Chapter 99: Inheritance
Stripping the human skin from the body and then unfolding it, dividing it into 5 portions is not small.
But using it to make five humanoid shadow puppets is still a bit stretched.
Once any accident causes the skin material to be scrapped, there is no second spare skin.
What to do then?
Many not-so-friendly thoughts popped up in Lu Jinzhao’s mind.
Stripping the skin is not a simple matter. Throughout the entire process, blood water continuously dripped from the corpse. Even though this corpse had been dead for some time, when his skin was stripped from the muscles, Lu Jinzhao could still see the scene of flesh and blood twitching slightly.
Disgusting, bizarre, with a bit of a horror atmosphere.
But still within an acceptable range.
Until that thin, delicately textured and soft human skin was placed in her hand, Lu Jinzhao finally couldn’t control the large patches of goosebumps rising.
What kind of feeling is this? Too disgusting!
Even being grabbed by a ghost on the shoulder or ankle was not as intensely “disgusting” as what she felt now.
But Lu Jinzhao was already very familiar with managing her expressions. She looked at the other senior brothers and senior sisters, who all had calm appearances. What was more important now was
“Tomorrow night at 12 o’clock, this skin-making time isn’t enough, right?”
“Hard to say. Didn’t you look at this skin carefully?” Through the light, one could see that this human skin was completely different from ordinary person skin.
“No hair?” Someone’s voice carried a slight chill.
What person’s skin actually has not a single hair?
Not to mention hair, Lu Jinzhao looked carefully for a while before discovering that there weren’t even pores!
This is simply not normal.
How did he manage to make his entire body without a single pore or strand of body hair?
Such a skin, apart from being too thin and too soft, was practically born ready for shadow puppets.
This Master probably didn’t die by accident, right?
Inside the platform, Lu Jinzhao couldn’t help but think more.
“Alright, everyone go back and make the skin.” Ji Xiangchen wiped the sweat from his forehead. The stripping process was much easier than he expected. For some reason, this layer of skin didn’t adhere well to the corpse’s flesh and blood, making the separation process exceptionally smooth. Otherwise, he would have needed more time and might not have been able to strip off such a complete whole skin.
He knew in his heart that this was absolutely abnormal, but he didn’t voice it or inform others of this doubt, instead silently keeping it to himself.
Leaving Master’s room, Lu Jinzhao turned back under the dim light to look at the corpse still lying on the table.
A bright red corpse without a bit of skin.
“Not good… really not good.”
Even though her heart had a bad premonition, right now Lu Jinzhao couldn’t say much, nor did she know what to do to dispel the dull, oppressive feeling in her heart upon seeing the corpse.
“Can only be more careful.”
“B-grade instance, it must not be simple. It’s just beginning, I had better not do anything completely different from the others.”
Passing through the dim corridor, feeling the slight dampness in the air, Lu Jinzhao returned to her own room.
She had to complete the preliminary skin-making work overnight to facilitate drying this human skin tomorrow.
“Let me think, no need to process hair, then see if degreasing is needed.”
Thinning definitely wasn’t needed; this skin was already thin enough.
As for degreasing
Lu Jinzhao took the skin to her workroom. Under brighter lights, she carefully observed this human skin that made her feel especially disgusted.
There was no excess fat or meat residue under the skin.
“Is Ji Xiangchen’s craftsmanship this good?” This thought first appeared in Lu Jinzhao’s mind, but after carefully observing the human skin, she immediately denied it.
“No.”
“Even if his craftsmanship is good, at the time there were no extra actions to remove fat and meat residue. This skin shouldn’t be this clean.”
It was as if it was a human skin that had already been processed.
There’s a problem.
This human skin has a problem. Ji Xiangchen must have noticed, but he said nothing.
That’s normal too.
“Although I don’t understand his stripping process, it looked fairly smooth. Perhaps because this skin is different from the others?”
The more she noticed this, the stronger the bad feeling in Lu Jinzhao’s heart became.
But everything had just begun. Though many guesses swirled in her mind, she couldn’t pinpoint which one was making her intuition feel off.
But without doubt, this skin, this corpse, and the mission were definitely carrying passengers toward death.
Not doing it wouldn’t work either; that would just make her die earlier.
“Be careful, try not to make mistakes.”
For now, she could only be more cautious and act according to circumstances.
Since the skin needed no processing, Lu Jinzhao found the wooden frame in the room for drying. In her memory, wet skin needed to be air-dried stretched flat. She was unsure about this human skin’s toughness and worried she might tear it by pulling too hard while stretching it.
But her worry was clearly unnecessary.
This human skin’s toughness was also somewhat abnormal. Perhaps due to good cutting, or maybe it was inherently unusual, the stretching process went exceptionally smoothly, with no sign of the skin tearing.
Placing it properly, today’s mission seemed completed.
“Next, just wait for it to air-dry before tomorrow night at 12 o’clock.”
Lu Jinzhao thought this but had no intention of lying on the bed to rest. Instead, she sat on a nearby chair, observing carefully.
Under the light, the human skin looked abnormal only in being too smooth.
Through the long night, Lu Jinzhao couldn’t maintain high concentration staring at that skin the whole time. She knew clearly she must take time to rest, even if just two or three hours.
Unless it was a critical moment, in this platform where it was unclear how many days they’d stay, it was best to rest as much as possible every day.
Lu Jinzhao didn’t sleep deeply; she only dozed lightly and would open her eyes every half hour or so to check. Even with eyes closed, any sound would immediately wake her.
At this moment, the sky was already dimly bright. Compared to nighttime, after dawn, Lu Jinzhao was naturally a bit less vigilant.
She still only planned to doze lightly for a while, but
Not long after closing her eyes, she suddenly felt her arm itch a bit.
It was like something lightly landing on her arm—very light, very soft, bringing a faint itch.
“Mosquito?”
This thought instinctively flashed in Lu Jinzhao’s mind. Her other hand was already raised to swat the itchy spot, but in the next second, she opened her eyes to look first.
Then, the motion in her hand immediately stopped, and Lu Jinzhao abruptly stood up from the chair.
“…What thing?!”
On her arm, a piece of human skin was sticking and wriggling, as if trying to pry open Lu Jinzhao’s original skin and take its place.
A chill surged to her heart. Lu Jinzhao immediately grabbed the small knife from the nearby table and unhesitatingly cut close to her skin to peel off the layer of human skin stuck to her flesh.
Perhaps because she discovered it in time, the human skin was easily peeled off.
Lu Jinzhao’s hand exerted slight force, and it fell to the ground.
Like instinct, it curled and twisted on the ground for two or three seconds, then slowly ceased movement, once again becoming a lifeless piece of dead human skin.
