This wooden puppet looked very ordinary.

Just like the bald version of the mimic mask, it seemed like the most basic and common kind of puppet.

Previously, the 1010 administrator had also arranged for this type of wooden puppet to stand in.

At that time, Jiang Ye had cooperated with Zhang Jintian to lure out the 1010 administrator.

And among the various administrator clones Jiang Ye had transformed recently, this kind of wooden puppet was basically present in their spatial equipment.

Obviously, it was common for administrators to use such wooden puppets as substitutes.

However, the identity of Administrator 9999 was not derived from a transformed clone.

It was obtained by Clone No. 2 through an actual killing.

So theoretically, he did not have this kind of puppet on him.

Jiang Ye did not complicate things and agreed to the suggestion of having Lin Ling’s wooden puppet stand in.

With a wave of his hand, he threw a substitute iron badge to the wooden puppet.

The puppet was quite agile; as soon as it caught the badge, it inserted it into a slot at the back of its head.

After that, the two didn’t say much, and Lin Ling led Jiang Ye toward the red-lit elevator.

When they reached the elevator, Lin Ling suddenly looked at him and explained:

“I don’t have housing in Apartment 9999, so theoretically, if I enter the red-lit elevator alone, I’ll get trapped because there won’t be any floor buttons at all.”

“But you are the Administrator 9999. When you enter the elevator, the buttons for all floors should be complete.”

Jiang Ye nodded.

This was the setting of the red-lit elevator, so he naturally knew.

When he first arrived at the apartment, his classmates had already learned from the administrators that—

All players could only operate below the floor where their housing was located.

For example, if they didn’t have housing on the 20th floor, they couldn’t access the 20th floor.

If they took orders for courier or cleaning work, they wouldn’t get orders from floors above their own.

The root cause of this restriction was the red-lit elevator.

The number of floors displayed on the elevator corresponded to how many floors of housing the player owned in the apartment.

Moreover, once a player with housing entered the red-lit elevator…

They wouldn’t even have the button to open the elevator doors!

Such players would be trapped inside the elevator indefinitely!

Of course, as far as Jiang Ye knew, true experts bypassed floors without using the red-lit elevator at all.

Including during his previous light clones’ antics, he never took the elevator but instead used Light and Shadow Escape to shuttle between floors…

Veteran players like Lin Ling, who roamed the novice apartments like they were empty, obviously didn’t take the red-lit elevator either.

Listening to her words now, a thought immediately flashed through Jiang Ye’s mind—

If he and Lin Ling entered the elevator together…

And he used clone swapping to leave the elevator, would Lin Ling be trapped inside?

Of course, this thought passed instantly.

He wouldn’t and didn’t need to take such a risk.

As for Lin Ling…

It always felt like she deliberately mentioned this point to lure him into causing trouble.

The ability of clone swapping…

Lin Ling might have guessed something.

After all, when Jiang Ye fought Eternal Witch Gui and Administrator 4444, he had blatantly used the clone swapping ability.

And it was used on the substitute clone of Clone No. 1, who was possessed by Eternal Witch Gui.

At that time, the still-alive Eternal Witch Gui had already become suspicious of this phenomenon.

But due to the intense battle, there was no time to analyze it carefully.

Lin Ling, who had peeked into Eternal Witch Gui’s memories, naturally had time to ponder and speculate about the clone swapping ability.

Her deliberate mention might have been an attempt to probe Jiang Ye’s clone swapping ability!

Jiang Ye was only relieved that when he used the incomplete Life Stone, his memories only awakened upon death.

Because for the later memories, he already had them without needing to awaken them.

Otherwise, if the later memories were also awakened by the Life Stone…

He would have exposed even more!

But even so, with this woman’s mind, she probably thought a lot about it!

Jiang Ye’s expression was solemn, but his face showed no change. He followed Lin Ling into the red-lit elevator.

As an administrator, the elevator buttons inside were fully accessible to him.

Lin Ling then instructed:

“Press for me—3, 6, 9, 23, 26, 50.”

Jiang Ye complied smoothly, showing no abnormal expression.

Lin Ling watched for a while. When the floor display reached the 5th floor, she suddenly spoke again:

“Oh right, I forgot, there’s also the 7th floor.”

Saying this, she pressed the button for the 7th floor.

Jiang Ye noticed she had missed the 7th floor when she initially reported the numbers.

But she had deliberately left it out.

She was probably testing if he knew the exact floors.

Unfortunately, Jiang Ye had been through so many tests already.

He was no longer a rookie high school student just entering the novice apartment.

Lin Ling didn’t manage to get any reaction from him and looked back at the elevator button panel.

The red-lit elevator was quite advanced, with two panels inside.

One was tall and vertical, located by the elevator door.

The other was horizontal, on the wall to the left of the elevator door.

The two panels had different layouts of floor numbers.

Lin Ling analyzed further: “I wonder if these seven numbers hide some mystery?”

“The two panels show different patterns with the lit-up numbers.”

She then asked Jiang Ye: “Do you have any ideas?”

“…” Jiang Ye was speechless and straightforwardly said: “If you want to know the secret, you should ask the apartment boss, right? This ‘floor password’ is set by the apartment boss, isn’t it?”

What kind of mystery could there be? Maybe it was just the apartment boss’s bank card password.

However, looking at the two elevator panels, he did indeed have some thoughts.

Many real-world elevators had similar setups—

Two panels, one horizontal and one vertical.

The horizontal panel was placed lower, likely to accommodate children or wheelchair users.

But perhaps because there were too many floors,

The red-lit elevator’s two panels, both horizontal and vertical, were unusually long.

If these two panels were stacked together…

They would form the shape of a cross.

But Jiang Ye dared not really pry off the elevator panels.

So he just kept the thought to himself.

Seeing that he was reluctant to answer, Lin Ling didn’t press further.

But when the elevator was about to reach the 20th floor, she suddenly asked:

“Did you ‘trade’ the Soul Locking Nail you got from 0000 directly to another clone? Seems pretty convenient.”

On the surface, this was a bland sentence.

But the word “trade” she used was loaded with meaning.

The Doomsday Apartment did not have private one-to-one remote trading functions.

Even the Nomadic Merchant’s one-to-one trades required face-to-face transactions with players.

So Jiang Ye handing the Soul Locking Nail to another clone could never have been a “trade”!

Clearly, Lin Ling had guessed something about Jiang Ye’s Clone Shared Space.

Jiang Ye didn’t explain but raised an eyebrow and said:

“You got the message about the Soul Locking Nail as soon as I asked for it in the administrator group chat…”

“If I had known, I shouldn’t have asked Administrator 0000 for it, but you, Lin Ling?”

This was probably the first time he called her by name.

And when he said “Lin Ling,” it sounded more like calling “00.”

Just a test, anyone could do that.

Seeing Lin Ling’s expression turn serious and silent, he babbled again:

“By the way, if the apartment administrator IDs aren’t just from 0000 to 9999, but also have single-digit, double-digit, and triple-digit numbers…”

“Then tell me, among the single-digit ‘0’, double-digit ‘00’, triple-digit ‘000’, and four-digit ‘0000’, which authority is stronger?”

Of course, he was just throwing random questions.

Quickly, he changed the topic: “By the way, don’t you want to check out the Return Soul Abyss or the Soul Resting Mound?”

“After all, your Jade Flask and Zhou Qiming seem to originate from the Soul Resting Mound?”

“Or have you, or rather the Defenders’ Alliance, already explored the Soul Resting Mound?”

“Zhou Qiming’s complete recovery from the monster player form to human must have been through Salvation’s use of Defenders’ Alliance methods, right?”

He rambled as if talking about “nice weather today.”

As he spoke, the elevator floor reached 48.

Lin Ling’s eyes turned cold, and suddenly she raised her hand.

A long sword radiating chilling coldness pressed its hilt against Jiang Ye’s throat.

Her voice was deep: “Did you take some kind of stimulant? Suddenly talking so much?”

Jiang Ye raised an eyebrow and smiled fearlessly:

“Ha, haven’t I always been talkative?”

His Clone No. 1 in the underground graveyard also had a chatty and mischievous personality.

As he spoke, the elevator display showed the 49th floor.

However, the so-called “safe exit” sign did not appear.

Lin Ling frowned slightly.

Jiang Ye seemed not to notice and kept talking:

“49, 50. I wonder if the apartment boss’s password is based on that saying—The Great Way is fifty, Heaven’s Change is forty-nine?”

“What was the next line? People disappear one by one?”

“Going out through the ‘safe exit’ means ‘people disappear one by one’?”

“That can’t be right. The safe exit is on the 49th floor, so it’s obviously ‘people disappear at forty-nine.’”

As he chattered, the elevator arrived at the 50th floor, and still no safe exit appeared.

The elevator doors opened on the 50th floor.

Jiang Ye raised an eyebrow at Lin Ling: “Shall we get out first?”

Lin Ling put away the sword and stepped out of the elevator.

The two stood in the corridor on the 50th floor.

Lin Ling thought for a moment and came to a conclusion:

“It’s probably because I forgot to press the 7th floor button the first time. That’s why the ‘safe exit’ didn’t show.”

“Let’s go back to the first floor and try again!”

With a wave of her sleeve, she teleported them both to the red-lit elevator entrance on the 1st floor.

This teleportation was much faster than taking the elevator.

Jiang Ye made no comment and followed her into the elevator again.

This time, Lin Ling pressed the elevator buttons herself.

3, 6, 7, 9, 23, 26, 50.

If there was any pattern, the first four numbers were three, six, nine plus seven.

The last three numbers, 23 plus 26, equaled 49.

Suddenly, Jiang Ye thought of this—

In the Mirror Palace of Reincarnation, the blood sand appeared in rounds 3 and 6.

Unfortunately, the light clone lost consciousness before round 7 ended.

He didn’t know if blood sand was generated at the end of round 7…

If so,

Then this set of numbers might actually have some mystery?

This time, Lin Ling didn’t try to test him again but stared at the elevator button panel with a solemn face and said:

“It’s still not right!”

“According to Zhou Qiming’s memories, after pressing this set of seven buttons, the ‘safe exit’ should have appeared immediately, not waiting for the elevator to reach the 49th floor.”

“But now, the ‘safe exit’ still hasn’t appeared!”

Jiang Ye nodded.

He also felt something was wrong.

This elevator trip was probably another failure.

Since Lin Ling didn’t seem to be testing, he seriously analyzed:

“Could there be a limit on the number of people in the elevator?”

“When Zhou Qiming used this elevator password to hide his housing, he was probably alone, right?”

“If not, maybe you can buy a suite and go through the elevator process alone?”

Lin Ling didn’t respond but kept watching the elevator operation while directly taking out a Life Stone.

The moment Jiang Ye saw that Life Stone, he realized—

It was the complete version of the Life Stone!

Sure enough, the complete Life Stone was in Lin Ling’s hands!

The incomplete Life Stones were generated by her using the complete one!

Probably costing one survival point, similar to the clone replica mirror made from the complete version.

Now, she didn’t bother to hide it and directly called up the memories Zhou Qiming awakened with the Life Stone, including the scene of Zhou Qiming riding the elevator.

The memory scene was presented from Zhou Qiming’s perspective, showing the elevator at that time.

Lin Ling compared this scene with what she was facing now.

It was very obvious—

In Zhou Qiming’s memory, after pressing the seven buttons, the button for the 49th floor had already turned into a “safe exit.”

But on Lin Ling’s elevator button panel, 49 was still 49, and the “safe exit” hadn’t appeared at all!

Without the “safe exit,” they still couldn’t leave when the elevator reached the 49th floor this time.

Finally, the two got off the elevator on the 50th floor again.

Lin Ling’s expression was solemn, but she did follow Jiang Ye’s suggestion.

However, she said: “If it’s a matter of the number of people, renting or buying a house is too troublesome. You should try going alone to see if the safe exit appears.”

“…”

Jiang Ye was originally just an observer.

Now hearing her say that, he began to suspect—

Could this woman be deliberately setting him up?

Could both failures be her doing, just to trick him into entering the hidden housing alone?

Jiang Ye was displeased and frowned: “It’s just renting a house, how troublesome can it be?”

“Besides, I’m not even sure if that hidden housing belongs to Apartment 9999.”

“If it doesn’t, then if I go there, it would mean leaving the scope of Apartment 9999… and I’d be directly erased by the permission rules!”

However, Lin Ling seemed to have already guessed he would say that and straightforwardly said:

“How could it not belong to Apartment 9999? Don’t forget, the Jade Flask’s resident information was found on your registry, room number 9999.”

“That means it really belongs to your apartment.”

“…”

Tsk.

Even so, Jiang Ye refused.

He directly suggested: “Didn’t you capture Lin Jing and Ouyang alive?”

“Both of them have housing in Apartment 9999.”

“You can just let one of them go out and go through the elevator process alone.”

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep