Chapter 131: Substitute
“Don’t rush, I still have a method.”
Yan Xiaoyu did not completely fall into panic due to the current situation.
“First, attract the attention of other passengers.”
She couldn’t just be driven out of the company like this; no matter how she thought about it, in this platform named [Substitute], being occupied by a ghost just like that and having her identity taken was an extremely dangerous thing.
She looked toward Du Yu’s direction, just about to open her mouth to shout something, when she saw that figure, which had always been facing away from her, slowly turning around.
She saw the ghost’s appearance, which was not unfamiliar at all, familiar to the point of like looking in a mirror.
That was completely Yan Xiaoyu’s appearance.
Even though she had been prepared beforehand, Yan Xiaoyu still felt a nearly horrified emotion upon seeing that face at this moment.
She opened her mouth, just about to shout Du Yu’s name, yet she saw “Yan Xiaoyu” smiling at her.
A very small smile, like learning, or like imitating.
But at this moment, Yan Xiaoyu was struck as if by lightning.
She finally understood, understood the strange feeling she had when she saw that woman’s face during the elevator door closing process.
That woman, before the elevator door closed, before making eye contact with her, was Xiao Yue, but in the instant of making eye contact with her, the woman’s face immediately changed.
The facial features flowed like melting candles, then were reshaped into a completely different appearance.
In that instant, she saw the process of the facial features changing, both like Xiao Yue and not like Xiao Yue.
The part not like Xiao Yue was clearly changing toward her own appearance.
In the instant the elevator door closed, “Xiao Yue” had shown her such a small, almost imperceptible smile.
She could no longer make a sound.
Not because of this horrifying discovery, but in a physical sense, her vocal cords, her ability to produce sound, had disappeared.
Or rather, had been stripped away.
Because she heard the ghost speaking.
Even from a distance, she clearly heard “Yan Xiaoyu” ask: “What happened?”
In her words, she even tilted her head in doubt, but her eyes were nearly wooden.
Like a clumsy appearance.
But no one noticed the abnormality.
The colleagues in front of her completely failed to recognize her, seemingly finding her actions particularly amusing; a colleague took a makeup mirror from her pocket and held it up in front of her.
“Take a good look at yourself.”
The instant she saw herself in the mirror, Yan Xiaoyu truly felt afraid.
“This is, what thing?!”
The colleague holding the mirror sneered at her: “This is you, don’t you recognize it?”
No, this absolutely wasn’t her!
Yan Xiaoyu shook her head, raised her hand to touch this unfamiliar face, her expression terrified.
This was a completely horrifying face: the left eye a single-eyelid small eye, the right eye a double-eyelid upturned eye, the nose tip thick and covered with blackheads, like a completely unhygienic man; on the square face, half the skin was clear and translucent, the other half covered with pockmarks.
This couldn’t even be called a normal “human face”; it was fundamentally a “face” spliced together from completely different facial features and skin!
The colleague in front of her, facing such a face, could still communicate normally instead of shouting “monster.”
In others’ eyes, what exactly did her face look like?
And now, who was she?
Yan Xiaoyu suddenly waved her hands, trying to attract her teammate’s attention; however, for some reason, the colleagues who had just been looking at her had all withdrawn their gazes, as if there was nothing worth paying attention to here anymore.
Her actions only attracted the attention of the colleague in front of her.
“Are you crazy?” The other frowned and called security.
Yan Xiaoyu tried to escape her obstruction, but discovered her strength was slowly diminishing.
She raised her hand and tossed the coin in her hand into the air; in this instant, her vanished strength returned.
She pushed away the colleague obstructing her in front of her, but in the next instant, the world suddenly darkened.
Like the lights being turned off, or like suddenly losing her eyes.
The surroundings were pitch darkness.
She heard the sound of the coin hitting the ground, and then her hands were grabbed and dragged backward; it seemed security had arrived to drag her out of the building.
Yan Xiaoyu struggled desperately; she knew all the abnormalities happening to her body now were the ghost attacking her; her fate could effectively resist the supernatural power’s erosion on herself, but even so, Yan Xiaoyu could feel she was still continuously “losing” certain things.
First the face, the voice, the strength, then vision, taste, smell; soon, she could no longer hear sounds.
She was shoved and dragged; not just her hands, her ankles, shoulders, even the top of her head seemed to have countless hands squeezing, tearing, dragging her into the depths of darkness.
She persisted for a while because her fate helped her resist part of the supernatural power’s erosion.
She could feel that if at this time someone could call her name, someone could recognize her, could shout the three words “Yan Xiaoyu,” she might be able to break free from the restraints and survive this attack.
But no one did.
She hadn’t informed anyone of the abnormality she noticed, so no one paid attention to her.
“How could it be like this?”
Yan Xiaoyu thought desperately.
She could no longer make sounds, see any images, or hear the slightest sound; in the previous second, she had even lost the ability to control her limbs.
Everything of hers was being stripped away, replaced, becoming things possessed by that ghost.
Yan Xiaoyu realized she was undoubtedly doomed.
In this instant, she even felt a sense of pleasure.
“Du Yu didn’t notice either, right?”
“A ghost is silently substituting her teammate; next, it should be her turn, right?”
If she could still control it, she would almost laugh out loud.
In the next instant, even Yan Xiaoyu’s “consciousness” was completely erased.
And on the seat belonging to Yan Xiaoyu, the woman whose eyes had been numb, at this moment, seemed to wake from a dream; those eyes that originally had no spirit actually emitted a bit of human glow.
The new “Yan Xiaoyu” was born.
She heard Du Yu calling her name, raised her head, and looked toward Du Yu.
Du Yu said something to her, both a request and a command.
“Yan Xiaoyu” stood in place, more sluggish than usual by about a second, before gently nodding.
She was organizing the past and memory belonging to “Yan Xiaoyu.”
After finishing talking with Du Yu, during the process of sitting down, “Yan Xiaoyu” looked at Du Yu, the corner of her mouth slightly hooking up.
At this moment, her face blurred for an instant.
But Du Yu, even while looking at Yan Xiaoyu, failed to—or rather, could not—notice this momentary blur.
But she instinctively felt something was off, yet really couldn’t find the strange point.
She could only look at Yan Xiaoyu more deeply and for longer, trying to find the source of that subtle strange feeling she had in that instant just now.
