absurd deduction game.

In the shadows behind the fountain, the tall, thin figure moved slightly.

It took a step forward, stepping into the edge that the dim light of the kerosene lamp could barely touch. Its movement was slow, lacking the lightness of a living thing and the stiffness of an inanimate object, but it carried a rather strange composure.

It is a monster that roams the night, the Faceless One.

The tattered, old clothes hung loosely on the gray-white skeleton, and the skin gleamed with a deathly plaster luster in the light, exactly the same as when Yu Xing first saw it. And that face, that dark, smooth wooden board with edges that seemed to blend into the flesh, was silently "facing" in the direction of Yu Xing and Carlos.

Although it has no eyes, it conveys a clear sense of being watched.

The moment Yu Xing and Carlos locked their gazes on Him, a familiar system notification suddenly rang in their minds:
[Side quest? Triggered? You have encountered [unclear], you are being watched by [unclear], please escape quickly [unclear]]

The prompt tone sounded like a radio with a poor signal; it started but then abruptly stopped, leaving only crackling static before falling completely silent.

The system message indicated that the connection was cut off due to some kind of interference.

The system that Yorickf was using to generate the deduction copy was broadcasting in a special format according to the investigators. It was clearly an automated program set up by the "Book," similar to a customer service representative. However, the program had been hacked, and it was possible that the real "deduction system" would come to check on the situation soon.

The warmth in his nasal cavity caused Carlos to bleed uncontrollably from his nose with just one glance, and his eardrums and eye sockets also felt hot.

The smile on his face froze slightly, his pupils suddenly contracted, and the faceless figure slowly approaching was reflected on the surface of his eyeballs, as well as the unsurprising calm on Yu Xing's face.

Carlos understood almost immediately.

“So you’ve already attracted [He].” His voice was low, filled with disbelief and a sudden heightened alertness. “At the altar, you didn’t stop; you only showed reluctance after confirming [He]’s arrival.”

Yes, for an evil god of this rank, within a worldview he is familiar with, there is no need to go to great lengths like the ancient gods. Obvious phenomena can also be achieved by silently descending upon the body of a small-town monster, as insidiously as a drop of water merging into the ocean.

Yu Xing did not deny it, but simply tilted her head slightly, her gaze still fixed on the Faceless One.

Carlos took a deep breath and very tactfully stood up.

He twitched the corner of his mouth, looked away, and tried to shut down his five senses in front of "He," refusing to listen, speak, or see, to prevent the erosion of pollution: "I'm not ready to face this existence directly yet, I'm leaving now."

He picked up the kerosene lamp, and without waiting for Yu Xing's earnest attempts to persuade him to stay, he decisively turned around and strode towards the outskirts of town, his figure quickly disappearing into the darkness in the distance.

It seems like it was even faster than running away from Fernail's house.

In the square, only Yu Xing and the silent, wooden-faced man remained, gazing at each other across the fountain.

Carlos took the kerosene lamp away, and the surrounding light suddenly dimmed. Only the scattered golden wheat ears on the ground emitted a faint, soft light that did not belong to this world, barely outlining their shapes.

A night breeze swept by, carrying the cool scent of plants.

Yu Xing, gazing at that smooth, wooden face, was the first to break the silence.

His voice echoed across the empty square, carrying a relaxed, even somewhat familiar quality that seemed out of place with the eerie atmosphere.

"Hi~"

The Faceless One stood there quietly, and in response to the greeting, His wooden face tilted up at a tiny angle, as if sizing up Yu Xing.

A few seconds later, [He] said:

"This is the second time you've tried to take advantage of me."

Yu Xing laughed and said, "Don't put it so harshly. What do you mean by using you? I just missed you and wanted to chat with you."

The first time was when I encountered a blood moon at an astronomer's house.

He immediately felt that "He" was very likely to "see" him, and sure enough, He not only sensed that the mark had been activated, but even precisely locked onto him.

"After all, this instance is, in a sense, your 'territory,' right?" Yu Xing shrugged, still leaning back comfortably against the cool chair back. "It's a rare opportunity, so I had to invite you to come and take a look. I'm quite curious—does someone of your status feel like watching these gods fight in the instance as if you're watching ants?"

He asked casually, and the faceless man remained silent for a moment before a faint chuckle came from behind the wooden board.

Then, He raised a pale, stiff hand and touched his wooden face.

“Now, I am the ‘Faceless One’,” He said calmly. “When I was a doctor, I told you that my thinking changes with my identity. At this time, I cannot comprehend the lofty existence of higher dimensions.”

As he spoke, he took two steps forward and went straight to the bench.

Then, in an extremely natural manner, as if he were the master of the place, he sat down in the spot where Carlos had just left.

The hard, grayish-white body made a slight, teeth-grinding scraping sound as it came into contact with the iron bench.

After sitting down, His head, covered by a wooden board, began to turn slowly, almost unsettlingly, toward Yu Xing.

Finally, the smooth, dark wooden board without any holes faced Yu Xing squarely and completely.

Despite having no eyes, Yu Xing felt a cold, sticky "gaze" that seemed to penetrate his flesh and look straight into his soul, locking onto him firmly.

The moment Yu Xing was locked onto by this "gaze," her body stiffened almost imperceptibly for a second.

The surrounding air seemed to become viscous, and invisible pollution, like the coldest dampness, began to silently permeate and seep in.

The mere existence of "He" is enough to cause irreversible distortion and collapse of any life form in the conventional sense.

Yu Xing felt the blood vessels under his skin twitching slightly, and a subtle, aching sensation, as if squeezed by an invisible force, came from deep within his bones. Faint, ever-changing colorful halos began to appear at the edge of his vision, and countless tiny whispers seemed to hum in his ears, only to be quickly suppressed and neutralized by the colder, more somber curse power surging from his body.

Hmm, it's been a while since I've seen [Her], and her resistance to pollution has decreased again. Moreover, different identities even have different auras, and the forms of pollution also differ.

Fortunately, it was not as devastating as the initial contact, unlike in Nanshui Town where the body directly shattered.

He remained expressionless, without even frowning.

Under this suffocating, inhuman "gaze," Yu Xing spoke again, her voice still steady:

"Actually, even if I hadn't called you this time, you would have come long ago, right?"

He stared at the wooden plank so close to him, as if he could see through it into the incomprehensible abyss beyond. "On my first night in the instance, when I came out of the graveyard, I ran into you here. I smelled your scent then, but I was too hungry to be sure."

“As my senses gradually returned, when I thought of you again, I had a premonition that you had probably already started ‘paying attention’ to this instance—before the arrival of the second round of deducers, right?” The Faceless One—or rather, the [He] that descended upon the Faceless One—did not deny it.

“It’s okay to tell you this,” the voice behind the wooden board said leisurely, admitting it directly and comfortably crossing his legs. “All dungeons that produce tickets will be noticed by Yin Yang City, or rather, the dungeons themselves will contain ‘Easter eggs’ that we’ve planted.”

"Whoever lays the clues will be the one who keeps an eye on them. The only difference is whether they observe from the sidelines or just glance at them occasionally."

Is that so?
Yu Xing frowned almost imperceptibly.

After encountering monsters like [Spirit] in the previous instance, Yu Xing still felt that [He] was the most human-like deity he had ever known.

He understood.

Based on his previous experiences and information, he was almost certain that among the seven gods, [He] was probably the one who, apart from the system itself, was most enthusiastic about and most likely to project his will into various instances. [He] could have countless clones at the same time, descending into different containers, like an omnipresent spectator looking for fun.

He is the kind of God who will watch an entire show of entertainment with great interest.

Similarly, it's not just those raid dungeons that hide tickets; even ordinary high-level deductions probably have [His] presence.

Because He was not subject to many restrictions.

Because He was already in Yolikf town, Yu Xing's summoning at the altar caused no ripples. When he realized that the patterns on his abdomen had established a connection with some distant being, but there was no reaction around him, he knew that he should come to the central square to find Him.

So if that's the case...

Is it possible that He has encountered Zhao Yijiu in other K-type dungeons?

Leaving aside the fact that Zhao Yijiu went through several dungeons related to the K-type during the year he disappeared, just take the underwater dungeon that Zhao Yijiu and the Siren went to. It was clearly a K-type dungeon from the beginning, and the [He] who was looking for the "child" Guijiu just happened not to look at the underwater dungeon.
Yu Xing was inexplicably startled. He tried to determine whether "He" was hinting at anything by observing the eyes, but he only saw a square, broken wooden board.

Yu Xing: "..."

Okay, we came prepared.

In fact, when the doctor-form "He" said goodbye to him in Nanshui Town, he warned him that the next time they met, "He" might not be a friendly being who could communicate with him.

He also warned him to be careful.

It is really difficult to define one's stance on this indescribable evil god.

Asking too many questions would only cause trouble for Zhao Yijiu. Suppressing her wandering thoughts, Yu Xing steered the conversation back to the dungeon.

"So this time, you also planted an 'Easter egg' in Yolikf?"

An Easter egg is an Easter egg because it is unrelated to the main storyline; otherwise, it would be easy for the system to modify it.

Thinking about it this way, Mingzhu, the sister-in-law from Nanshui Town, definitely qualifies as one.

As for Yorikef, he found nothing other than the monsters in the main and side quests and the cultists in the cult storyline that had been affected by "He".

The wooden-faced man stared at him, his invisible "gaze" lingering for a few seconds before tilting strangely.

“No one noticed the Easter egg I prepared. I thought the actor would be the first to notice it,” [He] said. “The Easter egg, ‘TA’ has always been there. You’ve seen it several times and even spoken to it.”

Let's guess who 'TA' is first.

Yu Xing mourned for Yolikf Town. They had finally managed to eliminate the cult and stop the ancient god. If there was still a big bomb in the town, the residents and the church would be in too much trouble.

A perfectly timed expression of contemplation crossed his face. His gaze drifted blankly as he quickly scanned through all the faces he had seen since entering the instance, selecting those still alive.

This process lasted for about ten seconds.

Then, as if giving up, he leaned back and shrugged: "Grandma Pearl?"

His answer was straightforward, even somewhat perfunctory, as if he didn't want to put much thought into the question, or perhaps he was testing whether [He] would offer more hints.

The head covered by the wooden board stared at him silently, as if assessing how much of his surrender was genuine and how much was feigned.

A few seconds later, that calm, leisurely voice rang out again from behind the wooden board: "No."

He discovered that Yu Xing was slacking off and found it a bit boring. In that instant, He had the desire to kill Yu Xing directly.

But for some reason, he didn't do it.

Instead, he gave the answer in a rather uninteresting way:

"His name is Ivan."

A genuine look of surprise appeared on Yu Xing's face.

He raised an eyebrow slightly, and his body involuntarily straightened up a bit.

“Ivan?” he repeated, “that young priest from the Harvest Church?”

This answer was indeed unexpected.

The reason for guessing that he was Granny Pearl was because he went into Granny Pearl's bakery to buy bread twice, which fits the condition that he had met her several times and chatted with her.

During the Chaos Rain disaster, Granny Pearl turned into a Rusty Man. He didn't report her, so Granny Pearl is still standing safely in the church to this day.

Moreover, Granny Pearl had a precognitive dream. In that dream of the destruction of the human world, she even dreamed of "He" and communicated with "He".

Of course... Granny Pearl might not be the only one who foresaw certain scenarios, and Yu Xing couldn't ask everyone. He just felt that if he had to choose someone who was unrelated to the main storyline but might have a connection with "Him," Granny Pearl would be the one that came to mind most easily.

Ke Aifan?
In Yu Xing's memory, the young priest was enthusiastic, cheerful, somewhat admiring of the strong, and even a little too naive and lively. He was one of the few "energetic" people in the church.

Even when he was at his hungriest, he couldn't smell the aroma of food on Ivan, which meant that Ivan was not a monster, nor was he tainted by the depraved aura of the cultists.

He smiled and posed a question to Yu Xing: "When he looked at you, I also saw you in his eyes. Do you know what you looked like in his eyes?" (End of Chapter)