Chapter 135: Substitute
To be honest, even though Lu Jinzhao had never truly gone to work, she still knew that in the real world, if a colleague unfortunately passed away, the company would not arrange for all employees to go collectively for mourning, or even give half a day of paid leave for it.
It was only in these places that she clearly realized the difference between reality and the platform.
They chartered a car and soon arrived outside the mourning hall. After getting out, Lu Jinzhao saw the two people waiting outside the mourning hall.
Du Yu’s two teammates.
The footsteps of the group preparing to head to the mourning hall paused, and their gazes fell on Du Yu.
“It looks like they are waiting for you.”
There was no intention at all to help Du Yu, and they even walked a few steps to the side without any disguise.
Du Yu’s expression was unpleasant, and she had no intention of paying them any attention. She just said to Lu Jinzhao and the others, “Ignore them, let’s go straight in.”
“After you.”
Zhou Zimo made a gesture inviting her to go ahead.
There was only one path leading to the mourning hall, so they had to pass by those two people. He had observed them, and they did indeed look exactly as Du Yu said, with no difference from living people.
The expressions on their faces when they saw Du Yu were so vivid, with fear almost written on their faces, but they just stood in place, neither retreating nor advancing.
They were waiting for Du Yu.
For some reason, a sentence emerged in Zhou Zimo’s mind: Just like the dead waiting for the only remaining living person in their team.
In broad daylight, a chill still emerged on his body. He turned to look at Du Yu, who made no move, seemingly unwilling to approach those two ahead.
Lu Jinzhao was also observing the two standing at the door.
At this time, people were constantly coming in and out of the mourning hall entrance, mostly there for mourning, including no lack of colleagues, but no matter who passed by, those two kept their eyes straight ahead. Ever since Du Yu got out of the car, they had only been staring at Du Yu.
Just this point alone was already sufficiently abnormal.
But it was only this point that could be considered abnormal.
Everything else, no matter how you looked, seemed “normal”.
Staying in place was not a good choice. Lu Jinzhao thought for a moment and, seeing Du Yu frozen in place unwilling to approach, she tentatively walked forward a few steps. Then she discovered that those two people’s gazes did not follow her, still only looking at Du Yu.
Qin Wan also noticed this, and a bit of schadenfreude appeared on her face. She hurriedly said, “If you want to stay here, then stay. We’ll go in first.”
“Let’s go, let’s go.”
She had no goodwill toward Fei Quan’s people at all, and also held the greatest vigilance toward this woman who approached them with a purpose. At this moment, anyone with eyes could see that this woman seemed to have run into some trouble. Whether what she said was true or false, it was best to stay far away from her right now.
However, Du Yu clearly did not want to be left alone. Seeing the three of them taking the chance to slip away, even ignoring the ghosts at the door, she hurriedly caught up.
“Like a dog-skin plaster?” Zhou Zimo cursed under his breath.
Fortunately, Du Yu’s two teammates’ gazes had always been tightly following Du Yu, and even when Du Yu tried to ignore them and leave, they called out to her.
“Du-jie, are you planning to abandon us?”
Yan Xiaoyu’s voice was pitiful, yet it made Du Yu’s heart skip a beat.
Because this was not the tone Yan Xiaoyu usually used in front of her.
Besides the pitifulness, faintly, one could detect a trace of joy and anticipation in Yan Xiaoyu’s tone.
What was she happy about?
What was she expecting?!
Du Yu had originally planned to ignore the two directly, but after hearing Yan Xiaoyu’s words, she immediately changed her mind.
Her intuition told her that she could not ignore Yan Xiaoyu’s question.
“No, you go pay respects to Xiao Yue first. I’ll come find you later.”
As for exactly how much later, she didn’t say.
“Is that so?” Yan Xiaoyu tilted her head: “Okay, Du-jie, we’ll wait for you. You must come find us.”
After Yan Xiaoyu finished speaking, she and Bai Xunyan turned and walked toward inside the mourning hall, no longer lingering at the door.
She had clearly shaken off these two quite easily, yet Du Yu felt her heart sinking.
“They seem very obedient to you. Are they really ghosts?” Zhou Zimo deliberately probed.
Du Yu’s face darkened: “If you don’t believe it, you can go team up with them.”
That wouldn’t do.
After passing by the door like this, Lu Jinzhao and the others could also see it. Indeed, just as Du Yu said, her two teammates were not quite right.
“But with them acting like this, isn’t it still very easy to tell something is off?”
Qin Wan asked puzzledly.
Du Yu was also a bit doubtful at this moment: “At the company, it wasn’t like this.”
At that time, she had discerned Yan Xiaoyu’s abnormality completely by feeling, not such an obvious wrongness.
Du Yu described some of the scenes and events she saw at the company. Lu Jinzhao, walking ahead, suddenly said, “Is it because you have already been targeted by the ghost, and even, you are about to die, so the ghost feels it doesn’t need to expend effort on you anymore?”
Ghosts have no brains. Generally speaking, even if they possess a human, they will easily expose themselves due to the completely different behavioral logic between ghost and human.
Just like a dog, even if it stands up and walks, it’s hard to mistake it for a human. Even if for an instant due to the blurry night or other reasons it’s misidentified, the incongruity will be noticed immediately soon after.
This incongruity is terrifying, spine-chilling, just like someone possessed by a ghost.
And the ghost inside this platform was not possession, but “substitute”. These two terms have a difference.
Possession is the ghost entering a person’s body, while substitute is replacement.
Lu Jinzhao thought of those stunt doubles in films and TV dramas. They often needed to have appearances very similar to the lead actor, and also needed to be familiar with the plot of the segment they were doubling for, that is, the “protagonist’s” life.
They needed to make the audience off-screen unable to distinguish whether the one standing on the silver screen at that moment was the lead actor themselves or the substitute.
If more and more “screen time” is replaced by the substitute, then, who is the lead, and who is the substitute?
“…Don’t joke.” Du Yu retorted in a low voice: “I don’t think I’ve done anything to be targeted by a ghost, let alone reach a must-die situation.”
Actually, even until now, Du Yu still hadn’t figured out what exactly was this ghost’s “taboo”.
She really didn’t think she had done anything wrong.
“I think it’s because I discovered it was a ghost, and it was exposed, so it couldn’t maintain the disguise anymore.”
Du Yu leaned more toward this, as it was more rational and fit experience better.
“You’d better really go back to find them later.” Qin Wan gave a warning.
She didn’t think making a promise to a ghost and then not keeping it would end well.
They had sent the ghost away for now, but who knew if this was what the ghost wanted?
The ghost on this platform gave her a very bad feeling, too much like a human.
This was the first time for her on a B-grade platform to encounter a ghost so like a human.
The experience summed up by predecessors told her that the more human-like the ghost, the more dangerous.
