Blind Spot
Chapter 128 - 118 Disappears Two

Chapter 128: 118 Disappears Two

"..."

Li Chengyi felt that his name shouldn’t be that hard to write...

No wonder he hadn’t spotted the other party when he looked around earlier—had they gotten his name wrong right from the start?

Carrying his bag, he strode around the fence and walked up to the person.

"Hello, I am Cheng Yi."

"Hello, hello." The man put down the sign, handed it to a fair-skinned girl beside him, and extended his hand for a friendly shake with Li Chengyi.

"My name is Li Wei, I’m very pleased to meet you."

"Shall we use a translation app instead?" The fair-skinned girl rolled her eyes and spoke out.

She was speaking White Star Language, but compared to the man’s half-baked, error-ridden Yi Country language, Li Chengyi still found White Star Language more convenient...

Taking out his phone, he was about to open the translation app.

"Translation apps work very slowly here. The databases are not good, and there are many colloquialisms. Also, there is no satellite service here, so your phone won’t have a signal, you can only buy a local data card to access the internet. But base stations often malfunction, and sometimes they even get bombed, so intermittent service is not unusual," the fair-skinned girl explained.

She took out a small black box, and the voice came out from it.

The voice happened to be in extremely standard Yi Country language.

"My name is Elf, and he is Li Wei. We are the local contacts for Light of the Stars Travel Agency. Mr. Cheng, your itinerary has been planned out. Your visa is also ready, but the journey to Mukesa might be a bit rough," the fair-skinned girl said earnestly.

"So what now?"

"So we fly there." Girl Elf answered.

Twenty minutes later...

Three dark dots floated in midair, speeding towards a yellow sandy area in the distance.

Upon closer inspection, each dark spot was a person.

Each person was fully equipped, with a large propeller spinning overhead, and a large fan strapped to their back.

Li Chengyi was among them.

Loud wind noise filled his ears, and above his head, the propeller’s spinning created a vibration that numbed his teeth and itched his body.

He looked down and felt his legs go weak at the sight of the hundred-meter drop below him.

This wasn’t the two or three stories he was normally accustomed to jumping. This was a real hundred meters up in the air.

If he were to fall...

"Hey, how much longer until we get there?!" he shouted.

"It’s just up ahead. Ten more minutes at most," Elf replied.

"There’s no one below us now!"

"Yeah, the place you’re going to is deserted, which is why we dare to take you. There aren’t many who would take on this job," Elf shouted back.

"Then I owe you one," Li Chengyi responded.

"No need, if we encounter anyone with a gun on the way, don’t speak, just raise your money high, nod and smile, we’ll handle the rest!" Elf reminded him.

"Understood!"

Li Chengyi nodded and gave a thumbs-up.

Before setting off, the two had repeatedly instructed him to stay quiet if any trouble arose, and they would take care of it.

It was clear that Rainbow Candy had given them a handsome fee; otherwise, they wouldn’t be so responsible.

"By the way, why is there no satellite service here?" he asked again.

"There used to be, but it got taken down. There’s been none since," Elf replied. "The base station only relays the service from White Star, and it’s expensive."

"How expensive?" Li Chengyi wanted to ask.

But Elf raised her hand and gestured for him to look at the ground.

Li Chengyi followed the direction of her pointing finger and looked out.

Between two sand dunes, amidst continuous yellow sands, stood a clearly abandoned small town.

Gray-green plants were scattered throughout the town, and buildings, no more than two or three stories tall, were rudimentary and rough like building blocks.

The trio landed slowly, folding their individual flying devices.

"This is Mukesa Town that you wanted to come to," Elf said, pointing to the deserted settlement before them.

"This place was once inhabited by the Gilkini people years ago, but since they’ve gone, this is as far as we can take you. What’s next?" she asked.

"Let’s go in and have a look," Li Chengyi surveyed the village ahead, thinking that if he got close to something resembling the prototype of the Blind Spot, he might experience a Flash Appearance.

A Flash Appearance could occur if he was close to the original address, so he decided to first go in and see.

Picking up his luggage bag, he led the way into the deserted town.

"Stop!" Suddenly, a loud shout came from behind.

Someone was calling out to them in White Star Language from behind.

The three of them quickly turned around to see four black men in yellow military uniforms, each holding a submachine gun, approaching swiftly from not far away.

"Who are you? What are you doing here?" The lean and tall black soldier asked coldly, his White Star Language not very fluent and tinged with ferocity.

"We have made a prior notification, Light of the Stars Travel Agency," black man Li Wei stepped forward to negotiate.

"We know about your notification, but you’re not allowed to go in," the soldier said bluntly.

"Brothers, we’ve paid for this, made the payment to Blue Deer Logistics, couldn’t you make a call to confirm?" Elf raised her hand gesturing for Li Chengyi not to speak, and approached with a smile on her face.

The soldiers looked at each other, and one of them took out a walkie-talkie, pressed a few buttons, and put it to his ear.

After a brief listen, his expression softened.

"Alright, you can go in, but you are only allowed to stay in Mukesa for up to one hour. You must not go beyond this area! Understand?"

"Understood, understood," Elf hurriedly nodded with a smile.

The three soldiers glanced at Li Chengyi who was standing by, cluelessly holding out money, realized he was a tourist who didn’t understand the language, and without further ado, walked away with their guns.

Elf turned around and relayed the requirements to Li Chengyi.

They could only stay for an hour, and were not allowed to venture beyond the bounds of Mukesa Town.

Li Chengyi readily agreed.

"Alright, let’s go in then."

Black man Li Wei took the lead, walking at the front.

"Who were those people just now?" Li Chengyi asked.

"The nearby armed organization, Blue Deer Antler, runs this place now. Anyway, don’t worry about it, just get in and come out quick," Elf said rapidly. "Damn, it’s weird. This godforsaken place has been empty for decades, yet it’s still under surveillance."

Li Chengyi nodded, looking ahead at the desolate abandoned village and then up at the scorching sunlight that dazzled from the sky.

He stepped forward, being the first to walk into the village.

Thud.

His sand-proof boots had just crossed the yellow soil wall encircling Mukesa.

A wave of blurry dizziness suddenly swept over him.

’Too hot? Heatstroke?’

Li Chengyi struggled to steady himself, looking up and forward once more.

The earthen yellow buildings, with their pitch-black windows, seemed as though they couldn’t be penetrated by any light under the sun.

From the outside looking in, nothing could be seen, nothing made clear.

He quickened his pace and glanced back at the two guides, Elf and Li Wei, making sure they were still there before continuing forward.

He walked through the buildings.

The tall structures cast gray shadows that enveloped him.

The heatwave also swept through the buildings, making him feel boiling hot and blurring his vision.

He took out his water bottle for a sip. Water that had been ice cold before leaving was now lukewarm.

Picking up his pace, he also took out his phone and looked at an email from Rainbow Candy. The signal here wasn’t good, and even with a local card, the data took a long time to transmit. It had only just finished.

’The original prototype of the Lonely Doll is traced back to the Gilkini People who once existed in Sutan’s Mukesa Town thirty years ago, according to multiple verifications.’

’The Gilkini People had an old custom, believing that during childhood, kids could be attacked by unseen things. So, to ensure the safety of their children, they would look for various ways to make a substitute for their own child and let it sleep in the bed while hiding their child under it.’

’Because underneath the bed was dark and quiet, it was the best place to hide and ensure safety.’

’After the massacre of the Gilkini People, the legend of the Lonely Doll somehow started to spread. Many believed that the dead children of the Gilkini People liked to hide under the bed and, when unnoticed, reach out their hand to pull someone down.’

In tracking the original prototype, I found in the records that the Gilkini People didn’t completely vanish; a few successfully escaped.’

Yet these people never appeared in any part of Sutan, as if they had vanished.

Perhaps they changed their names and appearances; no one can say for sure.

But among these people, there was a girl...’

The words of Rainbow Candy paused here.

’This girl, you surely know her.’

Continuing, a new line of text followed.

Li Chengyi squinted, continuing to read.

’Her name was Iselin Aisha.’

Click.

At that moment, Li Chengyi stopped in his tracks.

An inexplicable feeling surged through him.

He flipped back to the beginning and checked the date on the document.

’Thirty years ago.’

’Same name?’ he speculated, continuing to read.

’Below is a photograph of Iselin from the past.’

Whoosh.

An old color photograph caught his eye.

It was a blonde little girl in a white nightgown.

Her face was calm as she stood in the middle of the photo, with empty, dark eyes. Behind her was a quiet, uninhabited building of earthen yellow.

It seemed to be taken in Mukesa Town.

The moment Li Chengyi saw the photograph, his hand trembled slightly.

’Exactly the same!’

He remembered the Iselin he had encountered in the Blind Spot; they were virtually identical!

Crack.

Just then, a crisp sound came from the left.

Li Chengyi quickly looked up towards the window on the left.

On the sandy, dusty windowsill, a dark hand was clawing at the edge, then slowly, bit by bit, withdrew inside.

"Who’s there?" Li Chengyi quickly called out, asking in White Star Language.

No answer came.

The hand withdrew completely, pulling into the pitch-dark window.

His standing position was in a narrow alley between buildings, only a bit over a meter wide.

On both sides were earthen walls, and every few meters, there’d be a dark doorway or window.

The heatwaves made everything seem as if it were twisting and floating.

Li Chengyi put away his phone, checked the location of the doorways, and with a burst of speed, darted towards the entrance of the left building.

Whoosh!

He had just entered when he saw in the dimly lit ground floor living room, at the turn of the stairs, a blonde little girl in a white nightgown standing there.

She looked from afar in his direction, then turned to head upstairs.

’In this ghostly place that’s been empty for thirty years... how could there still be a little girl here alone?’

Without needing to think, Li Chengyi realized this place was likely the original site of the Blind Spot!

He did not rush forward.

The danger of Tightening Grasp, this particular Blind Spot, was far greater than the others. Just a touch could lead to vanishing.

So maintaining a reaction distance was most crucial.

Step by step, he approached the staircase, moving forward slowly.

And oddly enough, even though it was a bright sunny day outside, the inside of the building was abnormally dark, as if not a ray of light from outside could penetrate it.