!"

The three approached, and one of them looked at the Reincarnator watch on Jiang Jin's wrist.

The man pulled up his sleeve, revealing the same Reincarnator watch!
"Don't move! New reincarnator? Where is your guide?"

"He violated the rules of the restricted area and is now dead."

Jiang Jin thought to himself: I didn't lie about a single word I said!

(End of this chapter)