Infinite spooky game

Chapter 413 Snow Mountain (Thirteen) "The so-called colorful mandala"

When Qi Si and Lin Chen returned to the inn, Fu Jue and his group were already sitting inside.

Sangji sat behind the counter, his cloudy eyes embedded under his wrinkled eyelids, staring at the players sitting in the hall without blinking.

Fu Jue picked up a crumpled booklet from the table and handed it to Qi Si who arrived late: "Clue one, the NPCs in the copy who have not yet completed their atonement have the primary task of converting us. Conversion must follow specific rules, and the known form of expression is the producer's skin Tangka.

"Clue 2: The guilty NPCs in Shangri-La Town will not have the subjective intention to climb the snow-capped mountains. This leads to conclusion 1: After we climb the mountain, we can avoid the NPCs' 'conversion' to the greatest extent.

"Clue three: Having a guide is a necessary condition for climbing the mountain, but completing atonement is not a necessary condition for climbing the mountain. Verification of conclusion one: We can climb the mountain with a guide."

Qi Si casually flipped through the booklet in his hand. It was the "Sutra of Saving People" mentioned by Chu Yining in her diary. The methods of "saving people" recorded in it were all cruel and bloody, which made people shudder.

Mu Chuqing had died tragically, and a bloody human skin thangka was hanging on the wall on the second floor of the inn. No one wanted to be the next.

"That's our conclusion, too." Qi Si put down the booklet and said with a smile, "We've got a new clue. The hymns will attract sinners from Shangri-La Town, and the prayer wheels can offset the influence of the hymns. If you don't want to climb the mountain, you must stay in Shangri-La Town. It's not all hopeless."

Fu Jue raised his eyes slightly, his grey eyes reflected Qi Si's figure: "You plan to stay in Shangri-La Town, yes or no?"

"No, we plan to climb the mountain." Qi Si said, looking towards the direction of the inn gate.

The hymns had stopped long ago. I wonder how Zhou Ke, who was far away in another timeline, was going with his plan. Did he use the hymns to gain control, or was he subdued by other players?

The copy mechanism separates players from different time and space, but implies the existence of "others" through diaries and various clues. All kinds of information are real and false, and no one knows how much time and space exist in this copy.

Even Qi Si could only know about the existence of Chu Yining and Lin Jue through the diary, and infer the movements of another self through certain phenomena.

Chu Yining's diary has not been updated yet, and he doesn't even know whether these two groups of people belong to different spaces or are matched into the same time and space.

If it was the latter, at best he only had access to the same amount of information as Zhou Ke in another time and space.

"What a coincidence! We are also planning to send some people to try climbing the mountain today." Li Yunyang walked over and extended his hand to Qi Si. "Maybe we can go together then."

Hearing this, Shuo Meng raised his hand and shouted, "I'm the first one to disagree! You don't know... Ugh!"

Jiang Junjue covered his mouth: "Child, don't talk."

Qi Si ignored this episode and looked at Li Yunyang and said, "No need. As a fellow ID card holder, I'm afraid I won't be able to resist and stab you in the back."

He summoned up his remaining sense of humor for the first time in a long time, but no one laughed. Fu Jue stared at him, his eyes behind his glasses as cold as dead water: "All the clues I proposed before are based on situation one, that is, the logic of this copy is the same as all previous copies, with a definite method of passing and mission objectives.

"It is possible that the second scenario exists, that is, this instance is independent of the existing system of the Weird Game and is specially opened for the competition among the holders of the twenty-two identity cards, with the ultimate goal of selecting the only god. By then, Shangri-La Town and even the Snow Mountain will become a huge arena, and we will have no choice but to kill each other."

Shuo Meng broke free from Jiang Junjue and interrupted, "Don't tell me, I really think there's something wrong with this dungeon. Don't you find that the scenes and NPCs here are too real? It seems like a place in reality..."

Qi Si glanced at him, then looked at Fu Jue again, smiling with curved eyebrows: "I am looking forward to it, but it's a pity that the card [Dark Judge] is not here - it would be better for everyone if it ends early, right?"

Fu Jue remained silent. It was unknown what he was thinking of. A slight ripple appeared in his eyes, but it disappeared in an instant, like an illusion.

No one brought up a new topic, and the hall fell into a dead silence. Sangji fiddled with the prayer wheel, which made a crisp "click" sound, and the bones under the eaves "crackled" and banged.

Qi Si found an empty seat and sat down. Lin Chen followed silently and sat beside him, holding his chin in his hand and staring blankly.

Two minutes later, Lin Chen realized something was wrong and sent a voice message to Qi Si: "Brother Qi, did Fu Jue see something? I am the president of the Unnamed Guild, so he should have come to negotiate with me..."

Then he saw Qi Si's eyes that cared for children: "Children are not allowed to talk."

The wind outside the door was getting stronger and stronger, and the sky was completely dark. In the real darkness, the shadows of the buildings were connected into one, with a few strange reflections here and there, like the eyes of ghosts.

Lin Chen knew that he would make more mistakes if he spoke more after "turning back into a child", and he could only come up with some stupid ideas no matter how hard he racked his brains, making him a laughing stock in front of Qi Si.

He pursed his lips shyly, and looked quietly into the distance. For no reason, he thought of death, and then of ghosts, and of the dead people he knew and had heard of in life.

He had a strange feeling, as if all the dead in the world would gather here. There were invisible ghosts in front and behind him, including the old lady who died alone in the neighboring village, the classmate who jumped off the building in the next class in middle school, and the player he failed to save in the dungeon...

Have those people rested in peace? Or are they still trapped by their obsessions, wandering aimlessly in the world? Lin Chen's heart was empty, his thoughts came to a head and then stopped abruptly, his fragmented thoughts were incoherent.

He seemed to have picked up his fear of ghosts from his childhood. At that time, he couldn't sleep at night and looked out the window with his eyes wide open. The slightest movement was enough to scare him.

One time he saw a plastic bag floating in the air, hanging under the eaves and swaying in the wind. He went barefoot to find his mother, and his mother told him: Ghosts were once pitiful people.

"What are you thinking about?" Qi Si's voice suddenly sounded, interrupting Lin Chen's thoughts.

Lin Chen came back to his senses and saw that Lu Li and Xu Yao had returned at some point and were standing next to the sofa looking at him. He inexplicably thought that Xu Yao was also a ghost, and ghosts were not worth being afraid of...

Strange, his way of thinking has become so strange. Is it because of the copy mechanism?

Lu Li said: "At present, it can be confirmed that there is a chance of 'turning back into a child' when a specific time point is mentioned, but I always feel that it is not that simple. The existence of this mechanism is too strange. I don't understand the causal relationship between 'turning back into a child' and 'time', and I don't think there is any meaning to such a design."

"Don't worry about the meaning or not." Xu Yao paced back and forth anxiously, "When are we going to go to the snowy mountains? I don't want to be made into a human skin thangka."

Lu Li said hesitantly: "I don't think climbing late at night is a good idea. The scene in this dungeon is too realistic. The snowy mountain environment is as bad as in reality, and our strength is suppressed to the same level..."

"But there's no other way." Qi Si interrupted calmly, "We have to spend the night in the mountains. If we set off earlier, there will be fewer variables."

In short, the four of them appeared at the mountain climbing preparation area together half an hour later.

Just like during the day, Bai Ma sat calmly behind the counter, fiddling with various small items such as beads.

The shop was not bright, but not dark either. A candle was placed on the table, the flame was small, reflecting the woman's face. When she saw the four people, she took out the mirror from the drawer again and said, "Before going up the mountain, please look at your destiny first."

"Destiny?" Xu Yao became interested and moved closer to the mirror.

Her beautiful face was reflected in the bright mirror, but it only appeared for a moment and merged into the background in an instant. White mist spread from the edge, and a small water town with white walls and black tiles and an antique style rose from the ground. A small boat drifted along the water, and a scholar in green clothes stood at the bow...

"What the hell? What does this have to do with fate? Isn't it just something that happened?" Xu Yao yawned and stepped aside.

The next person to come forward was Lu Li. He looked at the mirror for a while, then lowered his eyes and said, "I've seen it. Can we climb the mountain now?"

Bai Ma seemed to be more interested in him, staring into his eyes quietly: "I can feel that you didn't want to climb the mountain when you came in. But after reading your fate, you made the decision to climb the mountain. Can you tell me why?"

Lu Li smiled and asked, "As the owner of the mirror, can't you see our fate?"

Bai Ma shook his head: "I am not the master of the mirror, the Mother Goddess is. Your fate is closely related to your desires, and I don't know what your desires are."

"I see." Lu Li nodded and smiled. "I didn't want to climb the mountain because I thought it was dangerous. I was afraid of failure, afraid of wasting this hard-earned opportunity and wasting my life on the wrong path in vain.

"But in the mirror, I saw my successful future. Even if it might be fake, it at least showed that the decision to climb the mountain was not a dead end, but a glimmer of hope. As long as there is hope, I am willing to try."

He spoke clearly, and everyone present could hear him. Qi Si did not comment, and Lin Chen had an inexplicable suspicion that Lu Li was seeing a scene similar to his own - a future in which he successfully cleared the final instance and closed the strange game.

I didn’t expect that Lu Li, who looked like a bad person, had the same expectations as him. Maybe he wasn’t that bad?

Bai Ma nodded slightly, stood up, took out a string of colorful Buddhist beads from the cupboard behind him, and handed them to the four people.

"What is this?" asked Zis.

"Mahakala's blessing." Bai Ma said, "After climbing the snowy mountains, our destiny no longer belongs to ourselves. We can only pray for Mahakala's blessing."

……

“Om Ah Hum, the savior protects all living beings; Om Ah Hum, the god of fortune bestows blessings; Om Ah Hum, the god of the graveyard protects the dead souls…”

People who travel among mountains and rivers often believe in fate, and believe that there are gods protecting living beings in various places. Before starting every adventure, they pray to the sky for blessings and auspicious words - Om Ah Hum, Mahakala bless you, and come back safely.

After the guide finished praying, he led the yaks, loaded the luggage, and stepped onto the snowy ground. Zhou Ke followed leisurely, while Dong Xiwen and Zhang Yiyu followed behind him.

There were eight people in total in this group, apart from the three of them, there were Lin Jue, Chu Yining, Zhang Hongbin, Alexei, and the young man in a black suit.

Chu Yining has difficulty walking, so she has to climb the mountain because clues show that the passage of time will not be obvious on the snowy mountain, which may slow down the process of her "turning back into a child."

The main quest of [Kill Lin Jue] is suspended in the upper left corner of the field of vision, serving as a bottom-up mechanism - at the very worst, the entire army will not be wiped out.

The reason why Lin Jue is still alive is because of the existence of the young man in the black suit.

This person is also the holder of the ID card, claiming that he has the ability to resurrect anyone. As long as Lin Jue is not at the end of his rope, he will not let Lin Jue die.

Lin Jue finally gave in and said to everyone: "Today I will try my best to stay alive and find a way to pass the level. But if I still can't find a way to pass this level by tomorrow, I will commit suicide to minimize the loss of people."

The night of Shangri-La officially fell, and the snow-capped mountains were completely shrouded in darkness. The biting wind rushed down from the high altitude, blowing sharp ice crystals on the faces of the climbers. Snow fell from the sky again, and the tiny snowflakes jumped wildly, blurring the colors of the clothes.

The guide was called Zhaxi, a red-faced man. After walking for a while, he suddenly turned back and gestured, "We can't go any further. The Mother Goddess is going to be angry."

Lin Jue asked calmly: "What do you mean by the Mother Goddess being angry? What signs did you use to determine this?"

Tashi muttered, "Angry is angry. I grew up here, and I know what I know."

He was unwilling to leave anyway, so they had to set up camp there. Alexei shouted in dissatisfaction: "You took so many things from us, and now you don't want to leave. Are you ripping us off?"

Zhang Hongbin quickly pulled him aside and signaled him to say less, so as not to really anger the unknown existence and cause the group to get into trouble.

Dong Xiwen looked at Alexei, whose face was red and his neck was thick, and was shocked for a while. He asked Dong Ziwen in his heart: "Brother, was our boss so energetic when he was young?"

Dong Ziwen: "I don't know, don't ask."

Lin Jue negotiated with Zhaxi for a while, then turned around and said to everyone, "Let's set up camp here first. Once we're settled, I'll go around and see what's going on."

According to the agreement made previously, tomorrow would be the day of his death. He seemed to be really waiting for death, as calm and peaceful as a statue of a god without desires.

Zhaxi took the tent off the yak's back, and the young man in a black suit came forward to help.

Dong Xiwen looked at Zhou Ke, who was standing calmly by the side and obviously had never done any housework. He sighed secretly, walked over and grabbed the other corner of the tent.

He was using iron rods and ropes to secure the tarpaulin when he suddenly remembered that he didn't know the name of the young man in the black suit. He only heard the people from the Ark Guild calling him "Xiao Fu".

He asked casually: "Brother, let's get to know each other, what's your name?"

The young man in the black suit raised his eyelids, glanced at him, and said coldly: "Fu Jue."

"Cheng, so your name is Fu..."

Wait, not buddy, what's your name? Fu Jue? ? !

(End of this chapter)