Chapter 98: Inheritance
Fu Xuesheng saw Lu Jinzhao’s gaze and nodded lightly: “It should be him.”
This “him” referred to the Master.
The assessor was already dead, so how were they to undergo the trial?
Lu Jinzhao only thought about it briefly, and an extremely ominous answer appeared in her mind.
That was, of course, the already deceased Master, continuing to test them.
“Tsk.”
Lu Jinzhao quietly complained in her heart: couldn’t these dead people inside the platform just die quietly and properly?
“I wonder what kind of Master we’ll meet tonight?”
It couldn’t be a headless corpse sitting in the room, right?
How could a headless corpse talk to them?
Many strange thoughts surged in Lu Jinzhao’s mind.
She looked up at the sky.
In the square house, even the sky was divided into small patches. The gloomy sky paired with the narrow line of sight made it feel exceptionally oppressive.
“I’ve pretty much explored here. I’ll go check elsewhere first.” Fu Xuesheng waved to her and left the backyard.
Lu Jinzhao had no intention of sticking with anyone from the start anyway.
The head in the water vat shattered the false quiet of the house, adding a sense of urgency to Lu Jinzhao’s heart. Class B Platform probably wouldn’t be as mild as Class C. Danger might already be lurking nearby from the beginning.
She rallied her spirits and roughly toured the backyard, finding no other anomalies for the time being. During this, some people came to the backyard too, but Lu Jinzhao only exchanged simple greetings with them and said nothing more.
Leaving the backyard, she toured the entire house, familiarizing herself with the terrain from her memory, confirming what light sources were available in the house, and then, seeing that time was about up, headed to the front hall to meet the other companions.
The platform had given her not only experience but also changed some of her behaviors. For example, before, she absolutely wouldn’t have been so eager to understand the full terrain and light source situation of a strange place after entering it.
Arriving at the front hall and waiting a bit longer, people gradually arrived one after another.
They looked at each other, and seeing no one willing to take the lead, Zhong Sui sighed and took the initiative to speak: “I’m sure everyone has noticed, right?”
In this inside the platform, being the first to speak wasn’t a good job.
They gradually exchanged some discoveries, including what Lu Jinzhao had seen, and some she didn’t know.
Even though the waiting information might hint that only one person could survive this platform, these experienced second-class passengers didn’t hide anything at this moment.
The matter of the head naturally couldn’t have been seen only by Lu Jinzhao and Fu Xuesheng, and the focus of the discussion was also on this head.
“I fished it out and checked. The time of death should be around when we entered the house. The head is still very fresh.”
Lu Jinzhao raised her eyebrow slightly upon hearing this and looked at Huo Ye, who had spoken. He was quite bold to actually reach out and fish out this head.
Was this what a second-class passenger was like?
“In other words, when we entered the house, the Master died, and the head was put into the water vat. So where’s the body?”
“We might see it soon.”
They discussed for a while, and seeing that time was about up, they set off for the Master’s room.
The Master’s room was in the exact center of the entire house. No matter which location, you could reach here, which also meant this was the quickest place to get to every corner of the house.
At midnight, the sky had completely darkened, but red lanterns were lit everywhere in the house. No one lit the candles inside, yet they ignited on their own at night.
The red light illuminated this ancient house, eerie and gloomy, extremely ominous.
“We’re here.”
Zhong Sui, walking at the front, stopped at the door.
“The door seems to be open.” Ji Xiangchen looked; there was a finger-wide gap at the door.
These people weren’t like the teammates Lu Jinzhao met at Class C Platform, who would push the door open and go in right after saying it was open. They seemed very clear on which actions might be dangerous and when to do what.
Pushing open the door, Lu Jinzhao saw the Master’s room.
Identical to the one in “memory.” Right upon entering was the “living room.” In the center of the living room was a large wooden table, which usually held tea, but at this moment, atop it was no longer tea, but a headless corpse.
This was the Master they were to meet at 12 o’clock.
The atmosphere suddenly became serious, but fortunately, they had anticipated it.
Candles were also burning in the room, red and white ones, yet they didn’t illuminate the room much.
The Master’s corpse was exceptionally calm. Apart from missing a head, the rest looked as if merely asleep.
“There’s a piece of paper.” Zhong Sui noticed something first and pointed at the corpse’s right hand.
Then, she stepped forward, pulled out the paper, held it under the candlelight, and read it.
As she read, her complexion became somewhat grave.
“In the past, you only used bones and skin from dead animals to make shadow puppets. Though lifelike, they lacked the most important thing. Today, I will teach you the most crucial step of the secret technique.”
“Now, the trial begins. You need to use human skin and bones to make a human-shaped shadow puppet. Materials are limited, so start with making the skin.”
“Before 12 o’clock tomorrow night, bring a suitably sized piece of skin here. Those who pass will enter the next trial.”
This was all the content on the paper.
“Making shadow puppets from human skin? Too difficult.” Fu Xuesheng said softly: “Human skin isn’t as thick as donkey hide. Carving and hollowing, neither is easy.”
Not to mention assembling it. Human skin was too thin and soft, really not good material for shadow puppets.
“Don’t forget, this is inside the platform.” Ji Xiangchen reminded her.
Human skin from the real world indeed wasn’t suitable as materials, but inside the platform, who knew?
“The tricky part now is… this mission clearly wants us to use the Master’s corpse to make the shadow puppet.”
Too perverse, to the point that even before starting, a chill rose in everyone’s hearts.
“One human skin to make five shadow puppets. The materials aren’t plentiful, so let’s allocate them first.”
The five surrounded the corpse and wooden table. Without much hesitation, under the dim candlelight, they began allocating the human skin.
Lu Jinzhao only found this scene extremely weird, yet she couldn’t escape. She could only become part of this bizarre picture.
She had never imagined that one day, she would have to dismember a headless corpse together with others.
And now, they needed to strip the human skin from this corpse as completely as possible.
Fortunately, Ji Xiangchen was a surgeon in the real world. He volunteered to do it.
As the skin was gradually stripped from the human tissue, the raw red muscles emerged under the candlelight, and a faint, unavoidable physiological disgust appeared in everyone’s gazes.
