Strange game designer.

Chapter 722 The Hidden Trap
Li Sansi is a director who has loved movies and filming since he was a child. He was very curious about why that small instrument could capture the light and shadow of the world.

After reviewing a lot of materials, he became deeply attracted to one of the optical instruments.

The camera obscura, also known as the film camera, is a device in a camera that holds the film sensor. Its structure is airtight and completely opaque, allowing images to be projected onto a screen.

The earliest cameras were made by using a sealed box with a small hole. The scenery outside the box would be projected through the hole onto the completely dark inner wall of the box, creating an inverted image with opposite sides.

Li Sansi, still a child, pondered naively: Are we all like black boxes? Our two eyes are like small holes in a sealed box, through which we record the illusion of the world and see a truth that is upside down.

Or rather, what we see is the world that adults talk about?

The dark box is a separation of light and darkness, a form of observation with limitations.

Or, to imagine it even further, this city shrouded in darkness is also a black box, where people perceive things through tiny holes in absolute darkness.

Various memories surged through his mind, and two different scenes alternated in Gao Ming's field of vision.

As I stepped onto the concrete floor, preparing to grab the handrail, my palm landed on an arm covered in lividity.

As I pulled my arm back, the apartment light above my head flickered slightly. The moment it lit up, a huge eyeball slowly opened, and when it went dark, dust was falling from the mottled ceiling.

One after another, the tragically deceased pharmaceutical factory workers surged in like a tide. Shaking his head, all he saw were overturned beverage bottles at his feet. Gao Ming could feel his body being torn and dragged, but all he could see was that the corridor window was not closed properly, and the night wind was blowing in.

A discrepancy has arisen in observation and perception, revealing a new hole in this city of shrines, which resembles a black box—a restricted area.

Looking out through the hole, Gao Ming didn't know if what he was seeing was the truth or another projection. It was an unprecedented experience, more real than a dream, yet more ambiguous than reality.

He seemed to have truly become Li Sansi, sitting in front of the television, looking at the limited world through that square screen, but the next moment he turned back into Gao Ming, stepped into the screen, and was overwhelmed by the horde of corpses.

The most precious medicinal liquid in the Zhuchuan Society kept flowing into his body. The number of broken medicine bottles was countless. The liquid evaporated, and he swallowed it with every breath. Unfortunately, some diseases cannot be cured by taking medicine. The more he took, the more serious the disease became. Gao Ming's vision continued to change until the liquid reached a critical point. Then the light above his head stopped shining, and he walked out of a room.

Pushing open the door, he was met with corpses soaked in the soft walls, a world entwined with countless roots, and at the center of darkness and death, in the chair in front of the television in the living room, and in the churning of memories in his mind, a child sat at the center of these three shifting perspectives—Yu Hui.

"No wonder there isn't a single body in the restricted area; you've hidden them all on the other side of the world."

Gao Ming walked on the cement ground, through the horde of zombies, and through Li Sansi's memories. He came to Yu Hui and saw the child who had been made into medicine.

"Which side is the real world?" Tiny roots tore Gao Ming's skin, and his blood flowed out. It was blood completely different from that of the city's residents, blood that could turn the Life Flower from pitch black to blood red.

Can you hear my voice?

Gently lifting Yu Hui's cheek from the roots, picking up Yu Hui's sketchbook from the messy letters, and retrieving Yu Hui's memories from the mind, everything in the world is changing, but Gao Ming and Yu Hui stand in the same place.

Why do medicines exist?

"Are the other children around you? The Chengguang series has developed nine generations of products, where are they?"

There was no answer. Gao Ming could only see Yu Hui's eyes, which were incredibly clear, like mirrors.

The medicine continued to seep into Gao Ming's body. The dense lines of blood on Yu Hui's body burrowed towards his chest, but because of the Blood City tattoo, the blood couldn't reach his heart and brain, preventing assimilation. "You can't speak? You can only communicate with me this way? Through 'medicine'?" Gao Ming hesitated for a moment, then pulled a fruit knife from his pocket and pressed the blade against his chest.

"Director Li! Come back quickly!" Jia Youzhi's voice suddenly rang out. Gao Ming was their only reliable player now. If Gao Ming died in the restricted area, they would be doomed.

That's why Jia Youzhi and Ding Xiang pushed and shoved each other, taking a huge risk as they entered the apartment building.

"Director Li! Wake up! I'm Lao Jia! Jia Youzhi!" A middle-aged man shouted at the top of his lungs, his voice filled with heart-wrenching pain, which was indeed quite moving.

In the eyes of his three subordinates, Gao Ming had attracted the attention of all the corpses, with only his upper body exposed.

Strangely, the corpse was unharmed, yet he took out a knife and tried to cut himself open.

"Give me the bag! Let me swing it! Director Li is possessed by a ghost, I have to smash his head with it!"

"You need to aim more accurately!"

"Is there anything else?"

"Ah! The corpse is coming!"

Ignoring his three subordinates, Gao Ming's blade destroyed the Blood City tattoo, and the blood lines on Yu Hui's body immediately found a breakthrough, surging into his heart and wrapping around it.

After the blood vessels reconnected and the heart started beating again, Gao Ming heard Yu Hui's voice, not just his, but also the sounds of other children arguing.

The world in his eyes overlapped and intertwined, and Yu Hui held several blood-stained children's clothes in his arms.

"Are you also 'medicine'?" Yu Hui's expression remained unchanged, but his voice was clear and distinct: "Only a pure soul can be used as medicine, allowing the flower of life to bloom."

“Yes, I am a ‘strong medicine’.” Gao Ming withdrew his hands and squatted down in front of Yu Hui.

"How can you say that about yourself?"

“In short, I’m not quite the same as you. You can suppress the darkness, but I have the opportunity to bring light.” Seeing that Yu Hui didn’t act aggressively, Gao Ming knew he had made the right bet. The major gangs sealed off the restricted area because it was indeed dangerous, and also because it held part of the truth about the Dark City. “Can you tell me what the Life Flower is? I’ve seen some information about it in your memories. It seems you’re planning to use the Life Flower to do something.”

"The Flower of Fate is a flower that blooms in the darkness, unaware of its own beauty." Yu Hui's eyes were somewhat blank.

"The true master of this city gathers all the dark things and people together, wanting to bear the darkest fruit. It pursues the ultimate darkness, so it abandons the superfluous parts of its soul, perhaps the longing for home, the possibility of some kind of love, etc. In short, these superfluous memories bloom into the flower of life, and the pharmaceutical company can extract something from the flower of life to suppress the darkness."

"For the Life Flower to bloom, it needs a pure soul, which is us 'medicines'. We are injected with various growth agents from childhood, and the food we eat contains the roots, stems and leaves of the Life Flower. But what the pharmaceutical company doesn't know is that if we nurture the Life Flower for a long time, we may see another world, a world that only the Life Flower can perceive."

“I don’t know which side is real and which side is fake. To us, they overlap. They are both real and both fake, just like…” Yu Hui couldn’t find the words and paused.

"Is it a black box?"

(End of this chapter)