Chapter 13 Close Call

Dawn was approaching, meaning Zhou Ze and the old Taoist had been standing motionless on this lawn, maintaining their positions for a very long time.

Fortunately, there was hardly anyone moving around the dormitory building at this hour, so no one noticed the two fools standing there.

Otherwise, if something unexpected had happened, they wouldn't have been able to react. It was just like how Tieguai Li (Iron Crutch Li) possessed the body of a dead beggar because his physical body encountered an accident while his spirit was traveling.

The old Taoist got into the car and took out some dit da jow ( травматический бальзам/ травматическое вино ) to rub his knees. At this point, he was a bit disoriented. The previous illusion and the present reality were constantly assaulting him with two indistinguishable sensations, and he couldn't tell which of his aches were real and which were fake.

It was like a person who had just come ashore after swimming, still feeling somewhat unaccustomed to gravity.

Zhou Ze also got into the passenger seat, with the notebook placed in front of him.

The notebook had a blue cover, very low-key and ordinary.

"Boss, what exactly happened? How could looking at a notebook turn us into that?"

The old Taoist was very curious about this. For some reason, a portion of his and the boss's memories after entering the school had been erased, and then they directly entered Block B.

But in fact,

Block B didn't exist.

The dormitory supervisor inside also didn't exist. The boy with half a body, Zhao Baogang walking upside down, the auntie adding hot water to the thermos, etc., all didn't exist.

But that feeling of extreme reality, despite their non-existence, and the subconscious inertia to "seamlessly connect" was simply too terrifying.

"Have you heard of *Painted Skin*?" Zhou Ze asked.

"The movie? I've seen it," the old Taoist replied.

"It's a story from *Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio*." Zhou Ze leaned his head back against the headrest. "It's pretty much the same thing. But in that story, people entered the world of a mural, while this time, we entered the world inside this notebook. If I'm not mistaken, the notebook should be full of pen drawings. Everything we saw in that dormitory building was drawn inside it."

"That's so exaggerated?"

"Now there's only one question: what exactly is that Sun Qiu?"

If Zhou Ze hadn't realized Sun Qiu's importance by now, then he would have been wasting his time.

From the moment that guy entered the bookstore to tell the story, to when he and the old Taoist entered Pingchao Middle School and were led to this notebook by a black cat, the whole thing was actually a series of interconnected events.

Someone was guiding and manipulating things from behind, seemingly waiting for all of this to happen.

This feeling was very uncomfortable. No normal person wants to be someone else's puppet.

And the scene of the girl deep in the corridor that he saw when he "closed" the notebook reminded him of the little girl from Sanxiang Village. She was innocent, she was hungry, and she was also very well-behaved.

Bai Yingying had been directly defeated and tied up by the other party.

Before, Zhou Ze had thought that the other party was some elusive expert who did good deeds anonymously, but who knew, she wasn't that simple at all.

The six pen drawings found in the dormitory building, what was their purpose? Zhou Ze could guess some of it, especially regarding the one about the old Taoist.

Drawings, like movies, are all fake. They are not strictly considered to exist. The scenes and characters in the drawings can naturally be unrestrained.

For example, the dormitory building can be curved, and the ghosts that appear inside can ignore any logic or reason. But fake is still fake. How to make it real?

Let a living person die inside. In the fake world, let a real living person die. Using a point to lead the whole area, the original fake thing can have the ability to influence reality.

It's like some financing scams. Their gimmicks and all their publicity are basically fake, but they can attract financing and defraud massive amounts of money in reality. In the end, whether it's real or fake doesn't matter anymore. It has already successfully stirred up trouble in reality.

And because he himself was a "dead person", not a living person, the protagonist of that painting became the old Taoist.

Zhou Ze reached out and rubbed his temples. Honestly, this matter was a bit nonsensical, and the feeling of being watched and schemed against was not pleasant.

"Meow!"

A cat's meow came, and the old Taoist, who was sitting in the driver's seat and applying medicinal wine, suddenly froze. He quickly looked out the window. On the overpass not far away, a black cat was crouching there, its eyes like sapphires, looking this way.

"Damn it, this cat ran out again."

The old Taoist was quite sensitive to cats. He now recalled that the reason he suggested catching that black cat in the first place was because his previous boss had a white cat. He felt that if Zhou Ze had a black cat by his side, it could effectively improve his B-ge (class/style/charisma).

Zhou Ze got out of the car and looked over there, still holding the notebook in his hand. On the back of the notebook was a sticker, a black cat's head.

The black cat was nearly a hundred meters away from Zhou Ze. It licked its paws, seemingly with some lingering satisfaction. Just now, it was only a little bit away from feasting on the old Taoist.

Zhou Ze didn't run over to catch the cat, nor did he bother to play hide-and-seek with it. He took out a lighter, lit a flame, and then brought the bottom of the notebook up to it.

Screw your calculations,

I'll just burn it all!

The black cat was stunned for a moment. It didn't seem to expect Zhou Ze to react like this. Immediately, its body tensed up, and then it directly leaped over. The black figure almost flew on the cement road, pouncing towards Zhou Ze.

As expected,

Is this black cat similar to the artifact spirit of this notebook?

"Buzz!"

Zhou Ze's left fingernails grew out, and he directly grabbed at the black cat that was pouncing at him.

"Poof!"

The black cat was directly slapped away by Zhou Ze and fell to the ground. Its body began to become illusory, looking very uncomfortable. It was much weaker than Zhou Ze had expected.

"Hey, are you really going to burn it?"

A girl's voice came from behind Zhou Ze. Zhou Ze turned around and saw a little girl sitting on the roof of his car, swinging her legs as if watching a show.

She was watching a show, watching from beginning to end.

The old Taoist poked his head out of the car, but before he could look up, a foot directly stepped on him.

"Ah, it hurts!"

The old Taoist retracted his head in pain.

It was really the old Taoist's own fault. The girl was sitting on the car swinging her feet, and you just stuck your head out and looked up. Wouldn't you be exposing yourself?

"Who exactly are you?" Zhou Ze asked.

"I'm just passing by, and I'm about to leave Tongcheng soon. I just want to remind you that this notebook is much more valuable than you think. It's just been contaminated, and by chance, it was picked up by a student who could draw, and then he drew so many ghost stories about the dormitory in it.

Plus, it's been soaked in the resentment and negative emotions of the students at this school, which is why it became like that.

But its function is actually much higher than this. Its effect is definitely not limited to just VR glasses."

"Why should I believe you?" Zhou Ze asked.

The little girl jumped off the car and walked in front of Zhou Ze.

With a smile that wasn't quite a smile,

Her eyes were like stars, completely different from the silly little girl from Sanxiang Village who had walked into his bookstore before.

"Hehe, so fun. You look really fun like this."

The little girl reached out, wanting to touch Zhou Ze's face.

Zhou Ze narrowed his eyes slightly but didn't resist or refuse.

Her palm was very cold, very cool. Honestly, it wasn't very comfortable.

The little girl touched him for a while, then looked up and took a deep breath. "Do you know? This is a Judge's (referring to underworld judge) magical artifact. It's a Yin-Yang Scroll that has fallen in quality."

Zhou Ze shook his head, indicating that he didn't know.

He was still just a part-time worker.

Only after becoming a permanent employee would he be considered an official ghost messenger, and then he would have to slowly rise to captain, then inspector, and then judge.

It could be said that the "Judge" level was too far away for Zhou Ze right now.

"Without me isolating the effects of this scroll, limiting it to just one dormitory building, tell me, how long would it take you to realize that what you're seeing is actually a painting? That where you are is all fake?"

The little girl seemed to be talking to herself.

"I'm leaving. That ring last time and this notebook are considered gifts I left for you. Take good care of them. You should be able to use them in the future.

For example, you can catch some enchanting ghosts or something, and then when you're in the mood, you can go in and take a look. The experience will definitely blow away current VR adult technology."

The little girl reached out and grabbed forward. The black cat that Zhou Ze had just slapped away turned into a black light and flew into the girl's palm, and then the little girl sent it into the notebook.

At the same time, Sun Qiu, who had been reading in the bookstore, instantly disappeared. The book he had been holding fell to the ground.

"Keep it safe. Although this thing is badly damaged now, it's still a bit useful. In the future, you can even catch some ghosts and throw them in there.

Like seductive ghosts or something. Then when you want to, you can go in and take a look. The experience will definitely blow away current VR adult technology."

The little girl withdrew her hand and looked at Zhou Ze again carefully.

"I'm going down. It'll be hard to come up again next time. You can also try to keep a low profile, but there's no need to wrong yourself. Never mind, anyway, after you passed away in your previous life, you seem to have gotten used to it."

"Do you know me?" Zhou Ze asked.

"Uh-huh. Do you still think that the you from your previous life is the real you?" the little girl asked rhetorically.

"If you want to tell me something about my past life, it'll be too cliché and corny," Zhou Ze said.

"Then I'll tell you an even cornier story. I do know the you from your previous life." The little girl blinked and looked at Zhou Ze.

"And then, you forced yourself on me."

"............" Zhou Ze.

"How is it? Corny, right?"

Zhou Ze nodded.

"Were you this small back then too?" Zhou Ze asked.

He wanted to know if he was such a beast in his previous life.

The little girl laughed so hard that she bent over.

Then she began to slowly grow up.

A thin layer of black mist shrouded her.

Making it difficult to see her face clearly, but she did indeed become an adult woman.

Zhou Ze felt a little more comfortable.

Thankfully,

He wasn't that much of a beast.

However,

What Zhou Ze couldn't see was that the woman's face in the black mist was actually a wrinkled old woman's face that was chilling to the bone.

The old woman wore a dark golden robe and a coronet. She possessed countless riches, but that face was truly disproportionate to her figure and temperament, like an extremely perfect work of art that had been forcibly ruined and twisted.

"I'll wait for you. I'll slowly wait for you, waiting for you to climb up step by step, until the day you return to the underworld to be conferred a title, until you can remember some things from your previous life."

"Don't do this. You're making me feel like I've wandered onto the wrong set. We're not filming *Chinese Paladin*."

"At that time, I'll kill you again and personally throw you into the animal realm. Only then will I feel the joy of revenge.

You're growing too slowly, so slowly that I can't stand it anymore. I can only show up and give you some good things to help you fatten up quickly."

"............" Zhou Ze.

Suddenly, he felt that it would be better to have really wandered onto the wrong set than to be in this situation.

"Hehehehe............"

The woman's figure and the surrounding black mist vanished in an instant, disappearing into the ground.

She left,

Leaving very decisively.

The car door was opened, and the old Taoist, with a clear footprint on his face, walked out while rubbing his face.

He snorted in dissatisfaction at the place where the woman had disappeared:

"Tch, woman."