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Chapter 294 Practice is the Sole Criterion for Testing Truth
At this moment, Gu Mian was not far from the office building.

He looked at the tall building not far away: "The ghost in this instance is much stronger than the previous ones. It was in a very disadvantageous position from the start, but it managed to mislead all the players in the instance step by step..."

This ghost was initially in the survivor camp, and as a survivor, it could not kill other players in the instance.

In this instance, the ghost was initially in a situation where it could hardly move.

However, it frequently appears when hunters and survivors meet, and never chases the hunters, using deception to mislead players into thinking that it is afraid of the hunters.

Moreover, it probably has another purpose in doing this, which is to ensure that no other survivors are caught before it is caught itself.

Because once a survivor is caught beforehand, everyone will understand that the "punishment" for being caught is not elimination, but a role swap!

But now this ghost has successfully concealed that fact.

It's likely that very few players haven't discovered this yet.

Gu Mian shook her head as she thought about it: "That's too cunning."

He was certain that most of the players in the instance had been misled by the ghost, and that they would be safe as long as they caught it.

I wonder if any hunters have already gone to "hunt ghosts".

As Gu Mian thought about it, she felt a slight pain in her temples.

Just then, he suddenly received a call from Ji Bieli.

The chubby man standing right next to Gu Mian leaned over and looked at the caller ID on Gu Mian's phone: "The one talking to the doctor is this Ji Bieli. That little girl looks pretty, but I always feel like she's a bit scheming..."

Ignoring the fat man's talk about scheming and such, Gu Mian answered the phone.

Immediately, a voice came from the other side.

"I hid on the rooftop just now. I didn't encounter any ghosts on the way up, but not long after I hid, I heard other players being chased by ghosts on the floors below... The reason I suddenly hung up on you just now was because I heard the ghost's voice."

The wind was blowing in through the shattered windowpane from the phone; it was a bit cold.

She has found the room where she smashed the phone.

Broken glass littered the ground. Ji Bieli glanced at the large hole in the glass in front of her, then spoke into the microphone, "But I heard that the ghost hadn't been chasing for very long before it went silent."

"It seems a hunter has come up. The ghost ran away as soon as it heard the hunter's noise... We were right before, the ghost is afraid of the hunter, it couldn't fight back at all..."

"That hunter who came up here seems to have also discovered that ghosts can be eliminated by hunters, so he's still looking for ghosts in the office building. But one person is really too few. How many hunters can you contact? Hurry up and get them all to come to this office building. The person who catches the ghost should get a very high dungeon score."

Ji Bieli spoke very quickly.

Because she wasn't sure when or where the ghost would suddenly appear behind her.

She had to hurry; not a single second could be wasted. Only by becoming a hunter sooner could she be safe sooner!
Ji Bieli knew that the hunter connected to her already knew her approximate location, but he did not come to capture her directly because the hunter was not interested in capturing survivors.

So this time she didn't use her own position as bait, but instead threw out the ghost directly.

For players who are still alive, the final dungeon score is the biggest temptation.

After saying this, Ji Bieli stopped speaking and held her breath, waiting for the other party's reply.

She was afraid that her overly eager tone would frighten the hunter she was connecting with.

Gu Mian on the other end frowned as she listened to the voice on the other side.

He heard the other person suddenly fall silent, even their breathing stopped.

The fat man's big face had already come closer, and Gu Mian saw that his face was full of confusion, as if he really wanted to speak.

Before the fat man could speak, Gu Mian replied to Ji Bieli: "Okay, I'll go to your office building right away."

The fat man's expression became even more confused.

Gu Mian heard Ji Bieli seem to breathe a sigh of relief before continuing, "By the way, if you saw any suspicious figures lurking in the dark when you came, they were most likely ghosts being chased."

The office building was pitch black, and at first glance, it was impossible to tell whether it was a person or a ghost. You could pretend to be a ghost and be caught by the hunters!
Gu Mian agreed and then hung up the phone.

As soon as he hung up the phone, the fat man next to him asked curiously, "Doctor, didn't you just tell me that hunters should never catch ghosts?"

If a ghost is caught by a hunter, their identities will be switched.

Then the ghosts will become the hunters, and the hunters who catch the ghosts will become the survivors...

You can guess what happened next.

Why did the doctor happily agree to let Ji Bieli go and catch the ghost?

The fat man scratched his head as he pondered.

Gu Mian nodded and said, "Of course I didn't go to catch the ghost. I'm afraid the ghost has already been caught by someone else..."

What the hell?
The fat man's eyes widened.

If the ghost that can teleport and knows the location of all players becomes the hunter, the consequences are unimaginable.

“I wasn’t sure before, but I guessed it when she made that call,” Gu Mian glanced at her phone. “She was in such a hurry, like she was desperate to find other hunters. I guess she was in such a rush because she wanted to find a hunter to switch identities with…”

This instance seems to favor hunters, entirely because there is no clear boundary between hunters and survivors.

The two identities can be switched at any time, and as long as the player is smart enough, they can get a relatively safe identity.

Presumably, the existence of mobile phones is also to facilitate communication between the two parties and promote the exchange of identities.

Unfortunately, the survivors initially viewed the hunters as a monster, making it difficult for them to even make a phone call, let alone get close.

The fat man frowned: "Doctor, do you mean that Ji Bieli also discovered the truth about the dungeon?"

Gu Mian nodded: "She was in the office building where the ghost was, so I suspect she heard the ghost being caught with her own ears."

It is highly likely that she heard the sound of the hunter who captured the ghost being killed by the ghost after hearing it being captured, which led her to discover the truth of the dungeon.

Then Ji Bieli thought of himself and wanted to switch places with him, the hunter.

"Let's go take a look at that building first," Gu Mian said as she started walking.

The fat man was a little apprehensive, but he still followed closely behind Gu Mian.

Ji Bieli hung up the phone, and the huge weight in her heart finally lifted.

Next, she was to wait on the first floor, and as soon as she saw the hunter coming, she would immediately jump out to attract his attention.

Once he falls for it and runs over to grab me, I'll be safe.

Fortunately, this hunter didn't know that the ghost could switch identities with the player... By the way, if he hadn't discovered that the survivor who was being chased by the ghost and whose nickname was "This nickname is already taken" was still alive, he probably wouldn't have known that this ghost was so cunning and treacherous that it had deceived everyone.

Thinking about this, Ji Bieli became confused again.

He discovered the ghost's conspiracy through the fact that the nickname "This nickname is already taken" which he hadn't died.

The survivor who didn't die was later dragged to her room door, which was obviously done on purpose, as if someone was trying to pass this message to her.

It wasn't done by a ghost, and it didn't seem like the half-dead survivor crawled over on his own... So who dragged him to his room door?
Other players?
Did someone discover that this ghost was deceiving the players a long time ago, so they dragged over the nickname of the one that wasn't dead, which was already taken, to remind her?
That's strange. If it's to remind yourself, why not say it to your face?
Too strange……

Why did that person do that?
Just then, Ji Bieli, who was deep in thought, suddenly heard a faint sound.

The phone behind me vibrated.

Almost pressed against my back!

Her phone was still in her hand, so that vibration sound...

Ji Bieli was startled. Before she could react, her throat tightened suddenly, and a feeling of suffocation filled her brain.

In her hazy state, she seemed to see the reflection of another person in the broken glass window in front of her...

After Gu Mian led the trembling fat man into the office building, the first corpse they discovered was that of a red spider lily.

The girl with the high ponytail could no longer maintain her cold smile. She lay sprawled in the corridor, her eyes wide with anger.

Even his beloved fruit knife fell to the side.

In the darkness, the fat man hid fearfully behind Gu Mian, looking at the red spider lily that resembled a hanged ghost.

Gu Mian picked up the fruit knife from the wall, put it in the girl's pocket, and continued forward.

As he walked, he said, "It seems this is the one who caught the ghost. She's truly a heroine."

The fat man poked his head out, then pulled it back in: "But doctor, since the ghost has become a hunter, won't it switch identities with the survivor when it catches one?"

Gu Mian said, "This requires examining the definition of the word 'catch'. If the ghost doesn't catch you at all, but just stares you to death with its eyes, it can't be considered 'catching', so naturally, you can't switch identities."

Stare to death...

Upon hearing this, the fat man suddenly remembered something.

It seems he has never seen a ghost in a horror movie strangle someone to death on its own. Usually, the ghost just stares at people or shows a pale face, or it reaches out a hand to pull people into the darkness, and then the scene changes and the person is already dead.

I always feel that ghosts that kill on their own aren't that scary...

The fat man, still shaken, walked around the corpse of the red spider lily and continued following Gu Mian: "Doctor, what are we doing in this office building?"

Gu Mian said matter-of-factly, "Of course we need to dig out the missing Chu Changge and see what he's up to."

Chu Changge disappeared at the very beginning of this game, and nobody knows what he's doing.

Having wandered around the office building for so long without seeing Chu Changge, Gu Mian even suspected that he had long been swallowed by a ghost and his bones had been digested.

While Gu Mian was wandering around the office building with the trembling fat man...

Bai Qiong was scratching his head in frustration. He was huddled in a basement, frantically pressing the buttons on his phone.

He found a Ferris wheel based on the condition that there would be the sound of water every seven minutes. The Ferris wheel had a rotation period of seven minutes, and there was a stream of water flowing under the Ferris wheel.

After finding the Ferris wheel, he also discovered the key to one of the rooms—

Key to the underground warehouse of Unit 3, Building 65, West District, Changle Residential Area.

The key has a tag, which is why it can accurately identify which room it belongs to.

After obtaining this item, Bai Qiong rushed to the underground warehouse at No. 109 in this residential area.

This is a small, empty storage room, containing only a wall-mounted telephone nailed to the wall and a "hide-and-seek notebook".

A label next to the phone reads, "This phone can dial all other players' mobile phones."

This phone call could connect to the cell phones of all the players in the instance—after realizing this, Bai Qiong had a bad feeling.

Without hesitating for long, he opened the "Hide-and-Seek Handbook".

Hide-and-Seek Handbook

1. Players select a faction, either 'Hunter' or 'Survivor'.

2. Conduct separate hiding and pursuit operations.

[3. If the 'survivor' is caught, they must accept the punishment and switch roles with the 'hunter' who caught them to continue the game.]

[4. The hide-and-seek game ends when all players on one side are eliminated or the game time expires.]

In an instant, Bai Qiong's entire gaze was drawn to the third point.

"If a 'survivor' is caught, they must accept punishment and switch identities with the 'hunter' who caught them to continue the game..."

He kept repeating this point to himself, and a sense of fear began to rise in his heart.

The ghost starts as a survivor, so it has no way to do anything to the other players.

But what if it gets caught by a hunter and their roles are reversed...?

Bai Qiong suddenly remembered what the doctor had said not long ago: ghosts always appear when hunters and survivors meet, and they never attack the hunters.

It turns out the ghost had been misleading them all along! Misleading them into trying to catch it!
No!

This must never happen.

As he thought about it, he quickly walked towards the wall-mounted telephone not far away, determined to inform the hunters about this matter first!
Gu Mian was the first to receive the call because his name was at the top of the hunters' list, while Bai Qiong dialed the number in descending order.

"A doctor?" Bai Qiong asked urgently, just as Gu Mian pushed open a door.

Gu Mian nodded subconsciously: "It's me."

"Listen to me," Bai Qiong's urgent voice came through, "Whatever you do, don't go catching ghosts!"

But before he could finish speaking, Gu Mian interrupted him: "I know what you're going to say next, that if you catch the ghost, the ghost and the player's identities will switch, right?"

Bai Qiong paused slightly: "You know so much about this... it couldn't be..."

“Of course,” Gu Mian glanced at the corpse of the red spider lily in the distance behind him, “practice is the sole criterion for testing truth.”

(End of this chapter)