Infinite spooky game

Luo Haihua's message came to an abrupt end.

From her answer to the first question, we can judge that she is indeed a player, otherwise she would not know so much information about weird games.

There was no problem with the time she entered the dungeon. She had indeed entered the dungeon at the same time as the other three people, so she should not be an NPC transformed from a dead player like Li Yao.

As for the answer to your second question...

Qi Si gathered the papers on the floor, folded them back into the room, and put them back on the bedside table.

He removed the paper lampshade from the lantern in his hand and put it into the backpack in the prop column.

The white candle without the lampshade changed color as soon as it came into contact with the air. The turquoise flame flew high, and the distance from the outer flame to the flame center almost exceeded the length of the candle itself.

Qi Si leaned over slightly, lifted a corner of the bed sheet with his left hand, moved closer with a candle in his right hand, and carefully and attentively used the candle flame to burn the bed sheet.

Tang Yu and Lin Chen followed him back to the house.

Tang Yu looked at his behavior with a strange expression: "Lin Wen, you don't want to try to set the room on fire again, do you?"

"There are a lot of rooms anyway, so it doesn't hurt to give it a try. The door isn't locked yet, so if the fire gets big, we can just run out."

Qi Si spoke indifferently, the candle in his hand burned more and more vigorously, and finally a small cluster of flame appeared on the corner of the bed sheet.

Unlike the green flame of the candle, the newly lit flame was orange-red and spread slowly and steadily along the outline of the bed sheet, burning from the outside to the inside, and soon using half of the bed sheet as fuel to light a bright bonfire in the room.

Qi Si turned his head to look at the two people behind him: "Do you have any water?"

Most veteran players will carry some daily necessities with them, including food, drinking water and spare clothes, in case of emergency.

Tang Yu blinked twice, took out a cloth bag from the prop column, grabbed a bottle of water from it, and threw it to Qi Si.

Qi Si raised his hand to take it, unscrewed the lid, tilted the bottle, poured a circle of water on the ground, and surrounded the fire in the middle.

The flames in the water circle were burning loudly, the colors at the edges were twisting and shaking, the bright yellow outline glazed the vision, and certain angles reflected fleeting human figures.

The figures started from near the flames, spreading out like ink dropped into water, and spread out in all directions, floating on the ceiling and overlooking the players below.

Qi Si felt a familiar sense of fear coming from those loose figures.

He lowered his eyes to avoid looking directly at her, and at the same time he was certain: there was Xiyi in this room, Xiyi who could be illuminated by the firelight.

"So... if we light a fire, we can see another dimension of this dungeon?" Tang Yu looked at the fire on the bed sheet with interest. "These faces look like they are of the same type as those in the mirror at Meng's house. Could they all be Xiyi?"

The human face trembled in the flames due to the refraction of the air. There were no exact details. Only the outline of a human figure could be vaguely seen, but the specific facial features could not be seen clearly.

Therefore, players do not know whether Luo Haihua and his wife are among this group of Xiyi.

Lin Chen thought for a moment and said, "I have heard of a theory. The air around the flame expands due to heat, and the refractive index changes, making the surrounding scene appear to be moving in the naked eye. At first glance, it looks like another space has been opened.

"The ancients did not know the scientific principles behind this, so they used fire as a way to communicate with the gods. Whether it was ancient sacrifices or modern temple fairs, fire was used. That's how bonfires and incense came about.

"This copy should have followed these settings and used fire as the key to open another dimension."

After analyzing the clues here, it can be basically confirmed that Luo Haihua and his wife are not dead for the time being.

A whole day passed, and apart from those who voluntarily left the team, the player group did not decrease in number, which is truly cause for celebration.

Tang Yu patted Qi Si's shoulder and asked, "In other words, we can ignite and reunite with Teacher Luo and the others at any time?"

"Not necessarily." Qi Si put the candle back into the paper lantern and shook his head gently. "From the time we lit the lantern till now, we can only see some shadows of Xi Yi at best, but not more scenes belonging to another space. From this point of view, just lighting the bed sheet is not enough.

"The key to Mr. Luo and his team going to another dimension is to 'knock over the lantern'. I guess the paper lampshade of the lantern is an indispensable fuel. The prerequisite for getting the opportunity to go to another dimension is to destroy the lantern. Do you dare to bet?
"Even if you dare, what's the point if you can't come back?"

As if to confirm Qi Si's words, the bonfire that was originally burning brightly burned all the sheets in a few seconds and went out slowly, leaving behind a pile of dying ashes, flickering with scattered sparks.

The steaming hot air quickly cooled down, and Xiyi's figure floating in the air gradually faded, and the vision soon returned to the calm and clarity before the bonfire was lit.

"I understand a little bit, then our division of labor can be clarified." Tang Yu collected his thoughts and said in a joking tone, "Teacher Luo and the others are responsible for collecting clues about the space belonging to Xi Yi, we are responsible for exploring during the day, and Qiu Xin is responsible for exploring at night.

"Now we just need to figure out what's going on in Zhendong and what's going on with Mr. Luo and the others we saw in Zhendong."

As he spoke, he picked up a ballpoint pen and wrote lines on the paper, briefly describing what the three had discovered during the day.

Including that the townspeople are actually scarecrows, killing the tiger monster is the real main quest, and... there may be a way to pass the level by directly destroying Yanghua Town and bypassing the main quest.

Finally, he also made a request, hoping that Luo Haihua and his wife could find out the situation in the east of the town, and preferably take advantage of Xiyi's invisible and intangible advantage to go to the bamboo forest outside the town to see the strength of the tiger monster.

No matter where Luo Haihua and his wife are now, as long as they are old players, they will definitely remember to come back and visit, and they will always see the message on the paper.

"I have some speculations about the situation in Zhendong." Qi Si took the pen from Tang Yu and played with it, "From the perspective of Mr. Luo and the others, Zhenxi is a ruin left after the fire, and Zhendong is a mirror image of Zhenxi, but intact.

"According to the letters and other clues, Yanghua Town has been burned down by soldiers. In other words, it is very likely that the dark west of the town is the real land, and the prosperous and bright east of the town is just an illusion created by the mirror.

“All the dead live in the east of the town, including players and NPCs. Maybe it’s a paradise specially designed to appease the souls of the dead, allowing Xiyi to dissipate in the bliss of unconsciousness.

"Well, there might be another benefit. Xiyi can be reflected by the mirror, and there happens to be a mirror in the Meng residence that can reflect the scene of Zhendong. It's quite good to use it to scare people."

Qi Si's last sentence was said in a joking tone. Lin Chen just thought it was his usual bad taste and laughed in support.

Tang Yu thought for a moment and asked again: "Since the Xiyi's base camp is in the east of the town, why did they come all the way to the west of the town to push our lanterns?"

"Who knows? According to the diffusion of responsibility effect, maybe I have become Xiyi and want to drag others into the water..."

Tang Yu: "...Okay."

Lin Chen pondered for a moment, his thoughts diverging: "Oh, right, I remember when we first entered Yanghua Town, a town resident said to us that here 'there is no worry about food and clothing, no worries about food and clothing, it's the best place in Peach Blossom Land'.

"Meng Fang and the townspeople settled in Yanghua Town to avoid war and live and work in peace and contentment for a long time without illness or disaster. What do you think the purpose of Yanghua Town's existence is to create a paradise for all kinds of spirits?"

Qi Si looked at Lin Chen's silly and cute face that "believed in fairy tales" and sighed: "If you are unlucky enough to die in this copy, living peacefully in Zhendong might be a good choice. But now, I think you need to go to bed."

“Ah? …Oh oh!”

The clues have been exchanged almost completely and it’s getting late.

Tang Yu pulled Lin Chen out of the door, leaving Qisi alone in Luo Haihua and his wife's room. The bed by the window was already filled with ashes from the new fire, but thanks to the water circle, the bed by the door was still intact.

Qi Si closed the door, sat down on the intact wooden bed, picked up the pen and wrote on the paper:

[Teacher Luo, as far as I know, many props are not affected by the copy mechanism. Can you try to send the "photographic film" over? I may need this prop for my exploration tonight.]

According to Luo Haihua's description, the "photographic film" is simply a prop specially prepared for collecting clues.

If it can be delivered, it will be the icing on the cake and it will be great; if it cannot be delivered, it will not have much impact on the next plan.

There was no movement on the paper, and no one knew where Luo Haihua and his wife were.

There was still some time left before ion time, and Qi Si put down his pen, walked to the window with the lantern and pushed it open.

Thick darkness almost invaded the room, and the bloody smell from the dead body lingered at the tip of the nose. Perhaps due to psychological effects, the bloody smell was mixed with a hint of burnt barbecue smell, which made people salivate and feel nauseous.

Qi Si held the lantern out of the window and shone it down. The highly decomposed corpses were piled up densely like a mountain, and the top was almost as high as the second floor of the mansion.

On the top were six pieces of corpses, which looked like they belonged to an old man and a young old woman who had been hacked to death by Tang Yu. But upon closer inspection, they were different from those on the first night.

There was no trace of blood on the broken parts of the body, and the limbs and torso looked much sparser and thinner. Looking closely, it was clearly a bundle of chopped straw, and obviously did not belong to a human being.

After discovering the truth of the world, all the previously impenetrable mysteries disappeared, and the hideousness underneath revealed its true face, which was absurd, bizarre and ridiculous.

Qis held onto the windowsill and leaned his upper body out of the window. He was only half a meter away from the pile of corpses. Any corpse that sat up could touch him.

But as time passed, the piles of corpses outside the window remained calm, as if they were just ordinary dead people, and had nothing to do with those who had resurrected on the first day.

The ghosts walking around Yanghua Town at night will not harm players whose faction is "Ghost Accomplices". This is the basis for Qis to dare to explore Yanghua Town at night.

Yes, he had no intention of using the [Pocket Watch of Destiny] from the beginning.

After all, this item can only be used once per copy, and that only number of times was used yesterday to confirm information such as "ghosts will not harm their minions", "ghosts are flocking to lanterns", and "there are invisible beings who want to overturn lanterns".

Based on this, the one who goes out to explore must be Qis, and only Qis.

Other players who lack the [Destiny Pocket Watch] will definitely not be able to return to the mansion in time, and will most likely be wasted on the streets, reducing the error tolerance of subsequent plans.

As for Qi Si, even if he slept on the street after midnight, he would not suffer any other harm except the possibility of catching a cold.

There was a rustling sound behind me, as if something was falling from mid-air.

Qi Si turned around and walked towards the direction where the sound came from.

I saw a few black plastic sheets on the bedside table above the pages used for communication, with a row of neatly-made small holes on the edges on both sides.

Zeiss picked up one of them.

【Name: Photographic film】

[Type: props]

[Effect: Recording the scene may reveal things that are invisible to the naked eye]

[Note: Two psychic enthusiasts disappeared in an abandoned building, and rescuers only found their belongings. The film that failed to form an image lay quietly in the backpack, only reflecting terrified faces at certain times of the night.]

Luo Haihua and his wife sent over the photographic films.

All the necessary props have been gathered, and the established plan can be carried out when the time comes.

Qi Si sat on the wooden bed, looking down at the hands of the pocket watch of destiny moving one tick at a time.

Just wait for midnight.

……

"Just wait till midnight."

Qiu Xin lay on the roof, put the lantern beside him, and looked at the night sky bored.

During the day, she chatted with the child for a few words and scared the child to death. It took her half a day to dispose of the body without anyone noticing any flaws.

She returned to the alley where she met the child, and saw the child's grandmother, leaning on a cane, limping and looking for her grandson, calling out, "An An, my dear grandson, the sun has set, where are you?"

He was clearly an NPC, but he behaved like a living person, with big tears rolling down his wrinkled eyes. Like all old people who depend on their grandchildren, he was anxious and sad about the disappearance of the child.

Even if he was not a saint, he could not help but feel sad when he saw the panic-stricken look on the white-haired old lady's face. He wanted to stab her and send her to reunite with her grandson.

Yes, Qiu Xin is a person with overflowing compassion. When he was interning in the hospital, whenever he saw the crying and wailing families of patients, he would always empathize with them and share their sadness and pain.

Over time, she thought, life is so hard, why not die?
Anyway, ghosts exist in the world. If they all die, can't they live happily together in another world?
She knew this was wrong, so she began to consciously take medicine to control herself, and after an overdose, she entered into a strange game.

The horror copy of the weird game helped her release stress very well. She felt that she was much more normal. Only when she witnessed the separation and death of her loved ones would she be stimulated by the impulse in her heart.

"Uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu..."

Under the eaves, the old lady who couldn't find her grandson was still crying.

Qiu Xin became annoyed by what he heard. He raised his hands to cover his ears and began to sort out the known clues one by one.

"From the perspective of that little ghost, I am a ghost, and that little ghost is also a ghost. According to the previous hint, the ghost in the ghost's eyes is '魙'. Ghosts are afraid of 魙 and will be scared to death when they see it."

"As a ghost, my nature is '魙'. By analogy, '魙' is afraid of '希懿'. Ghosts will be scared to death when they see a mirror, which means that there is 希懿 in the mirror..."

"I will fall into a coma at midnight. This is a mandatory mechanism of the dungeon. Something might happen at that time. It would be great if I could stay awake for a few more seconds..."

“Bang, bang!”

The sound of clappers rang out, and a gust of wind blew over, bringing the sound of night watches from a distant block.

"At midnight, close the doors and windows to protect yourself from people and ghosts!" (End of this chapter)