Infinite spooky game

The players, led by Tang Yu, walked towards the residence with a knife in one hand and a key chain in the other.

Qi Sizhui was at the end of the team. He shook out the "Record of the Underworld" from his sleeve and tore off the blood-stained part without leaving a trace.

He started tearing the paper when he first got the book, tearing it whenever he got the chance, and he kept tearing it until now, and finally he had almost finished it.

"Brother Qi, I saw some information on the forum. In the copies of "Hopeless Sea" and "Red Maple Leaf Boarding School", you and Chang Xu..."

Lin Chen walked in the middle of the team, pinching the ring on his ring finger, silently mumbling questions, hesitant to speak.

Practice makes perfect. He has become accustomed to communicating with Qis through his consciousness, and has always thought that this was a side effect of the team ring.

"Yes, Chang Xu and I met twice again." Qi Si scattered the scraps of paper in his hand on the ground and answered vaguely, "There were some misunderstandings before, but they were resolved later."

"Misunderstanding?" What kind of misunderstanding could lead to a life-and-death fight?

Lin Chen just felt that he had too much to complain about. No matter how he looked at it, these words just seemed like perfunctory, right?

The next second, he heard Qi Si's calm voice at the bottom of his mind: "Have you ever heard of the gambling game of the gods?"

This term is not unfamiliar to Lin Chen, who often collects information and memorizes knowledge in forums.

He hesitated and said, "I've heard a little about it. This was one of the popular hypotheses about the nature of games twenty years ago. It said that the Weird Game was a huge chessboard, and all the players were chess pieces in the game of gods..."

"That's right." Qi Si said calmly, "This is a gamble involving the past, present and future. The evil gods who fell in Ragnarok have staked everything on this, and Chang Xu and I are just pawns they are betting on.

"If the chess game is to be decided, the gods must want Chang Xu and I to be enemies. It is not difficult for beings of that level to manipulate fate and create a life-and-death situation.

"But I don't want to be controlled by the gods, and I believe he doesn't either. So strictly speaking, he and I are now on the same boat."

The young man's tone was solemn and dignified, and Lin Chen's heart couldn't help but be touched. Suddenly, he seemed to see the identity card in the upper right corner of his sight tremble, as if trembling for the secret he accidentally learned.

After binding the identity card, Lin Chen studied the corresponding records and knew that the identity card, as an existence closely related to the gods, would naturally resonate with some important secrets.

The abnormality of the ID card did not surprise him. What shocked him was——

Qi Si was actually willing to tell him even something of this level. Did his trust in him reach such a high level?
Lin Chen fell into a computer outage, stopped talking, and even his steps slowed down.

Qis did not take the opportunity to plant more hints in the tool man's mind.

He is actually not very used to participating in the game as a ghost.

Without being able to feel the bright light and heat, it is difficult to generate emotions naturally, and accordingly the intuition of other people's attitudes and intentions is weakened. Many perceptions and expressions that we take for granted in daily life require complex steps and precise analysis to obtain and make.

Even though he was already familiar with Lin Chen's thinking model and psychological pattern, he could only barely read the three messages "Lin Chen doubts the wrong information he provided in the past", "Lin Chen hopes to hear information that can dispel his doubts" and "Lin Chen expects to feel trusted", and then give a good answer in the general direction.

It's... quite troublesome.

"We're here. This should be the residence." Tang Yu, who was walking in front, stopped and raised the knife in his hand.

From a distance, the small building that looked like a monster was right in front of them. The houses were lined up tightly together, casting a gloomy shadow over the players' heads in the twilight.

The broken tiles and window frames were covered with thick dust, and the wood of the walls, eaves and stairs was dull and decayed, and full of mold. Some doors had long lost their keyholes and door panels, as if they had been abandoned for a long time and no one had lived there for a long time.

"If I have to live in this shabby place at night, I will die." Qiu Xin said listlessly, "These doors and windows will open after a few knocks. Even if there are no ghosts in the house, it will not be difficult for the ghosts outside to come in."

"There's nothing we can do. Let's try to choose a room with intact doors and windows. After we choose one, we should check if there's anything else hidden in the room before it gets completely dark."

Luo Haihua suggested, looking at the keychain in Tang Yu's hand: "Xiao Tang, can you tell which key corresponds to which room?"

Tang Yu glanced at the residence, which was identical to his except for its dilapidated state. He then looked down at the key in his hand, which was carved from a mold, and became conflicted.

Luo Jianhua said: "Try them one by one, there is no rush."

Just as the players walked over, the sky darkened again. All the buildings in the distance were hidden in the darkness, with only their uneven outlines vaguely visible.

The lanterns in the players' hands lit tirelessly, the flames seeping through the paper lampshades, brightening and dimming with the flickering of the candle flame, acting as a source of illumination.

The shadows of objects swayed in the flickering light, but there was no human shadow, which reminded people of the ghosts wandering at night with lanterns in horror stories.

There is still some time before the ghosts appear, but the night is still enough to breed fear among strangers.

Tang Yu said: "Let's move quickly. It won't be difficult to find six houses that can accommodate people."

Holding the key chain, he walked straight to a small wooden house on the far left of the mansion.

Luo Haihua followed behind him, smiling at the other players: "That's right, when the time comes, we'll open a room and let one person in. Don't fight over it or be picky. My husband and I can be the last or the first."

The atmosphere eased a lot. Lin Chen and Qiu Xin followed Tang Yu one after the other, and Qi Si followed far behind as usual.

Tang Yu stood in front of the door of the wooden house, holding the knife in front of him with his right hand, and holding the key in his left hand, inserting it into the keyhole on the wooden door.

With a "click", the door opened lightly.

Even Tang Yu himself had a strange look on his face and he unconsciously took half a step back.

“Who wants this room…”

He was halfway through his words when the next words got stuck in his throat.

Before he could even reach out to pull it, the wooden door opened wider and wider, with a creaking sound like a monster chewing bones.

There was a small lamp on the low table in the room. The dim light spread in the small space and cast a small shadow on the ground.

The old man in a black robe and a bamboo hat came out of the house with a grin on his yellow teeth. He said, "Dear guests, please share a room with me tonight. Please share a room with me."

From his appearance, figure to voice, he was exactly the same as the old man who was killed by Tang Yu not long ago, but there were no scars on his body, and there was nothing unusual in his movements.

He seemed to have completely forgotten that he had been killed once. The shadow he cast on the ground flickered under the light, and it was always in the shape of a human.

What is going on? Is he a ghost lingering in the world, or is he the brother of the dead old man?
But even if they are brothers, they wouldn’t be so alike, right?

The players stood still for a long time, and you could hear a pin drop in the air.

The old man seemed unaware and turned back into the house. When he came out, he was holding a bunch of keys in his hand, which was the same key that Tang Yu had originally held.

The key in Tang Yu's hand turned into a bunch of finger bones tied together with leaves and grass stems in the blink of an eye, reflecting a cold light.

Tang Yu woke up as if from a dream. He threw his finger bone to a distant corner, raised the big knife in his right hand and chopped at the old man.

The old man's head flew out, leaving behind a corpse with a bowl-sized wound on the neck. He fell to the ground with blood gushing out.

He seemed to be a pure human being, who could be killed with one strike, and was far from being a big threat...

Tang Yu kicked the old man's body out of the room, bent down to pick up the key chain, and looked back at everyone: "There's someone dead in this room, do you still want it?"

No one spoke for a while, not because they thought the room where someone had died was unlucky, but because the old man's condition was too bizarre. In the silence, a creaking sound came from the door of the wooden building next door, followed by the rustling sound of a key chain.

The players turned their heads in response.

The intact old man came out holding a key chain and grinned, "Dear guests, two people share a room tonight, please share a room with me."

The newly dead body was lying at the door, blood still gushing out.

The flat shadow emitted thick black smoke, which spread into a large area in a few seconds, trapping the players inside and making them lost in all directions.

The old man seemed not to see it and just stared at the player, making the player feel uneasy.

The development of the situation was beyond my expectations and now I could neither leave nor escape.

In any case, tonight the players must stay in the mansion in pairs and follow the townspeople's rules of the game.

In the stagnant atmosphere, Qi Si smiled and said, "Okay, then we'll take three rooms. Thank you for your hard work, old man."

He paused for a moment and tilted his head: "I just don't know how to divide the rooms? Do we decide who will stay with whom, or do you decide, old man?"

It is reasonable and logical that the specific accommodation arrangements should be decided by the guests themselves.

The old man smiled and said, "As long as the two of you share a room, it will be fine! Once you have decided, I will take you to choose a room."

The players remained silent. On the one hand, they did not understand why the old man came back to life and did not dare to act rashly. On the other hand, they were also silently thinking about the issue of room allocation.

According to the tradition of gender equality, Qiu Xin should be with Luo Haihua, but Luo Haihua and Luo Jianhua are husband and wife, so they may not be willing to separate...

"People with the same main quests live in one room. There are exactly three main quests, each corresponding to two players, right?"

Qi Si turned his head to look at the players, restrained the smile on his face, and returned to a calm indifference.

"According to the rules, the number of dead must be even. Even if only two people died, if their main quests were different, there would be a difficult situation where four people would be left to undertake three main quests.

“Fortunately, people who live in the same room live and die together. In this case, why not let the main quest go to the grave with the dead.

"By the way, I suggest that whether it is a 'ghost' or a 'human', you should take out the items in the item column and leave them behind before you die. After others have used them, they should help return them to the deceased's respective guild or friends.

"Rather than letting them disappear with the dead, it is better to leave them to the living to increase the chance of survival. If you are worried, my skill is related to 'oath', which can help you swear under the witness of the rules."

Qis's suggestion can be said to be cold, but it is the most rational and economical choice.

When death is inevitable, the only way for the collective to survive better is to maximise the value of each individual and minimise the loss.

Unfortunately, not everyone can make decisions rationally, and until the end, no one mentioned the issue of who owns the props after death.

However, compared with the outrageous proposal of "leaving props as a legacy", the proposal of "letting players with the same main quest die together" seems much more acceptable.

Luo Haihua and Luo Jianhua were in one room, Qi Si and Lin Chen were in one room, and Tang Yu and Qiu Xin were in one room - as the weird game progressed to the later stages, gender was not so important.

The old man watched with a smile on his face, and only turned and walked into the wooden building after the players had made their decision.

The players did not dare to delay and followed the old man into the space filled with the smell of mold and grease, and went up to the second floor along the creaking stairs.

Under the dim shadow of the lanterns, wooden doors were lined up like tombstones.

The old man used a key to open three of the doors, revealing a tomb-like room behind.

Qis walked into the middle door. Although Lin Chen hesitated, he took a few steps in and closed the door.

With a "click", the door locked behind him, blocking out all sounds.

The two were apparently imprisoned inside, and they would not be able to leave until a night had passed and they were cleared of suspicion of being "accomplices".

The room was simply furnished. There were two wooden beds placed side by side with bedding leaking out of it, and a wobbly wooden table with a small corner missing was leaning against the head of the bed.

The light around was obviously much dimmer than that outside. Even if the lantern in the hand was burning tirelessly, it was only enough for the person holding the lantern to see the general outline of things. It was as if some mysterious force was restraining people, urging them to let go of all thoughts and fall into a deep sleep.

In most of the time and in most places in ancient times, the falling of night marked the end of the day. When the sun sets, all things come to rest, mortals fall asleep, and ghosts and gods appear.

Zeus placed the lantern on the wooden table and sat down beside the bed.

Lin Chen had been absent-minded ever since Qi Si made those extremely rational and outrageous remarks, and now he did as he was told in a daze.

Then, Qi Si suddenly asked, "Lin Chen, who do you think is the accomplice?"

Lin Chen came back to his senses, thought for a moment, and shook his head: "I don't know, but I feel that the three people who don't have letters, Luo Haihua, Luo Jianhua and Qiu Xin are all very suspicious.

"There is no evidence to support their claims about why they entered Yanghua Town, and no one can guarantee that they were not driven in by the tiger."

"That's right." Qi Si nodded slightly and looked out the window, "But have you ever thought that having the letter in your possession doesn't rule out suspicion?"

"what?"

"The scholar said that the foreign visitors who came from afar might have been killed by the tiger and become its accomplices."

Qi Si suddenly turned his head and looked directly into Lin Chen's eyes: "Do you think there is a possibility that I died at the beginning of the dungeon and sneaked into the players' team as a ghost?"

This is undoubtedly a joke.

Ever since Lin Chen met Qi Si, he felt uneasy because of the latter's cold attitude, and his doubts kept piling up.

Listening to the young man's laughter, he suddenly regained the feeling in his memory and couldn't help but relax a little.

“That shouldn’t be possible.” Lin Chen grinned. “The dungeon wouldn’t have arranged a death situation from the beginning, right? Haha. The noise a tiger makes when it harms someone must be huge. With so many players present, it’s impossible for them not to notice.”

"Who knows?" Qi Si lowered his eyes and reached for the lantern on the table. "The current situation gives me a confusing feeling. To be honest, I can't trust anyone, including you. After all, you arrived the latest. I don't know if you have encountered anything."

Lin Chen was startled, and then he heard the young man continue: "Of course, you can't trust anyone, including me. After all, you don't know what we encountered before you came, and whether we have any plans."

Lin Chen blinked: "Qi...Brother Qi, it shouldn't be that serious. If we are both alive tomorrow morning, we can eliminate the suspicion together."

Qi Si said nothing, raised the lantern and shone it towards the window.

There were a few holes in the paper window, and the light from the lantern shone through them, making them shine brightly.

Through the hole you can see the scene behind the wooden building.

In a huge deep pit, densely packed human corpses were piled up layer by layer, forming towering hills. Some were still rotting, while others were left with only skeletons.

The two bodies placed on the top were the old men chopped to death by Tang Yu! (End of this chapter)