Chapter 91: Price Of The Wooden Box
Lu Jinzhao thought about it and decided not to call back to inform Lin Lin that she had also become a passenger.
After all, this wasn’t anything good.
Now Lin Lin had to face the extremely dangerous death platform, so to be safe, it was better to let her worry less about her own affairs.
After reading the messages about the death platform, Lu Jinzhao continued browsing the forum.
The area she entered was only a public area, but thanks to Qing Wu’s existence, the atmosphere in the Yuncheng passenger forum leaned toward sharing, and much information about the train and platforms could be obtained in the public area, but some more secretive or more important messages were hard to fully learn in the public area.
One must pass through a Class B Platform at least once and obtain second-class passenger identity to have the qualification to apply to enter the core area.
This wasn’t arrogance; on the train, the attrition rate for newcomers was too high, with people continuously pulled into the platform and continuously dying.
Even if some newcomers seemed to have strong potential at first glance, inside the platform, even geniuses in universal values couldn’t ensure how long they could live.
Before reaching second-class passenger, no one could be easily judged as having potential.
This was an exceptionally cruel place; before upgrading to second-class passenger, they could only be called “cannon fodder.”
And this was also an important reason why most people thought the train was “selecting.”
Selecting a very small portion of people from a large number destined to be cannon fodder.
The train was doing selection, and the person who built the Yuncheng forum thought the same, so she created entry requirements for the forum core area in line with this rule.
The reason it was second-class passenger was only because to obtain a second-class train ticket, a passenger must have completed a Class B Platform once.
And the lowest level at which fate appeared was Class B.
“Thinking this way, the standards for the forum core area are actually far from harsh.”
It even didn’t require that one must have fate to enter as a passenger.
In Lu Jinzhao’s view, if the train was selecting, then at least having fate should count as passing that threshold.
So this requirement wasn’t arrogance deliberately making things difficult for anyone; it was simply following the train’s rules, with a strong sense of survival of the fittest.
The public area’s information gave low-level passengers some common-sense help, while the core area gathered Yuncheng’s existing capable passengers.
It neither babysat newcomers nor implemented any strange dark rules; under the premise of providing newcomers with some help, it retained the cruelty of the selection mechanism, forcing all newcomer passengers to rely on themselves to survive on the train.
Even that highly reputed Qing Wu on the forum only shared experience in the forum, rather than creating any faction to accept newcomers and provide more direct help.
“Why is that?”
Lu Jinzhao was thinking about this question.
The operation of Yuncheng Station Platform like this, and the passenger atmosphere, must have been deliberately created by someone.
Otherwise, in such a cruel place as the train, the atmosphere among passengers should be more despairing and crazier.
Although there were quite a few negative posts in the current forum, and some passengers in Yuncheng would always go crazy in reality, overall, the atmosphere here was even more “orderly” than Lu Jinzhao had expected.
This order seemed to have lasted for a long time.
Then, the person who intentionally created this order must be a very senior special class passenger with influence, and probably more than one.
What deep meaning did they have in doing this?
What did they know?
What about other platforms?
What was the atmosphere like?
Lu Jinzhao suddenly remembered that she had seen in the forum, Qing Wu had suddenly started doing this from some stage.
She should know something.
But for now, she was unacquainted with her, so she couldn’t be impatient.
Everything had to wait until she successfully survived the Class B Platform.
After browsing the forum, Lu Jinzhao closed the computer, then lay on the bed to prepare for rest.
Before this, after leaving the platform and returning to reality, she had mostly fallen straight asleep, but now, she could even force herself to do some things before resting.
“Looks like I’m adapting better and better.”
With this thought, Lu Jinzhao fell into deep sleep.
This time, she didn’t have any strange dreams, and when she woke up, she only felt she had spent a short time in the darkness.
Although her mental state was still a bit fuzzy, her brain had indeed relaxed quite a bit.
After sitting up from the bed, Lu Jinzhao spaced out for a while; today was the weekend, no need for class, no one asked her out, and not inside the platform where she had to maintain high mental concentration at all times, so unusually, for a whole hour, Lu Jinzhao just sat aimlessly on the bed swiping her mobile phone.
She neither chatted with anyone nor read anything, just repeatedly opening and closing several apps.
But this aimless action did relax her nerves, like a brain massage; she felt that even the spirit not fully relaxed by sleep felt much better after spacing out and completely emptying her brain.
She checked her class schedule; tomorrow there was an early eight o’clock class.
Lu Jinzhao had no intention of giving up her student identity.
Even though she could now skip classes without concern or even not go to school at all, she had no such plan.
Although she wouldn’t attend every class anymore, she would still go to school, because she didn’t want to completely disconnect from society and her peers.
She didn’t plan to integrate into it or build any new social relationships, but she needed the breath of living people and completely normal life rhythm and social operation in real-life scenes.
This could help her better maintain her consciousness and self as Lu Jinzhao.
Because with the time inside the platform as contrast, real life, even classes, became less tormenting.
And when the third day after the transaction with the wooden box arrived, Lu Jinzhao knew it was time to pay the price.
She had only transacted with the wooden box once, yet needed to provide the same price as the transaction every three days, and the next time she wanted to continue using the wooden box, she would need to pay more to complete the transaction.
Lu Jinzhao was very clear on this, so she had resisted using it before.
Now, time had reached evening, and she still hadn’t bled into the box.
She had long prepared the hemostasis items, blood supplements, and tools for bleeding; she just hadn’t started.
She placed the box on the table in front of her, constantly observing it.
Using supernatural items mostly required a price, and for those requiring ongoing payment afterward, if the user refused to pay, some kind of terror would certainly occur.
Lu Jinzhao was waiting for the precursor to that phenomenon.
But as time passed bit by bit, the box in front of her remained completely still, even when the third day fully passed into the fourth day, the box showed no reaction!
As if Lu Jinzhao hadn’t broken the contract at all.
But… it wasn’t so.
“As expected…” Lu Jinzhao’s gaze turned to the parchment placed nearby.
“Is it because of you that it has no reaction?”
She hadn’t forgotten that inside the funeral home, when she wanted to use the box, at first, the box had no reaction at all, until she threw the parchment far away, then the box started absorbing her blood.
At that time, she had guessed that if it came time to pay the price and the parchment was nearby, would the box still remain silent?
Lu Jinzhao thought about it, simply cut her finger, and dripped blood into the box, but the blood wasn’t absorbed at all.
She suddenly smiled.
“It’s not that I’m not paying the price, nor that I’m breaching the contract; it’s you who doesn’t want it.”
“It, as the witness.”
Lu Jinzhao picked up the parchment right at hand.
A red symbol suddenly floated in the sky, a big question mark.
【？】
