Chapter 187: Production Complete
After hanging up the phone call, Lu Jinzhao organized the materials sent by Lin Lin. For the next three months, she shut herself away, devoting all her attention to carving the shadow puppet.
During this period, Lu Jinzhao slept very little, and her other basic needs were much less than those of ordinary people. Perhaps after completely finishing this shadow puppet, these needs would decrease even further.
This meant that the things she brought inside the platform could reduce some of the weight of food and water.
Fortunately, during this time, she received no reminders from the train. She was not selected for the platform, and the train gave her a long vacation.
Although this was the calmness before the arrival of the death platform, it did indeed give her ample preparation time.
During the process of making [Tan Meng], Lu Jinzhao immersed her body and mind completely in it. She had to devote all her energy to it. Even though she could now go three days without sleeping, as soon as she started making this shadow puppet, it wouldn’t be long before she fell into intense fatigue and had to sleep to replenish her energy.
And at the moment when this shadow puppet was completed, Lu Jinzhao only felt an invisible burden of a thousand pounds lift from her body. The mental pressure that had always weighed on her mind also dissipated invisibly, just like when a person wakes up from sleep and stretches a super comfortable lazy stretch afterward.
When she picked up this shadow puppet made from Tan Meng, it showed no movement at all, just a lifeless object. But when Lu Jinzhao held it close to the index finger of her right hand, the moment it touched the finger…
An invisible connection was established. In the next instant, [Tan Meng] moved as if awakened.
But it was no longer Tan Meng; it was a shadow puppet belonging to Lu Jinzhao, a puppet.
So it first tentatively moved its legs and arms, tilted its head, then affectionately rubbed against Lu Jinzhao’s finger, trying to bury its body into Lu Jinzhao’s palm.
Even when Lu Jinzhao naturally pinched it and lifted it up, it showed no panic at all. Instead, it lay obediently on Lu Jinzhao’s finger like a cat or dog being petted by its owner, with its elbow connected by strings bent gently and resting on Lu Jinzhao’s finger.
Accompanied by its hand, meticulously carved by Lu Jinzhao, gently clasping onto Lu Jinzhao’s finger, Lu Jinzhao felt her own body undergoing certain slow changes along with this action.
This was the change brought by the enhancement of her fate.
The massive essence, spirit, and energy spent during the carving of Tan Meng returned to her body in a miraculous way. Her vision and hearing seemed sharper, her physical strength had increased, but her body temperature was dropping. Her pale skin was almost the same color as the skin of the shadow puppet in her hand, as if the one in her hand was a shadow puppet, and she herself was a larger shadow puppet.
Lu Jinzhao suddenly let go of her hand, and the shadow puppet in her hand reacted extremely quickly with a sharp bounce, landing on her shoulder, then sitting up on her shoulder on its own.
This shadow puppet was completely different from the others.
Although it had no “consciousness,” it seemed to retain more “instinct.”
This instinct made it particularly close to Lu Jinzhao, allowing it to make some small animal-like actions, but it absolutely obeyed Lu Jinzhao’s words and belonged to Lu Jinzhao.
Just like a… tail that wags on its own?
“…It’s not a bad thing?”
To speak of a more specific difference, it was probably that she could now command other shadow puppets to pour her a glass of water. If she didn’t specify the water temperature in her mind, the other shadow puppets would just pour the water properly, but this shadow puppet would adjust the water temperature on its own according to her current mood.
Simply put… it was smarter.
And after establishing a clear connection, Lu Jinzhao learned more information about this shadow puppet.
A shadow puppet completely composed of “ghost” has a certain self-repair ability.
After all, “ghost” cannot be killed, and tools made from ghost are naturally the same.
They can be damaged, but they can also repair.
However, repair takes time, but this also means she doesn’t have to worry about how to find materials to repair this shadow puppet if it breaks.
“Ghosts do have their benefits.” Lu Jinzhao couldn’t help but sigh.
Although the shadow puppet made from ghost doesn’t have the bizarre abilities of fates, just the self-repair aspect is enough to offset all other shortcomings.
“Next, complete the other shadow puppets.”
In this way, she had six shadow puppets: [Tan Meng], [Substitute Death], [Luck Transfer], [Silence], [Fake], [Lu Jinzhao]. Even facing the upcoming death platform, she felt somewhat more confident.
Whether [Substitute Death] or [Lu Jinzhao] could let her escape a disaster, meaning in the best case, she had three lives.
And after [Substitute Death] became Lu Jinzhao’s shadow puppet, it inherited Du Yu’s strength at the time and also received enhancement from Lu Jinzhao’s [Shadow Play]. She could let the shadow puppet attach to others to substitute for her death, or directly let the shadow puppet itself substitute for her death.
She could also use the shadow puppet as a medium to substitute death for others.
But she obviously wouldn’t do that.
In other words, once [Substitute Death] had a “physical form” and became a shadow puppet, it even compensated for the shortcoming that Du Yu originally needed a teammate to use it.
Unfortunately, [Substitute Death] cannot let other shadow puppets substitute for death.
“As long as my fate keeps getting stronger, the shadow puppets I can use will also become more powerful…”
This was a positive cycle. Only when the shadow puppets in her hand increased did Lu Jinzhao truly feel the power of her fate.
If she hadn’t obtained the ghost bone or [Tan Meng], the other fate shadow puppets she made would not be as powerful as they are now; they would automatically adjust their effect range and abilities according to her own fate strength.
And now she was stronger than their owners when they were alive, so she could use the full effects of these fates when they were stripped of skin.
But unfortunately, she still couldn’t “surpass” the strength that the original owners of the fates possessed.
“Perhaps, I need my fate to become even stronger.”
After experiencing the making of [Tan Meng], making the remaining fate shadow puppets became much easier. When Lu Jinzhao finished making all the shadow puppets, four months had passed since her last entry into the platform.
She had a premonition that the preview of the death platform was coming soon.
Over these months, she had been in a “cold war” with the parchment. She also asked Lin Lin, and no abnormalities had appeared around Lin Lin.
She didn’t know what the parchment meant by that sentence at the time—whether it was just a threat or it really planned to do something. But from the parchment’s current behavior, it seemed unable to affect Lin Lin far away in the capital, unless Lin Lin unluckily entered the same death platform as her.
However, the train’s “anomaly” seemed targeted only at her. Lin Lin had just completed one death platform, and there was still a time difference in their operational rules. If she was to enter the death platform next, as long as Lin Lin stayed in the capital and didn’t come near the parchment, she should be unaffected.
