Infinite spooky game

In Room 9, Xu Yao lay on the wooden bed, tossing and turning, unable to fall asleep.

Although she had become a ghost long ago and had been at the bottom of the well for hundreds of years, she had been recuperating in Qijia Village for a while these days, and her pursuit of quality of life had returned. She just felt that this inn was unpleasant to her eyes no matter how she looked at it.

The bed was too hard and had been in disrepair for a long time. It creaked every time she turned over. The bedding had not been dried in an unknown amount of time. The damp and musty smell tickled her nose and made her feel like vomiting.

Ghosts don't need sleep, and similarly they shouldn't have five senses, but as soon as Xu Yao entered Shangri-La, she recovered her sense of smell and taste that had long been lost, as if she had become a living person again.

Even the soreness in the eyes and the weakness in the bone marrow were so realistic, as if I was really tired after a day of running around.

Xu Yao tried for a while, but still couldn't fall asleep. She decided not to put up with it anymore and sat up to study Lu Li, who was squatting beside the bedside table. "Hey, you've been rummaging through the boxes over there for a long time. Did you find anything?"

"I'm thinking about the purpose of this copy." Lu Li pulled out the manuscript paper stuffed in the drawer, placed it on the bed, spread it out and read the words carefully.

“If the goal is just to recycle the ID cards and restart the world, then no matter what we do, we will eventually be trapped in Shangri-La Town until we die one by one.

"If there is a need to select winners in addition to recycling, what will be the selection criteria? The simplest way is a battle royale, where we kill other participants until only the last team is left..."

Xu Yao said unconcernedly, "I am good at killing people. Based on my understanding of Qi Si, he will definitely be interested in your proposal and let me strike first."

The woman in red stretched and tried to float to the ceiling, but her body was surprisingly heavy. In the end, she just jumped on the bed, making a muffled "bang" sound.

“It may not come to this.” Lu Li shook his head, took out a blank notebook from somewhere, and started writing and drawing on it with a pen.

As he wrote, he said, "Lin Chen is also the holder of the ID card. If Qi Si wants to go the route of 'killing everyone and becoming the only survivor', he must kill Lin Chen. He won't do that."

Xu Yao tilted her head and thought for a moment, then sighed: "You still don't understand what kind of person Qi Si is. In my impression, he is willing to die once just to clear the level. In his opinion, it might be more convenient to kill relatives and friends as soon as possible..."

"No, if Lin Chen dies, it will be very troublesome for him." Lu Li did not even raise his head and continued, "Qisi is very suspicious and even has some paranoia. Currently, in this copy, including him and Lin Chen, there are only four identity card holders, but there are a total of 22 identity cards.

"Combining the existing information, he can draw the conclusion that there is more than one final instance, and clearing this instance does not mean the end of the screening. In order to gain an advantage in the next competition, he will definitely try his best to keep Lin Chen until the end.

"Then, if we want to leave Shangri-La Town, there is only one way left..."

Xu Yao moved closer to Lu Li and finally saw what he was writing. It was a record for future generations:
【XNUM X Year X NUM X Month X NUM X Day】

[My name is Lu Li, from the Jiuzhou Guild...]

"Hey, Lu Li, aren't you from Xila? How did you become Jiuzhou?" Xu Yao asked curiously, "As far as I know, Jiuzhou and Xila have always been at odds..."

Lu Li did not answer, and Xu Yao did not care. She changed the subject: "By the way, what is your relationship with Qi Si? I think his attitude towards you is a bit strange..."

Lu Li put down his pen and still did not answer. Instead, he frowned and looked towards the door.

The sound of "dong dong dong" sounded slowly and steadily, like knocking on the door, or beating a drum. Above the rhythm floated a layer of low and urgent chanting sounds, which came close to the wooden door and into the room through a thin layer of door panel.

After listening for a while, Xu Yao inexplicably got goose bumps all over her body. She couldn't believe that even though she had been a ghost, she would still be afraid of ghosts.

No, the one outside the door was not a ghost. Ghosts would not recite scriptures. It was precisely because it was not a ghost that she felt an uncontrollable discomfort...

That is a god, a Buddha, a practitioner, a demon slayer, a being covered in a sacred shell and tasked with the responsibility of exterminating evil.

A word suddenly popped up in Xu Yao's mind - "salvation".

She will be saved, and then her soul will be scattered and turned into ashes...

"Calm down, calm down, I'll go take a look." Lu Li soothed her, slowed down his pace, and moved closer to the door, looking out through the peephole.

A bloody figure stood in the corridor outside the door, holding a long whip in his hand, the uneven surface stained with scarlet blood.

Upon closer inspection, I realized that it was not a whip at all, but a large intestine that was pulled out of the man's abdominal cavity!
The man was covered in blood, but he was not injured. Instead, his skin was peeled off and his stomach was ripped open, revealing his bloody bones, flesh and internal organs.

The skinless humanoid stood there for a while, blood dripping down like a lake under his feet. He seemed to feel no pain at all, and mechanically raised his right hand and knocked on the door again and again.

"Dong dong dong..."

……

Qis lay on the bed, listening to the lingering hymns in his ears, and began to review what had happened today.

First, let’s look at the records left by Chu Yining.

Judging from the results, the group of people twenty-two years ago seemed to have died in Ragnarok, but in fact they were pulled into the final copy and trapped here, with their life or death uncertain.

Qi Si was not unfamiliar with the name Lin Jue. He was the president of the Ark Guild and one of the first players to enter the weird game. Thirty-six years ago, he rose from first on the rookie list to the top of the overall list. It was truly dazzling.

Such people cannot leave Shangri-La, so one can imagine how difficult the death points they will encounter next will be.

The second is Fu Jue’s situation.

He is already in power, and judging by what he did to the delegates, his rise to power was not peaceful and was bloody.

But judging from the players' performance, Fu Jue obviously did not reveal the identity of the puppeteer to them, at least most of them did not know this secret.

After all, the puppet master has a bad reputation, and this identity is tantamount to a depth charge. Once detonated, it will inevitably cause greater turmoil on top of the existing chaos.

Fu will never allow the situation to get out of his control. As long as he has the strength to do so, he will most likely keep this identity hidden from the public.

And this may serve as a point of mutual checks and balances in subsequent cooperation...

Finally... Qisi found himself in a very strange state. He seemed to have no interest in many things and could not make any clear reactions.

He once thought that if he saw Lu Li again, he would definitely laugh at him from beginning to end, or at least make some sarcastic remarks to mock him.

After meeting Jiang Junjue, a dead man who lived in shame, he should have taken the opportunity to mock Jiuzhou and Tingfeng for their partiality and leniency. But the fact is that he did not feel any surprise or inherent malice at meeting an old friend again, and the other party also did not show any demeanor or behavior that should be shown when meeting an acquaintance.

Everything seemed to be natural, no different from eating and drinking on a daily basis, as if everyone had anticipated what would happen in the future and felt that it had always been this way.

Not only him, Lin Chen's condition was not quite right either.

Based on Qi Si's understanding of Lin Chen, although this guy has gone through a lot of experience and is much more stable than when he was in "Rose Manor", he is still far from being calm.

After seeing the name "Lin Jue" in the diary left by Chu Yining, Lin Chen's normal first reaction would be to analyze it over and over again and express a series of irrelevant emotions.

——He would never accept the fact that “Lin Jue had entered the final copy” calmly and calmly like he does now.

Qi Si had a vague feeling that since coming to Shangri-La, everyone's emotions had been weakened, or in other words, become dulled.

It was as if the cold air from the snow-capped mountains swept through my heart and brain, and after condensing, it was covered with a thin layer of frost, pure, vast and empty.

This is most likely not the mechanism of the copy itself. After all, judging from Chu Yining's diary, that girl has very rich emotions.

So...which link has changed?

"What is Kabala?
"A dead skull
"Vasdayan is the large intestine..."

Outside the window, the hymn that surrounded the entire inn finished singing once and then started again with the same timbre.

Perhaps because my ears were familiar with the melody and lyrics, this time the hymn sounded clearer, as if it was ringing right next to the window, just one step away.

Qis opened his eyes a little, and through the window that was almost from the ceiling to the ground, he saw densely packed human figures standing on the snow-capped mountains, as neat and solemn as the terracotta warriors in a tomb pit.

These people had no skin, their bloody flesh was exposed, their blurred and festering faces, their bloodshot eyes bulged out from their eye sockets, all staring at Qi Si.

They seemed to have crawled out from under the ice, with a layer of ice chips on their skin, which turned light pink after condensing blood beads and was crystal clear under the bloody moonlight.

Qi Si looked at it for a while and felt his skin begin to itch and feel pain, as if icicles were growing from under the skin.

He turned over and faced the window, no longer looking out, and the tingling sensation gradually subsided.

Lin Chen, who was sleeping near the door, hugged a corner of the quilt, closed his eyes, smacked his lips from time to time, and slept particularly soundly.

He had no idea what was happening outside the window, and naturally had not been affected by anything unusual, which made Qis think of the time at "Rose Manor" for no reason.

I have to say that this tool man's sleep quality is as good as ever, which in a sense can be considered a physique suitable for weird games.

The sound of shallow breathing echoed gently in the room, clearer and more real than the noise outside the window, and inexplicably had the power to soothe people.

After listening for a while, Qi Si gradually felt sleepy and fell asleep in a daze.

……

On the other side, in Room 6, Dong Xiwen and Zhang Yiyu sat in the corner, looking at the full-length mirror opposite the bathroom door and chatting idly.

Their shadows were not reflected in the full-length mirror. After their initial surprise, they quickly accepted the conclusion that "they were not bound to the main card and were not considered human in the eyes of the final copy."

Zhang Yiyu stared into the void before her eyes and murmured, "I seem to see my dad."

"Stop, let me analyze this," Dong Xiwen said in astonishment. "I remember you said that your father died in a car accident when you were two years old, and since then you have been dependent on your mother... So what you just said is similar to 'I saw my great-grandmother'?"

"I really saw my dad." Zhang Yiyu looked stunned. "Just now in the hall, he was wearing a yellow T-shirt, exactly the same as the one he wore on the day of the car accident. Before he left that day, he happened to take a photo with me and my mom. It has been hanging on the wall of my house for more than ten years. I remembered it wrongly.

"His name is 'Zhang Hongbin'. I seem to hear someone calling this name. I'm wondering... could my father have been a player and died in this dungeon..."

The girl's next few words were filled with tears. Dong Xiwen turned his head and saw a pair of red eyes. He quickly comforted her, "You have to think positively. Your father is still alive in this time and space. Traveling back in time to save your parents is a plot that has been filmed many times in movies.

"Even if the two of us combined are unable to save your father, there is still Qi Si here. Maybe he will find a way to pass the TE tomorrow."

Outside the window, Zhou Ke, wearing a bloodstained white shirt, was walking back and forth in the snow with a tape recorder in his hand, attracting the skinned corpses scattered all over the mountains to come closer and then walk away.

If you ignore the horror of the scene, it looks pretty fun. I don't know what Qi Si wants to do by hanging around for so long, is he just doing it for fun?

Dong Xiwen once again sighed in his heart: The thinking patterns of human apes are difficult to understand.

Zhang Yiyu was coaxed into wiping away her tears by his words, but she couldn't help but recall the horrific scenes of hell on earth in Jiangcheng.

She was induced to hold the sharp blade, hatred filled her chest, the ghost's instinct briefly overwhelmed her humanity, and then there was blood... blood everywhere...

Tears blurred her vision, and she could no longer see clearly between people and ghosts. She could only rely on her sense of smell to locate the sweet human flesh. Amid the screams of the crowd, she tasted the salty smell...

Zhang Yiyu shuddered and asked softly, "Do you think Qi Si would be willing to save them? I always feel that it's good enough if he doesn't harm anyone..."

"No, things are different now." Dong Xiwen said seriously, "We still need more manpower to survive in the snowy mountains. Qi Si will surely rescue a few people just for the sake of quality of life in the next few days..."

He was talking nonsense without any confidence, but he thought of the worst possible scenario.

The players they met in the lobby were all confirmed dead, so what about them?
Are they like those players, who have already died in the final copy without knowing it?

Why else would they be the ones to break away from the main force and appear in this space that belongs to the dead?
The door opened, and Zhou Ke turned off the recorder at some point and returned to the inn.

Seeing the two people's worried expressions, the young man seemed to see through their thoughts and said with a sigh: "What are you thinking? Can't you tell whether you are dead or alive by touching your heart? You don't need me to perform an autopsy on you, do you?"

Dong Xiwen saw that there was a long narrow bloodstain on his right index finger, as if it had been cut by a knife... (End of this chapter)