Chapter 112: Inheritance
Those gongs and drums sounds seemed to carry a kind of magic, pulling Lu Jinzhao’s limbs, as well as the shadow puppet on the workbench.
Her eyes held a bit of surprise, yet she wasn’t too shocked, because she had more or less anticipated from Fu Xuesheng’s description that the ghost might have means of “controlling” them.
She just hadn’t expected it to come so suddenly.
“Tonight… something might happen.”
The ghost’s display was getting bigger and bigger; tonight clearly wouldn’t end casually.
First night, just knocking on the door outside; second night, starting to make noise to lure people out; third night… using the accompaniment to control them into stepping out the room door?!
“Not even completed yet, and it already has such powerful control over us; if the shadow puppet is really made complete, then…”
Lu Jinzhao didn’t need to think to know the consequences.
As the accompaniment’s sound gradually grew louder, a shadow puppetry accompaniment clearly presented itself in Lu Jinzhao’s ears.
She began to feel her body being pulled.
Perhaps because she was prepared, she didn’t suddenly lose control of her body like just now, but the situation wasn’t much better.
Lu Jinzhao only felt as if countless invisible threads were binding her bones, making her perform actions she completely didn’t want to do; with the rhythm of the shadow puppetry accompaniment outside, her feet uncontrollably stepped toward the room door one by one.
But Lu Jinzhao already had fairly rich experience in controlling her body amid loss of control.
The current situation reminded her of the platform before, after she woke from near death, her body’s reaction that felt not like her own—weak and a beat slow; although the situation now was a bit more difficult than then, she didn’t think she was completely unable to resist.
After all, she hadn’t thoroughly completed the shadow puppet’s making; even if the ghost had eroded her through human skin, this erosion absolutely wasn’t at 100% completeness.
After being controlled by the gongs and drums sounds to walk just a short few steps, Lu Jinzhao had already begun groping to resist the force controlling her.
Luckily, this ghost’s way of controlling her body was very much like “brute force,” as if using rope to bind her limbs and forcefully pushing her forward.
The action of her standing up just now was also like strings in the air suddenly yanking her up.
“Luckily, it’s not a more troublesome way.”
If it were something like mental control where she couldn’t even find a way to resist with all her might, she probably would have no choice but to use a supernatural item.
And now, in an extremely short time, she quickly figured out the pattern of her body’s loss of control.
When the accompaniment’s drum beats fell, her body would move like a controlled shadow puppet, but the force of the drum beats falling wasn’t too great—like someone pushing her from behind; she could resist it herself, just needing to expend some power.
The trouble was the cymbal sounds, that is, the one that made her stand up at the very beginning; they didn’t appear too often, but every time they did, she would be unable to resist taking a step forward!
“This won’t do.”
Even using all her power, she could only delay her steps toward the door; going on like this, in less than five minutes, she would reach the door.
She had to do something without using a supernatural item.
Thinking this, the next second, many ideas surfaced in Lu Jinzhao’s mind.
She tried to step back, but couldn’t; just controlling herself not to move forward at other times already made her feel exhausted, though her feet were the hardest to control, her hands—even her entire upper body—were controlled with less force.
Especially after she began consciously resisting, she could feel her legs more like they were filled with lead, extremely heavy, but her hands were a bit more relaxed.
She considered whether to try using the knife to sever her foot tendons while her hands weren’t controlled so severely, but immediately rejected it.
She felt the ghost’s power was enough to make her continue forward even if her bones and tendons were broken.
There weren’t many usable things in the room, and she couldn’t spare time to tie herself up now.
Lu Jinzhao’s gaze swept over the inside the room again and again, finally landing on the workbench.
On that shadow puppet whose making was almost complete, just not assembled.
At this moment, the shadow puppet had, amid the accompaniment’s vibrations, automatically assembled into the appearance of a finished product—of course, just its limbs lightly attached to the torso, not truly assembled, but at least it looked like a complete human shape.
At this moment, every time the accompaniment sounded, when Lu Jinzhao uncontrollably took a step forward, the shadow puppet on the workbench also swayed its legs and feet, “walking” on the tabletop.
Clearly, that shadow puppet mirrored her.
A thought suddenly arose in Lu Jinzhao’s heart.
From standing up from the chair until now truly walking forward, it was less than ten steps, and because she had to go around the inner side of the workbench, at this moment, she hadn’t strayed far from the workbench.
“This distance… is enough.”
Time was pressing; with the idea, Lu Jinzhao immediately began implementing it.
Amid the accompaniment rising and falling, she seized a moment of quiet, then immediately relaxed the clamp on her legs, putting almost all her power into her upper body, then quickly twisting to grab toward the tabletop with her hand.
In almost just one second, she grabbed the shadow puppet emanating a eerie aura on the tabletop, along with the scissors beside it, in her hand.
The next second, another drum sound rang out; because she relaxed control over her legs, Lu Jinzhao uncontrollably took a step forward.
But no problem—
She looked at the shadow puppet in her hand, without any hesitation, immediately picking up the scissors with her other hand, aiming at this shadow puppet, about to cut down!
This was a decision carrying six parts certainty, three parts doubt, and one part gamble.
Since all the clues indicated that this made shadow puppet was linked to them themselves, then, what if she destroyed this shadow puppet?
Other passengers, even if they guessed something, absolutely wouldn’t dare do this; they had no choice but to use supernatural items tonight or rely on their own ability to fight the ghost.
But Lu Jinzhao was different; she had a backup.
The instant her finger pressed down on the scissors, as if knowing what Lu Jinzhao wanted to do, her finger bone suddenly became uncontrollable, as if carrying a thousand jin of weight, or like it had petrified, disobeying its owner command.
But facing such a mishap, Lu Jinzhao just gave a cold laugh.
“This only proves my idea is right.”
Destroying the shadow puppet would greatly weaken the ghost’s control over her.
Since now the ghost’s control over her had shifted to her hand, Lu Jinzhao decisively controlled herself to suddenly step back!
“It worked.”
A bit of delight appeared on her face.
This ghost truly couldn’t control her whole body at this moment.
The next second, as she thought, the ghost again focused the control force on her legs.
This group of stupid objects’ thinking was completely single-threaded.
Logically, she could completely rely on this method to reverse-control the ghost’s control over her, thereby staying in the room, but…
The ghost’s power was inexhaustible, while she had only stalemated with the ghost for a minute, and dense sweat beads were already beading on her forehead.
Her power was limited.
Only the ghost knew when this music would stop; what if it didn’t stop all night?
She couldn’t persist that long.
She had to seize the opportunity to snip the shadow puppet to pieces, breaking the ghost’s current control over her.
There’s still
