"Don’t be nervous, Liangzi, I’m just looking," Lin Yi quickly reassured him.
"What are you looking at? You shouldn’t stare at that thing too much; who knows what terrible things might happen if you accidentally open the wrong door!" Wei Liang said quickly, his heart catching in his throat.
That was because he saw that Lin Yi was indeed just examining the door handle, even specifically putting his hands behind his back to reassure him, appearing like a presbyopic old man hunched over checking a lock.
Lin Yi was indeed inspecting the lock, following the residual visuals he had previously observed in the "Phantom Vision" and "Dropped Frames Vision," identifying a corresponding area on the door handle.
Soon he found some residual white plaster-like powder on the door handle.
Unlike the nearly fog-white powder particles that Mao Feiyang had absorbed and then transferred to the four of them, carrying contaminants and being invisible to the naked eye, the particles of this white plaster-like powder looked like dry chalk dust, scattered and left behind.
Lin Yi believed that this was probably bits of tomato sauce transformed into gypsum fragments under sunlight, then shattered and formed.
"That’s what was emitting the green gas..." Lin Yi rubbed his chin thoughtfully, while Wei Liang showed no sign of hurrying him.
He couldn’t rush him, after all, it wasn’t that urgent.
Lin Yi suddenly thought of something and asked Li Huiyuan, "Li Huiyuan, can you tell what this is?"
Li Huiyuan glanced at the door handle and, seeing nothing amiss, naturally replied, "Isn’t it just a door handle?"
Upon hearing this, Lin Yi could only laugh at himself inwardly, thinking it foolish that he had expected Li Huiyuan to notice clues even he hadn’t seen.
So, he recorded a few clues from this side and then prepared to head to the restroom. But at that moment, as if attracted by something, Li Huiyuan suddenly furrowed her brows, leaned in a bit closer, and let out a soft "huh."
"Classmate Lin..." Li Huiyuan suddenly spoke up, "It seems like there is green smoke coming from here."
Wei Liang, reacting even faster than Lin Yi, had been looking around. Upon hearing Li Huiyuan’s words, a trace of alertness flashed in his eyes, then he helplessly shook his head, flapping his sleeves like a veteran general, and raised his hands to cover his ears.
Lin Yi glanced at Wei Liang and then said, "Oh, where?"
"Right here," Li Huiyuan pointed to the lock on the door handle.
But Lin Yi couldn’t see anything. Nevertheless, he still seemed thoughtful, "Do you see anything else?"
"No, just the green smoke," Li Huiyuan shook her head.
"What about the door? Is there anything strange about the door?"
"There’s nothing on the door."
Nothing, huh... Lin Yi became puzzled, "Okay, I got it."
"Ah! It’s gone!" Li Huiyuan suddenly exclaimed, "The green smoke is gone!"
"Hold on..." Lin Yi interjected, "I’m a bit confused; let me think this through."
One moment there, the next moment gone...
Could Li Huiyuan be hallucinating too?
"It’s like it finished burning and extinguished," Li Huiyuan whispered.
Flame finished? Extinguished? Suddenly, an idea brightened Lin Yi’s mind.
"It’s the tomato sauce!"
The tomato sauce that flowed from the door, when exposed to light, resulted in gypsum-like fragments, which then shattered and disappeared...
"If this process is a ’burning’ process, then what comes out during the process is this ’green smoke’?"
"I was able to see the green smoke because of my Phantom Vision and because it was continuously emitting smoke."
"And Li Huiyuan was able to see the green smoke because she... was contaminated and has been in a state where she could see more than me?"
"Soon after she noticed the green smoke, the tomato sauce ’burned’ out, so it stopped smoking."
Suddenly having clarified his thoughts, Lin Yi felt that his understanding had expanded a bit.
But there were still some things he couldn’t figure out, like... why he could see the nearly dried green stains on the door, but Li Huiyuan could not see them with her eyes.
"Perhaps... both our visions are limited for diverse reasons, but to a certain extent, she can act as an extension of my vision!"
"Is that what Young Master Tian meant by ’cannon fodder’?"
Cannon fodder is not just meant for sacrifice. Those who brave dangerous realms to clear the risks for others could also be considered a type of cannon fodder.
Only, calling it cannon fodder exaggerates the danger.
The key is... Tian Bufan had predicted today’s situation the moment he first saw Li Huiyuan.
"Thankfully Young Master Tian is one of us..." Lin Yi couldn’t help thinking. If Tian Bufan had been scheming, then every step of his would have been calculated by Tian Bufan.
Moreover, as soon as Tian Bufan touched a new "chess piece," he could immediately devise a new strategy...
This ability to strategize was truly the most terrifying thing about him.
Lin Yi suddenly wondered what Tian Bufan was up to today.
How much valuable information would be exchanged tonight?
Thinking this, Lin Yi suddenly became excited. But just as a wave of excitement and anticipation surged through him, another thought snuck into his mind—