The Strange Man and the Strange Doll

Just now, when he was kneeling and lighting incense, he happened to find this doll among the rubble in the right corner.

The doll was a small boy dressed in a black suit. It was very small, only the size of a palm, and didn't seem like something that would appear in a tomb.

Carlos was taken aback, wondering if he was really blind. Although the tomb passage was dark, he shouldn't be so obviously blind as to miss a single doll.

"Where did you find it?" Carlos asked, skeptical.

"Hmm." Yu Xing tilted her head slightly. "It's buried quite well under the pebbles."

"..." Carlos squinted, "Dear Mr. San, putting aside whether I'm blind for not being able to find this doll from the pile of stones, can you tell me how you casually fished the doll out while lighting incense?"

This isn't how you multitask; it's not keen perception, it's X-ray vision!

Yu Xing paused for a moment, then said in an unsettling way, "Just pretend... one of its hands is sticking out."

"Just pretend?" Carlos was exhausted. This person wasn't even willing to lie, and was just trying to fob him off like this.

"That's not the point." Yu Xing shoved the doll into Carlos's arms. "Take a closer look at it. I'm not some little girl who likes dolls, taking other people's discarded dolls with her when she has nothing better to do."

Carlos looked down at the doll in his arms, his eyes meeting those of the little doll in the black suit.

He was surprised to see a kind of human hope in the doll's cold eyes.

This is not only something left behind by modern people, that is, people from Auster, but also... something left behind by the Deducers!

After he realized this, a strange clue emerged.

[The Doll of Hope: This is a doll of unknown use; perhaps it's a prop, but you cannot use it.]

Carlos had never received a notification like this before.

"Perhaps it's a prop, but we can't use it?" Carlos repeated, then asked Yu Xing, "Is that what you saw too?"

When he asked the question, the communication device was muted, so those outside could only see increasingly blurry images and hear complete silence.

"That's right." After Yu Xing picked up the doll, there seemed to be a delay; it took more than a minute for the notification to appear.

Moreover, this notification clearly doesn't come from the perspective of a confirmed item; it sounds more like it's coming from the system itself.

Yu Xing was quite familiar with the system's annoying nature.

The strange thing is, what's so special about this doll that it could cause such a long system delay and only lead to a vague conclusion?

There was one thing Yu Xing didn't tell Carlos.

The reason he was able to find the buried doll in the pile of rubble was not because he had sharp eyes or X-ray vision—he didn't have that ability.

Rather, as soon as he got close, he had an inexplicable feeling; the doll's presence was particularly strong, and he couldn't ignore it even if he wanted to.

The moment Yu Xing picked up the doll, a blurry image of a man appeared in her mind. The background was also in the passageway. The man was squatting next to the doll, wearing a trench coat that reached his ankles and a pair of silver-rimmed round glasses.

It looked like a tiny black cat was perched on the man's shoulder.

Yu Xing couldn't see the figure's exact appearance or expression, but he could clearly sense that the phantom was the owner of the puppet in his hand. He just didn't know why the person had left, leaving the puppet behind.

That person must also be a predictor.

Strange people, strange dolls.

A strange system.

Yu Xing guessed that the person must have some connection to her, otherwise none of this would make sense. So, with her mind racing, Yu Xing put the black suit doll into her pocket and took it with her.

After receiving the system notification, he lowered his eyelids slightly, a thought flashing through his mind.

The only thing that could create this inexplicable connection and resonance with him is a similarity in the source of his power.

His power originated from the Lingren's laboratory, so this person in the long trench coat...

That person must also be in the tomb, probably someone from the Oster Company. If we meet them later, we might find out.

Carlos continued studying the doll, examining it from all angles for a while before finally concluding, "It's probably a forcibly bound item, which is why we can't use it while its owner is still alive."

After all, he hasn't been on the Mutation Path for very long. During that time, he has experienced many investigator-type deductions, so he is familiar with this type of deduction, but he still lacks other knowledge.

Because he wasn't in a guild or team, no one was mentoring him.

Yu Xing had her own plan in mind, so she didn't speculate any further and simply replied, "Take it with you; you'll know when you meet its owner."

Now, the gatekeeper is some distance away from Yu Xing and Carlos, so finding them won't be easy. They might end up running into other team members instead.

Yu Xing knew that the others should have found some relatively safe locations to wait for Carlos's paper doll to arrive, while also guarding against any dangers.

They walked for a few more minutes and stopped in a spacious little room.

There were many small rooms like these on both sides of the passageway, with large bottles and jars placed against the walls inside. Yu Xing didn't know what they contained, but she wasn't very interested.

The small room was covered in cobwebs and had no Mingzhu for lighting, making it even darker than the passageway. The two sat down facing the door, and Carlos began to fold small figurines.

In fact, communication devices can also help them gather information; Shi Jiu can see the location of everyone wearing cameras all by himself.

However, the passageways were winding and the scenery was all pretty much the same, so even the Shi Jiu couldn't remember everyone's exact location and could only offer suggestions from the wheat fields.

"How far can you go, you paper doll?" Yu Xing asked quietly as Carlos conjured a piece of paper with magic and then skillfully folded it into a paper doll.

Carlos is overjoyed now. Yu Xing gave him the Ghost Controlling Seal, which means that this guy with unpredictable strength has expressed his trust in him, at least in this scenario.

So he was in a good mood and answered every question, "You can go very far, but the farther away you are from me, the dumber you become, and the slower you move. Inside this tomb, you should be able to walk from one end to the other."

As they were talking, Carlos had already folded one. He used a marker he carried with him to roughly draw facial features on the paper figure, then released it. The paper figure staggered a few steps before becoming more adept at walking. It glanced back at them and then quietly left the small room.

"Go find Unica and Ash. Uncle Zhang has Ash protecting Unica closely, so the two of them should be together."

Based on the clues from the Shi Jiu in the wheat, the paper figure will walk in a certain direction with a purpose.

Carlos repeated the steps he had just taken, and after a dozen seconds, said, "Go find Master Li."

"Take this to Uncle Zhang."

"..."

In just two minutes, Carlos released five small paper figures.

Yu Xing watched, she sensed something was amiss.

He frowned slightly, feeling as if something had been overlooked. A few seconds later, a sudden inspiration struck him.

"Wait a minute." He stopped Carlos, who was about to rest after finishing his work. "How many paper figures did you make?"

"Five." The paper figures drained Carlos's spirit; he needed to rest after each one was made. He sat listlessly. "Didn't you see?"

"So, that's not right." Yu Xing's slightly cold tone made Carlos perk up. He didn't ask what was wrong, but instead thought about it for a moment.

One for Unica and Ash, one for Master Li, one for Uncle Zhang, one for Lin, and one for the bespectacled man.

Five, that's right.

"I'll ask again," Yu Xing said with a strange expression, "How many people were in your team before I joined?"

"Eleven." Carlos noticed Yu Xing starting to struggle with the numbers, and raised an eyebrow. "What, you found one more? Wait, what the heck? There really is one more person!"

Yu Xing stared at him, as if to say, "You've finally realized it."

Five paper figures went out to find six people, and with the two of them, there were a total of eight people who went down into the tomb.

Those who didn't come down from the ground include Shi Jiu, Will, and the three members of the tomb raiding family, making a total of five people.

Adding them up... there are thirteen people.

Why is there another person?!

And this time, everyone has a name.

"No, I remember clearly, from the very beginning of the preparations for this tomb raiding trip, we were already configured with eleven people." Carlos's tone became serious. "When did the extra people appear...?"

This discovery was even more chilling than the one at the ancestral hall.

Because, given that everyone has crossed paths, it's already certain that... their memories have been compromised again.

A ghost had infiltrated their ranks, making it indistinguishable to them.

In other words, apart from the two researchers who have a systematic proof, Uncle Zhang Master Li may be fake, and Lin, Will, Shi Jiu, Ash, and Unica may all be fake.

Carlos recalled the direction Shi Jiu had pointed out to him earlier, and a chill ran through him.

If Shi Jiu were ghosts, then wasn't that a perfect opportunity for them to cause trouble?

"Don't rush, let's analyze it." Yu Xing pressed down on Carlos's shoulder. He knew Carlos was in a good state of mind and didn't need him to calm him down, so it was better to start finding the problem directly.

Carlos spoke first, "It's unlikely that Master Li will come. Without Master Li, there's no leader among the tomb-raiding families who came this time. They wouldn't have provided such a lineup."

"Uncle Zhang is impossible too. He's in charge of cooking; there's no one else. Your original plan couldn't have been without someone to cook," Yu Xing said. "Lin and Will's abilities overlap to some extent; they can both calculate the location of the tomb. One of them could be fake. But Lin arrived before Will; he was already doing this work before Will arrived. So of the two, Lin must be the real one."

Carlos unconsciously touched the ground beneath him, feeling its coldness and hardness perfectly in line with the environment.

He sighed inwardly. This tomb was truly a mix of reality and illusion, difficult to distinguish. The maze had somehow managed to create such a winding and vast feeling in such a small place. It was hard to imagine whether what they considered real and what they considered fake was actually correct.

He said, "Unica was one of the first people to join the team, but she wasn't indispensable. Without her, even if Master Li had guessed that this was the tomb of demon daoist, he would have definitely organized the later explorations. Unica wouldn't have been able to clear her name."

"Well, of Shi Jiu and Ash, Shi Jiu is the only one you sent to infiltrate Brother Sun's team as an undercover agent. Her presence is irreplaceable, so you can actually trust her." Upon Yu Xing's words, Carlos immediately breathed a sigh of relief.

Upon closer examination, apart from Master Li, Uncle Zhang, Lin Shi Jiu, and the two strategists, everyone else had a reason that could be fabricated.

"Tell me... are human emotions really shaped by memories?" Carlos, still resting, found this thought starting to wander. "If memories change, is a person still the same person?"

The ghosts easily altered their memories, giving them an extra "friend" and a "teammate" they were willing to risk their lives for. They believed that this was how things should be, unaware that the so-called years of friendship or months of acquaintance might have been implanted into their minds in an instant.

Yu Xing scoffed, "You want to ponder philosophical questions at a time like this? Are you planning to become an underground philosopher, spending all your time contemplating the meaning of life and death?"

Carlos's train of thought abruptly ended, "..."

He wanted to give a thumbs up, saying, "You're the best at ruining the mood."

If you can't figure out philosophical thinking, then think about practical matters.

He extended his spiritual power to see where the paper figure was. As soon as he switched perspectives, he saw Lin, who had turned on his flashlight, shining it on the paper figure.

Lin was confirmed to be a problem-free person, and Carlos was overjoyed. He manipulated the little man to run over, guiding Lin back the way he came, and told Lin about the situation.

Lin showed no surprise upon hearing this. He said calmly, "I noticed it when you had San tell me last time. There were thirteen of us in the ancestral hall, but when you counted the number, it was as if you deliberately forgot someone. At the time, I wasn't sure if you and San were genuine, so I didn't tell you what I found out. I... only told Master Li about it."

Carlos laughed unexpectedly. Lin was much smarter than he thought, and Master Li's acting was also quite good. At least for the past few days, he hadn't noticed anything different about Master Li than usual. Master Li was too good at hiding his true feelings.

Perhaps this is the calm and collected demeanor of a seasoned tomb raider.

"Then why do you trust me now?" Carlos's voice came from the little paper figure, echoing in the empty passageway. Combined with the eerie features drawn with a marker, it was somewhat chilling.

Lin turned his head away, not wanting to look at the paper figure, but once the paper figure was out of sight, it was like a spider—more terrifying than a spider is a spider that suddenly disappears.

He could only suppress his discomfort. "Both times you were the one who reminded me first. If you were a ghost, there would be no need for that. Besides, I've figured it out. Your paper figures played a crucial role in our previous explorations of the shrine, so you couldn't have appeared after entering Heavy Yin Mountain."

Lin distinguishes between genuine and fake in the same way as Yu Xing and Carlos; it's the most effective and convenient method.

Yu Xing sat next to Carlos and watched as Carlos closed his eyes and fell into a sleep-like silence.

He gazed at the passageway outside the small room, inlaid with Mingzhu, and suddenly heard some sounds that seemed to come from a great distance.

It sounds like... a cry for help.