Chapter 133: Substitute
Du Yu was observing Yan Xiaoyu.
This woman who appeared pitiful, boring, and destined to become cannon fodder and die in her eyes.
Because she had decent life-saving ability, she had managed to survive until now, but she wasn’t smart enough, decisive enough, or even ruthless enough, so she had always been in a subordinate identity under Fei Quan.
The way she looked at her always carried fear, her tone shrank when talking to her, and occasionally one could see unwillingness and fear at the bottom of her eyes. Du Yu knew she hadn’t fully submitted, but she didn’t dare to resist.
Now it seemed the same.
If her gaze lingered on her for too long, Yan Xiaoyu would become flustered and at a loss, even slowing her breathing, afraid of suffering punishment for some trumped-up reason like “breathing too loudly and disturbing people.”
After all, such things had happened under Fei Quan before.
But… no.
The movements were no different from the past Yan Xiaoyu, the behavior was exactly the same, but the eyes were off.
When looking up at her, it was still timid and fearful, but Du Yu felt it wasn’t vivid enough.
She really liked staring into other people’s eyes.
Because she could always see things in them that pleased her, those looks as if seeing a monster, seeing a natural enemy, or like seeing an insurmountable mountain and the ghost-like gods in the mountain—she enjoyed them very much.
And at this moment, Yan Xiaoyu’s eyes were clearly still so fearful, as always not daring to meet her eyes directly, but Du Yu found she couldn’t feel any excited emotion from them.
It was just like looking at a lifeless piece of wood.
Thus, she noticed something was wrong.
This might sound unbelievable to others, but Du Yu knew what she was herself, and she trusted her judgment more than evidence and clues.
She glanced at the time; it was almost lunchtime. After thinking for a moment, Du Yu looked at another person, or rather, another living tool, and said, “During lunch, take Yan Xiaoyu to the rooftop and cut off one of her fingers.”
Bai Xunyan suddenly looked up at her, her eyes filled with disbelief and panic. She didn’t understand why Du Yu would give such an order, but she only hesitated for a second before immediately lowering her voice: “Yes, I understand.”
Did Yan Xiaoyu make her unhappy?
Bai Xunyan thought somewhat panicked in her heart.
At the same time, she felt… luckily it was Yan Xiaoyu, not her.
The company’s arrangement was for everyone to go to Xiao Yue’s mourning hall for worship after lunch on their own. Logically, sneaking off and not going at this time wouldn’t be a problem as long as no one exposed it, but obviously the passengers couldn’t do that.
During the lunch break, Bai Xunyan called Yan Xiaoyu to the rooftop as required, while Du Yu followed slowly behind the two.
Her intuition told her that Yan Xiaoyu had a problem.
But where the problem was and why it had occurred, she couldn’t confirm 100% yet.
However, she easily recalled the act of shoving Yan Xiaoyu out of the elevator when they first entered the platform.
If there was a problem anywhere, it was at that time point when Yan Xiaoyu was out of her line of sight for nearly ten minutes, and also, she had gone to the restroom once.
Only these two times.
She wasn’t sure what state Yan Xiaoyu was in now, but she knew the platform’s name and the waiting information had given a warning, so now she wanted to probe whether Yan Xiaoyu was still Yan Xiaoyu.
Du Yu didn’t enter the rooftop but stood at the door, looking toward Bai Xunyan and Yan Xiaoyu.
She saw Bai Xunyan say something to Yan Xiaoyu, whose complexion became extremely ugly, her expression exceptionally resistant, but under Bai Xunyan’s insistence, Yan Xiaoyu could only extend one hand.
It looked like there was no problem?
Du Yu frowned slightly but had no intention of interrupting their actions. She even watched as one of Yan Xiaoyu’s fingers was cut off, human blood flowed out, and Yan Xiaoyu’s reaction was quite normal—yet her brows didn’t relax; instead, they furrowed tighter.
Because at this moment, no matter how she looked at it, Yan Xiaoyu seemed to be a normal human.
This instead made Du Yu even more displeased.
She knew she was going to find clues with the answer in hand; her intuition had convicted Yan Xiaoyu in her heart, believing she was possessed by a ghost. Not finding Yan Xiaoyu’s abnormality now only made her unhappy.
“Where is it wrong?”
The word substitute, no matter how you look at it, shouldn’t have other meanings, right?
Plus the hint from the waiting information, the crisis on this platform was actually quite clear.
But for platforms where the crisis hint is exceptionally obvious, it often means the ghost inside is already deadly enough without the train needing to conceal the information.
And the current Yan Xiaoyu looked completely like a cowardly appearance.
Neither like a ghost nor like someone possessed by a ghost.
Completely just Yan Xiaoyu herself.
Du Yu, standing behind the door, had her expression change several times. She looked at Yan Xiaoyu who was bandaging her wound and Bai Xunyan who breathed a sigh of relief after completing the task she had explained, chose not to approach, and left first when the two were about to head to the stairs.
Back at her workstation, there were already few people left in the office. Du Yu sat in her seat waiting for Yan Xiaoyu and Bai Xunyan to return, still pondering the definition of “substitute” in her mind.
“Isn’t it a ghost replacing a human?”
“Or is Yan Xiaoyu now just in the early stage of being possessed, not even noticing it herself?”
After much thought, she couldn’t come up with an answer, and at this time Bai Xunyan and Yan Xiaoyu had already returned.
Yan Xiaoyu’s complexion was somewhat pale, her left pinky finger already gone.
Seeing Du Yu sitting in her seat, Bai Xunyan carefully asked, “Sister Du, what do we do next?”
Hearing this, Du Yu looked at her, her complexion not good: “Where’s the thing?”
As soon as the words fell, she saw Bai Xunyan stunned: “The thing… what thing?”
The Yan Xiaoyu beside kept her head down.
Du Yu said impatiently: “Finger.”
“Sister Du…” Bai Xunyan’s tone became strange: “The finger… didn’t we just give it to you?”
What?
Du Yu immediately stood up from her seat, her bloodshot eyes staring tightly at Bai Xunyan to ensure she wasn’t lying. She gazed into Bai Xunyan’s eyes and saw genuine confusion and doubt.
She wasn’t lying.
Du Yu took a slight breath, realizing something had gone wrong.
“Substitute… it really is a substitute?”
She glanced at the silent Yan Xiaoyu, ignored the bewildered Bai Xunyan, and immediately headed toward the canteen.
She remembered that the other group of passengers had gone in the direction of the canteen earlier.
Bai Xunyan’s questioning voice came from behind.
“Sis, where are you going?”
“Should we follow?”
“Sis”
The voice grew smaller and smaller, the ending drawn out long, as if coming from a deep corridor.
Du Yu’s footsteps didn’t pause at all.
She had already determined that Yan Xiaoyu was absolutely possessed by a ghost or replaced by one, so she abandoned Bai Xunyan by the ghost’s side without looking back.
Hoping she could hinder the ghost’s killing steps for a moment, at the cost of her life.
I need to work hard this month, so there’s one more update today, but now I need to sleep for a bit first.
