Ji Heng said, “Don’t let your guard down.”
Even after clearing a must-die scenario, leaving the game still required fulfilling certain conditions—either collecting enough achievement points or saving up sufficient credits. Along the way, if you fell in some instances, all previous effort would be wasted.
Su Er’s expression turned a little complicated. “In Tianji City, I once ran into Zhu Yun.”
When he was about to leave through the artificial bath, he had nearly died at her hands. Zhu Yun had deliberately told him she’d left something behind, and that was how he came to possess the mysterious eye.
“Could Tianji City have been her must-die scenario? Tianyi Gua specialized in divination, so did the Divine Seer. If Zhu Yun was a native of that world, having the gift of prophecy would make sense.”
Ji Heng nodded, agreeing with the reasoning.
Su Er lowered his head in silence for a long time before speaking again. “The people of Tianji City were almost all turned into snake-folk. Could she really have been spared?”
Ji Heng didn’t answer. Instead, he shifted the topic. “That mysterious eye is a snake’s eye. It was probably originally something from Tianji City.” True and false, real and illusory.
Yet that eye’s very power was to pierce illusions and see reality.
Before his thoughts became more tangled, Su Er forced himself to focus, realizing he had to deal with the “immediate concern.” Ji Heng’s must-die scenario had not yet been cleared; they couldn’t afford to waste time in this Deception Realm.
He forced his attention back to the rabbit man, trying to find hidden messages. But no matter what he did, the rabbit remained unmoved.
“Cold, detached…” Su Er quickly summed up its personality traits, then mused aloud: “Each rabbit has a different temperament. Maybe they reflect, to some extent, the personality of the person they’re shadowing.”
But that alone didn’t mean much.
What they thought of as the real world might simply be a projection of some innermost yearning: he himself longed for a life governed by law rather than lynching, Xu He had dreamed of holding a bright and upright identity. Su Er turned toward Ji Heng. “And your emotional need—what is it?”
Ji Heng chuckled, sat down at the bedside, and unexpectedly joked at a time like this: “Wealth? Looks?”
He glanced at the rabbit. “Or maybe just having the seven emotions and six desires.”
Su Er answered in dead seriousness, “It’s Qu Qingming who wanted stunning beauty. I’m the one without emotions. Looks like we’ve overlapped character settings.”
Their gazes met, and both broke into a laugh.
The oppressive air finally dissipated.
“We can only wait for tomorrow’s mission,” Ji Heng said seriously again. “The scope is too wide—speculation alone isn’t enough.”
Maybe it wasn’t about personal traits, but about environment. Perhaps he had once lived in an age of war, longing only for peace and stability.
The night passed quickly.
No ghostly midnight knockings, no dripping taps, no toilets running with bloody water—none of it appeared.
The night wind was gentle, the world silent, perfectly suited for sleep.
The next morning they gathered in the hall for breakfast, though everyone looked far from well-rested.
Su Er noticed Su Tangyi; her once lively face was now bloodless. Wan Yi, who had chased after her the night before, also looked terrible, eyes bloodshot.
To be safe, they repeated yesterday’s agreed code phrase to make sure no one had been replaced by a rabbit double.
A quick glance around showed about a third of the players were behaving oddly.
The moment the host appeared, the rabbits all reverted to their rabbit-eared attendant form.
“Good morning,” Green Lotus Sage greeted warmly.
The rabbit attendants performed their duties flawlessly, carefully serving each player a bowl of porridge, then lined up at the side.
From the previous night’s banquet, it was clear the host disliked discussing serious matters during meals; he always waited until the last player set down their chopsticks before speaking. So everyone ate in silence, shoveling food down as quickly as possible.
Green Lotus Sage shook his head disapprovingly. “Chewing slowly is better for your health.”
He really did seem committed to healthy living. Afterward, he even led them out for a slow walk to aid digestion.
Strolling into a forest park, he handed each player a map. The city was divided into four regions of different colors, each marked with a letter.
Without explaining directly, he stood at the front and assumed a starting stance. “The key to a good day is in the morning. Come, follow me through a set of Tai Chi.”
“......”
Su Tangyi’s expression darkened. She couldn’t help but speak. “Wasting time like this—isn’t it inappropriate?”
Green Lotus Sage explained patiently. “The game requires many guardians. They come from different dimensions to reach the Deception Realm. Right now, they’re still on their way.”
“…As for what you’re worried about,” he added with a smile, “there’s more than enough time.”
He lifted his palm, pushed, kicked—
His movements flowed with practiced ease. But only a handful of players bothered to follow along.
The Azure Lotus Sage narrowed his eyes, as if moving with the wind, and said with seeming nonchalance: “You never know if the next moment will be your last. So why not live fully in the present?”
When the set was finished, he finally spoke again: “The value of a clue is tied to the difficulty of its region. ‘A’ marks the most dangerous zone, ‘B’ is dangerous, ‘C’ is ordinary… the easiest is ‘D,’ where even if you fail, you won’t die.”
Su Er suddenly asked, “How do we make sure that what we find inside isn’t someone else’s information?”
Green Lotus Sage took out pen and paper he had prepared long ago and waved them: “That’s why we need to register the names in advance and summon the monster staff.”
As he spoke, the smile in his eyes faded somewhat. “After choosing the difficulty level, the regions will be further divided in detail. Each person can only act within their own assigned area.”
Su Er asked: “If someone is originally in the special-grade difficulty area, but halfway through wants to go to…”
Green Lotus Sage interrupted: “Every boundary point is guarded by staff.”
The meaning was very clear: if you want to change areas, you must first kill the staff.
The players’ eyes flickered—doing that would not be easy.
After a slight hesitation, everyone quickly made their choices. Including Ji Heng, a total of five people chose the special-grade difficulty, most gathered in the dangerous area, and only three players chose the normal zone.
Su Er finally opened his mouth: “I choose—”
Green Lotus Sage cut him off: “You can’t compete.”
Su Er still wanted to argue, but Ji Heng looked at him and shook his head slightly.
“The game starts at twelve sharp.” After handing out watches for the players to synchronize their time, Green Lotus Sage led them out of the park, assigning activity areas one by one.
Now fully transparent, Su Er spoke helplessly: “The hotel is within one of the zones too—what am I supposed to do?”
Green Lotus Sage paused.
After twelve, Hope CIty would become a playground for monsters; indeed, there was no place to put him.
Tentatively, Su Er suggested: “How about I stay on the abandoned railway tracks?”
Green Lotus Sage shook his head: “There are ghosts outside the city too, guarding against players sneaking close to the train station.”
A willow flake drifted past; Su Er rubbed his nose against it. “These rules are really full of holes.”
Had they never thought about what would happen if there were players with backdoor privileges?
“......”
Green Lotus Sage sighed lightly and handed him a brooch—the same style as the ones pinned on the rabbit attendants’ uniforms.
“This is a staff-only brooch. According to the employee protection system, those monsters can’t harm you.”
“No wonder…”
Su Er gazed at the sparkling brooch in his palm. Ghosts and demons both had a taste for devouring their own kind. To summon so many monsters into the city at once without causing chaos, there had to be some unspoken rules.
“Don’t provoke them,” Green Lotus Sage warned. “If you really drive them crazy, they can’t kill you, but beating you half to death would only count as a minor violation. And the brooch can only be used by yourself.”
Su Er checked his watch: 10:43.
He didn’t continue following the host but instead turned and walked elsewhere.
This move surprised quite a few players. They had thought Su Er would go to the same area as Ji Heng, but he left so decisively.
Wan Yi cast a complicated glance at Ji Heng, who, however, didn’t seem surprised.
Because he walked in the exact opposite direction, the sounds behind him gradually faded. The surroundings fell silent, as if he were the only one left in the world.
Su Er had a very clear-headed personality. From the Book of Answers instance, it was obvious that Ji Heng had grasped the key to breaking the game very early.
And in their time together, the other had deliberately accommodated him, slowing down his pace. Going into the special-danger zone together might not necessarily help.
Thinking of this, Su Er unconsciously furrowed his brow. There was never a shortage of top players in the game—Zhu Yun’s absolute strength was not weak, yet she had still met a miserable end.
Ji Heng was also strong. Correspondingly, the deathtrap designed for him was bound to be hell-level difficulty.
“Clues…”
Now, only by finding more information about the deathtrap could he be of real help.
Standing on the platform and gazing ahead, Su Er gritted his teeth: “I’ll gamble. At worst, I’ll get beaten half to death by monsters.”
Decision made, he quickly ran back to the supermarket outside the train station, grabbed two buckets, and stuffed several plastic bags inside before leaving.
For players, the word “Deception” (the illusionary game world) was terrifying. For monsters, however, it was a grand festival.
If they were lucky, they could eat humans. More importantly, they could also earn yin energy—why wouldn’t they be delighted?
11:31.
The first monster impatiently crossed the maze and entered Deception.
As soon as it broke through the barrier and squeezed half its body in, it actually saw a human. Before it could get excited, it noticed that the human was wearing a staff-only brooch.
Su Er sat on the ground, leaning against the buckets, stretching out his leg like a rascal to block the way. “Pay the toll first.”
The monster froze for a second, then stomped its bare foot hard on the ground—snapping two of the iron rails.
Su Er, helpless, pointed to the sign stuck nearby. A thick tree trunk was jammed slantwise into the earth, with the words “Toll Station” scrawled across it.
The monster glared furiously: “I’ve never heard of paying a fee to enter Deception!”
Su Er let out a sigh of relief—good, it could talk. That made negotiating much easier.
“A few months ago, a large number of instances shut down, and thousands of fierce ghosts lost their jobs…” From the start, Su Er had pinned the brooch to the other side of his chest, folding his arms to carefully hide it, concealing the fact that he was the culprit. “Now everyone is scrambling to get into Deception.”
The more you talk, the more likely you are to slip up—so Su Er left it at that.
The monster vaguely remembered hearing a broadcast about it at the time. Supposedly the cause was a player who could see through the ‘ghosts disguised as humans’ trick.
“There are limited slots. Green Lotus Sage said that to get in, you must pay one-tenth of the benefits you got from the last time you came to Deception, plus one tear.”
“A tear?”
“That’s part of a deal between me and the others.” Su Er spoke seriously. “Green Lotus Sage is busy hosting and doesn’t have time to collect tolls. I gave up the chance to collect clues to temporarily act as the toll collector. He added this requirement specifically as my compensation.”
The monster never imagined a human would dare to scam ghosts, but something about it felt off.
Su Er coughed lightly. While the monster was still thinking, he suddenly stepped forward. That familiar sensation of weightlessness came, and in a blink he had crossed into the other side of the world—then quickly walked back. “The barrier doesn’t affect me.”
The monster froze. The barrier between Deception and the outside world was extremely thick; even squeezing its way through had taken a great deal of effort.
“Afraid you won’t believe me? The host opened a back door for me—he said it’s called ‘temporary world administrator.’” Pretending impatience, Su Er stretched out his hand. “Hurry up and decide.”
Being urged on by a human, the monster instinctively drew back its fist to punch.
Su Er didn’t dodge. He shouted, “I’m staff! If I’m injured on the job, you’ll be held liable for compensation.”
The fist stopped short. The gust of wind from it still hit him, and Su Er staggered back a step.
The monster broke off one of its own fingernails and tossed it over. “I’m not giving you yin energy. This has equal value.”
Expressionless, Su Er tucked it away. “Green Lotus Sage will personally verify it later.”
Then he glanced at the bottle placed beside the toll station sign. “The tear.”
Ghosts didn’t need emotion to shed tears. The monster simply pressed the mouth of the bottle to its eyeball, and soon a tear dripped inside.
The game would start at noon. Twenty minutes before that, more and more monsters were flooding in.
“Why are we even lining up?”
“Because the instance closures caused this. It’s to prevent too many ghosts from pouring in at once.”
“One-tenth! That’s robbery.”
“Green Lotus isn’t a good guy. Just pay up, don’t try to get clever here.”
With the line forming, Su Er’s job actually became much easier. Herd mentality made complaints fewer—anyone holding things up would only annoy those behind them.
11:53.
The last monster completed its transaction.
Su Er walked out of Deception. At that moment, the maze instance was in dusk light. His forehead was drenched in cold sweat, and a wave of lingering fear washed over him.
He took several deep breaths, then quickened his pace. When Teng Snake Lord spotted the familiar figure, the light in its pupils went cold.
Handing over part of the toll he had just collected, Su Er rasped, “Take me to see Gou Baopu.”
Snakes could not generally blink, but Teng Snake Lord did—it blinked twice, wondering where this human had gotten so much dirty money.
Seeing the buckets stuffed full of treasures, it immediately considered the possibility of robbing him.
Su Er pointed at the brooch. “Staff.” Then added, “If you rob me, I’ll fight to the death. A fight where neither side stops until one of us is gone. I don’t care if I die—you’ll still be punished by the rules.”
Teng Snake Lord stared at him for a long time, then suddenly squeezed out a strange laugh from its throat. “I already said, you have the aura of my kind on you.”
Its black tail lashed out, wrapping Su Er onto its back.
They soared forward at high speed, the harsh wind cutting like blades. Su Er kept his head lowered to block the wind, meanwhile preparing in advance the words he would use when he met Gou Baopu.
The Castle.
Ghost King Gou Baopu, as always, sat at the head seat. “This session is a special welfare round. It is called ‘With Every Loan, Comes a Debt.’”
Beside him, the handsome Smiling Merchant adjusted his top hat and carefully explained the rules: “Please strive to create wealth. Any surplus can be used to participate in the auction three days from now.”
The players looked at one another in confusion.
“The auction will have everything, including rare items.”
At any time, these words could stir the greatest greed in a player’s heart—and this time was no exception. Some whispered among themselves, while others wore unreadable expressions, plotting who knew what.
Satisfied at the sight, the Smiling Merchant retreated to the side.
Gou Baopu rose, raising his glass, taking in all the greed flashing in the players’ eyes. With a smile, he said, “I wish you all—”
But halfway through his words, he stopped. From outside the window, a black shadow suddenly flew in. A youth sat astride a great black serpent, descending before them.
“......”
The air instantly froze into silence.
A few seconds later, the players snapped back to their senses, and the room erupted in chatter—
“He’s got a badge—it looks like he’s a player too.”
“Su Er?!” One man recognized him.
“Holy shit! It’s really him! When did Su Er get a mount?!”
A mount?
Struck by those two words, Teng Snake Lord’s pupils shrank, and it couldn’t stop itself from baring its venomous fangs.
----------
No comments:
Post a Comment