Forbidden Zone of Deception

Chapter 382 The Third Invitation

Jiang Jin's eyes flashed with anger, and he suddenly exerted force on his wrist, spinning Yueyin around violently!
"Shh!"

In that instant, the lights... came back on without warning!
Jiang Jin immediately looked at the Moon Shadow in his hand.

Near the tip of the knife, there was a strange, viscous, blackish-red liquid!
The color was like dried, congealed blood, but much deeper, and it emitted a strong, nauseating odor!

That's not human blood.

Almost as soon as the lights came back on, the dark red liquid seemed to come alive, rapidly evaporating and dissipating, leaving only a few faint, twisted dark red marks on the blade before disappearing completely, as if it had never existed.

The Moon Shadow Blade regained its cold, smooth finish, but the bloody scent of that moment was imprinted on everyone's olfactory memory.

"What...what was that smell just now?" Aimi asked in horror.

Yamato Mitsuru's face also turned extremely pale. He stared intently at the tightly closed bedroom door, his eyes filled with fear.

Jiang Jin didn't explain; he simply sheathed his sword silently.

He glanced intently at the bedroom door, then at the still-shaken Yamato and Aimi, and said in a deep voice, "It seems that tonight's dinner cannot continue. Mr. Yamato, Ms. Aimi, we will take our leave. Regarding your previous suggestion... we will consider it carefully, but please think it over."

He didn't say anything more, grabbed Lingzi, and quickly left room 301.

Back in room 304, they closed the door, set up a simple barrier with traps and warnings, and remained silent.

The experience I just had, though brief, was packed with information and filled with unsettling unknowns.

Lingzi broke the silence, her voice still carrying a hint of lingering fear: "Commander, what...what's that on the Moon Shadow Blade?"

“I don’t know.” Jiang Jin shook his head, his brows furrowed. “It’s not the blood of a physical being, but more like… a highly condensed manifestation of rule-based pollution, or the blood of some kind of ‘existence’ that we cannot understand. The death knell’s guidance to attack that place indicates that there is indeed something behind the door, but it is formless and intangible, and cannot be touched by conventional means. Only the Moon Shadow, a blade with the power of rules, can barely hurt it.”

He paused, then continued his analysis: "More importantly, I am almost certain that the vengeful spirit of 'Ai,' the high school girl who was murdered by her father and sealed in the wall in the original movie, probably no longer exists and has been completely 'covered' by meme contamination."

Reiko nodded in agreement and offered her insights as a source of the curse: "I can sense that the core of the curse on this apartment building is filled with chaos, distortion, and a... more ancient and abstract aura. If the high school girl's resentment still exists, it is definitely no longer the main body. What now dominates this apartment building is some kind of more terrifying meme, forming a seemingly orderly but actually malicious 'system of rules'."

She sighed: "I haven't been able to find the original owner of the house yet, and this clue seems to have been deliberately obscured by some force."

Jiang Jin walked to the window, his eyes deep: "We must find out the source and weakness of this 'meme' as soon as possible. Yamato's plan absolutely cannot be implemented; it will only cause the situation to spiral completely out of control. And our current enemy is probably not just the apartment itself..."

He recalled the Dark Witch Barrier from last night and the dark wizard Mirano who opened the door. Hostile reincarnators were like venomous snakes lurking in the shadows, ready to strike again at any moment.

They were surrounded by wolves in front and tigers behind. Trapped in this ghostly apartment dominated by terrifying memes, every step they took was like walking a tightrope over an abyss.

The next day, the Beizuka No. 1 Apartment unexpectedly fell into an almost deathly silence.

The sunlight still shone lazily, as if the terrifying power outage in Room 301 last night, and the eerie black and red blood on Jiang Jin's knife tip, were just a collective nightmare.

However, this calm did not reassure Jiang Jin at all; on the contrary, it weighed even heavier on his heart.

His primary goal remains to find the homeowner and the original source of the curse.

With the intuition of a near-LV4 reincarnator, he firmly believed that something even older and more dangerous lurked within the annihilation layer of this apartment building. The invisible and intangible "being" behind the door that night, yet capable of being harmed by the moon's shadow, was proof of this.

The hostile reincarnators seemed to have vanished into thin air, launching no further attacks. But Jiang Jin was certain that the dark wizard Mirano was not dead. If she had truly died, she would have dropped the Skull Key. Since no key appeared, it meant she had either successfully escaped.

This calm before the storm often foreshadows an even more violent one.

To counter the potential dual threats from both inside and outside the apartment, Jiang Jin left Deathstroke inside. As a unique being that is neither alive nor dead, Deathstroke can ignore some physical obstacles, move freely within the apartment, and keenly sense any abnormal fluctuations in pollution, making him an excellent scout.

Through a soul link, Jiang Jin shares Deathstroke's vision and perception.

The death knell first silently sneaked into room 103 on the first floor, the home of the Budai couple.

The couple's situation was even more dire than before. After losing their stable jobs, they could only earn a meager income by occasionally handing out flyers or helping nearby shops move goods. A sense of despair and numbness permeated the room.

Mr. Hotei sat on the tatami mat, staring blankly at the wall; Mrs. Yami was repeatedly counting the few coins she had left, her face full of anxiety.

They strictly abide by the rules, daring not to cross the line, but the pressure of life and the burden on their minds are gradually draining their vitality.

Next, the death knell arrived at room 203, the Toshiaki family's house.

The room still reeked of cheap perfume and the stench of smoke and alcohol. Akemi seemed to have just woken up, meticulously applying heavy makeup in front of the mirror. Her boyfriend, Kosuke, lay sprawled on the sofa, fast asleep, his face showing the exhaustion of a hangover. A cold and twisted atmosphere permeated their relationship.

Finally, Deathstroke sneaked into the room of the caretaker, Ebisu.

The old man sat at a low table, slowly eating a simple lunch. His wife, Shizu, remained bedridden, her breathing weak. The room reeked of medicine; everything seemed old and slow-moving.

Ebisu's face bore the weariness accumulated over the years and the fear of some invisible pressure, but apart from that, Deathstroke found nothing unusual beyond what was expected. The old man seemed to be merely a dutiful (or rather, forced to be dutiful) caretaker of this apartment building, also barely surviving under the shackles of the rules.

Everything... was unsettlingly "normal".

Just as Jiang Jin was surveying the apartment through Deathstroke's perspective, his doubts grew stronger...

His newly purchased folding phone, which he had left in his locker at the sports club, suddenly rang sharply. The caller ID on the screen read: Room 301, Yamato Mitsuru!
Jiang Jin's heart sank suddenly, and an extremely ominous premonition instantly gripped him. He pressed the answer button.

On the other end of the phone came Yamato Mitsuru's voice. His voice sounded a little strange, deeper and... calmer than usual.

“Mr. Asakawa,” Yamato Mitsuru said, getting straight to the point without any pleasantries, “I would be honored to have dinner at my humble abode tonight.”

This is the third invitation!
Rule number five clearly came to mind for Jiang Jin: If a neighbor invites you to dinner for three consecutive days, you must decline the third invitation. No matter how the other party tries to persuade you, reply, "Sorry, I have an important appointment tonight."

Without the slightest hesitation, Jiang Jin immediately responded in a cold and decisive tone, as required by the rules: "Sorry, I have an important date tonight."

There was a moment of silence on the other end of the phone, and then, without any entanglement, without any questions, and without even the slightest hint of dissatisfaction at being rejected.

"Click."

Yamato hung up the phone immediately. Only a busy tone remained on the receiver.

Jiang Jin gripped his phone tightly.

Yamato's behavior is too abnormal! He clearly knows the rules, but after being frightened by the second invitation, he so "persistently" made a third one, and his reaction after being rejected was so "compliant" and... "procedural"!
This doesn't seem like the behavior of a human being with independent will! It's more like... executing some kind of pre-set instruction!

Has the will of the rules begun to so blatantly interfere with and manipulate the behavior of residents? Is Yamato Mitsuru still himself at all?
A strong sense of crisis made Jiang Jin's muscles tense up. He sensed that the terror lurking within this seemingly peaceful Beizuka First Apartment was escalating in a more hidden and eerie way.

The fangs of the rules may no longer be manifested merely through direct physical phenomena or ghosts, but have begun to erode "normality" itself, turning living people into a link in its vast and sophisticated killing program!
The real danger often lies hidden beneath this chilling "normality".

Meanwhile, at NHK television, Reiko was speaking into the phone, her brow furrowed.

A notebook lay open in front of her, containing only a few vague details about the Beizuka First Apartment, with several question marks next to it.

She spent almost the entire morning making phone calls.

In this instance, she essentially inherited all the connections she had built as a journalist during the "Ring" era, contacting real estate registration departments, local archives, and even some friends engaged in urban history research, attempting to uncover clues about the original owner and the source of the initial curse behind that apartment building.

However, the result was disappointing.

Whether in official records or oral accounts, all clues about the apartment's early history seem to have been quietly erased by an invisible hand. The identity of the owner remains a mystery, as if the building appeared out of thin air and has been operating on its own ever since.

Unwilling to give up, Reiko pinned her hopes on the police. As a reporter who frequently dealt with the police, she was fairly familiar with some officers at the Tanashi City Police Department.

She dialed a number she knew, trying to sound professional yet casual: "Hello, is this Officer Sato? This is Asakawa from NHK... Yes, there's something I'd like to ask you..."

Officer Sato is the officer she met in the [Midnight Ring] instance, and he exists in this instance as well.

After hearing the details, Officer Sato on the other end of the phone paused for a few seconds before replying, "Beizuka First Apartment? Hmm... that name sounds familiar, but I don't seem to have any particular records of it. Ms. Asakawa, why are you asking about this?"

“I’m doing some local public opinion surveys and I’ve heard some rumors, so I wanted to verify them,” Lingzi explained vaguely, then emphasized, “If there really were a series of deaths, shouldn’t the police have questioned or investigated the homeowners according to procedure? Isn’t there any record of that?”

"Well..." Officer Sato's voice was thoughtful, "I don't recall seeing it. How about this, I'll ask some of your former colleagues, or check the archives. But as you know, things from so long ago are not easy to find."

“I understand, thank you so much, Officer Sato. Any information could be helpful,” Reiko said quickly. Police officers usually prefer to maintain good relations with mainstream media like NHK, as this is beneficial for their future propaganda efforts.

Hanging up the phone, Reiko leaned back in her chair and sighed softly. Officer Sato's answer, rather than providing a clue, only deepened the eeriness. An apartment building supposedly the site of numerous unexplained deaths over the past few decades, yet so "clean" in the police records? This in itself defied logic.

Is someone deliberately covering it up? Or... is the curse on this apartment building affecting things beyond the physical realm, even interfering with the preservation of records and information in the real world?
A sense of powerlessness crept over her. She felt as if she were fighting against an invisible fog, and every time she thought she was getting closer to the core, she found that it was just an even thicker fog. The secrets of this apartment were deeper and more terrifying than they had imagined.

(End of this chapter)